The Diva Diaries

by Karen Anders

  Jenna squeezed her eyes closed, wishing she had the courage to let Sam take a risk on her.

  14

  JENNA RUBBED at the sore spot just below her hairline. The rest of the tour had been long and arduous. It was now early October and her last scheduled concert was at the end of the month. There was a definite chill in the air. She was far removed from the balmy two weeks in April she’d spent at Sam’s ranch.

  She gazed out the window of her agent’s apartment and longed for grassy meadows and grazing longhorns, gamboling foals and their ever-patient mothers.

  Longed for the feel of Sam’s hands on her, making her drown in sensation and need. She closed her eyes.

  She had felt isolated when she’d first stepped foot on the ranch. Isolated because of its alienness. At first the intense quiet had unnerved her.

  But she soon realized that it didn’t matter where she was. She would always feel lonely. The kind of loneliness that felt the same whether you were sitting silently in a wide-open meadow, or a two-bedroom apartment in the middle of the busiest city on earth.

  Jenna was lonely. Desperately and definitely, isolated at first by her upbringing and then by her sudden, surprising fame.

  “You must be tired,” Sarah said as she handed Jenna a cup of coffee.

  “That’s an understatement.” Jenna sipped the coffee, enjoying the warm liquid as it traveled down her throat.

  “You miss him.”

  “You know me too well, Sarah. It’s scary.”

  “Why don’t you call him?”

  “I’m too busy touring. My music comes first.”

  “Jenna, don’t make any rash decisions. Maybe you could work it out with him.”

  “I’m not being rash. I can’t make a commitment to Sam. I can’t hurt him like my mother hurt my father.”

  “Are you sure? You’re not your mother.”

  “I’m afraid to try. I couldn’t bear it if I failed him.” When Jenna had attended Julliard, no one had come forward to get to know her. They’d stared at her and talked at her, but never to her. Then the touring began and Jenna had been far from New York. She’d traveled from one city to another in hopes of finding some kind of place she could feel comfortable.

  Besides Gran, being at the ranch with Sam was the closest she’d ever felt to that. No one cared who she was or what the glittering world of music thought about her. The people of Savannah had embraced her as easily as they embraced anyone. Maria had offered coffee and conversation, Lurleen warmth and friendship, and Sam…Sam offered something even a famous violinist couldn’t put to music. A glittering edginess, a keen physical responsiveness, a gnawing deep inside where the pain of her mother’s abandonment sat, memories of her father’s loneliness and heartache lived, and all the dreams Jenna still dreamed.

  “Besides, I’ve burned my bridges there. I told him my music was more important. I deceived him and seduced him.” Sam Winchester pulled at her in a way no one and nothing had in her life. He had what her gran would call “tough character.” Sam shadowed her dreams and haunted her days with the feel of his callused hand against her cheek, the steel of his eyes and the depth of his heart.

  And yet, hidden where no one who knew Sam thought to look lay ghosts that echoed Jenna’s. Ghosts of not having anyone close, of frustration and need. Behind that cowboy charm, behind the enigmatic sex symbol, hidden deep inside him was a hunger that scared her right down to her toes, because it was a hunger that made hers pale in comparison.

  “I think you should plan a trip back to Savannah and give it a try.”

  Jenna shook her head sadly. “No, Sarah. What I have now is all that I’ll ever have. I made my choice and it’s music.”

  After leaving Sarah’s office, Jenna felt compelled to stop at her gran’s gravesite. She hadn’t been there since her gran’s funeral. The moon was yellow and full, the stars paying homage to its golden glow.

  She still carried around the diary that her gran had given her. “I read the diary like you asked, but the magic you found with Gramps won’t work for me, Gran.”

  She heard her gran’s voice in her head as if she was standing beside her now playing the devil’s advocate.

  Yes, it will. Reach for it.

  Jenna closed her eyes and memories flooded back to her about how beautifully her gran and gramps had compromised. They had a wonderful balance because each one gave to the other.

  You can have the same balance. Reach for it.

  The thought burst on her like a supernova over her head. Her gran was right. Jenna suddenly knew that she did have the capacity to do that. It was her mother who didn’t. Gran had been the perfect role model. She had taught Jenna about love.

  Do you love him, Jenna?

  “Yes,” she whispered on the cold night air. “I do love him with all my heart.”

  What has that taught you?

  “Sam’s love for me taught me that there is more to life than my music. Happy?” she said to the gravestone. “I’ve always had my music to bolster me and I’m beginning to realize that in life there is so much more. More than I could possibly have imagined.”

  In Sam’s touch, in the depth of his eyes, in the strength of his heart was more than music, more than sex—it was life. It was living and being loved. Her words rasped out, tears stinging her eyes. “It was everything.”

  STARS PEPPERED the heavens with a diamond-bright light, the moon yellow in the inky black sky. A strong wind wove through the cedars, rustling the dry leaves. He could hear the lowing of the longhorns. On the cool night air, owls hooted and hunted.

  Music of the plain, rich in melody, with a song that tore at Sam’s heart.

  He pushed away from the barn door to go into the house to rest, but probably not to sleep. His tempered heart and unyielding thoughts would not allow it. He closed his eyes against the pressure in his chest. He didn’t have to look to the corral, where hollow purple shadows gathered in the first of night. He could still feel her tingling in his palms, radiating heat through every pore in his body, thundering through his beating heart, creating devastating pressure in his groin. His chest rose on a sharp ache, a raw longing. A hopeless need.

  “Jenna.”

  The wind winnowed through his hair, catching her name and drawing it into the night, taking it to the glittering stars. He wondered where she was and if she looked at the same twinkling black sky.

  LATER, HE TOSSED and turned. And when morning came, Sam’s restless heart still plagued him. He went to the barn and headed for the tack room. Mending tack was all he was good for today.

  “We’ve certainly gotten a lot of work done since that city slicker went home.”

  Sam turned to see Tooter standing at the tack room door.

  “Tooter. I’m not in the mood,” Sam answered, his tone flat. He took two leather screws out of a headstall, setting them on his workbench.

  Tooter shifted, leaning his small bulk against the door, crossing his arms over his chest. It didn’t look like Tooter had any plans of heeding the warning in Sam’s voice.

  “You’re not sorry to see her go. Too much like that female you married,” he snorted.

  Sam threw the broken cheek strap into a plastic bin below the workbench. “She wasn’t anything like Tiffany!” Sam bellowed.

  “She didn’t have the right duds.” Tooter scratched at the gray stubble on his face.

  “She adapted.” Sam grabbed a replacement strap and fit it into place, testing the fit. “At least she was open to different clothes and riding. She even helped me deliver longhorn twins.”

  “But she didn’t have staying power.”

  Those words unleashed the anger that had been simmering in Sam all along. He shoved the headstall away from him. The piece of leather slid off the workbench and hit the floor. Sam rose and walked over to Tooter. “She just didn’t realize how much strength she has or how good we’d be together. We could make it work!”

  Tooter blinked at Sam a couple of times and then said quietly, “
Don’t tell me. Try telling her. Moping about the place ain’t going to get her back.”

  Sam stepped back and studied Tooter for a moment. Tooter sighed heavily. “Go after her, boy.”

  “Why, you old…”

  “Careful, son. Have respect for your elders.”

  Why couldn’t he and Jenna try? He knew that he could convince her. He loved her and wanted her back. When a Texas Ranger, former or otherwise, makes a decision, nothing can stand in his way, not even his stupid pride or Jenna’s obvious fear of loving him.

  A big smile pulled at Sam’s mouth and lit up his eyes. “Looks like I have some airline reservations to make.”

  Tooter smiled too and clapped Sam on the back. “I’ll drive you to the airport.”

  THE WALLS OF CARNEGIE HALL reverberated with audience applause. They made her come back for three encores. She waited until the clapping ceased. Stepping up to the microphone, she said, “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I can’t tell you how wonderful it’s been to perform for you, but I’ve decided that this will be my last tour for a while.”

  A murmur went through the crowd. “I’m going to semiretire.”

  Somebody stood up and began to clap and, before Jenna knew it, they were all on their feet clapping enthusiastically. Tears stung her eyes and she bowed.

  Jenna walked to the edge of the stage and peered into the crowd. A man caught her eye—he looked so achingly familiar that her heart lurched into her throat.

  She left the stage, but waited and watched as the crowd wandered out of the hall, yet that one man moved away from the rest and came down the aisle instead.

  Jenna bit her lip to keep herself from leaping forward. Sam walked toward the stage and moved up the stairs. He was dressed all in black from his booted feet to the Stetson on his head.

  He reached out his hand and in it was a ring box. “Are you crazy?” Jenna asked.

  “Crazy about you.”

  She laughed full and throaty. Very deliberately she held out her violin. “Could you hold this for me?”

  Sam didn’t hesitate. He took the instrument. His smile hurt her heart. She traded him for the ring box and opened it. The diamond flashed under the dazzling houselights.

  “Marry me, Jenna. I know we can make it work. I love you.”

  “My mother was very cruel to my father because music was all that she cared about. I was afraid that I would do that to you.” She looked up from the breathtaking diamond to the quiet, sweet love in Sam’s eyes. “I used the refusal to give up my music as a barrier between us, because I was afraid of letting you take a risk with your heart.”

  “And now.”

  “I want to move to your Texas ranch and settle down in one place, because I can’t think of anywhere on earth I’d rather be than with you.”

  “Jenna, what about your music?”

  “I’m sure the college would consider giving me a teaching position. I only plan on doing select concerts and I hear Houston has a wonderful symphony orchestra.”

  He held the violin tight to his chest. With his free hand, he reached out. Jenna took the ring out of the box and placed it on her left ring finger. Then she placed her hand into Sam’s. She could feel the heat of him seeping into her, warming her all the way to her heart.

  She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  “Sam?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I love you.”

  “Well, isn’t that convenient, sugar, because I love the hell out of you.”

  Jenna laughed softly and led him to her dressing room for her things. As they descended the stairs outside the complex, Jenna saw the horse-drawn carriage waiting at the curb.

  She turned to Sam. “What a beautiful idea,” she breathed, kissing his mouth. Everyone on the stairs of Carnegie Hall clapped as Jenna, holding tight to Sam’s hand while he assisted her into the carriage, beamed with love and happiness.

  Softly, she whispered into the dark night as Sam settled next to her, “Thanks, Gran.”

  ONCE THE CARRIAGE ride ended in Central Park, Jenna and Sam had taken a cab to her apartment. He had explored every inch of the two-bedroom place while she put her things away.

  “This is a gorgeous desk.”

  At his words something inside her clicked. “Desk?”

  “This is a French mahogany writing desk,” Sam said.

  Jenna eyed the table that held her numerous plants. “I’ve had this table for years. My gran gave it to me.”

  She looked at him, a gleam in her eye. “I naturally assumed that when my gran referred to a desk, she was talking about one of the desks she kept in her attic.”

  They immediately began to search the desk. As Jenna did so, her hands came up against something that sounded hollow. She rapped a couple of times and then, finally, crawled under the desk. A panel slid away from a small compartment. Items fell into her waiting hands. A leather-bound book and a cloth-wrapped bundle.

  Jenna crawled out from under the desk. Slowly, she unrolled the cloth and found jewel-encrusted nipple rings from an Egyptian prince, a fine waist chain from a French courtesan, and a very suggestive ivory necklace from a very helpful little hula dancer.

  Jenna looked at Sam and opened the diary. “Wow, my gran was some wild woman. I think we should read this together.”

  Sam picked up the gold waist chain and wrapped it around her midriff. As their eyes met, Jenna began to clear the plants from the writing desk. She turned to Sam and smiled.

  Her heart was full, her life bright and beautiful ahead of her, filled with music, love and Sam. She reached out and snagged a handful of his shirt. She leaned back onto the desk, deliberately drawing him between her legs. Grasping the shirttails, one in each fist, she jerked upward and opened the black denim shirt from his naval to his throat. The snaps made a clicking sound as they popped open.

  Sam’s eyes began to glow. Sweet, sweet man.

  She surged forward and kissed the strong column of his throat, gliding her tongue along his collarbone.

  “So, cowboy, have you ever done it on a desk?”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-8131-2

  THE DIVA DIARIES

  Copyright © 2003 by Karen Alarie.

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