For the Love of Jazz

by Shiloh Walker

  “I bet she is,” he said absently.

  “Is she gonna be my doctor now?”

  “I dunno. Maybe,” he said, stalling. He wasn’t so certain how Annie would feel about that, though. She wasn’t going to want to take care of the child of her brother’s killer. Not even sweet Saint Anne-Marie.

  “Is that what y’all were talking about?”

  Glancing down the highway, he moved into the opposite lane to pass around a slow-moving farm truck. “She was telling me how to take care of your pretty little head.” Jazz didn’t see how a parent could be a parent without telling little white lies from time to time.

  “I hope she is my doctor. She smells nice.” Her voice was getting slower and softer, and in the rearview, he saw her eyes drooping closed. And lucky me, he thought wryly. I have the pleasure of waking her up every couple of hours now. He’d willingly wake up every two hours for the next ten years to make sure she was okay, but it was going to make for one long-assed night.

  Jazz was faintly surprised that toddlers and preschoolers could even suffer head injuries. Their heads seemed rock hard. At least, Mariah’s did.

  Passing by the bright lights of the Shell station, he flicked on his turn signal and took the turn that led to their new house. Bought outright, with money he had hoarded over the years. It was going to require a lot of work to make the house look the way he wanted. Built at the turn of the last century, it needed a new roof, needed new paint inside and out, and the wraparound porch was going to have to be completely redone. Not to mention the plumbing was outdated, and probably the wiring. It needed work and it was going to take time and a lot of money.

  As fate would have it, Jazz now had plenty of both.

  Jazz had always planned to come home, home to Briarwood, to face his past. He wasn’t going to fail on those plans, even if the local townsfolk decided they didn’t want him around.

  He just hadn’t expected his reckoning to come so soon. He hadn’t expected to come back for a few years yet. He had wanted to settle himself a bit more, maybe have another baby with Sheri. But then her headaches had started, severe ones that nearly blinded her. By the time she had gone to the doctor about them, the tumor had grown to monstrous proportions. Surgery was out of the question and the chemo had failed. Within months, Sheri was dead, leaving Jazz alone with a three-year-old. Jazz and Mariah were the benefactors of a surprisingly large life insurance policy, along with a college fund Sheri had started.

  Two years after she’d gone, Jazz woke up one morning and found himself staring at the condo they’d shared and he realized he hated it. He hadn’t liked it much when they picked it out, but it was close to the city and although Jazz could work from home, Sheri couldn’t. He looked around at the stark, sterile rooms and realized without Sheri there, the place felt empty.

  It wasn’t a good place to raise a little girl. So here they were, the owners of a ramshackle, falling-down excuse of a house that needed more work than a ghost town needed ghosts. With a sigh, he pulled into the rutted excuse of a driveway. The driveway needed work, too. But first, the house.

  Oh, man, the house. What in the hell had he been thinking? Even if he didn’t have to worry about the roof, the wiring, the painting or the porch, there were still the bathrooms, the carpet and the basement—oh man, he didn’t even want to think about the basement. Walls had to come down in some places and go up in others, and the kitchen was totally outdated.

  In the faint moonlight, he studied the century-old farmhouse. Yeah, it was going to take a long time and a lot of sweat to make this place work. But, once he got going, it would be a sweet reprieve over the way he’d spent the past few years. When he wasn’t chasing after Mariah and being both Mom and Dad, he was trapped in front of a computer, facing his nemesis, Vance Marrone.

  Vance Marrone, ace detective, lady’s man and general jackass, was the creation of Jazz McNeil’s mind, and his own worst enemy. Man, he hated Vance, hated writing about him, hated making money off of him. It hadn’t been so bad when he first started, plunking out that first story while recovering in a VA hospital when a training op had ended badly. Badly as in him nearly losing his leg and having to spend three weeks in the hospital and six months in rehab.

  Back then, Vance had kept Jazz sane, but he made the big mistake of sending the book off to an agent. She sold it almost instantly, landing him his first modest advance. The second book hit a little better and each one garnered more and more readers and he ended up signing more and more contracts. By the fifth book, he was tired of Vance Marrone, but he still had four more books to fulfill his contract.

  He would have been done with those five years ago and he had plans to write something else, but then—well, life happened. Sheri happened. The baby came along and then Sheri got sick. All the money in the world wouldn’t have been able to save her, but he’d tried anyway, agreeing to five more books. Sad thing was by the time he got the first part of the advance, Sheri was already dead.

  He was now on the last book of that contract and he suspected it wasn’t going to go over well. Jazz was going to kill Marrone off. Maybe then he’d have some peace and quiet and could write something worthwhile. He even had a contract—a smaller house, one that focused on sci fi and fantasy. They couldn’t pay him anywhere close to the advances he’d gotten used to but he could write the story he wanted to write, instead of what he had to write. Every new Marrone book seemed to take longer and longer to write and he spent hours each in day in front of the computer, obsessing over a character he hated and not focusing as much as he’d like on the one important person in his life.

  Now that he didn’t have to worry so much about the money, he was going to take the time to write the book he wanted, take more time to be the father he wanted to be to his little girl and work on the big old farmhouse, making it into a home for her.

  With a sigh, he shut off the engine and climbed out of the Escalade. He slung Mariah’s bag over his shoulder and released her from her booster seat.

  “Are we home, Daddy?” she asked sleepily, rubbing at one eye with a closed fist.

  “Yeah, honey. We’re home. Your head okay?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m sleepy, though.”

  “Going to bed right now, girl,” he promised, shifting her to his right arm so he could dig out his keys. The door creaked loudly as he pushed it open, and that jumped to the top of his list of things to fix tomorrow. That and the leaking faucets in the kitchen and bathroom.

  “Where are my jammies?” she asked.

  “On your bed, where we left them this morning.”

  “Are they dirty?”

  “Not until tomorrow. We’ll go find some place to wash them then,” he told her, rolling his eyes. He couldn’t have had a messy child. No, he had a little lady from her head to her size six feet. She might spill stuff all over her clothes but the minute she did, they had to come off and clean clothes put on. Added up to a lot of laundry. Which was why getting a washer and dryer was one of the next things on the list tomorrow.

  “What ’bout my bath?”

  Sniffing loudly at her neck, like a puppy, Jazz announced, “Smell good to me. We’ll take a bath in the morning, okay?”

  She nodded sleepily again. “’Kay. I’m sleepy, Daddy.”

  She was out before he even got her buttoned into her Scooby Doo pajamas.

  Resigning himself to another sleepless night, he headed for the makeshift office he had in the little alcove at the end of the hall. Might as well get some work done. As the computer booted, he jogged downstairs and started some coffee. Pausing in the doorway of the kitchen, one hand curled around the cup, he surveyed the mess spread out before him.

  What in the hell are you doing here?

  It wasn’t the first time he had asked himself that. Jazz doubted it would be the last and he still didn’t know the answer. He only knew the night sixteen years earlier haunted him, the lack of memories of that night haunted him. He needed some answers.

  He prayed that in
trying to find them, he wouldn’t cause Desmond and Anne-Marie any more pain.

  ~*~

  “Daddy?”

  Desmond laid down the medical journal he had been studying as he looked up to smile at his daughter. It only took one look for his smile to fade. “You do look terribly serious standing there, Anne-Marie,” he mused, studying his daughter. Her eyes were dark and turbulent. “What’s the matter, honey?”

  “Jazz is back.”

  Jazz.

  Immediately, Desmond could see the boy Alex had befriended, tall for his age, sulky, defiant, with anger burning in those dark eyes. It had been sixteen years since he’d last seen Jasper McNeil. How many times had he thought of that boy over the years?

  “Is he now?” he murmured, leaning back in his chair, folding his hands over a belly he kept flat with rigorous exercise. It wouldn’t do for a cardiologist not to be fit. He had people drive from all over the south to see him and he took that responsibility seriously. If he was going to lecture them on the benefits of a heart-healthy diet, then he could also follow his own advice.

  If he snuck some doughnuts every now and then, a cigar here and there, well, every man was entitled to a few vices.

  “Is he really?” he murmured, thoughtfully tugging at his lower lip.

  Knowing he was not asking for confirmation, she remained silent, seating herself in the leather wing chair by the window. She studied her neatly trimmed and buffed nails, the small capable hands that had tended Mariah McNeil’s head wound the night before.

  “You’ve seen him?”

  “Last night. He has a daughter now,” she responded, explaining how he had come to the office after hours—and how Shelly how forgotten, again, to lock up when she left.

  “Anne-Marie, I know that you’re feeling sentimental towards Shelly, her being your mama’s cousin and all, but don’t you think that you’ve made a few too many allowances for her?” he asked absently, while his mind turned over the fact that the boy wasn’t a boy any longer. No, now he was a father, apparently a good one, or Anne-Marie would have made that clear already. “You really do need to hire a temp until Marti gets back.”

  “Marti’s due back this week. I can do three more days.”

  Still pondering how he felt about Jazz, he said, “I imagine you can—but remember, next time, it is okay to tell family no.”

  She grimaced. “Oh, I’ve learned my lesson.” She didn’t pry or mention Jazz again—that was his little girl. She knew him well—as she should. She was just like him. They’d talk about something when they were ready and not a moment before.

  Jazz, however, might be an exception. Desmond certainly wasn’t ready to talk about his son’s best friend yet, and he didn’t know that Anne-Marie was either.

  “So he’s come home,” he mused, shaking his head. “How does he look?”

  Thinking back, Anne-Marie finally answered, “Tired. Haunted.” Gorgeous, she added mentally. She rose, then, wandered over to the window, running one finger over the polished pane of glass, smudging it. “I don’t hate him, Daddy. I never thought I did, but I always wondered how I’d feel if I saw him again.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered, resting her forehead against the glass. “But it still doesn’t seem right, after all this time. I can’t picture him driving into that tree.”

  Turning around, she pinned her father with an intense stare. “Daddy, Jazz drove like a demon. Drove fast and always got tickets, but he was never once in an accident. Not once. It just doesn’t fit.”

  Chapter Four

  Disoriented, Jazz jerked his head up, looked around him, unsure what had woken him. Still half asleep, he pushed his face back into the throw pillow. The next knock was loud enough to rattle the windows. Cursing, he shoved himself to his feet, rubbing the back of his stiff neck.

  Mariah had been up at the crack of dawn, but had fallen asleep around ten that morning and Jazz hadn’t been too far behind her. She still slept in a boneless little puddle in front of the TV. Stumbling past her, rubbing at his bloodshot eyes, he muffled a yelp as he stepped on a thumb-sized plastic unicorn, the horn poking straight in the tender arch of his foot. With a scowl on his face, he swung the door open.

  Any lingering drowsiness disappeared in a haze of hatred as he gazed into the murky brown eyes of Larry Muldoon, the man who had found him torn and bleeding after the accident sixteen years earlier. The man who gleefully announced, while Jazz was pushed into the back of an ambulance, that he had killed Alex Kincaid.

  Time hadn’t been good to Larry. Always rail-thin and short, he had developed a protruding potbelly that hung over the polished belt of his uniform and his pale skin had turned sallow. What little hair he had was thin and sparse, sticking this way and that. The star he wore pinned to his stiffly ironed khaki uniform looked more comical than authoritative. Except for the beer gut hanging over his belt, Larry looked a lot like Barney from The Andy Griffith Show.

  “Heard you were back here,” Larry said, tucking his thumbs into the loops of his trousers. Cocking his head to the side, he asked, “You planning on staying long?”

  “You generally don’t buy a house if you’re planning on just staying the summer,” Jazz snapped, reaching for the door.

  “You’d best be rethinking that plan. We don’t welcome killers around here.”

  “Only wife beaters and bullies who beat up on kids, right?” Jazz replied edgily, backing away from the door.

  “I don’t rightly know what it is you’re talking about,” Larry lied with a sly smile on his face. He knew. Oh, hell, yeah, he knew. Larry had been privy to a beating or two, had even once belted Jazz across the face. “All I know is what I told you that last night is just as true now as ever. I hear tell you’re a widower, lost your wife to cancer. You’re cursed, boy. I’ve told you that before and you didn’t listen.”

  Rubbing a hand over his face, Jazz swore under his breath. In town less than a week and folks already knew about Sheri? Why in the hell had he moved back to this small town?

  “Now, Jazz, I’m just here to offer some friendly advice.”

  “Go away,” Jazz growled, raising his hand to shut the door in that sour face.

  “Just a minute there, son. Got some words I need to say to you.”

  Keeping his voice low and his eyes level, Jazz calmly replied, “Got a warrant on you, Deputy? If not, then you had best get off my land. I’ve nothing to say to you.”

  “You’d be wise to pack up and leave, boy. Listen to your uncle here.”

  His hand shot out before he could stop it, locking on Larry’s shirt, dragging him forward. Lowering his head until they were nose to nose, Jazz whispered, “You are not my uncle. And that sack of shit was never my father. I’d sooner drink Drano than belong in your family, got it?”

  Sweat pearled on Larry’s brow, his upper lip and his hands. “You must be wanting to be arrested for assaulting an officer,” Larry sneered, reaching up and trying to pry the large, dark hands from his shirt.

  A low, lackadaisical voice drawled, “Well, now, Larry. I don’t rightly see that he assaulted you.”

  Slowly, relaxing each tensed muscle, Jazz let go. He turned his head to see a familiar face at the top of the porch stairs. Another blast from the past. Another uniform. And a face that brought, for once, welcome memories and smiles. “Look here. Cousin Tate, aren’t you looking important?” Jazz asked, tucking his hands in his pockets.

  A smile spread over the dark, lean face, so similar to Jazz’s. The only son of Jasper McNeil Sr’s younger brother, and one of Jazz’s only remaining relatives, Tate McNeil had been there in the hospital when he awoke, had stood in the rain at his mama’s funeral, a shy, chubby boy.

  Tate’s father, Waylan McNeil, had died in a fire trying to rescue a young mother. Tate was left alone with his mama, much like Jasper. But Tate’s mama hadn’t remarried. No, Ella had gone back to school, gotten a degree, and had been running her own real estate business for the past
seventeen years.

  “Deputy Muldoon, you got any official reason to be here?” Tate asked calmly, staring into the older man’s eyes.

  “Just came to welcome Jazz back, is all. After all, we are family,” Larry said, his eyes sullen.

  “A little family reunion, eh? Didn’t quite look that way to me,” Tate said. Raising his shoulders in a shrug, he added, “Course, I could be wrong.”

  The hatred simmering in Muldoon’s eyes was palpable. “Well, now, Sheriff McNeil. You have been wrong a time or two.”

  “Yes, I have. Don’t make yourself one of my mistakes, Deputy Muldoon,” Tate advised in a level tone. One straight, black brow lifted fractionally and a single cool glance from his dark eyes had Muldoon’s glare dropping away. “Get on back to work now—and I advise you not to go harassing this man here. History is not repeating itself.”

  Before he could give release to the venom in his head, Muldoon stomped away, grumbling under his breath. Silently, the cousins watched as the police car pulled down the pitted driveway. Then they turned and studied each other.

  “I would suggest, Cousin Jazz, that you watch your step with him. He is a pest, but even pests can cause a good deal of damage if they’re ignored.”

  With a slow nod, Jazz acknowledged the warning. And the assistance. “I reckon I had better watch my speeding around town, as well. Seeing as how that was his favorite pastime a few years back.”

  Chuckling, Tate said, “I’d reckon Doc Kincaid pretty much paid for the renovations on the station house, with all those tickets of yours he paid.” He nodded to the swing across the porch. “Mind if I have a seat?”

  “What’s mine is yours,” Jazz offered, spreading his arms wide. “Gotta admit, I’m impressed. You look a damn sight better than I would have expected.”

  Stretching long, lean legs out in front of him, Tate leaned back and saluted Jazz. “To my inspiration. I knew if I looked like you did, all the girls would be tripping over me. You up and leaving the way you did, left the field right clear for me once I got ship shape. Thank God for the quarry. Went swimming there most every night that summer, clear up until Halloween. Then I started running.”