BornontheBayou

by Lynne Connolly

  “I loved it. I’ve never heard anything like it before, Jace.”

  He saw the truth in her eyes. “Thanks. I’m glad.”

  A smile flickered across her lips, then was gone. She took a deep breath. “Yes, I’ll go with you. On one condition.”

  “Anything. But tell me anyway.”

  “I get to see the gig.”

  This wasn’t the place for kissing, but he dared to bend and just touch her lips with his. “Anyway you want. Best seat in the house or from the wings. Whatever you like.” And maybe he could persuade her to stay on a while longer.

  Her inexperience might have persuaded her that this was normal, but in his experience that was far from the truth. He still wanted her with the frantic need of their first time, but more than that, he wanted to talk to her, be with her, have her close where he could make sure she was safe and happy.

  That wasn’t normal at all. Not for him. It worried him and intrigued him at the same time. He wanted to find out which would win out.

  Chapter Eight

  Packing and setting out for the airport passed in a flash for Beverley. Bell’s sent a competent temporary manager, a middle-aged man who took control with coolness and efficiency. He even had an interest in the Plantation Experience. Beverley liked him, but she had no idea Jace had selected him from a list until he let the information drop almost casually in the car on the way to the airport. “James Bell said he was putting a new permanent manager in right away.”

  Jace stared out the car window, his lips thin. “I didn’t like him. I said no.”

  “Oh.”

  She could do nothing. Since she’d said she’d go with him, she hadn’t found time to think straight. Someone met them at the airport and took them through the VIP lounge to the plane.

  They traveled first class, of course, and when she’d said, “What, not a luxury private jet?” Jace had laughed and told her sometimes it was more economical to hire a plane of their own, but not today. She scoffed and got him to admit that a private plane was also good for publicity.

  When she contrasted her journey across the Atlantic, treated more like a lifeless piece of baggage than a person, with this trip, it was like joining another world. The attendants greeted her by name, offered her a drink and a newspaper, and she had room to stretch out in the VIP lounge before they embarked.

  A couple of the people who saw to their needs, male and female, flirted with Jace, who deflected their attempts with smiling humor. She didn’t know whether to be flattered or angry, and when she quietly confided in him, he said, “I feel the same way. I never know if they want Jace the guitarist or Jace the man, and all they ever want is the body.”

  “I want that too,” she murmured and, heedless of anyone who might be watching them, he gave her a kiss for that. Not a peck either, but he stopped, right in the middle of the glass-sided hallway leading to the plane and took her in his arms. As if they hadn’t spent the previous night fucking each other stupid until they’d fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. Almost as if they were avoiding saying anything else.

  They ate, watched a few cartoons on the TV, avoided talking about anything more personal.

  Then they reached Atlanta. Beverley looked forward to seeing something of the city, a place she knew only by reputation and the old stories. The clearest image she had was the burning of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind, but that had been a backlot in Hollywood, not the place itself. She saw something of the city as the plane landed, the high-rises and the freeways, but nothing historical, nothing that indicated its importance in American history.

  They disembarked, but instead of dragging her carry-on down from the overhead bin and hauling it out, someone did it for her. She carried nothing but her purse when Jace grabbed her hand and headed out. He paused just as they left the plane. “Do you have sunglasses?”

  “Yes. Is it that bright out there?”

  “It will be.”

  She followed his advice and fished out the sunglasses that were part of her new luggage. More from Jace. Once they’d cleared security, something that happened much faster than she’d ever known it to happen before, she realized why he’d stopped her.

  Flashes exploded in their faces and voices came from all directions.

  “Looking forward to the gig, Jace?”

  “Enjoying your break?”

  “What’s the next album called?”

  And finally, “Who’s the female?”

  They fucking knew who she was. She’d seen herself in the media. “Daughter of top London chef,” as if she didn’t have an identity of her own.

  Jace answered a couple of questions but kept going, so Beverley kept walking by his side. At one point her hand slipped from his and she thought that she could drop back, but he halted and reached for her again. This time he slung his arm around her shoulders and murmured to her, “We’ll be out of this soon.”

  “You shouldn’t have to face it.”

  “It can get worse. They lie in wait along the VIP route just to see who’s coming in, and they bribe the airline officials to tell them. Sometimes I’ve disembarked on the other side to avoid them, but then you have security and that can take hours.” He grinned and dropped a kiss on her lips. “Welcome to the world of the rock musician.”

  They walked through the crowd of photographers and journalists until they reached the VIP lounge. The attendant let Jace and Beverley inside, then moved to block the mob accompanying them. Jace slid his sunglasses up his forehead and looked around, but not for long.

  A bear engulfed him in a hug Beverley thought he’d never escape from. The bear smelled good, but he had shaggy brown, curly hair and a beard to match. He was simply enormous, but Beverley couldn’t decide if the sweatshirt and jeans contained primarily muscle or fat.

  The slap the bear gave Jace on the back made her wince, but her lover didn’t show any discomfort when he emerged from the hug. He was grinning. “Beverley, meet Chick.”

  Chick? Her disbelief must have shown in her face because Chick gave a hearty laugh. “Sure I am. I got that name years ago on the wrestling circuit. I was Grizzly McAdams years ago, but I’m Chick Fontaine now. One of my opponents kept calling me chicken until I made him swallow it. And a rubber chicken.”

  He swallowed her hand in his for a moment, but his handshake was unexpectedly gentle. “They thought it was funny. Until I made them use it. I don’t answer to Marcellus, the name my mama gave me. It’s like somebody else had that name.”

  Marcellus. “Cool, though.” She flushed, her cheeks heating. “Sorry.”

  He laughed. Guffawed would have been more like it. “No problem. But call me Chick.”

  “Okay. Chick.”

  With a friendly smile, he turned back to Jace, who asked, “Who were the photographers waiting for? A film star arriving? I expected half a dozen photographers maybe, but not twenty.”

  “They were waiting for you.” Chick raised a brow. “You haven’t been watching the music press?”

  “Been a bit busy. I heard the new single on the radio a few days ago and I know it’s doing okay.”

  “The second number one single from Murder City Ravens this year?”

  A significant silence followed. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Nope. And the album’s number one too.”

  Jace reached for her hand. His was shaking. She gripped it tight. “Fuck. When?”

  “Single? This week. Album yesterday.” A wide grin split his features. “So you’d better start thinking about the next one, huh?”

  “Sure.” Jace dragged Beverley close and planted a kiss on her lips. “Number one!”

  She had to share in his joy. Such a great thing to happen to a great guy, and she honestly loved the album. She’d never heard anything else like it, nothing came close, and she found the more she listened to it, the more she discovered to listen to. Nuances, textures, she didn’t know the right words, but it relieved her to know that she could genuinely enthuse about it. “You deserve
it, Jace, you really do.”

  “Thanks.” He kept smiling as if he couldn’t stop. “You mean it, don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.” He understood what she was saying, she could tell. Warmth arced between them, a special place of their own.

  No, she couldn’t think like that. This was a holiday, not real life at all. She’d vicariously live the life of a rock star for a short time, then go home. Wherever that was.

  “I need you around me, to tell me the truth.” Before she could answer, he looped an arm around her waist and headed for the exit. “Let’s get back to the hotel. Where are we?”

  “I’ve booked us at the same chain for the whole tour. Consistency.”

  Beverley shot Chick a disbelieving glance but he didn’t notice. She kept quiet, although she thought he’d made a mistake. Different hotels, even from the same chain, varied hugely in quality and service. She’d have researched each hotel separately.

  But perhaps he didn’t have the time, and the chain he’d chosen was fairly reliable. Mostly four star, so they should offer reasonable comfort. Although now the band had moved up a notch, maybe five star would look better, and it would have the media facilities and security they’d need to supplement their own.

  A limo, naturally, took them to the hotel, but at least it wasn’t a stretch limo with a full-size double bed inside. When she mentioned it to Jace, he laughed. “Maybe we should think about it.”

  “You don’t have that image,” Chick said. “Although I could get it for you if you wanted. I did it on the wrestling circuit.”

  Beverley recalled the glimpses of wrestling that she’d seen since she arrived in the USA and shuddered. Jace chuckled. “When you put it like that, I don’t think so. We need comfort, security and decent food.”

  That gave Chick his opening, Beverley saw as the big man turned to her with a smile. “You’re a chef.”

  “You’ve been talking to Jace. Didn’t he tell you I’m not a chef anymore?”

  “You got sick of it?”

  “I just got sick. I developed an allergy to raw flour.”

  Chick opened his mouth for the inevitable condolences, but Jace interrupted him. She loved him for that. Cookery was something she had to leave behind, and she had to choose to do it, at least in her mind. “That reminds me,” Jace said, “shouldn’t you have one of those injection doohickeys? I don’t recall seeing one.”

  He’d been doing his research. “An Epi pen? I usually carry one in my purse. But I’m fine as long as I don’t touch raw flour or breathe it in. Even then it’s more likely to be an asthma attack than full-scale anaphylactic shock. I’ve only ever had one of those.” She stopped suddenly.

  Chick was staring at her in complete horror. She forced a smile. “It’s okay, really.”

  It wasn’t. They knew it, she knew it. Forced to give up the only thing she knew, she had no choice. She needed to make the best of what was left. And today there seemed a lot more left than a couple of weeks ago. All because of the man sitting next to her.

  They’d reached the hotel. Staff were waiting for them, but they drew up outside the main entrance and a single doorman stepped forward and opened the door.

  Considering what had happened at the airport, Beverley though they were treating Jace casually, but either he was right about the airport and the photographers were waiting for someone else when he happened to fly in or they got lucky here, because they made it across the lobby without incident.

  True, Jace was looking almost respectable, his hair tied back and his beautiful tattoo and nipple rings covered by a faded university T-shirt. Still gorgeous, though. They entered a public lift, and there Jace’s luck temporarily gave, because two girls, mid-teens, Beverley thought, entered with them. After nudging each other, one snapped her gum and said, “Hey, Jace. Are you staying here?”

  Ah shit. Beverley and Chick exchanged a glance and Chick moved closer to them. Jace shrugged. “Yeah. Are you coming to see us?”

  The girl who hadn’t spoken, the one with masses of dark hair instead of a huge bouffant of blonde, said, “Sure, we booked in the hotel for the gig. What floor are you on?”

  Jace grinned. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  They rode up to the top and stayed put until the girls reluctantly pressed the button for the tenth floor and got off after getting Jace’s autograph. Then they rode back up. No key, Beverley noticed.

  Chick didn’t miss a thing. “So what were you going to say?” he demanded when the elevator had gone back down. “You don’t like it, do you? You have experience with handling bands?”

  Ah, right. Chick was top dog here and he wouldn’t take criticism. But she wouldn’t have Jace’s safety put at risk. “My parents own restaurants in England and I’ve worked in the kitchens of some of the best hotels in London and Paris. When we have visitors likely to attract media attention, we employ extra staff and open the back of the restaurant so they can arrive and leave safer.

  “At the country restaurants we have helipads. We would never meet them with one doorman and expect them to find their own way to the restaurant. They need that special treatment. And to let people see them here is asking for trouble.”

  Chick shrugged and indicated a man in a blue uniform sitting in an uncomfortable-looking chair by the elevators. “That’s why he’s there. Okay, Rube?”

  Rube nodded. “Fine, boss.”

  Chick turned back to Beverley. “See? I’ve got it all under control. Now go have fun and don’t worry. I’ve got it covered.”

  That was stupid, facing down the man the band liked. She should have held her tongue. Now he wouldn’t listen to her, even though she knew she was in the right. They got away with it here, but they might not be so lucky at the next place.

  A number-one single was pretty big, but to have a two number one-singles in a row and a top album at the same time in the main charts rocketed a band to another level. A rock band had a certain audience. A fucking big one sometimes, but the average citizen wouldn’t know them, would hardly have heard of them, couldn’t identify them. Their sudden success made the whole situation very different.

  She’d seen it before, in one of the London restaurant’s regulars, a man who’d appeared in starring roles in the West End for years. Then he landed a role on TV that crossed the Atlantic and sent his fame soaring. Before, he could stroll into the place with maybe a driver to take care of his security. After, he’d have a phalanx of guards, and he needed them. Mobs were scary, whether paparazzi or rabid fans.

  She knew better than to carry on with her argument and put everybody against her from the start. If she was right, she’d cope with it. If wrong, then she didn’t have to do anything. But it rankled to be told to go and have fun, as if she were some airhead groupie. Chick had treated her with politeness, sure, but that last offhand remark brushed her off as though she didn’t know what she was talking about. And she did.

  Swallowing her chagrin, she let Jace take her to a room halfway down the hallway, where sounds of chatter grew louder as they approached. It paused as Jace came into view, and casual greetings followed. Jace introduced her. “This is Riku, Zazz and our latest recruit, V. Guys, this is Beverley Christmas.”

  A short silence was followed by, “You’re shitting me. That is the best name I’ve heard in my whole fucking life.”

  “This from a guy with lavender hair?” she shot back. Riku was unmistakably Japanese, but he had a shock of lavender-colored hair sticking up from his head, probably gelled to hell and back, and even here, in the privacy of their suite, he wore elaborate makeup. She loved the look, but wondered how long it took him to achieve it.

  Sitting on the same wide sofa, Zazz had gone for shocking pink, but his hair was cropped brutally short and his eyes weren’t black like Riku’s, they were brown. V, in contrast, seemed almost normal. Beautiful, long, blonde hair flowed past her waist, and she wore jeans and a T-shirt. She gave Beverley a friendly smile and a nod.
Together, this group of people projected a confidence she’d rarely come across before.

  She went with the flow, speaking across Riku’s raucous laughter. “Number one, eh? Congratulations.”

  “British too,” Zazz said, in a British accent slightly marked by Northern flatness, making her long for a place where most people talked like that—the pub she used to go to or the chatter in the staff room at her parents’ flagship restaurant.

  Zazz seemed to feel the same way. He gave her a conspiratorial grin. “Great to meet somebody who knows what decent tea is. Beverley, I have a kettle as a rider. Everywhere I go there’s a kettle and teabags. British teabags, so you can make a pot, not just a cup. Feel free to help yourself to both, if tea is your thing.”

  She stared at him, taken aback for a moment. By her side, Jace chuckled. “I think she expected an orgy of drugs and drink. She’s probably disappointed.”

  But she wasn’t. In ten minutes they’d dealt her in to the friendly poker game they were playing. In another ten, she’d forgotten their celebrity and chatted with them without restraint, answering their questions honestly and talking with Zazz about the shocking state of the Elephant and Castle, and how ugly she though the London Eye was.

  By sitting around like this, they were gathering themselves for the upcoming concert. Now she’d settled, she could sense other emotions in the air. Excitement, nervousness, especially from V who, before she’d joined the band had previously played only in small Chicago clubs.

  Beverley had prepared herself not to like V, jealousy at the gorgeous blonde’s looks firing her up, but she couldn’t dislike the saxophonist. She was honest enough to admit, if only to herself, that the reason for her initial dislike was her own insecurity, nothing to do with V. V, she learned, was missing her lover, the band’s producer Matt, who was working on another project but planned to fly in for the concert. Jace greeted her with restraint until they got to talking about the track she was working on, and then both forgot everything else.