Tears pricked her eyes and Tracy decided that it was only because it had been a horribly traumatic day and a worse night. She knelt down beside Blake Johnston, smiling a little to note that he had a small and very stubborn cowlick in his hair—exactly the same as his father’s. While Leif was dark, Blake was a soft blond—but the cowlick was still the same.
“Thank you, Blake. I’m sorry about your mommy, too, and I’m very glad that she and my dad will be together.” He gave her a very encouraging grin and squeezed her hand. She squeezed his back, thinking what a nice, normal little child he was. He seemed to know that his father was famous—but he didn’t seem to think that he should be especially privileged because of it.
“Do you know my Aunt Liz?” he asked her.
Tracy shook her head. Blake dragged her over to where Tiger and Sam were talking to a tall brunette woman. She turned at Tracy’s approach, and Tracy saw another version of Leif’s deep gray eyes. Liz also resembled Leif in her coloring, her elegant height, and in her slow, charming smile.
“Tracy? I’m Liz. Glad to meet you at last.” She chuckled lightly. “How strange! Leif has been searching high and low for you over the last year—and here you are!” Tracy smiled weakly, startled to hear that Leif’s search for her had been that intensive. She liked Liz instantly. She seemed to encompass all kinds of easy warmth and grace.
“It’s nice to meet you, Liz,” she said, extending a hand.
But then she had to stop to wonder if Liz knew anything about what had happened all those years ago, and if she did know, what did she think? Or was Tracy blowing it all out of proportion herself? Maybe no one would really think anything of it at all…
“Ah, here comes Jamie! Show’s over!” Liz said.
Jamie came in off the stage, dripping wet with perspiration, grinning from ear to ear. He gave Tracy a sloppy kiss first, hugged Liz, then swept Blake off the floor, while effusively thanking Tiger and Sam for coming on stage with him. Blake giggled away, and then it seemed that everyone was talking at once.
“Jamie—go take a shower so we can get out of here!” Liz begged at last. “Oh—look. That man from the weekly has Leif over there. He does so hate interviews— but he looks calm. Jamie—go get changed, please. Then give him a few words, too, so we can go somewhere private!”
“Gotcha, Liz!” Jamie saluted her neatly, then started toward the dressing room. He turned back once.
“Tracy—was I great?”
He asked with such eager enthusiasm that she nodded.
“You were great, Jamie.”
He blew her a kiss. “So were you. Your songs are fabulous! And you sing like a lark. And—”
“Jamie, get out of here!”
Liz laughed happily behind Tracy, then linked arms with her. “Come on—let’s go save Leif.”
Saving Leif was the last thing Tracy had on her mind, but with Liz hurrying her along, she had little choice but to keep up. They came upon Leif and the reporter against one of the outer walls just before the dressing rooms. Leif looked calm, but he was eyeing the man carefully, though his stance was casual. He answered each question slowly, taking his time, weighing his answers, while still appearing casual and idle about the whole thing.
“You actually disbanded two years ago, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
Leif shrugged, glancing at his sister and Tracy over the man’s head, arching a brow and grimacing. He turned his attention back to the eager reporter.
“Well, because we really started out as street musicians when we were kids. Tiger and Sam were a little bit older, Jesse was sixteen, I was fifteen. Two years ago we celebrated twenty-five years together, and we just decided it was time to call it quits.”
“What about the times that you split up before?”
Leif shook his head. “We never split up before.”
“Sure you did! All the rags had this thing going about some massive fight going on between you and Jesse—”
“The group didn’t split up. We held off recording for awhile.”
“What was the fight about? How did you two finally make it up? Was it over a woman?”
Tracy felt her cheeks burn, but not a muscle in Leif’s face twitched, nor did he glance Tracy’s way.
“Jesse and I had a little blowup, yeah. It was over a song. We solved it by keeping our distance for a while, that’s all.”
“What about before?”
“There was no ‘before.’ I was drafted into the service, but the group didn’t split up then. I wrote songs when I could, and we carried on long distance, you might say. Obviously, we didn’t do any concerts then, but we were still a group. When I came home, we toured for a year, then we worked in the studio for a year. It was like that frequently.”
“Are you planning on forming a new band with Jamie Kuger? And what about Jesse’s daughter? We’ve never heard much about her before. Why? Who is she really? Can you—”
Leif reached around the man for Tracy’s hand, pulling her next to him in a protective gesture. “Tracy—this is Mack Arnold. Mack—Tracy Kuger. The real Tracy Kuger.”
“Miss Kuger!” Mack offered her a fleshy hand. “What a pleasure! What have you been doing all your life!” He laughed at the scope of his own question. “It’s rumored that you write music and songs—under a bunch of pseudonyms. Is that true? How—”
“Mack! You’ve gotten to see the lady—let her breathe!” Leif jumped in. “She writes—and she keeps pseudonyms because she likes her privacy. So let her keep it, OK?”
Mack didn’t get any choice—Leif smoothly introduced his sister and his son, then promised to send Jamie out to talk to him. Tracy was glad that he had defended her. Mack Arnold might well have ripped her to shreds in a matter of seconds. But she was still ready to kill Leif for pulling her on stage, and she didn’t feel any kinder toward him when he smoothly got them away from Mack and into Jamie’s dressing room. Her brother’s backup musicians were all there and Jamie dragged her around like an exotic prize. She understood—he was special to her, too—maybe more so since it had taken them so long to reach one another. She just didn’t like the thousand-and-one questions everyone asked her now that they knew she was Jesse’s other child.
Champagne flowed freely in the dressing room. Tracy sipped some idly, trying to steer questions away from herself and keep her comments on her brother’s performance. Naturally, people asked her where she had been, how and when she and Jamie had gotten together—and just how well she knew Leif, since it seemed they were all so comfortable together.
After all the years she had struggled so hard to maintain her anonymity, become totally independent—and nearly invisible! All her determination to stay out of the public eye was ruined. Here she was, dragged back into it all because Leif had fed her to the wolves!
The desire to throttle Leif rose in her again. She glanced his way through the crowd and saw that he was managing to carry on easy conversations. He laughed at something someone said, offered more champagne. She saw him give a pretty redhead a friendly kiss on the cheek just before the girl left. The kiss bothered her, and she was highly irritated with herself for the stab of jealousy she felt. But he looked good that night—exceptionally good. Tall and lean, both relaxed and elegant, and somehow not quite approachable—an intriguing man with a casual manner, yet whose hard eyes veiled a thousand secrets.
At long last, Jamie disappeared with his group in tow. Blake was happily playing at the mirror with Jamie’s brushes, Leif idly stretched and rubbed the back of his neck, and Liz asked Tracy if she would like more champagne.
“I’m really a little sick of champagne,” she murmured.
“Poor baby!” Leif laughed. “Too much Dom Perignon, huh?”
“Leif, be nice!” Liz chastised. “And tell me—what are we going to do? With Blake and me—I mean. I told you, didn’t I, that I couldn’t get hotel reservations? The place is full—with groupies trying to get close to Jamie, I think!”
“Blake can sleep in with me. And Jamie can, too. Then you can have the other bedroom, Liz. Oh, wait—that’s not necessary at all. Tracy—you wouldn’t mind giving Liz your extra bedroom, would you?”
“No, not at all,” Tracy murmured, but she did. She felt as if she were being sucked into a whirlpool. She hadn’t wanted to see Leif, she hadn’t wanted to go to Connecticut, and she certainly hadn’t wanted to go on stage—but she had done it all. She was falling deeper and deeper into a vortex of the past, and it was frightening.
And to make it all much worse, Leif was staring at her again. Gray eyes charcoal and smoke, probing, somehow frightening. What was it that he was looking for when it seemed that his eyes burned into her soul, stripped her, ran her ragged, and then raked so tensely over her once again.
She lowered her head to avoid his gaze. Blake started to talk to Leif about his latest schoolwork, and Tracy felt herself shivering.
Had Leif ever told anyone about the fiasco between them? No one seemed to know. He had forced her to tell Jamie—but he had defended her smoothly before Mack Arnold’s barrage of questions.
Tracy could just imagine the truth in the paper! That he and Jesse had fought over Jesse’s daughter. Because Jesse’s daughter had been piqued at her father for forgetting her face…
Tiger stuck his head into the dressing room suddenly, grinning and offering Liz a ride back to the hotel. “We’ve still got a room reserved for dinner?” he asked Leif.
“Yes. Did you get a room okay?”
“Sure—I planned ahead. Liz?”
“Yes, I’d better get back with Blake. It’s getting very late for him.”
Tracy swirled around to Liz. “I can go back with Blake, Liz! You’re welcome to stay here and take your time—”
“Oh, no, no!” Liz protested. “This was Jamie’s big day —all of them in a group, but very especially you. Blake— come on, young man. We’ll get to ride in Tiger’s sports car!”
Blake hadn’t appeared pleased about leaving his father until Liz mentioned Tiger’s car, then his eyes lit up. He gave Leif a massive hug but a quick kiss and slipped his hand into his aunt’s to leave. At the door he paused.
“Bye, Tracy.”
“Bye, Blake.”
The door closed behind them and Tracy was alone with Leif once again. He didn’t say anything; he just paced around, a bit like a bored panther on the prowl. Tracy stared at him for several seconds, her tension brewing, since it seemed the room had grown much much smaller with just the two of them in it.
“You’ve just wrecked my life, you know,” she told him.
He started, turning to her. “I beg your pardon?”
“I didn’t want to go out on that stage.”
He shrugged. “You’re rather dramatic, I’d say. One appearance can’t wreck your life.” He leaned against the dressing table, staring at her as he crossed his arms over his chest in a dry manner. “You did all right out there. You’ve done your father’s things before—with your father, I imagine.”
“That’s different—”
“Tracy, you loved him, but you’re down on him. Being out there was the only way for you to understand him."
She shook her head vehemently. “No, Leif. I’ll admit —it is a power trip. All those people screaming. But it’s no excuse for a man to live with a total lack of consideration—”
“You loved him anyway.”
“Yes! But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t despise his life-style. He hurt people, Leif. He—oh, never mind! I don’t have to explain this to you. And thanks to you, I have lost my privacy, my secrecy! I didn’t want to go out there—and I damn well don’t want to go to Connecticut! I haven’t done anything that I wanted to do since you walked back into my life. Damn you, Leif! I’m not going to go to Connecticut. I’m not going to be manipulated any further.”
She sped toward the door and started to open it; it slammed shut before it had opened more than an inch.
He’d closed it.
She spun, pressing her back against it. He was right there, his palm still flat against the door as he held it and probed deep into her eyes with his own, his ever-knowing gray gaze intent upon her.
“I thought you wanted the truth, Tracy.”
“I do! But I don’t see where you’re going to get it for me. I might as well be on my own. I was before—and we came to the same conclusions.”
He shook his head. “We take it together from here on out, Tracy.”
“Why?” she fumed. She hadn’t the strength to push him aside. “Leif, my God, you’re using me!”
“Maybe that’s fate. You used me.”
She didn’t finish—the door was suddenly pushed open from outside. Leif frowned and moved back—just in time for Tracy to come catapulting into his arms from the pressure outside. Instinctively she threw her arms around him to keep from toppling to the floor. Instinctively, he steadied her, his arms around her waist.
“What the hell—” Leif began, cutting himself off when he saw that it was Jamie. But right behind Jamie was the group of photographers that had sent him rushing to his dressing room for a safe haven.
Five of them, at least, were crowding in the doorway, and Leif had his hands at Tracy’s waist, Tracy’s fingers curled around his nape.
Flashbulbs started going off, blinding the three of them. “Hey, wait a minute!” Leif snapped. Then he caught sight of Tracy’s startled and furious eyes and he began to laugh, setting her from him and walking to the door.
“Excuse us, will you, guys? You got your pictures.”
“That’s her, huh, Leif, isn’t it?” One of the men called out. “Jesse’s girl! How long has—”
“Tracy Kuger, George. And—none of your business. Good night!”
He closed the door firmly, grinning in a rather pleased fashion.
Tracy stared at him furiously. “You just made that man think that—that—”
“That something was going on. Yes, precisely.”
Tracy swore at him in no uncertain terms. Jamie uncomfortably shuffled his feet.
Leif ignored them both, stating it was time for them to head back to the hotel.
CHAPTER FIVE
Leif’s late-night “private” dinner turned out to be quite a fiasco to Tracy’s way of seeing things—there was nothing private about it. Jamie had invited six dates and the guys in his band had invited another twenty, so it seemed. The dates had invited friends, and so on. With all these people, the press managed to get in, and it seemed that there were a hundred people in a space that had been planned for twenty. As quickly as she could, she escaped to the elevator and up to her own suite.
She found that Liz was already there, opening a bag of Oreos for Blake, to be served with a pint carton of milk.
“Tracy, I hope you don’t mind. That just seemed like too much to bring Blake into, so I hedged everything and came on up!” Liz apologized.
Tracy shook her head, sitting down on the sofa to doff her boots and smiling.
“I don’t blame you. It’s awful down there!”
“Did you see the bald girl with the sequins glued to her scalp?” Liz asked.
Tracy started laughing. “Yes, I did. I’m afraid that she’s one of my brother’s dates.”
“Oh.”
“Tracy, would you like an Oreo?” Blake offered.
Tracy smiled at the little boy. “No, Blake, but thanks for the offer.” He gave her an engaging grin, and she felt as if her heart toppled a bit. Those wonderful eyes! If his father were ever to look at her that way again…
“Okay, Blake, I think it’s way, way past bedtime for you!” Liz announced.
“But I was going to sleep with Daddy—”
“Daddy won’t be up for a while. You can come in with me, okay?”
Blake didn’t refute Liz; he simply ignored her. He came over and sat down next to Tracy. “You and Jamie don’t look too much alike. He’s so tall. And he has yellow hair. Yours is dark.”
&n
bsp; “Well,” Tracy said, “brothers and sisters don’t necessarily look alike. Jamie has our dad’s hair—I think I have my mother’s.”
“But you both have blue eyes,” Blake noted wisely. “I mean, really blue eyes. You have pretty eyes, Tracy.”
“Thank you, Blake, so do you. Just like your dad’s.”
“What?” Liz said suddenly.
Tracy looked up to discover that Liz was staring at her with a curious frown.
“His eyes,” Tracy said, “are just like Leif’s.”
“Oh?” Liz came over to stare down at Blake, which Tracy found rather peculiar. Surely Liz knew what her nephew’s eyes looked like!
Blake was already turning to another subject. “Aunt Liz, I’m not sleepy. Can’t I wait till Dad comes up?”
“No.”
“But—”
“Hey,” Tracy interrupted, “I’ve got an idea.” She glanced at Liz for approval. “I’ve got some bubble stuff in the bathroom. Want to take a warm bath? Maybe that will make you sleepy.”
“Oh, neat! Can I?” Blake asked his aunt.
Liz gave up with a shrug. “If Tracy is willing—”
“Tracy is very willing,” Tracy assured her. She stood on her stocking feet and reached for Blake’s hand. With a little sigh, Liz sank down on the sofa. Tracy led Blake off to her bedroom and they walked through it to the bath. She sat at the edge of the tub and ran the water hard, creating a burst of bubbles for Blake to play in.
At six, it seemed that Blake had no inhibitions. With a little cry of delight, he stripped away his sneakers and jeans, T-shirt, and He-Man underwear. Tracy lowered her head with a nostalgic little smile as she watched him—he was so perfect! Such a little body, a bit on the skinny side. But perfect. Long, long legs, squared shoulders, a sturdy little chest.
He slid into the water laughing as bubbles floated above him.
“Do you have any toys?” he asked Tracy.
“Bath toys, hmm. Let me ask Liz.”
She came out to Liz. Liz guiltily jumped to her feet and provided Tracy not only with a little sack of plastic toys, but with Blake’s toothbrush and a Masters of the Universe set of pajamas.
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