Second Chances

by Leigh Morgan

  “I’m not just interested in women who physically fought beside men. I’m looking for stories of goddesses and historical women who made the Celts strong. The Celts didn’t fear their women the way the early male dominated church did. Those lost stories are what I’m interested in.”

  Rhia wasn’t paying him the least amount of attention, she was too focused on the round table in front of her. She said she was interested in seeing Merlin’s cave, so he volunteered to take her to Tintagel. He’d always liked Cornwall so it wasn’t much of a sacrifice.

  The Cornish fishing villages of Looe and Polperro were incredibly romantic, although he’d never taken a woman to either place for a romantic getaway. Now he couldn’t wait to share their calm ambiance with Rhia, assuming he could get her away from King Arthur’s birthplace long enough to engage in a little romance.

  Ram wasn’t sure he believed in King Arthur at all, much less that this was his birthplace, but he had to admit it was a good story. Forgotten legends, folk heroes and new twists on old ones seemed to really turn Rhia on, and her enthusiasm was contagious. Ram already had the makings for a few new songs based on the folklore Rhia was uncovering rumbling through his mind.

  Rhia was amazing. She’d go up to anyone and just start talking, asking them questions that ran the gamut from mundane to intimate. She engaged them all with a kind of quiet grace that instantly made strangers become friends. People opened up for her, and before he had time to get restless, Rhia had another story and had made another friend. She exchanged addresses with most of the people she met. Ram couldn’t begin to imagine how many people she had on her Christmas card list.

  He had less than ten, and that included his manager and the members of his band. Every day he spent with Rhia made him see how empty he’d allowed his life to become. Purple Orchid had gone platinum in more than ten countries, millions of people knew his music, yet without Rhia he was alone.

  Ram caught up with her as an elderly woman was finishing a story of a female knight of the round table. “Fought harder than any of them, she did. You see she was just a little bit of a thing, but she fought for her family’s land and for her freedom.”

  Rhia had soaked it up with the enthusiasm of a true believer, scribbling frantically in her ever present notebook. She thanked the woman and moved on with Ram.

  Ram looked over her shoulder into her notebook. “Whatcha got in that thing? Lemme see.” Ram said.

  Rhia paged through quickly for him. She had pages and pages of material. Ram knew she transferred the notes she took each day onto her laptop. He’d asked why once and she’d said, ‘I don’t want to miss anything, and I need to get the emotions down while they’re still fresh.’

  Ram understood about emotion and story-telling. He only got about three minutes to convey his stories. Of course the music helped, emotion for him was distilled in music.

  Rhia wasn’t just fanatical about detailing words, she sketched in her leather clad notebook too. And she wasn’t half bad. Her sketches tended to be more fanciful than the landscape they depicted, but then again Rhiannon saw things a little differently than he did.

  She did a pencil drawing of him in front of Merlin’s waterfall that was amazing. He wasn’t that tall or that good looking but for her he wanted to be. Ram’s cell phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. When he saw it was Stark, Ram took the call.

  “Honey, I’ve got to take this.” He said to Rhia, as surprised as she seemed to be over the endearment. It just came out and he’d be damned if he’d take it back.

  Her sky-blue eyes lifted from her sketch and lit on his. Rhia nodded that she understood he needed privacy. “I saw the lady who told me about the female knight sitting by the post office with an elderly couple. I’m going to go find out what they know about Morgan Le Fay.”

  She was so wrapped up in folk stories of legendary women that had she been invited to tea with the Wills and Kate she would have declined. The woman was all go, little show, and Ram needed more of that in his life. His public life, which he’d sunk all his energy into since the death of his parents, was all about show. Thankfully his music was good enough to back up all the hype.

  Watching Rhia as she made her way to the elderly threesome up the hill, Ram answered the phone. He was feeling his soul fight for release from the self-imposed cocoon he’d constructed to protect himself from the world. It started to unravel with one golden-haired tyrant giving a sheep hell. That thought scared him, but the thought of living without Rhia and the peace he felt just holding her hand scared him more.

  “Keep her away from the grocery store. The T.V. too.” Stark said by way of greeting.

  “I’m fine Ben. How are you?”

  “I’m serious, Ram. Keep her occupied. This should all blow over in a few days. It always does. You’ll want to lay low too. Stay out of the clubs for awhile.”

  “What happened?” Ram asked, feeling the peace that had settled over him the last few days disappear. It took Stark less than a minute to explain what Becca had done. By the time he was through Ram felt cold determination settle into his bones. He’d found something real with Rhia and he wasn’t about to let anyone tear it apart before he knew where it was going.

  “Get to her, Ben. I want to know every skeleton in her Prada filled closet. She’s got contracts with Chanel and one of those exclusive French lingerie houses, I want enough on her to make them dump her if I make a phone call. I’ll crush Becca before I’ll let her hurt Rhia.”

  Stark answered, “Done.” Wondering why he felt the slightest twinge of sympathy for an overpaid beautiful bitch he disliked on principal and barely knew.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Something about the way Carlos Santana played the guitar made Rhia think of sex.

  She couldn’t help it. Just imagining the flight of Carlos’s fingers across the taught strings made her hot. She was depraved that way. These last few weeks with Ram had her embracing that depravity instead of hiding it away for stolen moments alone.

  Music, in all its forms, touched her in ways Rhia wasn’t sure she wanted to acknowledge, much less talk about. Her mother still teased her about singing her first sentence. Too bad she was so off key. Ah well, that didn’t matter so much in the shower.

  Rhia stopped Ram’s hand as he tried to change the station. “Don’t” she said. “I love this song.” It wasn’t just Carlos’s magical fingers that moved her when she heard this song, it was so much more than that. It was the way the singer’s voice washed over her that made Rhia think of warm water, soft hands and champagne on the beach.

  As Ram’s hand stilled under hers, Rhia couldn’t help but notice the tension radiating from him.

  “What is it about this song you like?” He asked sounding slightly irritated.

  “Oh God, you’re not a country fan, are you?” Rhia asked. Ram just raised an irritated brow trying to ignore her.

  “Just answer the question Rí.”

  Why did she like this song so much? Rhia hadn’t stopped to analyze the why of it. She just enjoyed the music and the emotion that magical voice evoked. For Rhia that voice exuded sensuality. It moved her the way Peggy Lee singing Fever moved her. Sex on a stick, every single time she heard it.

  Rhia tried to put that feeling into words for Ram. “It’s not Santana really, although I like his collaborations. It’s this man’s voice. It doesn’t just sing, it moves and breathes and caresses with every raspy note.”

  Rhia snuggled into the soft leather seat of Ram’s Jag trying to make sense of her earthy reaction to an inanimate voice. She wondered what the singer looked like. She imagined tall, dark and probably forty-five and just beginning to gray. It didn’t matter though. Not really. He could have been sixty, bald and forty pounds over weight and he still would have turned her on with that voice.

  Rhia didn’t realize she’d been rubbing up and down Ram’s leg until she smiled at him and his leg stiffened. When he didn’t smile back her hand stilled, but she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t
read his expression, but he didn’t look happy.

  “What exactly is it about this song that you like?” Ram asked again in an almost accusatory tone. He seemed genuinely interested though, so she answered as honestly as she could.

  “The singer feels the music. His voice is like magic. It reverberates through me and makes my blood sing. He makes me want to lay in front of a roaring fire drinking champagne on a bear skin rug, wearing only diamonds.” She smirked at him. “Really big diamonds.”

  When Ram didn’t smile at her joke she closed her eyes and started singing softly, letting the music pull her in. “See. There it is. His voice is like twenty year old scotch and fine jewelry. It’s whisky over crushed pearls.”

  Rhia snuggled deeper into the soft mimosa scented leather of Ram’s Jaguar, loving just being with him, despite his surly mood. Today had been perfect and she was going to remember everything about it, including this song playing on the radio, when she was eighty and alone.

  “I could listen to that voice forever.” She said more to herself than Ram, quietly wishing that she wouldn’t be alone at eighty. Amazingly, she could see herself growing old with Ram. In her daydream he was still tall and handsome, and although his hair was still long, it was no longer blond, but a sparkling white.

  Rhia’s eyes flew open as Ram hit the brakes. He pulled to the side of the road and had her in his lap before she could protest. He turned off the radio before her song ended and she couldn’t think of one single reason why.

  Ram’s green eyes consumed her before he lowered his lips to hers. He kissed her deeply, holding her too tightly. She could hardly breathe.

  This man was such a puzzle, he just didn’t react like anyone Rhia knew. He didn’t laugh when she got excited over Merlin’s cave and the stories she heard about pirates who stored their booty there over the ages.

  He took her interest in folklore seriously and he didn’t doubt there were female knights of the round table. So why did he get so worked up over her reaction to a song on the radio?

  Ram’s exploration of her lips ended as abruptly as it began. She was never going to understand him, but that didn’t matter. Not as long as he kept taking her breath away.

  What was she going to do without him? Rhia pushed the ugly thought away. She didn’t want to spoil a perfect day thinking about what could happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month.

  “You kill me Rhia. Every single day I spend with you, I get sucked in deeper.” His eyes bored into hers and his hands tightened on her cupped face, enough to notice, but not enough to hurt. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”

  His voice was harsher than usual, but he kissed her forehead so gently she didn’t really mind. She wanted to nestle into his neck, but he had her back in her seat and was pulling into traffic before she had the chance.

  His voice was carefully neutral when he spoke again, but Rhia could see the tension hadn’t left his body with their kiss. “There’s a C.D. in the glove box. I think you’ll like it. Why don’t you put it in.”

  It was as if the last few minutes didn’t happen. Rhia didn’t know what to think of his mood or his question about what he was going to do with her. As far as she was concerned he could keep her for awhile, a long while, but his question seemed more rhetorical than literal, so she kept her mouth shut and opened the glove box.

  Carbon Leaf.

  Rhia had never heard of Carbon Leaf, but Ram was right, she liked them. The singer didn’t have the range or the depth of the man singing with Santana on the radio, but he was good and she was swaying to the music in no time. Before she knew it the music and the warm sunlight streaming through the moonroof of the Jaguar lulled her to sleep.

  ...

  Whisky over crushed pearls?

  The woman had quite an imagination, and she’d snared him with it. Rhia had no idea he was the man singing that song with Santana. Carlos approached him years ago about writing a song for a mixed artist C.D. Ram had been thrilled at the chance to play with a musician of such caliber.

  No one played like Santana. Ram knew that he himself was good with a guitar, but he didn’t have the experience or the depth Santana was famous for.

  That song opened up a whole new world for Ram. He was suddenly not just on the rock charts, he’d hit the top forty. That same year he’d written the theme song for a major movie that went platinum in a matter of weeks. And he’d done it without his band, Purple Orchid. Less than a year later he’d been approached by Willie Nelson to do another collaboration, although it was Santana’s and Willie’s names credited on the radio, not his. But Ram didn’t care then. At that point Ram was well on his way to making it as a solo artist. Right now he was grateful for that anonymity.

  He was also earning more money than he could count. He’d invested wisely and now he could hire people to spend money for him. It wasn’t about that anymore, it was about the release music gave him.

  He’d written that damn love song Rhia liked so much in less than five minutes, after seeing a mermaid exhibit in Amsterdam. Something about one golden-haired mermaid called out to him and made the lyrics flow.

  Ram stopped breathing and shot Rhiannon a look.

  No.

  Ram shook his head to clear his thoughts. There was no mermaid in this car or in his life. Just a curly-haired pixie who had taken up residence in his heart and helped heal part of his battered psyche.

  Ram didn’t know how long he could keep this charade up. He was rich, he was famous, and it was a miracle Rhia hadn’t found out about both those facts by now. Hell, he wanted her to know. He wanted to share everything he had to offer with her. He just wanted to be sure she wanted him without his fortune and fame clouding the issue.

  Too bad life rarely gave him exactly what he wanted, Ram thought, with more trepidation than he’d felt in years.

  No wonder he was afraid, he finally had something in his life to lose.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ram and Rhia stayed in Cornwall for five magical days. Tintagel, the legendary birth place of King Arthur, was amazing. Rhia swore she saw the ghost of Arthur, carrying a sword, dressed in little more than a few pieces of leather. Her Arthur looked surprisingly like Clive Owen. She sketched him in her notebook, saving the image for contemplation.

  Rhia also heard the mystical voice of Merlin in Merlin’s cave as she stood there holding Ram’s hand. Over the weeks she’d spent with him, Rhia felt her inner ‘professor’ wash away to be replaced by her more imaginative self. Rhia was softer and more open to myth and mystery. She was also more willing to take a chance with her career.

  Rhia found herself writing a novel about legendary Celtic women instead of a scholarly thesis, and she was happy about it. These legends deserved more than a cold recitation of what factual information Rhia had been able to obtain, and so did she. The monster within that wanted to express herself more creatively had been released, and Rhia had no intention of chaining the beast again.

  It was all Ram’s fault.

  The man had no problem believing in folklore. His imagination and his ability to vividly convey an image in just a few sentences boggled Rhia’s mind. When she tried to add caveats to his succinct explanations or when she went into logic over-drive Ram called her ‘professor’.

  God, she hated that. She was beginning to hate everything about that moniker. ‘Rí’ was so much better. It made her feel sexy and slightly elicit. It was almost as liberating as wearing tight jeans, sparkly tanks, and the PVC boots Ram bought for her.

  ‘Professor’ made her feel anal-retentive and old. That just didn’t track anymore. Rhia wanted to feel like the best part of her life still lay ahead. The milestones she’d made in her life she wouldn’t take back, but there had to be more to life than being good at her job.

  She’d worked hard to earn tenure. She’d published facts instead of feelings. She’d been objective and diligent in her recitations of what was, and what scholars ‘guessed’ might have been. It made her good at her job. It ga
ve her respectability.

  And it was slowly killing her.

  Rhia needed to feel, not just analyze. She needed to love and be loved passionately, not because it was smart, but because it felt so damn good.

  Still, change didn’t come easy or cheap. She still had too much of the ‘professor’ in her, she had to question. It was like looking at herself first thing in the morning. She really didn’t want to, but every morning she just had to peek. Rhia knew the pain peeking and questioning would bring, but she just couldn’t help herself.

  “So do you own Pentla Mansion, or are you a renter too?” God, she sounded like a bitch even to herself. So much for the easy camaraderie she’d found with Ram.

  The sun was high in the sky when they left for Polperro. She’d lulled him into a feeling of contentment he hadn’t felt in longer than Ram cared to admit.

  “It’s Pentla House, not Pentla Mansion.” He said striving for a calm he didn’t feel.

  “Pentla isn’t a ‘house’ by anyone’s standards. It’s huge. And I haven’t even seen all the wings. There isn’t another home in Ponty that comes close to the size and grace of Pentla.”

  Was he imagining her dreaminess? Hell, Ram didn’t know whether he was coming or going with this woman. The fact that he was hiding his identity wasn’t helping his conscience much either. He felt like he was lying to her even though he hadn’t said one word so far that wasn’t true.

  Damn.

  Ram couldn’t remember rationalizing his actions since he’d stolen a senator’s wife’s Jaguar from a location it wasn’t supposed to be. The fact that his mother had just died of ovarian cancer, coupled with the senator’s preference for keeping the courts, and hence the media, out of the mix kept him out of jail. Unfortunately, it landed him in military school. For the son of a cop and a concert musician that wasn’t a good thing. But, Ram wouldn’t change those years for anything. He’d learned how to kick ass and also how to negotiate his way around just about anything.