Damn. Deirdre dragged one hand wearily through her hair. She didn’t need this right now.
“Listen, Emma, I’ve had kind of a tough morning. Stone made some progress on my case.” She wasn’t ready to share the fact that in just a few days she’d be meeting her birth father.
“Oh, so that’s why you were over at Jake’s all night,” Emma sniped. “Just talking business. That’s why your clothes look like they lay on the floor all night and your hair is a mess.”
Deirdre took a deep breath and counted to ten. “I’m really tired. I’m sorry you were worried, but I had no way of knowing you’d be home early.”
“Or what? You’d have left me a note? Sleepover at Stone’s house—don’t worry, I packed my condoms.”
“Emmaline Kate, I’m the parent here. I’m thirty-three years old and I—”
“So that makes it all right? Do you love him?” Emma demanded fiercely.
Deirdre’s cheeks flamed. “I don’t…it’s not…that simple.”
“What a hypocrite!” Emma smacked her palms on the table and jumped to her feet. “You go all crazy on me for letting Drew cop a feel up at Sullivan’s Point and then you go have sex with a guy you don’t even love.”
“Emma—”
“I love Drew. But I’m not supposed to have sex with him—”
“You’re sixteen, damn it! It’s not the same thing at all! Think! If you got pregnant—”
“What if you did?” Emma flung back. “You got knocked up having casual sex before! Didn’t you learn your lesson?”
“Emma,” Deirdre struggled for patience. “You’re crossing the line, here.”
“You’re the one who keeps crossing the line!” Emma stared at her, wide eyes filled with defiance and pain. “Since this sex thing is no big deal to you, maybe you can help me out. I’ve been trying to figure out who my father is. I’ve circled all the likely prospects. Anybody who looks anything like me. Could you narrow it down a little?”
Deirdre’s hand shot out. She stopped it an instant before she struck her daughter’s face. She clenched her fingers, looked down at the table, fighting for balance. Horror flooded through her. Black marker circled faces, big Xs marked others.
“Emma, go to your room,” Deirdre said, fear making her cold inside.
“Fine. I’ll go.” She slammed the yearbook shut. “But remember this. You can’t stop me any more than the Captain could stop you. I’ll do what I want. At least I’ll be having sex with someone I love. And my father—I’ll find him, too. It’s all about making choices, right, Mom? Isn’t that what you told me? Just don’t you ever dare preach to me about Drew again!”
Emma spun around, yearbook clutched to her chest, and ran out of the room. Deirdre heard her footsteps pounding up the stairs. Deirdre sank down into a chair, her whole body shaking. One of the circles had been around Adam Farrington’s face.
CHAPTER 17
THE ORNATE THEATER five blocks from the Mississippi whispered of former grandeur, its ceiling painted in vignettes Mark Twain would have approved, a pair of bright-painted paddle wheelers racing up the river.
But despite the elegance of the venue, none of the patrons leaving could speak of anything but the performance that had filled the room twenty minutes before.
Stone wished he could have concentrated only on music, immersed himself in the smoky ache and longing Big Jim Rivers melted into the lyrics he sang, music that captured the feelings roiling inside Jake when he thought of Deirdre McDaniel.
But during the performance, he’d been far too preoccupied with the woman sitting in the red velvet seat beside him. Deirdre had stared at Big Jim Rivers as if there were no one else in the room, and Jake had spent the time wondering what was going through her mind. She looked so fragile, so uncertain, her vulnerabilities stripped bare, while up onstage Big Jim Rivers vibrated with an almost frenetic energy that made Stone think of other musicians whose genius had burned them up until there was nothing left inside.
A perception a couple of die-hard Jim Rivers fans in the row behind Deirdre and Jake echoed, wondering aloud if the big guy was sick. Rivers had been just a little off, missed a cue or something, they’d complained. It just wasn’t like him.
Jake grimaced. If Rivers was feeling anything like his daughter tonight, it was probably a miracle the guy had been able to sing at all. From the moment Jake had picked Deirdre up at March Winds, she’d been edgy and quiet. She’d dressed herself so carefully it wrung Jake’s heart. Black pencil slacks flattered her slim legs, a flowing tuxedo-style shirt with inch-wide tucks and pearl buttons giving her a bohemian aura, while an electric-blue, white and black scarf portraying stylized musicians splashed color against her face.
For once, she’d even wrestled every hair into place, the tousled chin-length mane Jake loved as subdued as her spirits. Despite makeup more carefully applied than he’d ever seen it, her face looked stiff, pale with bruised circles from sleeplessness smudged beneath her eyes.
Damn, but he wanted to gather her in his arms, kiss her cheeks and muss up her hair. He wanted her all spice and smart-aleck humor, her eyes flashing and her skin flushed with excitement the way it had been just before he made love to her.
Before the phone had rung the morning after and her daughter had been waiting, furious, at the kitchen table once Deirdre reached home. Before the hopes he’d had the night before all came undone.
Don’t turn this into some kind of catastrophe, Stone, he warned himself. So things hadn’t turned out the way he wished they had on the morning after—hell, in the week after—they’d become lovers. That didn’t mean their relationship was heading for a train wreck.
So Deirdre was a bundle of nerves. That wasn’t surprising after everything that had gone down lately. Merely facing the prospect of meeting a birth father would be enough to mess with most people’s minds. Add to Deirdre’s list the latest upheaval with Emma and it was no wonder the woman’s nerves were strung so tight.
Didn’t it just figure that the kid would come home early the one night Deirdre had actually felt safe enough, relaxed enough to spend the night in Jake’s bed? The sex had been phenomenal—the best of his life. And Deirdre had broken through the prison of ice left behind by the bastard who had raped her. She’d been fiery, passionate, so brave Stone was humbled by it. If he hadn’t already loved her, he’d have lost his heart as she came in his arms.
The climax had rocked both Jake and Deirdre, unleashing a tempest of emotions. Surprise at the trust spun between them. Shaken by revelations painful, perhaps dangerous. The possibility of complete honesty at last making the future Jake hungered for at least a possibility.
Deirdre knew he loved her. But in spite of the wariness that had filled her eyes, he’d seen awe and disbelief, too. She hadn’t told him she never wanted to see him again. At least not yet. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it?
“Jake?”
Her voice startled him. He turned, seeing how white she’d grown, except for two spots of color on her cheeks.
“Most of the people are gone. I guess it’s time.”
He’d suggested they wait a little while, until people cleared out. He didn’t want her to have to go through this ordeal with groupies and strangers looking on. This was going to be hard enough without some journalist picking up a story for the scandal sheets. Big Jim Rivers Meets Secret Love Child.
Jake’s jaw clenched as he imagined what a headline like that would do to the whole McDaniel family, from Deirdre to Emma to Cade and the Captain. The humiliation would be so damaging Jake couldn’t bear to think about it.
One more professional hazard for a P.I. was seeing what happened to families when news like that went public. But Rivers had as big a stake in keeping this secret as the McDaniels did. From the way his representative sounded, the internationally famous jazz musician was less than thrilled about this meeting.
Jake stood, took Deirdre’s hand to help her out of her seat. Her fingers were like icicles. He could feel
a fine tremor work through her.
She glanced up at him, her eyes big, pleading. “Stay with me when I go in there. I don’t want to be alone.”
Oh, God. Jake felt a fist close in his chest, humbled that this fiercely independent woman had trusted him enough to ask. He wondered how long it had been since she’d asked anyone for help. Let anyone be there for her to lean on.
“I’ll do whatever you need,” he assured her, feathering his knuckles across her cheek. Stone groped for something to make her smile. “Just promise once Emma leaves home you won’t run off with the band.”
Was that sorrow in her eyes? “Those days are over for me.”
“Do they have to be?” The question fell out before he could stop it. He hadn’t meant to stress her out about that, especially not now. But the question troubled him. He’d seen the way the music had affected her, sensed what it must have cost her to bury her passion, her talent that way.
“Stone, I almost gave up my daughter for my music six years ago,” Deirdre exclaimed. “Do you understand that? I’ll never forgive myself for being so…so unbelievably selfish.”
“So you killed the music inside you, like some kind of a sacrificial lamb?”
“I did what I could to live with myself. I…oh, God. Not now. I can’t talk about this now.”
Stone swore under his breath. “You’re right. I’m way out of line. I just…” He hesitated, not knowing how she’d feel if he said it aloud. Hell with it. “I love you, you know? And I feel like there’s this huge part of you I’ve never even heard. Like it’s missing.”
“It’s too late to get it back. The price was too high.” She turned and walked up the aisle. The lobby was emptying the last few guests into the street beyond.
Jake crossed to an usher, gave the man the note Rivers had stuck in the envelope with their complimentary tickets.
The usher escorted them back, through halls growing progressively shabbier, to the chaos of backstage. Roadies were scrambling to take the show down, pack things up so the Spunky Bottoms band could get back on the road for their next gig—in Madison, Wisconsin, a band T-shirt Jake had seen at intermission had said.
The usher paused outside a closed door, knocked respectfully. “Mr. Rivers, sir?” he called. “The party you invited backstage is here.”
A muffled voice bade them enter. Stone held the door open for Deirdre, knowing the next half hour would change her life forever.
The room was cramped, with a worn green sofa, a giant makeup mirror surrounded by white lights. Stage makeup, a wooden hairbrush and the blue bow tie worn in the performance were cast off on the shelf beneath the mirror. A bottle of Boodle’s gin sat beside an empty glass, a wedge of lime among melting ice cubes.
The man on the stool before the mirror turned toward them, his eyes red, his face falling in soft wrinkles, his thin gray hair looking disordered from the frenzy on the stage.
Deirdre stared into the face of the man, trying to imagine he was her father. He seemed so alien, so strange, tall but too thin, as if the cigarette he was smoking and the booze he’d obviously been drinking had somehow shrunken him. His skin, pallid, unhealthy, as if it rarely saw the sun. But then, Deirdre knew about musicians’ hours. Night after night in smoke-filled clubs, or playing for audiences like the one tonight. Rivers seemed like so many other musicians she’d known, brilliant but self-destructive, a creature of the dark who rarely saw sun or fresh air or slept in the same bed for more than a few days at a time while on tour.
She’d been so sure she wanted that life for herself when she’d been Emma’s age. Why did this sour-smelling little room make her feel as if she needed to get outside where she could draw a lungful of chill autumn air?
“I thought you decided not to come,” Rivers said, barely bothering to look at her as he popped open another button on his sweat-soaked white shirt. The lights on stage could be hot as hell. “I couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or ticked off.” Rivers laid his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. “How’d you like the show?”
“It was hard to concentrate,” Deirdre confessed. “Seeing you on the stage and wondering if…well, if you really are my father.”
Rivers turned toward her, his gaze sweeping her from head to toe. A strange expression flashed across his face, then was gone. He held up splayed hands that coaxed such magic from the saxophone. “Honey, aren’t you a little old to be lookin’ for a daddy? I know you’re too big to be sittin’ on my knee.”
Deirdre stiffened at the sarcasm. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected of this meeting, but she knew this wasn’t it.
Rivers drawled, “So why don’t we get right down to it and you tell Big Jim what the hell you want?”
“I want to know if you’re my father,” Deirdre said, her cheeks still burning from Rivers’s acid remarks.
Jake took control. “It’s very common for people to want to know their birth parents, Mr. Rivers. For one thing, Deirdre has a daughter, and needs your health history for practical reasons. And for another, well, it’s natural to want to know where you come from to ground yourself.”
“Well, if that’s the case I’d hit that door runnin’, little girl, ’cause I’ve got no more roots than a tumbleweed, and when it comes to my health, I count on Jim Beam and Lucky Strike cigarettes instead of doctors.” Rivers slurred a laugh, watching Deirdre from beneath hooded lids so intently it made the hairs at the back of her neck prickle. “I’ll probably live forever. The devil’s scared I’ll take over.”
“Well, since Ms. McDaniel and I probably will die sometime in the next fifty years, maybe we should just get to the point of this visit,” Stone bit out. “Are you willing to field a couple of questions?”
Rivers poured himself another tall gin, his brow darkening. “It’s still a free country, at least last time I checked. You can ask anything you want. But that doesn’t mean I have to answer it.”
Frustration poured through Deirdre, leaving her vulnerable, helpless, at this stranger’s mercy. “Then why meet with me at all?”
Rivers pinned her with shrewd eyes. “You went to a hell of a lot of trouble, working this supposed relationship of ours out. Can’t blame a man in my position for wantin’ to find out exactly why you did it. Now, you’re supposedly the daughter of a woman named…” Rivers seemed to forget. He glanced at a piece of paper on the shelf, frowned. “Emmaline McDaniel, is that right?”
“Yes,” Deirdre said.
“This private investigator you hired—”
“That would be me,” Jake inserted grimly.
“Yes, well, maybe you proved I was in the town you listed, during the time you mapped out. But that doesn’t prove anything ’cept I might have passed this girl’s mama on the street.”
His cavalier tone infuriated Deirdre. “According to my mother’s letter you did a hell of a lot more than that.”
Rivers laughed. “And you think I should remember her, do you? Have her printed in indelible ink in my mind?” Rivers took a gulp of gin. “Honey, in my line of work I go through women faster than I do packs of cigarettes. I’m not trying to be an insensitive bastard, but thirty-four years is a long time to remember some affair that lasted a few weeks in a town I was just passing through on my way to fame an’ fortune.”
“My mother remembered you,” Deirdre insisted, her stomach leaden with disappointment. “It was obvious my mother loved you. She wasn’t the type of woman who would have had a casual affair.”
Rivers barked a laugh. “None of them are, darlin’, none of them are. It just happens. Music makes ’em crazy.”
“Hey,” Jake snapped. “You want to show a little respect here? You’re talking about her mother.”
“I’ll talk however I see fit. You’re the ones who came here, poking into my private life.” Rivers made a soft sound of dismissal. “You say you want the truth, well here it is. I’m just not a man who can be specific. Had a wife back home and kids of my own back then. Not that they would’ve stopped me from en
joyin’ someone pretty as you. You look like your momma, girl?”
For an instant Deirdre just wanted to run. Flee this smoky, claustrophobic little room and the debauched man inside it. But she’d come too far to turn back now. She dug into her purse, pulled out a worn photograph of her mother holding a two-year-old Cade. “Maybe this will help. It was taken about the time she says you were together.”
Rivers took another slug of gin, then lifted the photograph from her hand. He scraped the stool back and climbed to his feet, turned his back to her as he held the photograph to the light.
Did she see his hand tremble just a little? No. She must have imagined it. He turned, running his eyes dismissively over the image one more time. “What she said is possible, I suppose. It’s equally possible I never saw her in my life.”
“Look closer,” Jake ordered, looking grim.
“Won’t change a damn thing.” Rivers shrugged. “If there was an affair, it was nothin’ worth remembering. In the past seventy years I’ve found not many women are.”
Deirdre loathed him. She imagined the Captain in the same position, facing down a strange young woman who might be his daughter. He would have addressed the issue with his usual candor and sense of honor, with a chivalry startling in this day and age.
He would have been worlds different—where Rivers’s belly bulged over his belt, Martin McDaniel was still trim.Where Rivers’s eyes looked dulled with alcohol, the Captain’s were hawk sharp and alert.
“How about you just spit it out, Ms. McDaniel?” Rivers demanded. “What is it you want from me?”
What did she want from him? Something this man could never give. “I guess I’ll have to settle for the truth,” she said evenly.
“The truth is this—” Rivers crossed to the window, looked out on the dark Midwestern night “—one of the fringe benefits of singing onstage is that I never go to bed alone unless I want to. And I don’t want to very damned often. All the faces run together after a while.”
Deirdre felt sick, repulsed, wanted to deny any connection to this man. Yet when he turned back, she saw the shape of her own nose on the man’s face, the curve of her little finger matching the one on his hand.