The only flaw in his happiness was the dead end he’d reach whenever he broached the subject that Lil come with him at the end of the month. She avoided the topic or refused to take him seriously. Just yesterday, he’d listened to her prattle about reopening Merry-Go-Read. Shit. He’d given her that deed as a gesture. He didn’t want her to do anything that would provide yet another reason why she wouldn’t leave. He supposed he shouldn’t worry. She lacked the capitol to do renovations or buy inventory, plus her enthusiasm had subsided when he’d reacted with only a raised eyebrow.
On the night of his birthday, after a lusty bout of lovemaking, Jon heaved a sigh of contentment and rolled onto his side, his limbs still tangled with hers. Earlier that evening, the O’Malleys had celebrated. At the party in Zinnia’s kitchen, Daisy and Mel went several rounds over a boy-band poster they’d bought together with their Christmas money and now couldn’t decide who’s room it belonged in first. Stan got shit-faced and puked up Alcea’s chocolate raspberry cake all over the back steps before he headed down the road to the Rooster Bar and Grill. Baby Lily screeched through the viewing of the home video of the kids Lil had made for him, and Alcea topped the evening when she broke the news she’s decided to leave Stan. Kathleen had looked on with a white, scared face. Then they’d come home, and Michael had thrown a tantrum over bed time.
He couldn’t remember a better birthday in his life.
He was beginning to believe the warm light in Lil’s eyes could heal his flaws. Maybe he did deserve her love. If she did love him. Suddenly he felt cold.
He tugged at the covers. “You need to get a bigger bed,” he grumbled.
“A bigger one wouldn’t fit,” she murmured, tucking against his side, her head on the pillow next to him. He could swim in her eyes.
“It’d fit in my house in Tennessee,” he said, and felt her go still.
“We’ve been through all this. The children are doing so well here. It just wouldn’t be right to take them out of school and away from their friends.”
He sighed and pulled her close, his nose brushing hers. “And you, Lil. If it weren’t for the kids, would you go?” The idea of months without her tore him apart. When he left in a few weeks, he’d once again be consumed with commitments from Los Angeles to Nashville. While they’d discussed at least once-a-month weekend trips to visit each other, anything less than all the time wouldn’t be enough, and he knew it.
She didn’t answer. Just stared at him with those big, beautiful eyes.
“Ah, hell.” He flopped onto his back and laced his hands behind his head. “I wish I didn’t have to leave.”
“Can’t you put it off?”
“I’m doing the Super Bowl Halftime Show at the end of January, then everybody’s lined up to start video production—camera crew, gaffers, makeup, extras. Preproduction is done. I’ve got to watch over the editing and dubbing, and the thing’s gotta be released before we get the tour CD into stores. Videos are like previews for the main event. Then there’s those Ford commercials, more recording…” He turned his head toward her. “I’m booked until next fall. Go with me.”
Expression sad, she shook her head.
He’d known that would be her answer. Sometimes he saw her waver, but he couldn’t shake her arguments about small-town girls and big-city boys. That and the children were the biggest reasons she’d admit to. The unspoken reason, the one he suspected was the real reason, terrified him.
Framed on the bedside table, Robert ‘Robbie’ Ryan grinned at him.
Irritated at her stubbornness and the guy’s goofy smile, his pleasure in the day drained away. “Could you take that down?”
“Take what down?”
“That picture. Shove it in a drawer or something. There’s something rather twisted about having your former husband staring at me while I’m making love to you.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, I hadn’t thought…” She pushed herself to a sitting position and reached for the picture. One finger traced the celluloid features and Jon wished he knew what she was thinking. “It’s sad…”
“Of course it’s sad. He was a young guy.” He just couldn’t dredge up more sympathy. Here she sat, buck naked with him and all teary eyed over that guy’s picture.
“I didn’t mean that—or just that. It’s only that when we were all young, we thought we’d be together forever. Things seemed so simple, so straightforward. And then Robbie died, and Henry, and now Stan and Alcea are separating.”
“You told me this isn’t the first time she’s left or he’s left. So what’s the big deal?”
Lil frowned. “It isn’t, but maybe she means it this time.”
“Yeah, well… he’s no big prize, and some people look at change as an opportunity, not a tragedy.”
She slid the photograph into a drawer. “Is something the matter?”
“Yeah, something’s the matter. I’ll leave in less than a week, and you’re staying here, stuck in your memories and refusing to think you could be happy anywhere else.”
Blue fire flamed in her eyes. “I’m not stuck in my memories. If I were, you wouldn’t be here. I’m just realistic. I’d be miserable living in Nashville or Los Angeles or any other city—and I’d make you miserable, too, if you were around. Cordelia may not be much, but it’s my home and where my family is. It’s what I know. It’s where I’m happy. And it’s where your children are happy, too. What would we do with ourselves in some strange place when you’re away? And, you know yourself, you’d be away a lot.”
His anger deflated and left a hard knot of frustration. Even though she argued like she was trying to convince herself, she was right. He couldn’t picture her in LA, or even Nashville, any more than he could picture her on the moon. Maybe if he stayed with her most of the time.… But, he wouldn’t. He’d tour, record, produce, practice—work. His own needs would end up on top, just like always.
“I’m sorry.” He pulled her down and cuddled her. “I’m just grumpy because I don’t want to leave.”
“Then don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t leave. Retire. What more could you possibly want? You have more money than Midas already, two beautiful children and…”
And her. She didn’t say the words, but they fell between them anyway.
“I can’t just stay here,” he said. “People depend on me. Van Castle is its own industry, a company. If I folded up camp, lots of people lose their jobs.”
“There are other jobs.”
How could he explain it to her? For someone raised like him, enough was never enough. She took her loving family for granted. She couldn’t understand there was no hurt so deep as knowing your only parent had despised you. That it left a hole that had to be filled by something more concrete than people. As a kid, his dreams had replaced the family he’d never had. They’d dulled the edges of reality and given him a reason to live.
He couldn’t give it up. He wanted it all—and Lil. But she wasn’t ready.
Maybe she’d never be ready.
He hauled her back into his arms, feeling an urgent need to bury himself in her softness. But she was stiff, unyielding. “What is it?”
She rolled over so her back faced him. “I just don’t feel like it. I’m just not…ready.”
He would have laughed at the way she’d mirrored his thoughts, but he didn’t find this situation remotely funny. He studied her back, the pale sweep of skin that was satin under his touch. “Not ready for lovemaking? Or not ready for me? For us?”
“I don’t know.”
With an effort, he made his tone light. “Don’t know? Well, let me see if I can help you make up your mind.” Tamping down his frustration, he ran a hand up her back and into the curls at the back of her head. “Ah, Lil. Maybe we don’t know what to do with what we have, but what we have isn’t wrong. Your Robbie wouldn’t want you to live like a nun for the rest of your life, would he?”
In answer, she dipped her head and scrunched closer to her pillow, break
ing contact with his hand. “There’s no future in—”
He pulled his hand back. “There’s no future only if you decide there’s no future.”
“I need more time.”
“Dammit, Lil.” He stared at her back, at her stubborn straight spine. “It’s been over three goddamned years. And for the last half year, I’ve been a part of your life. I’m alive and breathing—and here. Right here! Not dead and buried under six feet of dirt.”
She twisted to look at him, eyes growing huge. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Why not? Afraid Robert Ryan would spin in his grave at the thought you might want life to go on?” She looked at him in horror. He scrubbed at his face. “Ah, Lil. I’m sorry.”
He leaned over and pinned her torso under his weight. “I care about you. Let me show you.”
He slid a hand down her face, along the length of her neck and across her shoulder until his hand cupped a breast. Tenderly, he rubbed his thumb over her nipple. He felt it respond, but Lil’s expression didn’t change. If anything, she sank deeper into the bed.
He shoved off her, sat up. “Fine. Be that way.”
She pushed herself up on her elbows, clutching the bedspread. “You say those horrible things, and then you expect me to— Robbie would never have—”
As Robert Ryan’s name dropped from her lips, his control snapped. He shoved back the sheets, swung his legs out. “Right. The saintly Robert Ryan would never try to drive another man out of his wife’s head by screwing her, now would he? I’m sure he always treated you with the tenderness of an angel.”
“That’s enough!” Lil heaved sideways out of bed, pulling the bedspread around her.
He bolted to his feet and grabbed his clothes off the floor, knowing his words had hurt, but not caring. She’d never be his. Her precious, first husband and her life here would always come between them. He yanked on his pants, then tossed a sweatshirt over his head.
He gave a short laugh and ignored the tears staining her cheeks. “An angel. That’s kind of funny when you think about it, since that’s what he is now. Well, Lil, let’s see how warm those memories keep you in bed.”
He grabbed his wallet and the keys to the Mercedes. Without another word, he was out the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AN HOUR LATER, Jon sat on a hard stool in the Rooster Bar and Grill and blew across the top of a beer mug. “Ah, hell,” he mumbled.
Foam splattered the bar, which stretched along one end of the rustic room with its cheap wallboard paneling and painted, concrete floors. He hadn’t drunk more than two beers at one sitting since the early days in Nashville, and he could feel the effects of his third.
A Budweiser sign dangled over his head, red neon leaking through a blue haze of smoke. Harsh laughter and conversation buzzed at the tables behind him under the strains of some moaning country ditty on the juke box. Stupid song.
He drained his glass in two swallows, swiped his mouth and pushed the glass with an unsteady finger toward the empties beside him, eying that guy who’d insulted him way back when. Some friend of Lil’s. Sean? Shane? Something like that. She’d cried on his shoulder at their wedding.
Some wedding. Some marriage.
The guy was on the phone, engrossed in a low conversation and knifing looks at Jon. The man’s expression irritated him. For whatever reason, Sean-Shane was still nursing his hostility. Jon turned a shoulder and started to slide off his stool. He’d better figure out where he was sleeping. It sure wasn’t going to be in Lil’s bed, not after the way he’d talked to her.
“Here, buddy. On the house.”
He turned. Sean-Shane slid another cold one across the bar. Jon frowned.
“Jonathan Van Castle, right?” The voice was affable, the eyes hard.
Jon sighed. Maybe there was no love lost, but aparrently this fellow was another schmoe who couldn’t resist rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. Since it was good business to be polite to his public, Jon eased a hip back on the stool, resigned to playing the gracious star. “I’ve met you, haven’t I?”
“Seamus Ryan.” Seamus didn’t hold out his hand, and he eyed Jon like he’d hit a wrong note. “Met at your wedding. Where’s Lil?”
Jon stiffened, not caring for the guy’s tone. Sometimes men were just downright aggressive, as though his success threatened them. “What’s it to you?”
His eyes an eerie green and steady, Seamus leaned over the bar until his face was only inches away. “Lil and I go way back, buddy. If you’re in here getting sloshed, that means she’s out there somewhere, hurting.”
Buddy? Who’d this asshole think he was, calling Jonathan Van Castle ‘buddy’? If the guy would step outside a minute, he’d show him his buddy. He sighed. Except the last thing he needed was a fist fight to top off the evening.
He took a swig from the mug and forced himself to relax. Seamus’s eyes gleamed with sharp amusement, as though he’d guessed Jon’s thoughts. Didn’t this guy ever blink?
“She’s home.” Probably crying her eyes out. He shoveled a hand through his hair. “And better off without me,” he mumbled under his breath before he drained his mug.
Seamus picked up his empty and refilled it, then thunked it back down.“Maybe you’ve got more sense than I give you credit for.”
That last one was hitting him hard. He felt it trying to tie up his tongue. “Wha’s— What’s that supposed to mean?” He took another swallow and grimaced. He’d regret this in the morning, but he didn’t want to look like a pussy.
Seamus settled his elbows on the bar, a coffee cup in his hands. “Like you said, Lil’s better off without you. The lady’s never been east of the Mississippi or west of the Rockies, and not because she couldn’t have gone, but because she didn’t want to. She’s just not a bright-lights-big-city kind of gal. Never was. Never will be. Better you figure that out now rather than later. Before Lil’s hurt anymore than she already is.”
Jon carefully set the mug down and narrowed his eyes at Seamus. “Jes’— Just how close are you and Lil?”
“Close enough. She was married to my brother.”
“Ah…the re-mark-able Robert Ryan.”
“He was worth three of you.”
“Tha’s what I been told.”
To his relief, Seamus relaxed. If the big guy decided to punch his lights out now, the only defense he figured he could muster up would be to heave on the guy’s shiny boots. “Uh— Don’t want anymore, thanks.” He pushed the mug toward Seamus. Pussy, he was.
But Seamus didn’t appear to hear. He refilled the mug and shoved it back. With a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, he launched a series of friendly questions about touring, his music, the band, all neutral subjects. Jon sipped at his beer and answered, growing more befuddled by the moment, wondering how he could get away from here. Every time he’d drained an inch from his mug, Seamus topped it off, encouraging him to stay. After almost an hour, he decided he’d doled out as much courtesy as he could stand. And then wondered if he could stand. Staggering to his feet, he tugged at the car keys in his pocket. They snagged on a seam. When he yanked them free, he almost hit himself in the nose.
“Where you think you’re goin,’ sweetie?”
Soft arms twined around him from behind, and he lurched against a female. Whoa. Nice tits. He turned and almost stumbled over his ex-wife. “What’re you doing here?”
Dressed in some kind of clingy, pastel thing over tight jeans that left little to the imagination, Belinda didn’t answer. She just winked at Seamus. Seamus smiled back, then busied himself with another customer.
She snatched the keys out of his hand. “You’re too far gone to drive, sweetie.” She wadded the jacket she carried and set it on the bar along with her purse, then wiggled onto a stool. “You just set your cute, little fanny back down, and we’ll share a cold one.”
“Not-not on your life. Besides, aren’t you s’posed to avoid thish—this—stuff?”
“Who’s gonna tell? I�
��ll only have one, I promise.” He hesitated, and she pouted. “C’mon, just for old time’s sake. I am the mother of your children, you know. You can at least have a beer with me.”
He knew that look. In another moment, she’d launch a tantrum. He shrugged and hooked a leg back over the stool. “All right, already.”
A small satisfied smile curved her lips, and she signaled Seamus. He topped off Jon’s mug and filled one for Belinda, then turned away.
She took a tiny sip. “Now isn’t this nice? Just a couple old friends sharing—oops.”
Reaching for her purse, she’d jogged her jacket, and it slipped to the floor between them. Head swimming, he bent to retrieve it. When he surfaced, she was slipping a silver vial of perfume back in her purse and tugging out the ridiculous cigarette holder and a butt. She must figure no reporters had followed him here. As she lit it and puffed a few smoke rings into the dusky air, he patted his pockets for a lollipop, but no dice.
“Let’s have a toast.” She raised her mug.
After a moment’s hesitation, he raised his, too, slopping a little onto the bar.
“To love!” she said, darting an amused smile at him. She took a deep swallow.
An hour later, Belinda still chattered at him, her words an incomprehensible babble, while the Budweiser sign faded in and out of his vision like red fog. He had to go. To Lil. He had lots to explain and needed to make up and give her candy and flowers and all that stuff because he’d done… something. But when he moved to rise, his boot heel tangled with the barstool rail.
Belinda grasped his arm. “Whoa! Think I’ll do the driving.” She tossed the Mercedes keys to Seamus. “Be a doll and hold onto these, would you?” They shared another wink.
Why’d they keep winking at each other? Like a couple owls. He giggled. Belinda giggled, too, and pulled him toward the door, tossing a pretty smile over her shoulder. He smiled back, feeling good, feeling goofy.
When they stepped outside, the cold hit him like a fist, popping his eyes open, although the muddle in his brain didn’t clear. He allowed Belinda to shove him inside her Camaro and fumbled with the seat belt. He tried to loop it in a knot, but Belinda grabbed it and punched the buckle into the slot.
SING ME HOME (Love Finds A Home - Book One) Page 26