He knew for a fact that Megan would ask to interview Elizabeth herself the moment her cruise ship docked. It was always good to be one jump ahead of his sister when it came to something like this.
“So, about these people you wanted me to meet...” Jared prodded, awaiting a response from Elizabeth.
It amazed Elizabeth to no end just how buoyed she could feel after being so incredibly low just a couple of minutes ago. She tried not to think about what that actually meant in the long run and focused exclusively on the question that Jared had just asked. She needed to have him meet the musicians she thought would round out the ensemble.
“They’re close by,” she told him brightly. “I told them about the kind of music that was going to be played, as well as the time and date for the celebration. They’re all free that evening and they’ve all been playing professionally for years,” she informed him.
With each word she uttered, she was feeling more and more energized, as if she’d just gotten a fresh shot of adrenaline—and, in a way, she had.
“As a matter of fact, I can have them play a sample number for you right now if you’d like so you can hear for yourself what the program you put together for the celebration would sound like.”
“The program we put together,” Jared corrected, but even that wasn’t entirely accurate. For the most part, the program was actually largely her doing. He’d merely nodded his head whenever she made a suggestion, finding that she had very good instincts when it came to setting up the musical playlist. Each song she’d mentioned turned out to be another song he recalled one or both of his parents favoring when he was growing up.
When she made her suggestion about listening to a sample repertoire, he was about to say that he thought that was why she’d invited him to attend the play in the first place—so he could hear the ensemble perform together. But he was beginning to discover that with Elizabeth, there was no such thing as taking a breath before answering. In the time it took to draw that breath, she was already moving on. In this case, she was already beckoning over several musicians who were hanging back on the far side of the orchestra pit. It was obvious that they were waiting to be introduced.
As they crossed over to her, Elizabeth rattled off their names, saying them so quickly that Jared found he’d missed most of them. Before he could ask to have their names repeated, the players were already taking their places.
And then they began to perform a short rock-and-roll medley Elizabeth had prepared ahead of time. Jared caught himself tapping his foot in time to the beat. If this was a preview of things to come, his parents were going to love it.
Stepping back to stand next to his cousin, Jared saw by the expression on Julie’s face that she agreed with his assessment.
Elizabeth and the ensemble she’d selected wound up playing for ten minutes, incorporating among other songs a ballad and a number that brought to mind everything that the words rock and roll stood for.
When they finished, Julie broke into enthusiastic applause. Prompted by the sound of her clapping, Jared joined in, nodding his head in hearty approval. This was going to turn out to be even better than he had initially hoped for.
“Fantastic,” he pronounced. He was rather amazed that these folks hadn’t forged singular professional careers for themselves, the kind of careers that brought accolades as well as substantial monetary rewards with them. “You’ve certainly convinced me,” he said, his eyes sweeping over the entire group.
Amanda was the first to speak, looking from Jared to Elizabeth. “So we’re hired?” She evidently wanted to hear one of them say the actual words.
“You’re definitely hired,” Jared told her, then nodded at the others in the ensemble.
Julie, ever practical, tugged on his arm to get his attention. When Jared looked in her direction, raising a questioning brow, she said in a lower voice, “Shouldn’t you discuss their fees with them first?”
“I left all that to Elizabeth,” he answered, looking over Julie’s head to the other woman. Actually, he and Elizabeth had come to an agreement in their negotiations. The fee she’d asked for had been somewhat lower than he’d expected so he readily agreed to pay it. “Right?” he asked the beautiful blonde.
On the surface, there was nothing remotely intimate about the exchange, yet she felt this warm tingle when he looked in her direction for confirmation. For just that second, it was as if there were only the two of them engaged in a private conversation.
“Right.” She turned toward the others, incredibly pleased with the way everything had ultimately turned out. “I’ll be in touch with all the sheet music you’ll need,” she promised. “And I’ll let you know when we’re getting together for rehearsals.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jack Borman, the keyboard artist, told her.
Nathan, who played the cello, rubber-stamped the approval. “Same here.”
Albert, who had never met an instrument he couldn’t play, but favored timpani drums, paused to shake Jared’s hand and thank him before he, too, left the pit.
Amanda was the last of the selected group to go, lingering as long as she could, trying hard not to be overly obvious that she was scrutinizing Jared up close and personal.
When he did look in her direction, she was quick to cover her actions. “I just wanted to say thanks a lot for the gig. I always liked the oldies,” she added for good measure.
Elizabeth caught herself just in time. She had almost interrupted her best friend, saying that no, she didn’t. Amanda preferred classical music and made a point of letting people know she felt almost everything else ran a distant second.
But she knew that Amanda wouldn’t appreciate being called on the carpet like that. So Elizabeth remained silent, waiting for the other woman to finish.
When she did, Amanda nodded at her and said cheerfully, “I’ll see you later.”
Then, turning so that she was only facing her and had her back to Jared and his cousin, Amanda moved her eyes in an exaggerated fashion, indicating that she thought Elizabeth should make some sort of a play for the tall, handsome man before someone else snatched him up.
Elizabeth pointedly ignored Amanda’s efforts.
The latter left, making no effort to suppress the sigh that escaped her lips. That, too, Elizabeth ignored, or at least tried to.
Instead, she briefly turned her attention toward Jared.
“Thanks again for coming,” she told him with feeling. “To be honest, I didn’t know if you would or not.” But I was hoping you would.
“I’m not very big on musicals,” he confessed freely. He and Julie had that in common, he thought. “But I have to admit, I’ve always liked Fiddler. There’s just something about that play that makes it really enjoyable.”
He wasn’t alone in his reaction. “A lot of people have said that,” Elizabeth told him. “It’s probably the main reason there have been so many revivals of the play.”
As she talked, she packed her instrument into the case she had left tucked under her seat. She didn’t want to appear as if she was finding reasons to linger. The last thing she needed was to come across as someone who didn’t know when to go home.
Snapping the locks into place, she said, “Well, I’ll be seeing you.” She nodded politely at Julie, then told Jared, “If there’s anything else you can think of that you need—for the celebration,” she tacked on in case he thought she was issuing him another sort of invitation, “please don’t hesitate to call me.”
As she turned to go, Jared realized that he didn’t want her leaving just yet. He was as surprised as she was to hear himself saying, “Julie and I are going out for coffee and maybe some dessert.”
“What do you mean, ‘maybe’? Dessert’s the good part. I can skip the coffee,” Julie told him.
“She’s a walking sweet tooth,” he confided to Elizabeth. “Would you like to join us?” he asked, then, in case she felt uncomfortable about turning him down, he gave her a way out. “Unless you’ve already made other
plans....”
“No, no other plans,” she assured him quickly, then smiled at the invitation. “Coffee and cake sound really wonderful. Where are we going?”
“Not far,” he assured her. “There’s a little French bakery located about half a mile or so from here. It has outdoor seating so that you can have your coffee and dessert under the stars.”
It sounded absolutely perfect, but she would have been just as willing to have bread and water in the middle of an open field, as long as she was sharing both with him.
She knew she was letting herself get carried away, but by the same token, she’d already accepted the fact that it was her fate not to have any sort of a meaningful relationship for any real duration of time. What was happening right now came under the heading of “two ships passing in the night” and that was okay with her. And who knew? Maybe she’d get lucky and the ships would pass each other slowly.
So she smiled at Jared and said in response to his summation, “What more can a person ask for?”
Their eyes met and held for a long moment. And then he murmured, “Beats me,” despite the fact that what he would have asked for—had he had the opportunity—was to have that coffee and dessert with her without his cousin being in the picture. But he couldn’t very well tell Julie to find her own way home, especially not after he’d worked so hard to get her out of the house.
“I can give you a ride there,” he offered Elizabeth. “And then drive you back here to your car later.”
Much as she would have liked that, it wasn’t really practical, so she waved away the offer. “Too complicated, with you having to do too much driving back and forth,” she told him. “I’ll just follow you,” she said. “And in case I lose you, I’d better get the address.”
“I don’t know the address,” he admitted with a careless shrug. “I just go by instinct.”
Julie just shook her head. “Spoken like a typical man,” she said, then turned toward Elizabeth. “I know the address.” And then she proceeded to recite it for Elizabeth’s benefit.
The latter jotted it down quickly on the notepad she’d pulled out of her purse.
“Got it,” she declared, slipping pen and pad back into her purse. “Thanks,” she said to the redhead, then promised Jared, “I’ll be right behind you.”
He recalled the last time they were both heading toward one destination. “No, you won’t. You’ll probably be there long before we are.”
“But it’s close by,” Julie pointed out as she followed him out to his car. The night slipped around them like a soft, black suede glove.
“Trust me,” he told her, getting in behind the steering wheel. “She’ll find a way to be there a lot sooner than we will.”
Elizabeth said nothing, but she secretly liked the fact that what he’d just said was meant to tease her.
* * *
“I never realized that there were so many details that had to be looked into and taken care of,” Jared commented later that evening, as he, his cousin and Elizabeth sat, enjoying their steaming mugs of gourmet coffee.
“Really?” Elizabeth asked curiously.
“Yes...really. When I was in college and someone threw a party, they called the local deli or the sandwich shop and put in an order for one or two huge sandwiches. Someone else would take care of getting the keg of beer. The people coming to the party brought their own chips and dip and whatever else they wanted to eat. Invitations went out by word of mouth, usually the day of the party, and just like that—” he snapped his fingers “—violà, you had a party.
“This,” he said with a sigh, referring to the anniversary celebration, “is way too involved and complicated. It’s not fun anymore,” he added for good measure.
“You could have gotten a party planner,” Elizabeth suggested.
“I did,” he told her. When she raised a quizzical eyebrow, he said, “My sister, who put together this endless list, browbeat me into promising I’d follow everything to the letter and then promptly sailed away—literally,” he complained.
“Oh, it’s not that bad, Jared.” Julie laughed. “You’ve got a caterer handling the food. You’ve already rented the hall and you’ve just finished making arrangements for the music,” she summed up, slanting a glance, as well as a smile, in Elizabeth’s direction. “Sounds like all of it’s being handled if you ask me.”
Just to prove Julie wrong, Jared gave her the highlights of one of his ship-to-shore calls from his sister. “Megan called and asked what flower arrangements I’d picked out. I asked what flowers. She answered, the flowers the florist showed you. At which point I asked—”
“What florist?” Elizabeth guessed. Her intuition earned her a laugh from both Jared and his cousin.
“So you understand,” Jared said, feeling vindicated.
Much as she would have liked reinforcing his assumption, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t have been able to utter a lie even if it was burning on her tongue.
“It’s not so much that I understand,” she explained, “as I have brothers.”
It took him a second to puzzle her words out. “So you’re saying it’s a guy thing?”
“Most definitely,” Elizabeth told him with unwavering sincerity. “You’re all about shortcuts and we’re all about details.” She caught Julie’s eye and the other woman nodded her agreement.
The silent communication was not lost on Jared. “Hey, you’re ganging up on me. Two against one, no fair,” he pretended to protest.
“It’s only not fair if we’re wrong,” Elizabeth pointed out.
He felt as if he’d just been snowed. “Who made that rule up?” he wanted to know with a laugh.
Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders dismissively. “It slipped my mind.”
He had his answer right there. “That’s undoubtedly because you’re the one who made it up,” he said with a laugh. “Just for that, you don’t get any seconds on the cake.”
Julie leaned forward and said to her newfound friend in what amounted to a stage whisper, “I’d steer clear of him if I were you, Elizabeth. My cousin has always been a very sore loser.”
“Thanks for the warning, but I can take care of myself.”
“I bet you can.”
The comment came from Jared, not his cousin. The look on his face was utterly unreadable.
Now, what was that supposed to mean? Elizabeth wondered. Was it a good thing, or a bad thing?
Men, she was completely convinced, really should come with some sort of a handbook, preferably a user-friendly one.
Chapter Ten
It was, Elizabeth decided, like living in a dream.
Or maybe one of those old-fashioned romantic comedies from decades past, the ones where the hero never needed a shave and the heroine would wake up with every hair in place and a dewy face that never required having makeup reapplied.
Whatever she was currently experiencing certainly didn’t even remotely approximate her usual frantic but basically bland day-to-day life. Ever since this mysterious “Mrs. Manetti” had sent Jared Winterset her way, life had gone from fairly decent to absolutely perfect.
Oh, she and Jared weren’t actually dating or anything like that, but perforce, they were seeing one another just about every evening. She found herself living for the evenings.
And when they weren’t seeing each other, they were talking on the phone. Either Jared was calling her about another song he remembered or she was calling him about a different rendition that had just occurred to her for one of the songs they’d already selected.
For Elizabeth, music had always been her passion; performing it defined her very life. And for a very limited amount of time, this handsome, intelligent and exceedingly sensual man was sharing this world with her.
It really didn’t get much better than that.
* * *
“What do you mean it doesn’t get any better than that?” Amanda wanted to know when she’d finally cornered her friend and gotten Elizabeth to tell her a little about wha
t was happening between her and Jared.
They’d just finished rehearsing. Amanda had hung back, waiting for the others to leave. She was practically chomping at the bit to quiz Elizabeth about her progress with Mr. Too-Good-Looking-for-Words, which was the way she whimsically referred to Jared.
“Has he kissed you yet?” Amanda prodded.
“Well, no, but...” Elizabeth began, trying not to sound as breathless as visions of kissing Jared had rendered her. She didn’t get a chance to finish because Amanda was rolling her eyes, looking to heaven for strength.
“That’s how it gets ‘better than that,’” she declared in exasperation. “Damn, girl, you’re probably wearing those nice and tidy little Ms. Professional outfits of yours when you see him.” Amanda continued staring at her, waiting for an answer. “Am I right?”
Instead of answering, Elizabeth went on the defensive. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“I’m right.” Amanda’s words were accompanied by a weary sigh. “Liz, Liz, Liz, I am really going to have to take you under my wing, here.”
Elizabeth shook her head. She really liked Amanda, but there was no way she wanted to be turned into a carbon copy of her. “I really don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“No, it’s not,” she agreed, then, in case Elizabeth thought she’d won, Amanda clarified what she meant. “It’s a great idea. Honey, you want this man to keep turning up even after the party’s over, don’t you?”
She refused to have any expectations. As long as she accepted the fact that what was going on between them had a limited life expectancy, she wasn’t setting herself up for a fall. She knew that her best friend didn’t think that way, but Amanda was a lot more resilient than she was in that department. Her pal fell in and out of love with the regularity of a sunrise.
A Perfectly Imperfect Match (Matchmaking Mamas) Page 10