“I’m nervous about this,” Armando said to Jocelyn as they walked across the restaurant.
“Why?” Jocelyn asked.
“I am afraid that once you have seen my friend Jagger without his shirt…you might not still think I am for you,” he teased. “He was always much more muscled than me.”
Jocelyn laughed and kissed Armando on the cheek. “You silly boy,” she said. “Didn’t you know? I’ve always only loved you for your smile…not your muscles.”
Armando laughed, and Tabby couldn’t help but giggle.
She paused a moment to watch Jagger on the stage. His alluring, gravelly voice was finishing up “Let Me Take You to the River,” a song Tabby knew well, for it was on one of the CDs she’d purchased from the restaurant gift shop the first night he’d sang the blues about her. Jagger had written “Let Me Take You to the River,” just as he had so many others of Tabby’s favorites he performed. He was as gifted a songwriter as he was a performer.
Her heart began to beat madly as she listened to him—as she watched him. He was so handsome—of course he was. But he was wonderful in every other way too. He made her laugh, made her feel safe and protected, made her feel unique and valued.
The song ended, and Jagger mumbled, “Thank you,” into the mike.
He looked up then, seeing Tabby.
“I’ll be right there, baby,” he said into the mike, nodding to her from across the room. “Just gotta finish singing the blues.”
The crowd cheered as the band instantly broke into a familiar blues riff.
“That woman, she’s got me,” Jagger sang, pointing to Tabby, “in the palm of her hand.” Most people in the crowd turned and looked in the direction he was pointing, smiling—and Tabby felt herself blush. “’Cause the kisses she gives…are my fav-o-rite brand! I got the woman-has-got-me…right-where-she-wants-me blues.”
As the crowd cheered and Jagger continued with another improvised verse, Tabby hurried out of Sweet Genevieve’s.
“I hear Jagger’s singing the blues again,” Emmy teased.
Tabby rolled her eyes. She felt better. Chloe hadn’t meant to upset her, after all. As usual, her sister was just thinking out loud. Jagger Brodie really cared for her—to some degree at least. She was certain he did. She thought of what his grandmother had whispered into her ear—that he loved her—and she smiled. Was it true? Did Jagger love her—really, really love her? His grandma seemed to think so—and that was most definitely something!
❦
“What’s that, baby?” Jagger’s Maw Maw asked, sitting down across the table from him. “I thought you were runnin’ on over to Armando’s place.”
Jagger ran a hand through his hair.
“The contract from Uncle Leon,” he answered. “I’m gonna let him record a couple of my songs.”
“You oughta make a pretty penny on that,” his Maw Maw said.
Jagger sighed. “Yep…an even prettier penny on the one I’m letting this guy record.”
He handed another contract to his Maw Maw.
He smiled as he watched her eyes widen. “I’ve heard of this guy!” she exclaimed.
“Everyone has heard of him, Maw Maw,” Jagger chuckled.
“But, baby…if you let a big star like this record and perform one of your songs…you’ll be famous,” she said, frowning.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “No one ever pays attention to who writes the song…especially if the artist who records it isn’t the one who wrote it.”
“You mean like the fact that sweet ol’ Neil Diamond wrote…oh what was it…oh, yes, ‘I’m a Believer’…but it was some other band that is known for it?” she asked.
Jagger grinned. “Oh, Maw Maw, you’re really dating yourself by knowing that,” he chuckled. “But yeah…and it was the Monkees that took the fame for that one…just so you know next time you’re telling the story.”
“Oh, that’s right…the Monkees!” Maw Maw exclaimed. “So, you’re thinking this will just make a little pocket money for you…without all the strings attached that come with performin’ it yourself?”
“Yeah,” Jagger confirmed.
“Are ya gonna tell your little kitten?”
Jagger’s smile broadened. He liked the way his Maw Maw referred to Tabby as his kitten—his Tabby kitten. It was cute and purely his Maw Maw’s personality.
“Do you think she’ll think I’m a loser if I don’t reach for someone else’s dream and sign with an agent, Maw Maw?” he asked. “Most people would think I’m crazy for not wanting the whole rock-star gig. Do you think Tabby will be disappointed when she finds out I’ve had an offer and I want to turn it down?”
Maw Maw smiled and put a warm, loving palm to Jagger’s cheek.
“Baby, you’ve seen what’s happened to your Uncle Leon…to his family…and all for the want of fame and money,” she said softly. “I can’t see why anybody would want that…no matter what.” Her smile broadened, “And I think your Tabby kitten thinks the same way. It ain’t worth what you give up, baby boy—your privacy, your relationships…your health and serenity. Don’t let the world make you think you’re wrong for wanting to live what truly is the good life.”
Jagger nodded. “Oh, I know,” he said. “It’s not the world I’m worried about…just Tabby.”
“Well, don’t,” Maw Maw said. “She’s a good girl…and smart too. She knows what’s important and what’s not.” She smiled. “And I can see what she thinks is most important…and that’s you, my baby.”
“Sometimes it just all seems so…so unreal,” he said, frowning as he tossed the contracts onto the table.
“What does, baby?”
“The whole thing,” he began to explain. “I mean, just over a month ago, I was stealing glances at her out of the corner of my eye, you know? Sitting in Armando’s restaurant scribbling songs about her.” He looked up to his grandmother and smiled. “And now…now I’m getting home later and later every night…because every night it gets harder and harder to leave her.”
“Then you’re not neckin’ enough, honey,” Maw Maw chuckled.
Jagger laughed, shaking his head with amusement. “Oh, believe me…we’re necking enough, as you so eloquently put it, Maw Maw.” He paused, afraid to verbalize his thoughts—even to his Maw Maw. It would’ve been easier to tell his Paw Paw, and Jagger missed him all the more in that moment. “I just…I just think that maybe…I keep wanting to…you know…ask her.”
“Well, then ask her, darlin’!” Maw Maw exclaimed. “What in the world are ya waitin’ for?”
“It’s been just over a month, Maw Maw,” he reminded her. “A month. She’d think I was crazy.”
“Maybe she will,” Maw Maw said. She smiled and added, “And maybe she won’t.”
Jagger watched as an expression of melancholy washed over her then. He could always tell when she was thinking about his Paw Paw, and his heart pinched with compassion and the residual pain of his own loss.
“I knew your Paw Paw an entire week before we decided to get married,” she whispered. She looked at him, her eyes misted with remembered love and happiness. “One whole week,” she reiterated. “My mother said I couldn’t possibly love Louis Chiasson, not after one week. My sister, now she was crazy about it…out of her head! ‘Why he ain’t got nothin’ to his name but huntin’ down that ol’ gator that ate Mr. Raymond,’ she told me. ‘How can you love him?’” Jagger’s Maw Maw paused. She reached across the table and took one of Jagger’s hands in her own. “She told me, ‘Y’all need a better reason to fall in love than just knowin’ each other a week.’ That’s what she told me.”
Jagger smiled. “But you didn’t listen.”
Maw Maw emphatically shook her head. “No, I did not. Just like you won’t listen to all those folks tellin’ you how and what you need to do with your music talent. No, I didn’t listen to my sister. I married your Paw Paw two weeks after we met, and I loved him for over fifty years. And I was happy for over fifty years. I w
as never truly unhappy again…until the day he passed. And that’s what life is about, darlin’…lovin’ someone like that. Only you can know if that’s what Tabby is to you. It doesn’t matter what anybody else says or thinks.” She released his hand, leaning back in her chair and studying him with eyes of pure understanding. “Even me,” she added, smiling.
Jagger nodded and smiled. His Maw Maw was right. He’d seen too many people wait—wait and wait for some miraculous sign confirming that the person they loved was the one they should commit to.
“The sister that was telling you not to marry Paw Paw,” Jagger asked as memory and realization struck him. “Isn’t she the one…isn’t it Great Aunt Bernadette, the one who never married?”
Maw Maw nodded. “Yes. She never did accept a man,” she told him. “Every time a man would ask for her hand—and there were several—she always said she needed a better reason…a better reason to fall in love.”
“She’s still in New Orleans?” he asked.
Maw Maw nodded. “Yes, she is. In a home for the elderly.”
“That’s pretty sad,” Jagger mumbled.
“Tell me why you love this girl, honey.”
Jagger smiled. “She’s funny,” he began. “And beautiful. She’s kind. And she has an affinity for the things that are important—family, the past…people. She makes me laugh. Furthermore, I can hardly keep my hands off her.”
Maw Maw chuckled. She sighed and then asked, “And what do you see when you look in her eyes, darlin’?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you see greed, conceit…a shallow nature?”
Jagger grinned as understanding rinsed over him. “I see the past, the present…and I see the future.”
“You see babies,” Maw Maw offered with a smile.
“I see all the things I ever wanted,” he chuckled. “Including babies.”
“Then that’s it,” Maw Maw said, slapping the table. “You let your Uncle Leon and this Lang fellow record your songs…and you get busy making me my great-grandbabies!”
Jagger chuckled, pushed his chair back from the table, and stood up.
“Well, all right then, Maw Maw,” he said. He leaned across the table, kissing his grandmother on the cheek. “I guess I better get over to the Acapulco and start the ball rolling, huh?”
Maw Maw laughed and kissed his cheek. Wagging a finger at him, however, she warned, “You just make sure that ball is rollin’ in the right order of things, baby.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jagger said, winking at her.
He was out the door then, as fast as he could get out. His Maw Maw was right—she was always right. Jagger shook his head, wondering why younger generations always waited so long to listen to the wisdom of those that had trod the water before them. It didn’t matter what anybody else thought—only what he and Tabby thought. Of course, doubt and fear leapt to his throat as soon as he began planning a way to ask her—to ask her to come with him to his gig next weekend. What if she said no? But he wouldn’t worry about her answer now. He’d just get to the Acapulco, get to Tabby, and worry about where the chips fell later.
❦
“Where have you been?” Armando asked as Jagger secured the drawstring of his swim trunks at his waist.
“I had to finish up some things with Maw Maw,” Jagger mumbled.
“Well, the natives are restless out there,” Anthony said.
Jagger smiled. “Well, then…let’s give them a show they’ll never forget!”
Armando pumped fists with Jagger. Slapping Professor Anthony Lowery on the back, he said, “Are you ready, Professor?”
“I think I am,” Anthony said.
“Then let’s go have some fun,” Armando chuckled. “Do you think I built this place just for the customers?”
Jagger smiled and followed Armando as he climbed the ladder to the high-dive cliff.
“You go first, Anthony,” Armando called down as Anthony began ascending the ladder to the lower cliff.
“Fabulous,” Anthony mumbled.
“He’ll be fine,” Armando told Jagger as they stepped onto the upper cliff. “Any man that can get a smile out of that Naomi…he can do anything!”
“Absolutely,” Jagger chuckled.
As Anthony stepped out onto the lower cliff, Jocelyn cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Finally!”
Tabby smiled, although she thought Naomi’s professor looked a little anxious.
“Who knew a college professor would be so ripped underneath all that education?” Emmy whispered to Tabby.
“Yeah,” Chloe added. “No wonder Naomi’s all wowed out over him.”
Tabby smiled, amused by the conversation. However, her attention was entirely rapt on something else—the chiseled physique of the man standing next to Armando on the highest cliff.
“Boom chicka wow wow!” Emmy whispered in Tabby’s ear. “Behold…the Derrière inator…in swim trunks.”
“He looks good!” Chloe whispered.
“You’re first, Anthony,” Armando called down to the professor.
Tabby glanced to Professor Lowery as he prepared to dive. She looked to Naomi, smiling as she saw the pride and delight—the love—blatant on her face.
The professor dived and broke the water’s surface with a perfect line, and everyone clapped.
“That’s the way, baby!” Naomi called.
Jocelyn and Tabby exchanged amused glances. It was so strange to see Naomi acting like the rest of them normally did. It was wonderful!
Anthony swam the short distance across the jungle pool to Naomi. Lifting himself out of the water, he kissed Naomi, brushed the water from his eyes, looked up, and said, “That was fun! And maybe I’m not as rusty as I thought.”
He kissed Naomi again, jumped back into the pool, and swam across to climb out and disappear into the fake rocks of the cliff.
Armando dived next, beginning with an inward dive, performing two pike somersaults, and breaking the water with a small splash.
The girls all squealed and applauded, for it was a beautiful dive.
“Okay, man,” Armando called up to Jagger once he’d swam to the edge of the pool.
Tabby bit her lip, delighted as she watched Jagger easily lift himself into an armstand position.
“Ooo!” Armando chuckled. “Jagger…he isn’t about to let me win easy.”
Tabby held her breath, suddenly frightened by the incredible height from which Jagger was diving. Yet once he’d left the platform, performed two backward somersaults, and appeared above the water again, she exhaled. He was okay, and it had been a beautiful dive! Not as perfectly executed as Armando’s had been, but glorious all the same.
Swimming over to Armando, Jagger spit water out of his mouth and shook his wet hair from his face.
As Armando high-fived him, Jagger said, “Man, I’m totally out of practice!”
“It was awesome, Jagger!” Tabby said.
Jagger smiled at her. Lifting himself out of the pool, Tabby giggled as he swaggered toward her, tugging at the waist of his swim trunks to keep them at his hips.
“How awesome?” he mumbled as he—without hesitation—pulled her against his wet body and swim trunks.
“Way awesome,” she breathed. Her heart hammered like a wild beast’s as he kissed her, his mouth warm and moist, the perfect complement to his cool, moist body.
“You’re getting her all wet, Jagger,” Jocelyn giggled.
“Who cares,” Chloe sighed.
“Way awesome?” he whispered, his mouth hovering a breath from her own.
“Way,” Tabby managed.
“Awesome enough for you to agree to go with me to my gig next weekend?” he asked, kissing her again.
“Of course,” she answered.
“Even if you have to fly to New Orleans to do it?” he asked.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tabby was still stunned. Even now, sitting there right next to Jagger on the plane, she was stunned—stunned that
he’d ask her to go to New Orleans with him, stunned that she’d said she would.
She thought back to the night almost a week before when he’d asked her. They’d all started out the night eating frog legs at Sweet Genevieve’s—it seemed innocent enough. However, by six o’clock the next morning, Naomi and Professor Lowery had eloped to Vegas, and Tabby had agreed to go to New Orleans with Jagger.
Chloe thought Tabby had lost her mind when Tabby told her. Emmy, on the other hand, had nearly started doing cartwheels. Jocelyn had joined the cheering section too, but it was Chloe’s concern that still echoed through Tabby’s mind.
“I don’t know, Tabs,” Chloe had said. “It’s just that…it’s like I went out of town for a month, and everything happened! Jocelyn’s all googy-eyed over her cliff-diver guy, Luke will be home in, like, only two more months, and you’ve decided you’re in love enough with Jagger—that you trust him enough to just fly off to New Orleans!” Chloe shook her head. “Not to mention the fact that the most level-headed chick I know just eloped with some college professor. How freaky is all that, Tabs?”
Tabby had shrugged. “Anything can happen, Chloe…and it does seem like stuff often happens in waves.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to say. Jagger has a thing he’s playing at in New Orleans—which is where he’s from—and his cousin owns this bed and breakfast that he says is just beautiful!” She smiled as she thought about it. “We’re just going to do the whole tourist thing when he’s not playing…and, you know, just be together.”
A Better Reason to Fall in Love Page 20