by Chant, Zoe
“Geez, I thought you and Mags had an understanding. Total freedom, marriage someday to consolidate holdings, yadda yadda.”
“Until she met the real deal.”
“I thought we don’t believe in mates,” Dennis said plaintively. “That’s old folks’ talk, hearts and flowers. You and me, we love ‘em and leave ‘em. And poor Mick, the honest bear, gets snookered into marriage.”
“He found his mate, too. This wedding is the real deal for him as well.”
The phone went silent.
“Anyway, my point is, there might be some action. I haven’t burdened Mick with it, as his head is in his wedding, but I might be needing backup.”
“Action?” Dennis said, his voice brightening. “You shoulda come out with that first crack out of the bag! As it happens, I’m grounded. Leg. Before you called I was sitting here tossing cards into a hat and feeling sorry for myself. Let me see what I can swing.”
JP hung up, reflecting that only Dennis would completely ignore a broken leg if there was a chance of something going on. But that kind of defined the three of them, didn’t it? Mick the bear, straightforward, loyal, strong. Dennis the hunter.
And JP the dragon, whose responsibility was to protect them all.
Chapter Three
The bridal shower in Malibu was just as A-List fabulous as Jan had expected. She sat next to Shelley, who wore designer clothes and Jimmy Choo sandals, wearing her own four-year-old handkerchief top that she’d found at Marshall’s and her battered sandals from Payless. She smiled and cooed with all the other stellar guests at every dainty gift bag from designer shops containing staggeringly expensive gift cards, struggling to be happy for her deserving friend.
After it was over, they drove back to Jan’s shabby apartment, but before Jan got out of Shelley’s car, Shelley said, handing her a thick envelope, “Here are the gift cards. Get yourself a bridesmaid dress, and clothes, and all the rest.”
Jan exclaimed, “Shelley, I couldn’t possibly . . .”
Shelley sighed. “Jan. We’ve shared everything since college. You’d be doing the same thing if our situations were reversed. Mick gives me anything I want. And you know my idea of style is a good motorcycle jacket, so these cards are wasted on me.”
Jan knew it was true. She hugged Shelley fiercely.
“I’ll pick you up in a week. Have fun!” And Shelley drove off.
The next week Jan spent in a whirlwind of activity.
Monday through Thursday mornings before her lunch shift at the restaurant, Jan took the bus on shopping expeditions, coming home with bags of gorgeous Art Nouveau decorated Lee Andersen clothes, and hand dyed tunics from Art of Cloth. Her greatest triumph was a gown by Stefanyszyn in a deep shade of blue that she knew would go well with the pale teal wedding dress that Shelley had chosen. Add in two pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes—sandals for everyday and heels for the wedding—and her outfits were complete.
Then came a morning appointment at an exclusive salon that ordinarily she would not have dared walk in. While she got the best mani-pedi of her life, she watched, mesmerized, as her thin, flyaway wisps of blond hair shaped into rich waves and curls. How was it possible that cutting hair somehow seemed to add to the volume? As she stepped back onto the bus to cross town to her voice coach, her hair slithered over her shoulder blades every time she moved her head, no longer snarling.
The next morning, Shelley arrived in her great new car. “Shall we hit the road?”
Jan wheeled her suitcase full of marvelous clothes out to Shelley’s new Mercedes. She was still smiling as they climbed into the car.
“You’re grinning,” Shelley said.
“You’re getting married and I have a whole week off from waitressing and trolling for auditions,” Jan said, settling back against the fine upholstery as Shelley maneuvered into the traffic heading north. “A whole week. Luxury! And—Shelley, I want to thank you again—”
Shelley groaned. “Stop that! You know I got the shoes gene, but clothes? You put them on, you forget about them until you take them off, then you have to launder them. I wish we had pelts . . .” She paused, laughed, then clammed up.
Jan waited, and when Shelley seemed absorbed into melding into the traffic joining the 405 and 5 freeways, she said, “Pelts? Where did that come from?”
“I dunno. Wedding brain.”
Jan accepted that, though thinking it an odd turn in the conversation. It was usually Jan who got fanciful, not practical Shelley. “So tell me about this place we’re going. You’ve mentioned it a couple times. Sanluce? Who names a town Sanluce?”
“Gold miners.” Shelley glanced over. “It’s technically Santa Lucia, from the days of the giant rancheros. But after the Gold Rush, a bunch of unsuccessful forty-niners swarmed in. Most of them swarmed right out again, but a few stayed. They began calling it Sanluce, and the name stuck.”
“I guess it’s better than Hangtown and Dead Man’s Gulch. Is it picturesque?”
“Oh, it just looks like any small town,” Shelley said, and her voice dropped a half note—like she could have said something else, but was consciously not saying it. “Real nice people. They pretty much all know each other. I think you’ll like Mick’s grandparents. They live half a block away from the motel where I booked rooms for you and the family. I figured you’d rather stay there than with the LaFleurs, though they offered their guestrooms.”
“Where will you be staying?” Jan asked.
Shelley flashed a grin. “With Mick’s grandparents. I can help around the house. Mick’s granddad is pretty frail, and his grandmother is not a whole lot better. So you can join us for meals. Is that okay?”
“Sounds perfect. And if there’s any way I can help out, you know you can count on me,” Jan said. “So I think I asked before, and we got sidetracked. Tell me about the best man. Will I be expected to sit with him at dinner and so forth?”
“We’re being really casual,” Shelley said. “As for the guy, his name is JP. Mick says they used to call him Jeep when they were boys. His real name is French—Jean-Pierre. His mom is the town’s mayor. Their family owns most of the ranch land around the town, but he does something else—oh yeah. He’s an A&R scout for a big record company in Hollywood. And for some of the music venues. I met him last month, but JP had just returned from Japan. He was jetlagged and didn’t say much.”
“Maybe he was brain dead from listening to all those boy bands,” Jan joked.
Shelley grinned. “Somebody’s got to do it! Anyway, he was really quiet, but seemed nice enough. Definitely not a jerk.”
“Good to know,” Jan said, wondering if Mick and this mystery Jeep guy were having a similar conversation somewhere in Sanluce. Jeep. Who would ever go by the name Jeep? He had to be a dork.
Then she had to laugh at herself. Dork or no dork, of course they weren’t talking about her. Far more likely Mick had totally forgotten Jan’s name.
The sun rimmed the western mountains on the other side of the Central Valley, the light fading from golden to ochre when Shelley and Jan left the highway and drove along an equally flat, straight two-lane road for a few miles. The scenery was pretty much limited to ripened corn and wheat, some with workers bobbing among them, others with machines zooming slowly up and down rows. Jan blinked, finding the unending succession of straight rows hypnotic.
Dusk had begun softening the shadows and melding them together when they reached Sanluce. The first sign of human habitation outside of those rows of crops were a couple of parked vans, one with a sign for awning repair and the other advertising aluminum siding—noticeable only because both were parked beside an empty lot without any aluminum siding, or awnings, anywhere in sight. Jan wondered idly if the drivers were teenagers and this was the local Lovers’ Lane parking spot as Shelley drew her attention by making a grand sweep with one hand.
“Here we have Main Street,” Shelley said.
It had a total of four stoplights, and Jan counted twice as many cars.
“Looks like
rush hour is ending,” Shelley joked as they rolled by the one-story, white stucco or fake brick storefronts.
Jan had hoped for something interesting or at least eye-catching. She wasn’t going to say anything out loud, but now she could totally see why the residents had bypassed the mellifluous mystery of ‘Santa Lucia.’ This placed looked like a ‘Sanluce.’
On the corner where Main Street crossed Santa Lucia Ave sat the old church that Shelley had mentioned.
“It doesn’t look like it dates back to the 1800s,” Jan said, disappointed.
“That’s because it’s been rebuilt a couple times. Quake damage,” Shelley said.
It was boringly modern, and the Protestant church across from it was even more boring, being the same white clapboard you found all across the US. More important, one glance and you knew neither building had great acoustics. “Hey,” Jan said, straightening around again. “Where is the wedding being held, anyway? I’m going to need at least one rehearsal to check the sound.”
“You’ll have as much time as you like. We’re doing a rehearsal the day after the boys’ bash. As for the wedding, it’s going to be on the LaFleurs’ grounds. They have a pretty garden.”
“Outside?” Jan said, wincing. At best that meant pin mikes, amps, and crappy outdoor speakers. But even worse would be trying to project in open air, with sound waves dispersing on the breezes, or being absorbed by grass, trees, and listeners craning to hear.
“Yes, but Mick says they have a state-of-the-art sound shell.”
Now that was interesting. People usually didn’t have state-of-the-art shells at simple outdoor weddings.
As they passed the last of the town buildings and entered the residential area, Jan glanced back at those neutral-colored walls and roofs. It was almost as if someone had designed the place to be so boring no one would want to stop.
She had to laugh at the idea. Of course not. These were agricultural folks, who probably didn’t have time to mess around with fancy buildings. Or art.
Or opera.
“Here we go,” Shelley said, pulling up before a white stucco motel with a red tile roof and some plaster archways that seemed to be a vague gesture in the direction of the haciendas of Old Mexico.
Since the room was already paid for all they had to do was collect the key—a real key, a heavy brass thing—from the middle-aged manager whose quick, deft fingers and intent, toothy smile distracted Jan, making her think of raccoons.
They walked down the short row to the last room, which was small but scrupulously clean. It seemed the best of the bunch in that it had three windows: front, back, and the side that overlooked the parking lot and a dusty field of sparse grass beyond. They opened the windows to air out the stuffiness, and left Jan’s suitcase. After that they drove 500 yards to a small house in the middle of a row of equally small houses of 1920s twenties vintage, each with an orange or lemon tree planted in front. A few people had gone wild and planted both.
“Now you know where the Volkovs live,” Shelley said as they walked up to the whitewashed porch. Shelley rapped the smiling gargoyle-faced brass knocker—the first curious thing Jan had seen in the entire town.
The door was opened at once by a small, elderly woman. “Shelley! You are come at last. We waited dinner.” Her Russian accent was strong. “Is this your friend?”
“Jan, Mrs. Volkov.”
“Jan, be welcome!” Mrs. Volkov pronounced her name ‘Chan,’ which Jan found delightful. “You must call me Baba Marisia, please. That is how the boys always call me. Come, come! They sit in living room.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Shelley asked, leading Jan into a minuscule entryway.
Baba Marisia, Jan saw, was as short as she was, and much lighter in build, spare but not angular. In her youth she must have been sleek and graceful, like an otter. Jan liked her smile. Her voice, though tremulous with age, rang on a true note as she gestured to invite them into the living room.
They stepped into the waft of delicious spicy cooking aromas: paprika, garlic, slow-baked pork. The low rumble of male voices spilled out in a glissando of hilarity.
Jan quickly picked out Mick’s deep basso in the midst of a brassy baritone and a pure tenor that sent tingles down her spine. Then the talk broke before thin, breathy voice of an elderly man, who broke into wheezy laughter, causing an explosion of mirth.
Jan peered past Shelley into a small, cramped living room full of simple furnishings of polished carved wood, with Russian Orthodox icons framed on the walls, and what seemed to be an entire soccer team of men that she quickly saw was only four. But they took up a lot of space.
Shelley flew into the arms of the second biggest man there—tall, blond, blue-eyed Mick Volkov. They kissed with quick fervor that made Jan’s heart squeeze—would anyone ever kiss her that way?—then Shelley, flushed and grinning, turned her hand out to Jan.
But before she could speak, Mick exclaimed, “Look who arrived not ten minutes before you—Dennis!”
Jan stared over Shelley’s shoulder at the largest man there, an enormous, broad-shouldered guy with tawny hair. He leaned heavily on a cane as he stood politely, and grinned at Shelley with a dashing smile. “Great to meet you, Shelley.”
“Hey, Dennis. Please, sit down, everybody.” Shelley glanced around. “Dennis, I thought you were somewhere along the Amazon.”
“I was!” Dennis owned the brassy voice. “But an accidental encounter with a Lancehead pit viper, a slippery rock, and a shattered femur added up to the head honchos kicking me back to base. So I decided, I’m halfway home, so let’s not let a little thing like a bum leg make me miss my good buddy’s shindig.” As he spoke Jan caught a flicker of a glance between him and Mick, and his tone shifted pitch: Added meaning, she thought, sending a look Shelley’s way. But she was smiling at Mick as if she hadn’t heard a word.
Then the tenor broke the pause before it could become awkward. “Are we being rude? Shelley, will you introduce your friend?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so bad at this . . . ” Shelley began as Jan’s gaze snapped to the right.
Next to an elderly, frail-looking gentleman who had to be Mick’s grandfather stood a knife-lean man with blue-black hair, black eyes set at an entrancing tilt above blade-sharp cheekbones in smooth olive skin. At first he seemed medium height, but that was only in comparison to Dennis and Mick, the two giants. He was actually quite tall.
Jan’s senses sharpened: every sound crystalized, every color intensified. Though Mick wore jeans and Dennis battered cargo pants, JP was elegantly dressed in slacks of slate gray, and an expensive tailored shirt under a light summer blazer. Jan swallowed in a suddenly dry throat, shifting her gaze up to meet his steady black gaze, cool as a volcanic lake, its depth impossible to guess.
I’m drowning, she thought hazily as her nerves shocked hot then cold. Dimly she heard Shelley saying, “Everybody, please meet my friend Jan Janssen.” Then she turned to Jan, and pointed to each man. “Mr. Volkov, JP, you know Mick of course, and the new guy is Dennis—in case you missed Mick’s bellow.”
Jan wrenched her gaze away from JP, thankful when Mrs. Volkov looked in to say, “If you’ll all come to dining room, everything is ready.”
The two big men shot to their feet, and there was a bottleneck as Mick attempted to gallantly squire Shelley and Dennis maneuvered with his cane. Jan stepped back, nearly colliding with JP. Her hand bumped against the smooth shirt between the open flaps of his coat, her knuckles grazing the hard line of abs below his ribs. Heat shot through her, and she snatched her hand away, pressing it against her side as she fought a flush.
Gratefully she followed Dennis’s broad back as she gulped air to cool her face.
Phew. What just happened? Jan thought. Oh, she knew what had happened, but not why. She’d gone all adolescent insta-crush. Even worse, on a guy who apparently owned half the town. A guy so far out of her league that her role as sidekick in Shelley’s romcom seemed to have shifted to comedic
relief.
Chapter Four
Nobody had told JP that Jan Janssen was beautiful.
His own voice, fatuous with the arrogance of age twenty-one echoed manically in his ears, Blondes are a cliché, and I never date clichés.
Of course the universe had not finished laughing at him. He stared, the block of ice that had divided him from the world for the last year smashing so suddenly that his nerves felt unsheathed, the air too thin to breathe. Yet he could not look away from her soft, graceful curves arcing down to the generous hips that the Old Masters, so wise, had never tired of painting, the delectable whole dominated by wide blue eyes.
When she fell against him for a brief moment, the sun went nova, emptying his skull like an eggshell as his lungs struggled for breath. He couldn’t move a muscle until she snatched her hand away and turned her back.
It looked like Dennis was going to be gallant and pull out the end chair for her, but he frowned down at his cane, and JP stepped around him and did it first.
Dennis cast a rueful glance at him over Jan’s curly blonde head and mouthed the words, Sneaky bastard!
JP was going to retort in kind, but Jan cast a quick, shy smile up at him, her cheeks pink, sending another bolt of heat up his spine. “Thanks,” she said in a low voice like pure, molten gold.
JP, veteran of countless high-powered boardroom victories and negotiations with difficult mega-star musicians and singers, couldn’t find a word to say as he took the seat adjacent to hers. His mind had gone completely blank. The mere sound of her voice stirred JP in points south that had been utterly dead for far too long. Totally inappropriate in his old friend’s homely kitchen!
JP marshaled his wits as Baba Marisia passed around the serving dishes, a heavy ceramic edged with colorful Russian folk motifs. He was intensely aware of Jan at the other table openly admiring those dishes.
The company sat quiet as the grandparents said grace in Russian, words that JP did not understand but he had been hearing at this table since he was small. Then they picked up their forks and began to eat.