Public Secrets

by Nora Roberts

  “Bev’s coming, Johnno.”

  Brow lifted, Johnno glanced over his shoulder at the tangle of bodies. “So’s everyone else.”

  “She’ll meet us in New York.” With a half-laugh, Brian slung a rubbery arm around Johnno’s neck. “We’re going to New York, Johnno. New fucking York. Because we’re the best.”

  “That’s dandy, isn’t it?” Grunting only a little, Johnno dumped Brian on the bed. “Sleep it off, Bri. We’ve got to go through the whole bloody business again tomorrow.”

  “Got to wake Pete,” Brian mumbled as Johnno pulled off his shoes. “Passport for Emma. Tickets. I have to do the right thing by her.”

  “You will.” Weaving a little, courtesy of the Jim Beam, Johnno studied his newly purchased Swiss watch. He didn’t imagine Pete was going to appreciate being awakened, but he staggered off to do the deed.

  Chapter Four

  ON HER FIRST transatlantic flight, Emma traveled first class. And was miserably sick. She could not, as Bev periodically urged her, look out at the pretty clouds or page through any of the colorful picture books Bev had stuffed into her carry-on bag. Even empty, Emma’s stomach pitched and rolled. She was vaguely aware of Bev’s helpless little hand pats and the stewardess’s soothing voice.

  It didn’t matter that she had a new outfit with a short, bright red skirt and a flowered fussy blouse. It didn’t matter that she’d been promised a ride to the top of the Empire State Building. The nausea was so unrelenting that it no longer mattered that she was going to see her father.

  By the time the plane banked over JFK airport, she was too weak to stand. Frazzled, Bev carried her through the gate. After clearing customs, she nearly gave way to tears when she spotted Pete.

  In his impeccable Savile Row suit, he took a long look at the pasty-faced child and the edgy woman. “Rough trip?”

  Instead of tears, Bev found laughter bursting through. “Oh no. It was a delight from start to finish. Where’s Brian?”

  “He wanted to come, but I had to veto it.” He took Bev’s carry-on bag, then her arm. “The lads can’t even open a window for a breath of air without causing mass hysteria.”

  “And you love it.”

  He grinned, steering her toward the exit of the terminal. “Optimist that I am, I never expected this. Brian’s going to be a very rich man, Bev. We’re all going to be rich.”

  “Money doesn’t come first with Bri.”

  “No, but I can’t see him kicking it out of his way as it comes pouring in. Come on, I’ve got a car waiting.”

  She shifted Emma, but the girl only moaned and hung limply in Bev’s arms. “The bags.”

  “They’ll be delivered to the hotel.” He shuffled her out of the terminal. “There are plenty of pictures of you in the fan mags, too.”

  It was a white Mercedes limo, as big as a boat. At Bev’s puzzled look, Pete grinned again.

  “As long as you’re married to a king, luv, you might as well travel in style.”

  Saying nothing, Bev settled back and lit a cigarette. She hoped it was the long, miserable flight that made her feel so out of place and hollow. Between her and Pete, Emma curled on the seat and sweatily slept through her first limo ride.

  Pete didn’t pause in the lobby at the Waldorf but rushed them through and onto an elevator. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed that their luck had held. A mob scene at the airport or on the street in front of the hotel would have been inconvenient, but it would have made great copy. And copy sold records.

  “I’ve got you a two-bedroom suite.” The extra expense bothered his practical soul, but he justified it by knowing that Bev’s presence would make Brian more cooperative, and more creative. And it wouldn’t hurt for the press to know that Brian’s family was traveling with him. If he couldn’t promote Brian as a sexy single man, he could promote him as a loving husband and father. Whatever worked.

  “We’re all on the same floor,” he went on. “And security’s very tight. In Washington, D.C., two teenage girls managed to get into Stevie’s room in a maid’s cart.”

  “Sounds like a laugh a minute.”

  He only shrugged, remembering that Stevie had been drunk enough to appreciate the girls’ offers. The guitarist had rationalized that two sixteen-year-olds equaled one thirty-two-year-old. That had made them into one older woman.

  “The lads have some interviews scheduled today, then the Sullivan show tomorrow.”

  “Brian didn’t say where we were going next.”

  “Philadelphia, then Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis—”

  “Never mind.” Bev heaved a long, grateful sigh as the elevator doors opened. The hell with where they were going. She was here now. It didn’t matter a damn that she was enormously tired or that her arms ached from carrying the sleeping Emma. She was here, and could all but feel Brian’s energy in the air.

  “Just as well,” Pete said as he pulled out a key. “You’ve a couple of hours before the boys’ interview. It’s with some new mag that’ll publish its first issue later this year. Rolling Stone.”

  She took the key, pleased that he was sensitive enough not to intrude on the two hours he’d given her with Brian. “Thanks, Pete. I’ll make sure he’s ready for it.”

  The moment she opened the door, Brian came racing out of the adjoining bedroom to sweep both her and Emma into his arms. “Thank Christ,” he murmured, raining kisses over Bev’s face. He took the limp, drowsy Emma. “What’s wrong here?”

  “Nothing now.” Bev dragged her free hands through her hair. “She was dreadfully sick on the plane. Hardly slept. I think she’ll do fine once she’s tucked up.”

  “Right then. Don’t move.” He carried Emma into the second bedroom. She stirred only once as he slipped her between the sheets.

  “Da?”

  “Yes.” It still rocked him. “You sleep now awhile. Everything’s fine.”

  Comforted by the sound of his voice, she took it on faith, and drifted to sleep again.

  He automatically left the door ajar, then just stood and looked at Bev. She was pale with fatigue, the shadows under her making them huge and dark. Love welled up in him, stronger, needier than any he’d ever known. Saying nothing, he crossed to her, picked her up in his arms and carried her to his bed.

  He didn’t have words, though he was a man always filled with them. Words to poetry, poetry to lyrics. Later he would be filled with them, reams of words, flowing through him, all stemming from this, what might have been his most precious hour with her.

  She was, in that hour, so completely his.

  The radio beside the bed was on, as was the television at the foot of it. He’d chased away the silence of his rooms with voices. When he touched her, she was all the music he needed.

  So he savored. He undressed her slowly, watching her, absorbing her. The shudder of traffic outside the window—later he would remember it in bases and trebles. The small, yielding sounds she made were pitched low in countermelody. He could even hear the whispering song of his hands gliding over her skin.

  There was sunlight pouring through the window, and the big, soft bed yielding under them.

  Her body was already changing, subtly, with the life growing in it. He spread his hand over her rounded stomach, amazed, dazzled, humbled. Reverently he lowered his lips to her flesh.

  It was foolish, he thought, but he felt like a soldier returning from war, covered with scars and medals. Perhaps not so foolish. The arena in which he’d fought and won wasn’t one he could take her to. She would always wait for him. It was in her eyes, in her arms as they tenderly enfolded him. That promise and patience was on her lips as they opened for his. Her passion was always steadier than his, less selfish, balancing his edgier and more dangerous urges. With her he felt more of a man, less of a symbol in a world that seemed so hungry for symbols.

  When he slipped inside of her, he spoke at last, saying her name on a long, fluid sigh of gratitude and hope.

  Later, when she lay half dozin
g under the tangled sheets, Brian sat at the foot of the bed in his underwear. She was sated with sex, but his mind was in overdrive. Everything he’d ever wanted, ever dreamed of, was at his fingertips.

  “Pete had film taken of the Atlanta concert. Jesus, it was wild, Bev. Not just the fans screaming, though there was plenty of that. Sometimes you could hardly hear yourself sing for the noise. It was like, I don’t know, being on the runway of an airport with planes taking off all around, but mixed with the noisy ones were people who were really into it, just listening, you know. Sometimes you could see through the lights and the pot smoke, and there’d be a face. You could sing just for that one face. Then Stevie would go into a riff, like in ‘Undercover,’ and they’d go wild again. It was like, I don’t know, like great sex.”

  “Sorry I didn’t applaud.”

  Laughing, he tugged on her ankle. “I’m so glad you’re here. This summer is special. You can feel it in the air, see it in people’s races. And we’re part of it. We’re never going back, Bev.”

  She tensed, watching him. “To London?”

  “No.” He was half impatient, half amused by her literal mind. “To the way things were. Begging to play in some grimy pub, grateful if we got free beer and chips for pay. Christ, Bev, we’re in New York, and after tomorrow millions of people will have heard us. And it’s going to matter. We’re going to matter. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  She sat up to take his hands. “You’ve always mattered, Bri.”

  “No. I was just one more scruffy singer. Not anymore, Bev. And never again. People listen. The money’s going to make it possible for us to experiment a bit—do more than the boy-girl rock. There’s a war going on, Bev. A whole generation’s in upheaval. We can be their voices.”

  She didn’t understand big, sweeping dreams, but it had been his idealism that had attracted her from the beginning. “Just don’t leave me behind.”

  “I couldn’t.” He meant it sincerely, completely. “I’m going to give you the best, Bev. You and the baby. I swear it. I’ve got to get dressed.” He kissed both her hands, then shook back his tousled hair. “Pete’s really high about us being in the first issue of this new mag that’ll come but in November.” He tossed her a tie-dyed T-shirt. “Come on.”

  “I thought I’d stay in here.”

  “Bev …” They’d been through all this before. “You’re my wife. People want to know about you, about us.” He bit back annoyance when she simply sat, running the shirt through her hands. “If we give them a little, they won’t hound us for so much.” When he said it, he believed it. “It’s especially important because of Emma. I want everyone to see that we’ve made ourselves into a family.”

  “A family should be a private thing.”

  “Maybe. But the stories about Emma are already out there.” He’d seen them, dozens of them, labeling Emma as a love child. There could be worse things, he mused, since Emma hadn’t been made out of anything remotely resembling love. It was his other child, he thought as he laid a gentle hand on Bev’s stomach again, who had been made of love. “I need you with me on this.”

  Hating it, she climbed out of bed and began to dress.

  Twenty minutes later, she answered a knock on the door.

  “Johnno.”

  He gave Bev a quick grin. “I knew you couldn’t stay away from me.” Swooping her into an exaggerated dip, he kissed her. As she laughed, he looked over her head to where Brian was coming through the doorway. “Ah well, he’s found us out. We’d better come clean.”

  “Where’d you get that ridiculous hat?” was all Brian said.

  After setting Bev back on her feet, Johnno straightened the floppy white fedora. “Like it? It’s a happening.”

  “Makes you look like a pimp,” Brian commented before he walked to the bar.

  “There. I knew I’d made the right choice. Nearly cost me my life, but I managed to break out of here and do some shopping on Fifth Avenue. I’ll have one of those, luv.” He nodded to the whiskey Brian was pouring.

  “You went out?” Brian stood with the bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.

  “Sunglasses, a flowered tunic …” He wrinkled his nose. “And love beads. Worked nicely as far as disguises go, until I tried to get back in. Lost the love beads.” He helped himself to the glass Brian held. With a pleased sigh, he flopped on the couch. “This is the place for me, Brian, my lad. I am New York.”

  “Pete will have your head if he finds you went out on your own.”

  “Bugger Pete,” Johnno said cheerfully. “Though he’s not precisely my style.” Grinning, he downed the whiskey. “So, where’s the little brat?”

  “She’s sleeping.” Bev picked up a cigarette.

  Brian answered the next knock. Stevie strolled in, and after an absent nod to Bev headed straight to the bar. P.M. followed, and looking a little pale, dropped into a chair.

  “Word from Pete is we’ll do the interview here,” he said. “He’ll be bringing the reporter along. Where’d you get the hat?” he asked Johnno.

  “It’s a long, sad story, son.” Glancing over, he spotted Emma standing at the crack in her bedroom door. “Don’t look now, but we’ve company. Hello there, prune face.”

  She giggled a little, but didn’t come in. At the moment, her eyes were all for Brian.

  He crossed over and, picking her up, patted her bottom. “Emma. How does it feel to be an international traveler?”

  She thought she’d dreamed it, that one moment where he’d tucked her in bed and kissed her cheek. But it wasn’t a dream, because he was there, smiling at her, his voice making all the nastiness in her stomach disappear.

  “I’m hungry,” she said and offered him a huge grin.

  “I’m not surprised.” He kissed the dimple at the corner of her mouth. “How about some chocolate cake?”

  “Soup,” Bev put in.

  “Cake and soup,” he amended. “And some nice tea.”

  He set her down to go to the phone and ring room service.

  “Come over here, Emma. I have something for you.” Johnno patted the cushion beside him. She hesitated. Her mother had often said just that. And the something had been a smack. But Johnno was smiling a true smile. When she settled beside him, he took a small, clear plastic egg from his pocket. Inside was a toy ring with a gaudy red stone.

  Emma gave a little gasp as he put it in her hand. Speechless, she turned the egg this way and that, watching the ring slide from side to side.

  It had been a careless thing, Johnno thought. A machine that took American quarters, and he’d had change left after his speedy shopping spree. More touched than he wanted the others to see, he opened the egg for her, then slipped the ring on her finger.

  “There. We’re engaged.”

  Emma beamed at the ring, then at him. “Can I sit on your lap?”

  “All right then.” He leaned close to her ear. “But if you wet your pants, the engagement’s off.”

  She laughed, settled on his lap, and began to play with her ring.

  “First my wife, then my daughter,” Brian commented.

  “You’d only have to worry if you had a son.” Stevie tossed off the words as easily as he tossed off the drink. Then wished he’d cut off his tongue. “Sorry,” he muttered as the room fell silent. “Hangover. Puts me in a filthy mood.”

  At the knock on the door, Johnno gave a lazy shrug. “Better put on that famous smile, son. It’s show time.”

  Johnno was angry, but hid it well as the young, bearded reporter sat down with them. They had no idea what it was like, he thought. None of them, save Brian who had gone to school with him, had befriended him. The names he’d been called—fag, pussy, queer. They had hurt a great deal more than the occasional beatings he’d taken. Johnno knew he would have had his face smashed into a pulp more than once if it hadn’t been for Brian’s ready fists and loyalty.

  They had been drawn together, two ten-year-old boys with drunken fathers. Poverty wasn’t uncommon in
London’s east end, and there were always toughs ready to break an arm for pence. There were ways of escaping. For both him and Brian, the escape had been music.

  Elvis, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters. They would pool whatever money they could earn or steal to buy those precious 45s. At twelve, they’d collaborated on their first song—a really poor one, Johnno remembered now, lots of moon/June rhymes set to a three-chord rhythm they’d pounded out on their battered guitar. They’d traded a pint of Brian’s father’s gin for that guitar, and Brian had taken an ugly beating. But they’d made music, such as it was.

  Johnno had been nearly sixteen before he realized what he was. He’d sweated over it, wept over it, pounded himself into any girl who would have him to turn his fate around. But sweat, tears, and sex hadn’t changed him.

  Finally it had been Brian who had helped him to accept. They’d been drinking, late at night, in the basement of Brian’s flat. This time, Johnno had pinched whiskey from his father. The stench of garbage had been rank as they sat with a candle between them,