Serena's Song (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Raina James

  Randall flinched away, then whimpered and sobbed a litany of curses and pleas as pain stabbed out from his broken leg to flood his nervous system.

  "What's going on out here?"

  Randall was barely aware of Mr. Pembley moving towards them. Behind him, Sarah was standing on the porch with her mother, both women wrapped in housecoats.

  "Sir, please stay back." The standing cop moved to intercept him. His voice lowered. "We found this man in the tree taking pictures through one of your windows."

  "I think your camera's toast, bud," said the cop who'd stayed with Randall. "Too bad. Looks like it cost a chunk of change." He didn’t sound the least sympathetic.

  Randall moaned. "Fuck. I need some fucking pain-killers." He rocked his head from side to side, mumbling almost incoherently about lawyers and police brutality.

  The cop ignored him and smiled grimly. "Lucky thing someone called in a report about some pervert hanging around out here. Who knows how long you would have been stretched out on the ground before someone found you."

  Something about the way the cop was looking at him made Randall automatically try to move away. Without warning, the broken camera shifted under him and his body abruptly settled into a new position. His wounded leg shifted, too. Pain lanced through him and he couldn't muster any interest in the frenzied activity that followed, from Pembley's increasingly irate demands for explanations and his wife and daughter's horrified exclamations, to the noisy arrival of the ambulance and the attendants' less-than-tender care to the jostled ride to the hospital and his subsequent treatment. He also didn't notice the cop beside him wave at a man standing by the curb, nor the battered SUV he got into and drove away in.

  He didn't notice much at all until the drug fog lifted in the hospital and he found himself trussed up in bed with casts on his leg and an arm, and the cops came in to read him his rights.

  But it wasn't until he heard the growing list of charges, and phrases like "search warrants" and "computer and files seized" and "electronic investigation" that he realized the full extent of what had happened.

  He was fucked. Royally.

  * * * *

  The little fairy chimes over the door danced musically as Riff opened the door and walked into Simple Pleasures. He'd become such a familiar sight that the few locals sipping coffee at the tables barely looked up when he came in. Maddie was fiddling with a new display, something involving purple netting and a tiara.

  "Morning, Riff."

  "Hey, Maddie. Is Serena in her office?"

  "Yes," she said, but it was too his back.

  Without pausing, Riff lifted his hand in thanks and continued on to the back of the store.

  Serena was tapping the end of her pencil absently against a pad of paper as she examined something on her computer monitor. Riff couldn't resist placing a quick kiss on the nape of her neck. Hair was already straggling down from the clip she'd secured it in before she'd left the house this morning. Serena leaned away from the tickling caress and laughed.

  "Finn, what are you doing here?"

  Riff commandeered the guest chair and rolled it to the side of her desk. When he sat down, and she turned in her own chair to face him, their knees brushed together comfortably. He put a plain brown folder down on her desk with the air of a student turning in a prize-winning essay.

  "This came in after you left for work. I didn't want to wait until you got home to see it."

  Serena looked at the folder, completely baffled.

  "What is it?"

  Riff flipped the folder open to reveal an official-looking letter printed under letterhead that could have belonged to a law firm: Stahl and Thurman. "Remember how I said not to worry about Dick Randall, that I had some ideas about how to handle him?"

  Serena's grimace was barely noticeable. Those pictures of her and Finn on the beach were still making the rounds, so it was a bit of a sore spot with her. It was hard to live down that kind of embarrassment. "Yes."

  "This is the report from the investigators I hired."

  "Investigators?" Serena looked at the folder and its contents with renewed interest. "Wow. What'd they find out?" She started flipping through the file, not really reading anything, just taking inventory of the neatly typed pages and stack of attached photographs.

  "Some pretty good stuff, apparently." Riff's chair squeaked as he leaned back and laced his fingers over his belly with a self-satisfied smile. "The long and the short of it is we're not the only ones Dick's been snapping pictures of. Our investigators tailed him for weeks, building a profile and noting his habits. Pretty nasty habits, at that."

  "Oh, really." Serena sat back in her own chair and cocked an eyebrow in interest.

  "Yeah, really. When the guy on duty called the cops, he was busily snapping pictures of some girl in her bedroom. The cops got there, nailed him, and Dickhead fell out of a tree and snapped his leg in two places."

  "Poor Derek."

  "A real shame," Riff said with equal insincerity. "Anyway, the best part is what they found when they searched his place. Turns out our boy's been taking pictures for years. He had a digital library on his computer and photo albums of almost everyone in town."

  His face sobered and he reached for Serena's hands. "Some of the pictures they found are of you and me."

  "I figured he had taken more—"

  "Not just from that night. I mean from before. From that summer."

  Serena paled. "Oh my God. You're kidding."

  "Unfortunately, no."

  "Wonderful," she said faintly.

  Riff squeezed her hands. "It's okay, baby. The investigators managed to get them and the negatives. They're in the envelope at the back of the file."

  "How'd they manage that?"

  "Who knows?" He shrugged. "I think the local cops were so grateful to get tipped to what Randall's been doing all this time, that someone looked the other way while the pics and negs got disappeared."

  Serena sagged back in her chair. "Thank God. I really didn’t want to have to tell the kids to brace themselves again."

  "Not this time, anyway."

  She snorted. "Not for a long time, Finn Logan. You're dreaming if you think you can get me to strip anywhere but behind a closed and locked door."

  Riff stared meaningfully at her closed office door and gave her a wicked grin. "It would take just a sec to lock it."

  Taking her furrowed brow as a challenge, he tugged on her hands until she wound up in his lap. The move was surprisingly easy. But then, she didn’t put up an iota of struggle and her mock frown quickly gave way to a smile every bit as naughty as his.

  Riff groaned. "Stop looking at me like that, or I really will lock the door and shock the socks off Maddie and all your customers."

  Serena laughed and gave him a hot, teasing kiss before sliding off his lap. "Okay, but you'd better get going. See you at lunch?"

  "I'll be sure to have something waiting for you," he agreed as he stood up. Sliding his arms around Serena, he pulled her in for a hot, teasing kiss of his own.

  "I can hardly wait," she gasped when he finally let her go.

  Riff met her eyes and his heart gave a little jump at the love he saw reflected there. The love he felt for her throbbed in his chest like a second heartbeat, as beautiful and precious as a rare gem. He would never be able to describe how grateful he was she'd given him another chance. He hadn't realized how barren his life had become until she was there to fill it. Serena and Jack and Katie. His family.

  He swallowed back a lump of emotion and headed for the door.

  "I'll be waiting, baby. Always. See you at home."

  Epilogue

  The lights flashed, then flicked off, shrouding the concert hall and stage in darkness.

  The enthusiastic roars and screams of the fans were like a wall of sound that pressed in from all sides, thicker than the darkness. After hours under the brilliant spots and strobing flares of the concert's light show, the large chamber felt as moist and warm as a womb.
The shouts and cheers trailed off as the audience, calming under the soothing blackness, quieted to an expectant hush.

  A single spotlight of shimmering blue stabbed down from the rafters. It fell on the still figure of a man seated on a stool, center stage. Immediately, a rumble of approval rolled over the audience to crash against the stage like a breaker hitting the rocks. Then, as if sensing that here was something different, something special, the crowd dropped into a near-reverent silence.

  Head bowed, Riff Logan cradled a guitar on his lap like a precious child. The blue light flowed over his dark, sweat-dampened hair, and caught in the fog-machine mist to surround his lean, masculine figure like a nimbus from above.

  Riff lifted his head and smiled almost crookedly. The spotlight hid the thousands of faces turned to him, gave the illusion that he was alone on a stage in an empty room. The raw vitality of all those lives gathered in one place filled the concert hall until it had a pulse all its own.

  "Well, Sunshine. It's been a while." As he spoke, his fingers gently glided across the strings of his guitar, creating a soft counterpoint to his words. "A fantastic adventure began when I stepped off this stage a year ago. I thought it only fair that you be the first to hear what it's meant to me."

  The rhythm of his music both lulled and stirred, growing more powerful with each simple chord Riff drew out from his instrument. "This one is for my Beautiful Girl."

  His voice, accompanied by nothing more than his own guitar, slid into the lyrics of a song he'd started to write on a sun-touched beach one spring day as he waited for the woman he loved to return to him.

  * * * *

  It had been hard getting away from the rest of the guys after his solo encore. They were all wiped from the mini-tour, but still wanted to head into the break with a blast. The usual routine didn't appeal to Riff anymore. He just wanted to call it a night and get ready to head home.

  Danny, at least, seemed to understand. He'd shot Riff a laughing look and eased him away from the raucous celebration and out the door with the skill of a natural diplomat.

  "I owe you, buddy."

  "Again." The drummer smirked as they traded palm smacks. "Lucky thing I'm not keeping track. Now cut. I'll catch you later."

  Riff wearily let himself into the hotel suite. The main room was dark, save for the faint glow of the recessed lights in the kitchenette. Though he'd showered and changed in the dressing room, he was quick to pull off his shirt. No matter what time of year he came to the Miami area, he always seemed to hit town at the same time as an "unseasonable" wave of humidity. Going further into the empty room, he dropped the shirt on the arm of the couch. He undid the top button on his jeans; briefly considered and rejected the lure of a cold beer from the fridge. Bed held more appeal. He needed his rest for tomorrow. Serena and the kids would be waiting to meet him at the airport.

  He walked over to the French doors leading to the suite's bedroom and turned the latch. The door had only opened a spare inch when he stopped. Drawing in a deep breath, his nostrils flared like a wolf scenting its mate. He could smell her subtle perfume overlaying the bland, generic non-scent of a rented room.

  He pushed the doors open on silent hinges.

  Serena lay in the massive bed, asleep. She was curled on one side, the sheet only pulled to her waist. The rest of the covers had been neatly folded down to the foot of the bed. The light from the bathroom spilled enough illumination into the room to let him see the thin strap of her nightgown where it had slid down her bare shoulder. Riff crossed the room to kneel beside her. His face even with hers, he gently nudged the soft blond curls away from her forehead. Her eyes fluttered open. A slow smile greeted him.

  "Hey," she whispered.

  "Hey, back," he said, just as softly. "I thought I'd have to wait until tomorrow to see you."

  "You can thank Auntie Grace. She descended, collected the kids, then took off again, leaving poor little me all alone. I figured you could help me with that."

  His hand had moved from her curls down her neck to her shoulder. Now his fingers played with the thin satin strap, tracing its path along her arm, edging it down to Serena's elbow. "Oh, I think I can do that." Riff continued his caress down her forearm until he clasped her hand. Turning it over, he pressed his lips first to the smooth gold of her wedding band, then in the cup of her palm.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked

  "Better by the second." Serena shifted, moving over on the mattress to make room for him beside her. "Why don't you come see for yourself?"

  Riff stripped off the rest of his clothes. He put one knee on the bed and urged her to sit up so he could pull the negligee off. "Pretty as this is, baby, you're prettier." It slipped free of her arms with a cool whisper.

  He held the nape of her neck in one large hand and slid his tongue along her lips. She opened to him eagerly as he gave her the kind of kiss she'd been missing. Hot, wet and all her Finn.

  "Oh, I missed you." Either or both could have uttered the soft admission.

  With one last drugging kiss, Finn urged her onto her back. He shoved the sheet out of the way and ran his hands slowly over her from neck to knees. His palms grazed over her sensitive nipples, there and gone too quickly. Serena trembled, biting back a moan. Nails lightly dragged along her sides, over her hips and thighs to her ankles. Then Finn made his way back up her body.

  He paused midway to stare at her. With both hands he cradled the slight, barely noticeable curve of her belly. Finn pressed a tender kiss just below her navel. His lips brushed against her skin as he whispered, "Hello, baby."

  Serena couldn't resist threading her fingers through his hair and watching the love that suffused his face, for her and their child. He looked almost solemn as he met her eyes.

  "Thank you, Serena."

  She smiled softly and drew him up with the gentle pressure of her palms on his cheeks. Sliding her legs a bit wider, she hummed with pleasure as he settled against her. When nothing more than a breath separated them, he lay his forehead against hers and stared directly into her eyes.

  Though she'd never admit it to Grace, every day she thought about how lucky she was to have such a meddling little sister. If it weren't for her, Serena wouldn't have this man for her own, wouldn't be cherishing the new life he'd made with her.

  But after Grace had charged into their lives with all the grace of a bull running through the streets of Pamplona, it wasn't just Serena who'd given their love a second chance.

  "Finn, my love. Thank you."

  SERENA’S SONG

  THE END

  WWW.RAINAJAMES.COM

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Some skepticism about the earning value of an English degree made Raina James turn to a career in journalism. While almost two decades in newspapers in Canada’s capital has made her revise that opinion, there’s still no thrill quite like getting the paper to press on a heavy news day with an early deadline. At home, when not riding herd on her four children or trying to squeeze in some writing time, Raina can most often be found reading the work of her favorite authors, new and old.

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com