Prelude and Promises

by Barbara Baldwin

  She stopped at a bistro to read the menu posted outside. They offered several choices of steak, and the smell was delicious. There was no wait and she soon sat at a small table by a back window overlooking the marina, sipping a glass of white wine.

  “Your dinner, Miss.” The voice came from behind her as a lean brown hand holding a steak plate came into view. Her wine glass clattered to the table, and she grabbed it before it tipped. She glanced briefly at the steak and twice baked potato before looking up into laughing brown eyes.

  “May I join you?” He held another plate containing a much larger steak than her filet.

  “I suppose it won’t be like having real company for dinner as you’ll probably run off in the middle of it.” She took a sip of wine to settle the butterflies in her stomach. He assumed that was her consent, and slid into the chair across from her.

  “Surely you don’t work here,” she said.

  He raised a brow as he cut into his steak. “What would be wrong with that?”

  “You certainly don’t need the money.”

  He shrugged. “There are plenty of reasons to work besides money. I enjoy meeting people. But no, I don’t work here. I happened to be passing by when I saw you walk in so I asked the chef if I could bring out your meal.”

  “You know the chef?”

  “It’s a small island.”

  “Yet large enough for you to hide,” she couldn’t help replying.

  He smiled. “You have a sharp tongue, Miss Tucker.”

  She ignored him in favor of her steak. At the first bite, she was in heaven. Juicy and so tender it melted in her mouth, she didn’t stop until she had consumed more than half. When she finally put down her knife and fork to drink, she looked across the table to find Jake staring at her, a funny look on his face. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment.

  “I was hungry,” she said defensively.

  He laughed gently. “Don’t apologize. I enjoy eating as much as the next person and it’s good to see a lady do the same. There’s nothing I hate worse than someone ordering a meal then taking only a bite or two and claiming they’re full.”

  She didn’t ask but assumed he was referring to previous dates he’d had. Not that this was a date.

  “In fact, I’m the one who should be apologizing,” he continued. “Which I seem to be doing a lot since you came.”

  “It would be easy enough to rid yourself of that habit if you would quit leaving every time I come across you.”

  He looked to the side as though in thought before returning his gaze to her. “There’s supposed to be what they call a blue blood super moon along with the lunar eclipse tonight. Will you come out to the cottage with me to see it? There should be an unobstructed view across the water.”

  She knew he was changing the subject and wondered why. Her brain instinctively told her going to a cabin, at night, with a handsome man was probably not the best idea. When she hesitated, he gave her his winning grin and added, “As long as you’re stuck with me and vice-versa for twenty-some more days…”

  Since he seemed determined not to give in until the very last minute, perhaps spending time with him would give her some insight as to why it was so important for him to separate himself from his uncle. At least that was what she told herself as they got up to leave the restaurant.

  It was fully dark by the time they walked outside. “This way,” Jake said, putting a hand to her back to steer her down the street. “Once tourist season starts, this street becomes pedestrian and bike traffic only. I had to park over a few blocks.” He glanced down as she walked beside him. “At least you have practical shoes on tonight.”

  He wasn’t going to let her forget the disaster on the dock, and she wasn’t going to let him off the hook for throwing her shoes in the bay. “You will find the cost of my shoes deducted from your next paycheck. That is, if you decide to return and actually earn one.”

  He laughed, a loud, happy laugh that shook his body and vibrated down his arm and onto her back, sending a shiver up her spine. She had to admit his laughter wasn’t something she was used to, and the sound coursed through her like potent whiskey. She had never thought of him as an eligible man in Chicago. Now, she was finding him not only eligible, at least according to Lindsay, but very approachable. The thought scared her and she decided to return to the Inn and forego his invitation. Before she could form a thought, they came to his Jeep and he held the door open for her. After a moment’s hesitation, she got in, unable to resist temptation.

  It took only a few minutes to get to his cottage. He opened the door for her and flipped on the lights as she entered.

  “You don’t lock your doors?”

  “Not always. This isn’t Chicago. Except for my clothes and a few other items, there’s nothing I have to lose.”

  He walked to the refrigerator. “Want a beer?”

  She hesitated but decided she could handle one. “Sure.” As he opened a couple of bottles, she noticed a keyboard and papers scattered across the table.

  “You’re composing.” She picked up a page. Being able to read music wasn’t part of her job description, so she had no idea of the melody. “You haven’t totally left your profession?”

  He lifted a shoulder in a shrug as he handed her a beer. “I compose and play because I do love it. I left performing because I refused to let it, or my uncle, control my life any longer.”

  “Which is why I’m here.” She took a swallow of beer before continuing. “Joseph,” she started but at his look, she recanted. “Jake, we really do need to talk about things. Your uncle wants you back in Chicago, and—”

  “Not now,” he interrupted. “The moon is coming up and we’ll miss the eclipse.” He led her through the small living room to a back door and out onto a deck that faced the bay. A telescope sat on the back edge. There was a small table and two chairs along with a chimenea.

  “Have a seat.” He set his beer bottle on the table and went over to light the wood that had been stacked inside the terra cotta fire place.

  Instead of sitting, she walked over to the telescope and peered through the eye piece.

  “I didn’t know you had an interest in astronomy.”

  “All my uncle ever let me do was practice and perform. He saw little use for more than basic education. From the beginning, he would say ‘the world will focus on your compositions, not whether you have ever read Tom Sawyer.’ But I would sneak down to the library and hide books under my bed, staying up all hours, devouring anything I could get my hands on.”

  “When did you start playing?”

  “When I was six, although my uncle didn’t know about it at first.”

  “That was when you were a child. You’re, what, thirty years old now? Until you left two months ago, you had no free will?”

  “Look, the eclipse has started.” He walked up to where she stood by the telescope. “Have a look.”

  “It’s not really doing much,” she said, squinting up into the night. He stepped aside and she peered through the lens. “Everything’s fuzzy.”

  He stepped close behind her, reaching around to a knob on the side of the instrument. She could smell his aftershave, a woodsy scent that tingled her nose and made her think very inappropriate thoughts. He took a breath, his chest barely touching her back, but the contact was sizzling.

  “Is that better?” he whispered close to her ear. He didn’t move and she couldn’t breathe.

  “Cheyenne?” A hand came to rest on her shoulder as she swayed. “Are you okay?”

  “Hmm? Oh.” Her body absorbed everything about him and she had the insane thought that he might kiss her. She quickly stepped away. When he gave her a curious look, she said the first thing that came to mind. “It’s rather like watching grass grow, isn’t it?”

  He laughed. “The entire process of a total eclipse such as this takes a while from the time the earth’s shadow starts across the moon until it’s completely covered, then slips to the other side. The period of totalit
y is only about seven and a half minutes. So, yes, it is rather slow, but still one of the world’s wonders. It makes me think of an adagio, a slow piece of music.”

  “Which brings us right back to where we were.” She turned to look him directly in the eyes. “Jake, your uncle sent me to find you and bring you home. Please tell me why you won’t go.”

  He rubbed a hand over his face, his brown eyes too dark to read in the diminishing moonlight. With a sigh, he took her hand and led her back to the small table.

  “Have a seat and let me tell you a story.”

  Chapter 5

  He took the seat across from her after adding more wood to the fire.

  “How much do you know about our family?”

  “Very little, I suppose. I’ve worked several years for your uncle, but strictly as his executive assistant. He’s never spoken about the family.”

  “My uncle is a composer. He’s done several musical scores for film and a ton of commercials, but the big prizes—a Grammy or Tony—have always eluded him. That made him even more determined when he found out I could play.” He sipped his beer and she watched him. His brow wrinkled and she wondered if he had decided not to tell her more.

  “Let me back up. Sebastian raised his sister, my mother, after their parents died when they were in their teens. He trained her on the violin and she was playing for the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra by the time she was eighteen. She was quite good but never liked the pressure of public performances. She ran off when she was twenty, ended up pregnant with me and only returned to her brother because his private investigator found her.”

  Cheyenne said nothing when he glanced her way. Having grown up with a mother and no father, she certainly wasn’t one to judge.

  “My uncle insisted she continue to play, though she didn’t perform publicly except on rare occasions. I would sneak into the music room while she was practicing. I loved to listen to her, but more, I loved to watch her. It was like she was entranced, standing there in that large room, eyes closed, body swaying with the music. She was how I imagined an angel would look. She was my angel.”

  Again, he stopped, turning to contemplate the fire. Cheyenne could almost feel his pain, as though speaking the words pulled something from deep inside him. When he turned back, she could swear his eyes glittered with tears.

  “I hid under the grand piano once when Uncle came in. I’m sure he saw me, but he didn’t say anything, perhaps because I seemed to be a source of pleasure for my mother. She would look at me sometimes with a smile and the tempo of her music would pick up, as though she knew I wanted happy music.

  “When I was six, she was playing a particularly difficult piece and kept stopping and restarting. I instinctively knew where the music was going, so I climbed onto the piano bench and started playing the next refrain. She turned to stare at me and I continued to play. I thought she would be happy that I knew the music, but a horrified expression crossed her face and she set her violin aside and rushed over to where I sat. She grabbed my hands and slammed the cover shut on the keys. I didn’t think I had done anything wrong, but when I looked up at her, she was crying. She sank down on the bench beside me and cuddled me close, her whole body shaking.

  “‘You mustn’t tell Sebastian you can play’,” she whispered to me. “‘Promise me you will never, never tell.’”

  “You were a prodigy,” Cheyenne said. “You have a natural gift. Why did your mother not want you to pursue it?”

  “She never said, but I would guess because she knew how hard Sebastian would push me and how he would exploit my talent.”

  “I always wished I could play the piano,” she said, “but I never had an opportunity.” She didn’t mean for her comment to sound sarcastic, but he took it that way.

  “It’s not that I don’t like music, it’s my passion. However, I could no longer stand the confining atmosphere of practicing and performing, of never having a moment to myself, of always being on display.”

  “I can understand that, I guess,” she agreed, but she wanted more of the story. “So how did your uncle find out if you weren’t supposed to tell?”

  “From the moment I touched the keys, a whole world opened for me. My mother seemed to understand, but she would only let me play when Sebastian wasn’t home. I have perfect pitch and an eidetic memory, so all she had to do was play a short piece once and I knew it by heart.”

  Jake paused for a moment, glancing up at the moon. “Look, it’s almost a complete eclipse.”

  Cheyenne looked up, surprised at not having noticed the darkness. Only a tiny sliver of moon was visible in the night sky. As they watched, that, too, disappeared for a brief time before a little light appeared on the opposite side.

  “Thank you for asking me out here tonight,” she said softly. “I’ve never taken time to …” she paused, not wanting to talk about herself. She was much more interested in Jake’s story.

  “To watch grass grow,” Jake finished her sentence with a laugh.

  She joined in. “Well, that too.” She hesitated before continuing. “Will you tell me the rest?”

  “After another beer,” he said, getting up to go inside.

  She heard the door shut when he returned, but still jumped when his arm brushed her shoulder as he handed her another cold one. Something had shifted between them. They no longer seemed pursuer and pursued, but simply a man and woman. She gulped down several swallows of beer, trying to drown the butterflies.

  “So there I was, a six year old addict, but addicted to music that came out of nowhere. It was always inside my head, spinning and swirling until I thought I would go mad if I didn’t give voice to the notes. The thing was, I didn’t want to play Beethoven or Chopin. I heard things for which there was no score. One day I was in the music room playing something I had composed and my uncle caught me. Given my mother’s talent, he didn’t seem surprised that I could play but when he asked the name of the piece, I made the mistake of saying that I hadn’t titled it yet.”

  He laughed, but it was a hurtful sound. “That did surprise him. From that moment, he wouldn’t allow my mother to enroll me in public school. I spent all my time at the piano under his tutelage, and only through my mother’s stand against him did I even learn to read and write.”

  Cheyenne thought of her own mother, who hadn’t seemed to care for either of her children and in fact, had run off when Cheyenne was just sixteen. “Knowing your uncle the little that I do, your mother must have been a very strong woman.”

  He shook his head. “She wasn’t, really. My uncle badgered her, ranting because she wouldn’t perform with my accompaniment. He wanted to tout us like some Barnum and Bailey act. Then, when I was ten, she tried to take her own life.”

  Cheyenne gasped. “The papers never said that.” The words slipped out.

  He gave her a sad smile. “I see you’ve done your research. Of course, Uncle covered it up, stating that she had a physical breakdown and had gone to an exclusive resort to rest. While she was gone, he filed for custody and officially adopted me, changing my name.” The last was said in anger.

  “I never met your mother, but it was my understanding that she lived in the house. So I assume you continued to see her.”

  “Oh, yes. She was only in the sanitarium for a year, but it was long enough for my uncle to brainwash me, telling me it had been my fault, and if I didn’t continue to play and compose, she would get sick again.”

  “Oh, Jake. I am so sorry.” She was beginning to have a very different view of the Donovans, particularly Sebastian.

  He shrugged off her sympathy. “I did what I had to do, which was practice an average of ten hours a day.”

  “Ten hours?”

  “Do you know what happened when I refused?”

  “Your teacher rapped your fingers with a ruler?” It was a flippant reply but she couldn’t think of anything except a little boy trying to please someone who she was beginning to think couldn’t be pleased.

  He held h
is hands up, wiggling his fingers. “These hands? God forbid anyone touch these money making digits. These hands never played sports, welded a knife to whittle or punched a bully in the mouth. Nothing that could possibly damage even a single, tiny nail. No, my uncle would refuse to let me see my mother.”

  Cheyenne didn’t know what to say. Her own parent had been thoughtless and negligent but she hadn’t been abusive in the way Sebastian Donovan had.

  “So now, my dear Miss Tucker, you know why I left. I feel my uncle is responsible for my mother’s demise. The best way to get back at him was to quit playing, which I would never do while my mother was alive. Even now, the only way I could quit was to run away.”

  Cheyenne got up and walked to the edge of the porch, looking out to where the water of the bay lapped gently at the sand. Things had become awkward now. She was employed by Sebastian Donovan, yet she found it hard to think about convincing Jake to return to Chicago after hearing his story. On the other hand, she thought about Mr. Donovan’s failing health, though he had never said he was ill. Should she tell Jake, although she had been warned not to do so? She now understood his animosity, but if she didn’t convince him to return and the older Donovan died, would he regret not making amends?

  A warm hand touched her shoulder, turning her around. He stood very close, and when she didn’t step back, his arms circled her. She looked up, her gaze tracing the fine curve of his lips, lips that were descending toward her own.

  “I didn’t tell you my story to make you sad,” he said. A kiss, as light as the breeze, touched the corner of her mouth. “I simply wanted you to know.” Another kiss to the other side.