Treasure Me (One Night with Sole Regret Book 10)

by Olivia Cunning

  “Did you get it figured out?” Kellen asked when he returned to the car.

  “I think so,” she said.

  Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven—the usual stuff. She loved them all, but there were lesser-known compositions that really made her soul sing, ones that couldn’t be readily downloaded. She’d just have to share those treasures with him when—if—he visited her in Los Angeles, where her massive classical music collection was housed. She did have a few of her favorites on CD at the beach house, but they wouldn’t do her any good on their road trip.

  After mixing them both a cranberry/orange juice blend in their matching travel mugs, he tossed a PayDay candy bar into her lap.

  “Another favorite of mine,” he said.

  She picked it up by one end as if it had been floating in a toilet.

  “What’s the point of these things?” she asked. “There’s no chocolate on them.”

  “I don’t really like chocolate.”

  “Blasphemy!”

  He jumped at her sudden outburst, and then laughed at his startle. “Just eat your PayDay and be happy I was thinking of you.”

  “I will not.” She dropped it in his lap. “I’m not wasting calories on anything not dipped in chocolate.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said, reaching into the brown paper sack and pulling out a greasy, meaty, spicy-smelling taquito. “They were fresh out of chocolate-dipped taquitos.”

  “Give me that.” She snatched it from his hand and scrunched the paper covering down so she could take a bite.

  Grinning, he connected his phone to the car’s Bluetooth system, while she munched on her chocolate-free taquito.

  “I’m not sure getting to know each other is a good idea,” she teased as she popped the last bite into her mouth. “Now that I know you don’t like chocolate, I’m not sure we can be friends.”

  “And now that I know you actually eat yellow Starbursts, I’m sure you’re a space alien.”

  She stuck out her tongue at him, and he flicked her nose with one finger.

  “I guess I can overlook the small stuff,” she said with a shrug. “No one is perfect.”

  “I like our differences,” he said. “All of them. If I didn’t, I’d date a mirror.”

  “I tried that once,” she said. “I’m not a very good kisser. My lips are all hard and cold. It was like kissing a pane of glass.”

  Kellen laughed. “I don’t recall kissing you being like that at all.” He leaned in to prove himself correct.

  When he drew away, she was craving something a bit more satisfying than junk food.

  “Are we ready?” he asked.

  “I think so. We can stop halfway and get some more of those taquitos, right?” Because she’d already finished the one he’d just given her.

  “Right.” He grinned. “They’re so much better than dried-out corn dogs.”

  They were, but she wasn’t prepared to admit that to him.

  When they entered the highway a few minutes later, she flicked through the playlist Kellen indicated on his phone. Black Sabbath, Queen, Deep Purple, Aerosmith. At least she’d heard of those bands. She still wasn’t sure what a Foo Fighter was. Or what exactly they were fighting. “Who goes first?” she asked. “Me or you?”

  “Flip a coin.”

  She won the coin toss and selected Chopin. “I’m playing this song at a recital next week. I think it’s next week.” She scowled as she tried to remember what day it was. She’d lost track while she’d been holed up in the beach rental with nothing but writer’s block to keep her company. Until Kellen showed up.

  “It’s lovely. A bit slower than the jazz you played for me.”

  “If you weren’t driving, I’d tell you to close your eyes and listen closely. Chopin is best enjoyed without any outside distractions.”

  “So I’d have to close my eyes and also toss you out on the side of the road to truly appreciate this piece? Because you are my greatest distraction.”

  She shook her head, her face aching from all the smiling. Apparently those smile muscles of hers didn’t typically get enough of a workout. Kellen was definitely putting them through their paces.

  They fell silent for a long moment, listening to the build of the song. In her head, she was hearing different notes, though. Her own twist on the music—the way she would have changed the composition to her personal taste. She felt guilty when her thoughts warped the perfections of the classics, but it wasn’t anything she could help. She supposed it was the composer in her that made that happen. Listening to music without rewriting it into her own creation was hard for her.

  “Do you like performing?” Kellen asked, drawing her from her mental composing.

  “I do,” she said. “It makes me feel connected to people. Composing is a lonely venture.”

  “Unless I’m there.” He leaned over and squeezed her knee.

  She couldn’t argue since he happened to be right.

  “One reason I think I’ll keep you despite your dislike of chocolate.”

  “And do you like composing? Actually like it?”

  “That’s a tough question,” she said. “It’s more a compulsion, I guess. I can’t not do it. In fact, I’m doing it in my head right now.”

  “In what way?”

  “When I hear a piece of music, sometimes I reinvent it in my own style. I’d really like to compose symphonies, music that will still be played hundreds of years in the future.”

  She’d only ever mentioned that overreaching dream to one person—the piano teacher she’d once idolized—and he’d laughed at her. So she’d molded her dream into something more attainable—composing for Hollywood movies. She was relieved when Kellen didn’t laugh at her.

  “That sounds like a fine aspiration to me.”

  “It does?”

  “I’d pay to hear them.”

  She snorted. “You would not.”

  “If you wrote a symphony, I’m sure it would give me a major boner.”

  She gaped at him. He said the most guy-like things sometimes. She wasn’t sure why she found it so shocking. He was a rock star; he even looked like one. But his soul was so deep and his words often so poetic, that it was hard for her to think of him as a regular guy.

  “I’ve only ever told one other person about that dream,” she said. “And he made fun of it too.”

  “I wasn’t making fun,” he said, taking his eyes off the road just long enough to meet her eyes. “I really think you should go for it.”

  “But the time I devote to composing has to pay my bills.”

  “Like Hollywood.”

  She nodded. “It’s worked so far.”

  After a moment, he asked, “So who made fun of your dream? ’Cause I’d like to knock his teeth out.”

  She wouldn’t want that. Pierre had just been keeping her head out of the clouds. As a teen, she’d been so idealistic, she’d never bothered to tread with her feet on the ground.

  “Old boyfriend?” he pressed.

  “I told you about Pierre.”

  “The gay French piano teacher you were infatuated with?”

  “He’s not gay.” She pressed cool fingertips into her suddenly flushed cheeks. “He was lovely. And talented. He pushed me to do better. Try harder. Reach farther.”

  “But he laughed at your dream.”

  “He redirected it,” she said. “To make it something attainable.” And then he’d up and left one day without any explanation or even a good-bye. She’d floundered without direction for years before she’d gone to Curtis and found a new mentor. One she didn’t let herself love quite as much as she’d loved Pierre. She doubted it was possible to connect to any other musician the way she’d connected with him.

  Kellen’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. “So write full-blown classical compositions on the side. For fun.”

  “For fun?”

  He nodded. “Nothing takes the fun out of creativity faster than having to do it to make a living.”

  Ther
e was some truth to that.

  “I guess it wouldn’t hurt.” She shrugged. “Unless it interfered with my deadlines.”

  “Can we listen to some Queen now? This Chopin stuff really does put me to sleep. Not like your music. Your music . . .”

  “Gives you a boner?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, it does.”

  “And you’d really pay for that experience?”

  “Every day. Even Sunday.”

  She supposed there was something inspiring about that knowledge. She could make it her life’s work to compose classical symphonies that gave Kellen Jamison wood.

  Chapter Five

  The sun shone off the Gulf’s water, giving it an illusion of deep blue clarity. A line of pelicans raced over the surface, the lead bird dipping under the water and emerging with a fish in its beak. Kellen stood on the front deck of Sara’s house and watched the birds swoop and glide for several minutes, trying to find the courage to go inside. He’d had a fantastic time with Dawn during their road trip—living in the now, considering the direction of his future—but the time had come for him to confront his past. Dawn had volunteered to join him, but he wanted to enter the house alone the first time since he’d broken his promise to Sara.

  The pelicans flew out into the Gulf until they shrank into nothingness. He supposed he had nothing left to use as an excuse to procrastinate. Taking a deep breath and putting the Gulf to his back, he inserted his key into the lock and opened the hurricane door. As usual, it stuck, and he was swamped with a memory of him and Sara trying to figure out how to get the blasted thing open when they’d first vacationed there.

  The living room was dusty, but nothing else was different or out of place. The sofa he’d brought from Sara’s apartment still looked small in the cavernous room. The shelf that contained all of her dolphin figurines took up one corner. Her books on animals and environmental science and fictional vampires crowded another shelf along the far wall, and then there were the pictures—pictures of her, of the two of them, of her with her family, and a few with Owen. There was even one with him, Sara, and both Mitchell brothers. Kellen smiled at the four of them holding up Solo cups, looking like they were drinking themselves into a stupor, but there’d been no alcohol in those cups. He fondly remembered the day they’d spent with Chad right before he headed off to boot camp. They’d gone fishing but ended up rescuing tadpoles from an evaporating puddle because Sara just couldn’t stand the thought of the slimy things dying. Frogs. She’d saved frogs in cups brought for partying.

  There wasn’t a single reminder of her illness in the beach house. This was his shrine to her life, not to her pain or her death. He closed the door behind him and sat on the sofa. They’d spent a lot of time kissing on this sofa. They’d even made love on it a time a two. He wondered if she’d lived if she’d have grown more sexually bold with experience. Most likely he never would have discovered Shibari if she hadn’t died, but they would have had a lifetime to discover what sexual acts thrilled them. He also wondered if he’d have a lifetime to discover such things with Dawn, or if she’d eventually figure out that he wasn’t worth the headache and split.

  He sat in the silence, listening for sounds of Sara’s laughter, but heard only the repetitive call of a distant gull.

  Maybe she wasn’t here for him anymore. Maybe she was really gone.

  Deciding that the room wasn’t going to dust itself, he went to the utility closet for cleaning supplies.

  A knock on the door drew Kellen from the closet. It had to be Dawn, and he should probably be angry with her for meddling in his private time with memories of Sara, but he felt oddly relieved. He could spend the day at her rental instead of his place. Being anywhere else might just lift the oppressive burden that had settled in his chest. He opened the door, and Dawn’s sunny smile lifted the storm clouds from his thoughts.

  “Well, hello, handsome. I’m staying in the house next door and thought I should come over and introduce myself. See if there’s anything you might need.”

  He lifted a puzzled eyebrow, but played along. “Very neighborly of you. I’m Kellen,” he said, “and you would be?”

  She pressed her beautiful hand to her equally beguiling chest. “I’m Dawn.” She peeked around his shoulder. “I was hoping you’d introduce me to the lady of the house.”

  His heart produced an irregular thud. “I’m sorry, but she passed away many years ago.”

  “Are you sure? I think I see her in every nook and cranny.”

  Dawn, smart woman that she was, was entirely correct. Sara was there. She was everywhere.

  “Come in,” he said, stepping aside.

  Dawn entered Sara’s house and immediately moved to the photographs that had been arranged in brightly colored frames along one wall. Kellen followed her, his chest tight and his lips pressed together. He imagined that this was what it felt like to introduce the woman you loved to your family. He wouldn’t know, as his grandfather and estranged father had died before he’d met Sara and he didn’t speak to his mom, but the feeling had to be similar. He so wanted Dawn to like Sara—weird as that sounded—and he wanted Sara to accept Dawn.

  I’m all sorts of fucked up in the head.

  “So this is Sara,” Dawn said. “She’s very pretty. And you’re right, she does look like Lindsey.”

  She slipped her hand into his and squeezed. Was her palm the sweaty one or did that dampness belong to him?

  “It’s uncanny, isn’t it?”

  “I totally get why being around Lindsey was freaking you out. So tell me about the days captured in these photographs.”

  At her invitation, he went on a long and probably boring spiel about their various adventures: kayaking the Rio Grande in Big Bend, picnicking at Mount Bonnell overlooking the Colorado River, hiking through Arbor Hills, swimming through the waterfall in Hamilton Pool, and their road trip through the desert when Sara got it into her head to take a picture of every species of cactus in Texas—all one hundred of them. He’d always loved the outdoors, and he and Sara had spent countless hours exploring the great state of Texas. Dawn laughed at his funny stories, smiled when he was nostalgic, and encouraged him to share details that were becoming embarrassingly fuzzy in his memory.

  “I’ve never spent much time outdoors, but it looks fun. Maybe we could do things like this together.” She glanced at him. “Or would that make you uncomfortable?”

  “Why would it make me uncomfortable? I love the outdoors.”

  “Well, those are activities you shared with Sara, so I thought maybe I’d be trespassing or something.”

  “I did this kind of thing before I met her. And I still do this kind of thing with Owen. So, no, you wouldn’t be trespassing. I’d like to show you the world—the natural part of it.”

  “And I’d like to show you the world—the historical cities, the rich cultures.”

  He grinned. “Sounds like we’ll be busy.”

  She stared at him for an extended moment, as if she were seeing their future together. When she smiled, he figured she liked what she saw.

  She turned to the next picture on the wall—him and Sara on one jet ski and Owen on another, riding solo. “Where’s this?”

  “Uh, that’s Lake Travis in Austin.”

  “Did you two hang out with Owen often?” She angled her face toward him, and he rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Actually, no. I’m singularly focused when I’m involved with a woman. I’m kind of a dick to him, to tell the truth.”

  “I noticed that,” Dawn said. “I thought maybe you were always a dick to him and just didn’t realize it.”

  “I have this very strange inability to focus my attention on more than one person at a time.”

  “I’m a bit like that myself. But it is possible to date one person and have a brilliant friendship with another.”

  He grinned. “I’ll have to try that sometime.”

  “And who is this handsome guy?” Dawn said, her attention on the fishing trip p
hoto.

  Sara was plastered to Kellen’s side, a net in one hand and a Solo cup holding tadpoles in the other. The two of them were smiling like idiots. Chad had an arm around Owen’s shoulders as they posed for Jodie, who’d been volunteered to take a group picture of them. They probably should have found a stranger to take the shot so Chad’s girlfriend could have been included in the picture.

  “You don’t see the resemblance?”

  “He looks a lot like Owen,” Dawn said. “A bit less pretty boy, but they definitely have the same eyes.”

  Kellen chuckled. Owen was somewhat of a pretty boy.

  “That’s Chad, Owen’s older brother. He’d just joined the army and left us right after that was taken.”

  “Is he still serving?”

  “Yeah, he’s in Afghanistan. Cleaning up IEDs or something. We don’t really talk about that stuff when we hear from him. He just wants to know what’s going on back home.”

  “That makes total sense to me.”

  “He’s supposed to be coming home soon. Owen is stoked.” Kellen was pretty stoked too, but he was a little better at hiding it.

  “Maybe I’ll get to meet him.” She glanced up at him, expectation in her eyes. She wanted to be a deeper part of his life; he recognized that. He just hoped he could allow it before he did something totally idiotic and pushed her away.

  Kellen pulled his gaze from hers and focused on the picture again. “Well, if you’re not into saving tadpoles when you’re supposed to be tossing back beers and landing a huge fish, I’m sure he’d be happy to have you along.”

  Kellen soon had her laughing about the slipperiness of tadpoles and Sara’s insistence that none of them be squashed by their man-hands and using all their beer cups for her rescue mission.

  “You don’t have to worry about me trying to save slimy creatures,” Dawn said. “I nearly catapulted myself into the Gulf when I stepped on a jellyfish.”