Any Way You Want It (21 page)

Just then, as if conjured by her thoughts, music began to play, startlingly loud in the quiet room.

After a moment, she realized it was her cell phone, the music “Für Elise,” chosen more for her love of Schroeder in Peanuts than her love of the piece.

She hurried out of bed, only pausing momentarily over her state of undress. Then she quickly tiptoed across the room and rummaged through her purse, amazed it could be so hard to locate the stupid phone when her pocketbook was so small.

Finally, she did.

“Hello?”

“Let me guess,” Erika’s voice greeted her. “You’re still lounging in bed with rocker boy.”

Maggie glanced back at the curtained, canopied bed and didn’t detect any movement. She tiptoed into the bathroom before she answered, “Yes. I was.”

“Sorry,” Erika sounded truly contrite. “But I wanted to see if you were still planning to come with us on the ghost tour. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Or we could pick up a ticket for Ren too.”

“Isn’t the tour at eight or something?” She did still want to go, but she hated to wake Ren to ask him about it. He’d played five sets last night with very little time for breaks. And then they’d come back here and…

He must be exhausted.

“It is. But it’s nearly six now. So we figured we should go buy the tickets before it got much later.

The tour guide sounded as if they had limited space.”

Maggie frowned. “It’s almost six?”

“Yeah.”

She’d done it again. Managed to sleep a whole day away. Unheard of—until the past two days.

“Umm, yeah, get us two tickets. I think Ren will want to go. And if he doesn’t, I’ll just pay for it.

He’s still sleeping,” she added, by way of explanation for why she didn’t ask him.

“Mmm, I guess you plumb wore him out, too,” Erika said, mimicking Ren’s drawl.

Maggie laughed at the attempt.

“Okay, we’ll get the tickets and then meet you down by Jackson Square. That’s where the tour meets.”

“Okay,” Maggie agreed.

They said their good-byes, then Maggie hung up. She chuckled to herself at Erika’s rather poor attempt to imitate Ren. Southern accents were not her friend’s forte.

But then, sometimes Ren himself didn’t sound quite as southern as he did other times. Last night, Maggie could have sworn he’d gone from laid-back good ole boy to almost sounding snooty.

She considered that, then decided he just sounded different when he was irritated. And she’d only ever noticed the change when he’d talked about Peter; he’d been upset.

She had to admit, she’d liked his anger at her ex. If he’d felt pity for her, she would have hated that, but indignation on her behalf…that was good.

“Maggie?”

She peeked out of the bathroom to see Ren sitting up in bed. She heard unease in his voice, and saw it on his face, too.

But as soon as he saw her, his face relaxed.

“I thought you might have sneaked away,” he said.

She shook her head, still not stepping out from behind the door.

Ren gave her a quizzical smile. Ren was very comfortable being naked—she didn’t think she’d ever get quite so relaxed. And the idea of walking across the room, while he watched…she needed a moment to build up her courage. It was different now than when she was caught up in passion and desire.

“What are you doing in there?” he finally asked, when she still hadn’t moved.

She hated to admit her fit of modesty, since she knew he wouldn’t understand.

She ducked her head back into the bathroom to look for a towel or something, but before she could locate anything, there was a light rap on the door.

She turned to see Ren’s arm poking into the room, one of his shirts dangling from his finger.

“I thought you might want this.”

She smiled, pleased he had understood her embarrassment and had done something to help her.

She accepted the shirt and wrapped it around herself, not taking the time to button it. She stepped out, offering him a wide, grateful smile. Then she walked up to him and pressed a kiss to his lips.

“You are a very sweet man.”

Ren raised an eyebrow. “I guess I’ve officially blown my badass rocker image, haven’t I?”

“Well, you can be the sweet rocker.”

He grimaced. “How about I’m just sweet to you and bad ass to everyone else?”

Her heart fluttered in her chest. She liked that plan.

He put his arms around her, kissing her again.

“So,” he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. “Since tonight is my night off, what do you think about staying in bed for most of the evening?”

She started to say it was a really good idea, her attention focused on the desire in his eyes. Then she remembered Erika’s call.

“That does sound wonderful, but I was supposed to go on a ghost tour with Erika and Jo, and since this is their last night, I feel like I should go. But you don’t have to go. I’d like you to, but—”

Ren placed a finger to her lips, silencing her sudden nervous rambling.

“I thought that you were here until next Sunday?” His brows drew together and his eyes darkened to a shade closer to brown than hazel.

She nodded. “I am, but Jo and Erika have to head back to D.C. for work.”

Relief relaxed his frown. “Well, of course, you want to go be with your friends their last night here.”

Maggie was relieved he understood. “I told them to buy you a ticket too. I mean, if you want to go.

You don’t have to.”

Again his finger pressed against her lips. “I’d love to go. If Erika and Jo don’t mind.”

“They don’t,” she said, against his finger.

He smiled and dropped his hand.

Maggie smiled back.

“But I bet you’d like to go back to your hotel and get clean clothes. And then get something to eat?”

Maggie moaned at the idea of clean clothes. Food wasn’t a bad idea either. “Yes. Please”

She moved to the bed, looking for her jeans.

“Maggie?”

She stopped her search to glance at him.

“You don’t have to worry about telling me what you want to do.”

She nodded, realizing that her concern that Ren would be annoyed with her was another holdover from her relationship with Peter. He’d been the one to call the shots, and made sure she knew it.

She nodded again, this time to herself. She wouldn’t allow someone to control her like that again.

R en didn’t reveal his annoyance as he watched Maggie find her clothes. He knew that if she sensed it, she’d think his feelings were aimed at her. They absolutely weren’t. They were aimed solely at the jerk who’d made this beautiful, talented, sweet woman doubt herself so deeply.

Peter the violinist had better hope their paths never crossed. Ren would gladly show him what happened to men who demeaned women that way.

Ren might be selfish, but he never hurt a woman the way this guy had injured Maggie. If Maggie walked away from her time with Ren with nothing else but the knowledge that she was an amazing woman, he’d be satisfied.

“Okay, I’m ready,” she said, adjusting his shirt over her full breasts.

He finished pushing his foot into his shoe, then nodded to her. “What time is the ghost tour?”

“Eight.”

“Then we better get a move on.”

“So are you planning to stay in this room after Erika and Jo leave?” Ren asked from the sitting area of the suite she and her friends had been staying in.

“No,” she answered, “I can’t afford the suite all on my own. I’ll just move to a single.”

She hurriedly applied a little mascara, then dabbed on some lipstick. The whole time she’d been getting ready, she’d heard Ren out in the sitting area, the old floor squeaking as he paced. As soon as they’d stepped inside, she sensed he was agitated. Unusual behavior for someone usually so laid-back.

The hotel room seemed to be bothering him, and she couldn’t say why.

“Okay, ready,” she announced, as she stepped out of the bathroom in another outfit Jo and Erika had talked her into. A peasant blouse, pink and gauzy, with a matching skirt. She knew in Ren’s world the outfit hardly screamed “hottie,” but she thought the look was flattering, and the flowy material made her feel feminine.

Ren stopped his pacing to face her. “You look beautiful,” he said.

She suddenly felt even better about her decision to splurge on the new clothes.

“Thank you.” He looked beautiful to her in his low-slung faded jeans and black-and-white flowered shirt—a shirt that might have looked feminine on another man, but with his broad shoulders, smoldering good looks, and musician’s demeanor, he pulled the look off easily, and very well.

Oddly, they almost looked like they belonged together. Well, their clothes did anyway. Maggie still thought she looked much too ordinary to be an obvious fit with him.

“So did you want to squeeze in a bite to eat before we meet your friends?”

Before Maggie could decide how hungry she was, she became aware of Ren again. He stood in the center of the room, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He looked beyond uncomfortable.

“Are you okay?”

He frowned, obviously surprised by her question.

“Sure. Why?”

“You look very tense. And I don’t think you stopped pacing the whole time I was getting dressed.”

He blinked, in what struck her as a feigned innocence. “Tense? No. I’m just—excited to go on this tour.”

That didn’t ring true to Maggie, but she let it go. If he didn’t want to tell her what had him looking like he wanted to crawl out of his skin, then she couldn’t make him. She’d gotten the message from their very first conversation that Ren didn’t discuss things he didn’t want to.

“Then let’s just head to Jackson Square. We can get something to eat after the tour.”

Ren hadn’t expected to feel the way he did when he entered the Inn on Toulouse. God knew, he looked at the building nearly every night, a constant reminder of what could happen if he let things get out of control. But being in this hotel, the structure that had replaced the Opera House, was more overwhelming than he’d expected.

When they’d entered the lobby, he’d recalled how the entrance had once looked. Impressive, regal, done in beautiful Greek Revival architecture. His mind had suddenly been filled with memories of walking into the majestic building to work with the orchestra. He remembered everything about Annalise. Not that he’d ever forgotten her, but being there, where she’d performed, where she’d died—the images were overwhelming.

As he waited for Maggie to get ready, he could feel Annalise. He remembered her perfume, a heavy, musky scent. He even recalled her laughter, a husky, bawdy sound. He’d carried tremendous guilt over Annalise, as well as Nancy. And he’d felt deep bitterness about how he’d ended up hurting—ultimately killing—both women.

He glanced over at Maggie as she gathered up her purse. He wouldn’t let that happen to her.

He’d do whatever he had to and keep her from falling in love with him. He wouldn’t let her die.

Somehow he’d gone on after Nancy and Annalise, but he didn’t think he could recover from Maggie’s suffering a similar fate.

As soon as they were outside, the oppressive feeling that had hovered around him within the walls of the hotel lifted. The visceral reminder that he had to be careful with Maggie didn’t lessen, but he did feel like he could breathe again.

And now he was going on a ghost tour. Like he needed to deal with any more ghosts tonight.

But to his surprise, once they got to Jackson Square and met with Jo and Erika, he found the good spirits of Maggie and her friends infectious. Maybe it was just Maggie herself, but he became more wrapped up in what she and her friends were saying than in the tragedies of his past.

“After falling to her death from one of the balconies, Caroline still haunts the Le Petite Theatre,”

the young, blond tour guide said, using her best eerie voice, which didn’t tone down her obviously bubbly personality.

“Caroline didn’t fall from a balcony,” Ren said, with a disbelieving laugh. The chuckle died on his lips as he realized Maggie and her friends were staring at him,

“Well, that’s not how I heard the story, anyway,” he added quickly. Good going, he thought to himself. Nothing like bringing attention to the fact that he was a two-hundred-year-old vampire.

“What did you hear?” Erika asked, and he realized that at least they bought his excuse.

Ren tried to remember exactly what did happen. What did he remember about the rather unremarkable woman? “She was an actress, although not a great one.” To say the least. “She had an affair with one of the directors at the theater, but he spurned her for another actress. A more renowned one, as I recall.” He paused.

“As I recall the story,” he clarified. Maggie and her friends didn’t appear suspicious of his wording.

“And I believe she quit the theater shortly after that. To move somewhere near Lafayette.”

The women stared at him, noticeably disappointed with his recollections.

“That’s it?” Jo asked.

Ren nodded.

“Why would that story even be passed along from generation to generation? It’s pretty uninteresting, really,” Maggie said.

“It is,” Ren agreed, thinking maybe he should have embellished a little.

“Who told you that version of the story?” Maggie asked.

No one—he’d known both her and the director, who, truth be told, she was better off without.

Though it would spice up the tale, he couldn’t tell them that.

“I don’t remember,” he said.

“So she didn’t even die in the theater?” Erika gazed at the building, her lips turned down.

“I like the tour guide’s version better,” Jo stated.

Ren nodded. Sadly, in this case, the truth wasn’t stranger than fiction. Which certainly didn’t hold true for him.

The group moved on, and Ren made a mental note to keep his thoughts to himself for the remainder of the tour. Although he did think the women would be quite amazed at how many of these supposed ghosts he’d known when they were alive and kicking. Now, that was a story they’d be shocked by.