Wild at Whiskey Creek

by Julie Anne Long

  “I’ll flap my own arms and fly there on my own if I have to,” Congdon said peacefully. “And this isn’t the first time I’ve been handcuffed.”

  Alarming the young ones in this business never got old.

  He leaned back. “Kinda like it, in fact.”

  He hadn’t felt this happy possibly ever.

  But it felt like that every time he discovered someone magnificent.

  Glory dragged her pick down over the strings and obeyed.

  She sang another.

  “Sing another,” Wyatt Congdon said softly, when she was done.

  She did.

  “Sing another,” he said after that.

  Five times he’d said this.

  Like a child entranced by a magician’s trick, he wanted to see her do it again and again.

  And finally he stopped. And she remained motionless.

  All was silence once more.

  “Miss Greenleaf . . .”

  Her breathing arrested then. Time was suddenly an echoing chasm.

  The next words of out of his mouth could very well be the bridge between her old life and the rest of her life.

  “. . . I think you have something very, very special.”

  Every single moving part inside her body seemed to pause, waiting.

  For a but or an unfortunately.

  And then she knew they weren’t going to come.

  “And you know you have something special, don’t you?”

  And then Wyatt “King” Congdon grinned.

  He looked like a boy who’d unwrapped the very Christmas present he’d yearned for but had given up hope of ever receiving. And Glory saw him now not just as a cold-faced vehicle to her dreams—though he was indeed that—but like a human who had a tough job he loved, a human who had absorbed countless disappointments in search of the needle in the haystack, the diamond in the junkyard.

  As a human who was relaxed now. Because he knew what to do next. There was a drill, and he knew that drill, because he’d all but invented it.

  The thing he and Glory had in common was hope. And love.

  Whether it was love of music or money or both didn’t matter. She could work with love.

  Because she knew exactly who she was.

  She smiled back at him. “Call me Glory.”

  A now un-handcuffed Congdon all but walked on air down Hellcat Canyon’s Main Street at a speed that had Justin Chen scrambling to keep up with him because there was still a chance he could make his New York flight. Congdon always walked like he was fleeing the scene of a crime. He was pushing seventy years old and he’d taken advantage of nearly every available mind-altering substance back in the sixties and seventies because that’s what everyone did and hell why not, but after one heart episode in his fifties, he was now aggressively fit. Congdon never did anything by halves.

  “Holy crap, Justin . . . that voice . . . it’s like if Adele had the twang of a Carrie Underwood, but this girl has something raw all her own. Not too many women have that smoky thing going, that depth, with that kind of power or range. And the emotion, the maturity, the expression. Christ almighty. And she’s beautiful, almost elegant, in a raw way. Like . . . oh, Shania, only dangerous. Bobbie Gentry. Hotter than Crystal Gayle. She’ll be a fun interview, too.”

  “Wait . . . Crystal Who? And remind me who Bobbie Gentry is again?” Justin was embarrassed that he was starting to sweat to keep up.

  “How old are you, Justin? Do your homework. My uncle had a Crystal Gayle poster in his room. She was my first crush. Hair way down past her ass. Gorgeous, gorgeous woman.”

  They spent a moment in reverie about the wonders of getting lost in long hair.

  “Pays to know your history in this business, Justin, if you want to survive. We’re about to make some more history.”

  “She doesn’t have a cell phone.”

  “You can e-mail her. She can tell that story later. About how she was once so poor she didn’t have a cell phone and had to audition without her guitar because it was stolen. To Jimmy Fallon, on The Tonight Show. Next year, maybe. Soon though.”

  Chapter 20

  So disappointed not to see you today, Eli.

  Never had one eight-word sentence from Leigh contained so many dimensions of admonishment. He was genuinely disappointed. Possibly even hurt.

  Eli had felt the shame of it flushing his skin as he held his phone and stared at that text.

  After he’d dropped Glory off at the Misty Cat this morning, he’d texted Leigh heartfelt apologies and told him that he’d had a personal emergency to attend to and would be unable to make the meeting in Sacramento.

  Which was basically true.

  The vague nature of the message told Devlin that it was a “personal” emergency indeed—if his mom or his sister was in some kind of jeopardy, Eli would have said exactly that, because Leigh knew both of them.

  Still, Eli’s job wasn’t in jeopardy.

  Probably.

  Then again, he also probably wasn’t in any immediate danger of a promotion.

  He’d take his lumps and call Leigh and see if there was some way he could explain what he’d done today in a way that didn’t make him sound callow or irresponsible, or worst of all, purely crazy.

  He had, at least, been engaged in police work all today.

  Very specific police work. Even if he wasn’t officially on duty. And Leigh was a music fan. So maybe he had some leverage there.

  The only thing that mattered at the moment was that Eli had accomplished his mission, and he’d returned home only a little while ago. He’d thrown his body down onto the sofa and tipped his head back, and the relief and triumph of accomplishing what he’d set out to do today went a long way to offseting the idea of Leigh’s censure.

  No sign or word from Glory, though. No message on either phone.

  He suppose there was a possibility that Wyatt Congdon had installed her in a limo and efficiently, immediately whisked her off to Los Angeles or to wherever stars were incubated and that would be that.

  He just didn’t know. And as day was fading to twilight, he dozed off right where he was sitting, feet up on the coffee table, phone on his lap, thinking of her smile today, and he began to dream of a woodpecker, of all things, outside his window.

  Tap tap. Tap Tap tap.

  “Damn woodpecker,” Eli murmured, grumpily, in his sleep.

  Then his eyes flew open. And then he shot to his feet. His phone clunked to the floor.

  He was upright before he was fully awake.

  He could feel the nip of the evening breeze in the house. He’d left the front door ajar; the screen door was filtering in fresh air.

  And Glory was standing outside in the little golden pool of his porch light.

  She’d been tapping on his door frame.

  He moved toward her slowly, hesitantly, unconvinced he wasn’t still dreaming. It never occurred to him to turn on the light first.

  She seemed to belong in that spotlight.

  He didn’t think he could speak just yet. He was far too full of emotion to get a word out.

  “It started raining on my way here,” she said, by way of greeting. “First rain of the season.”

  He pulled the screen door open silently and held it open for her.

  She hesitated.

  And then she stepped inside.

  As if on cue, the sky opened up and the rain came down in noisy buckets, casting that wonderful dirt smell on the air, banging a variety of notes on his roof and windows and gutters.

  “I saw your truck out front. I hope it’s okay that I just stopped by. ”

  He smiled at the absurdity of that.

  She seemed almost shy. Radiant as the moon standing there in his shadowy living room with news he was certain he already knew. Whatever happened, he was just unutterably grateful he was here to witness this moment. And that she had come to him with it.

  Finally she got the words out.

  “They loved me, Eli.”

&nb
sp; She sounded not so much disbelieving, as dazed and enchanted.

  A torrent of love and pride flooded his circuits. For a moment he simply couldn’t speak.

  She knew.

  She waited.

  “I know,” he said simply, softly.

  “How did you know?” She was genuinely surprised.

  They were both whispering, for some reason, like conspirators or symphony goers who don’t want to interrupt the music. And with every word they were drifting closer to each other, because that’s what magnets did.

  And now he could smell the rain on her, and see that her shirt was clinging to her from it.

  “The sun rises in the east, the earth revolves around the sun, you can see the Big Dipper if you stand out on the big rock near Whiskey Creek. That’s how I know. It was inconceivable that it would be otherwise.”

  She smiled slowly, hugely. “You always were pretty damn sure of yourself.”

  “Said the pot to the kettle.”

  “And you’re always so bossy, too,” she added, almost hopefully.

  And as they were close enough to blend right into each other, she addressed these words practically to his chin.

  “I know,” he said on a rueful, sympathetic hush. “For instance, I insist we get you out of that wet shirt.”

  He reached for the top button. And worked it open, slowly, deftly.

  Her breathing was swifter, a counterpoint to the rush of the rain outside.

  His fingers slid down to the next button and freed that, too.

  And the next.

  “Eli—” she whispered, but she didn’t finish the word because he stopped it with his mouth and kissed her.

  And as her shirt slipped open, he pushed it away from her shoulders and used its sleeves to tug her tightly into his body. He kept her in that sensual little straightjacket for a moment as he trailed his lips, his tongue, to her throat, where he savored her pounding pulse, to her ear, where he traced it and heard the catch in her breath as bonfire after bonfire of sensation lit all over her body, and where he breathed, “no quarter.”

  The title of one of their mutual favorite Led Zeppelin songs, as it so happened.

  “Bring it,” she whispered.

  He eased her away from him, peeling her shirt the rest of the way off her shoulders, and she gave a little half shimmy to send it fluttering all the way to the floor.

  He paused for perhaps a heartbeat to feast his eyes. “Pretty,” he murmured of her teal-blue lace demi-cup push-up bra.

  “Got it at Target,” she said.

  He gave a short laugh. He unclipped the center clip with a sort of leisurely ceremony, even though he could have gotten it open like a ninja.

  His hands were shaking a little.

  Later the two of them would think of that click as one of their favorite sounds in the world.

  When her breasts sprang free, he fervently muttered “Christ,” a prayer of thanksgiving if she’d ever heard one, and he filled his hands and sighed like a man crawling through a desert who’d just reached an oasis. He dragged his thumbs over her nipples, already hard as beads.

  She made a sound she didn’t know she was capable of making. A purely animal sound of pleasure, and Eli pounced on that as though it were a mating call.

  His hands were everywhere on her, hot and claiming, sliding over her bare skin, slipping into her waistband, cupping her ass, and they joined in a kiss that was just as demanding and thorough.

  She plucked at his shirt and he got the message. He took his hands away from her long enough to reach for the hem and yank it off over his head. There was a terrible moment that lasted approximately three seconds but felt like an eternity where he appeared to be trapped in it. Working as a team they finally got it off and he all but hurled it across the room as if it had purposely attacked him.

  Her head went balloon light when she saw him bare from the torso up, from the hard wedge of his shoulders tapering down to his waist and that lovely ferny trail of hair that disappeared into the jeans that clung to his hips and pointed to that fantastic bulge in those jeans.

  He was a wall. Maybe a fortress.

  All safety and danger wrapped up in one.

  They all but collided again, the shocking pleasure of skin on skin made her feel drunk and wild. She traced those delicious little gullies between quadrants of muscle first with her fingertips, then lightly with her nails, then her tongue, rewarded with his sucked-in breath of pleasure. She continued to follow the little fingertip trails she’d drawn with her lips and her tongue and let her hands skate down that taut waist into his jeans where the scoops of muscle on either side of his butt seemed to have been designed for her hands.

  He reached for the button on her jeans. He popped it dexterously open. And then with ceremony, he dragged her zipper: zzzzzttt.

  Another excellent sound.

  She was shivering with hunger for him, and with anticipation for what was to come.

  Together they pushed her jeans off down her hips, and she did a sort of hula hoop shimmy to get them off. She stepped out of them.

  And he reached for her again.

  She could feel the hunger in him.

  She bit his chest very softly because he was beautiful and smooth and because she’d always wanted to.

  “Ow,” he gasped, sounding thoroughly pleased.

  He scooped his hands under her butt and she locked her legs around his waist, and he carried her a few feet and dumped her, albeit somewhat gently, on his couch, like prey he intended to devour.

  He dropped to his knees next to her and touched his tongue to her nipple and got a little fancy with it there, then slid his hand over her rib cage, down, down, into the waistband of her underwear, where it vanished between her legs, which fell open to allow him access. He knew exactly what to do when he found her hot and wet. He teased and stroked, circling, finding a languid friction that was going to make her permanently lose her mind.

  Waves of electric heat swept up and out through her body until she was all but incandescent with need. Wild and arcing with it.

  “You motherf . . . oh my God . . . Please . . .”

  His tongue traced what felt like the alphabet over her nipples and fresh zaps of pleasure had her whimpering now. She was indeed begging.

  He peeled her blue lace undies down her legs and threw them God knew where.

  Enough begging. Time to demand.

  “Eli, now. I mean it.”

  “Talk about bossy.”

  And then he was bridging her, propped on his arms. She arched up to lock her legs around his waist and he guided himself into her. And he smiled down at her and she smiled up at him, both of them amazed, savoring the feeling of being joined. Their smiles faded, and all was serious and intent and pretty soon out of their control completely. She locked her feet around his back and clung to his shoulders as his hips drummed.

  “Glory . . . my God . . .”

  Their bodies arched and met and collided, hard, the roar of their breath mingling, the leather sofa making soft farting noises as they slammed the devil out of it.

  Her head thrashed back and she heard a moan that may have come from him or from her—it was impossible to tell. It was the sound of almost unbearable pleasure. She was nearly there, nearly there.

  And her skin was made of cinders and then release bowed violently upward and shook her.

  “Glory . . .” His voice was a rasp. “Jesus . . .”

  How convenient that she’d been given a name that already sounded like a hosannah.

  She heard her own voice call his name from far, far away, like some distant signal of a distant song in space. She was floating overhead. She was comprised of nothing but bliss molecules. It would take a while to reassemble.

  He came with a cry that was almost wild. And she held on to him as he shook, triumphant, replete.

  “I have a bed.” He sounded drowsily surprised. As if he’d suddenly remembered.

  They’d both somehow returned to full
consciousness and their bodies.

  “Yes, but it’s so far away.” She loved being mashed together with him, limbs entangled, sweat drying on their bodies. The house was pitch dark now, apart from various little electronic eyes shining at them from the dark: the microwave clock. The burglar alarm.

  He chuckled groggily. “More room for shenanigans on the bed. A blank canvas just waiting for us. Plus, I’m told my sheets are 1200 thread count. I wouldn’t want that job in the sheet factory. Counting all those threads.”

  She laughed. “More threads is better. You don’t want sheets that can exfoliate you.”

  He sighed happily. And then, pulling another ninja move, he rolled off the couch into a crouch, draped her over his shoulder and stood and hauled her off, like a fireman rescuing her from a burning building.

  “Show off,” she gasped. She hadn’t even had time to give a little shriek.

  “All that practice carrying sacks of flour. I’ve got something to show you in there.”

  “Does it involve your handcuffs? I brought them back with me. They’re in my purse.”

  “Nope. But hold that thought.”

  He laid her down gently on the side of the bed with the un-dented pillow, and she burrowed in as if it were home.

  And suddenly he couldn’t breathe for how right all of this felt.

  As if the jigsaw puzzle of his life had been missing just that moment, a sore place that air blew through, and here it was finally. Her head on that pillow.

  “Here.”

  The “throw” his sister had sent him last Christmas, as though she thought he spent his evenings curled up with a cozy English mystery set in the Cotswolds and a cup of chamomile tea and a faux fur draped over his knees. He kept it folded at the foot of his bed, and he tossed it to Glory. She seized it with a happy exclamation and pulled it up over her, all but purring over its softness.

  She looked like a czarina.

  He went still. Held in thrall.

  You’re beautiful, he almost said. I love you, he almost said.

  She read the first in his face. She smiled back at him, receiving the tribute like a czarina.

  And his next words were tantamount to the second.

  “Look over there in the corner, Glory. By the window.”