Bermuda Nights - The Boxed Set (7 page)

I blushed. He was in a charcoal-grey t-shirt with jeans, and his guitar was out, waiting on its stand at the side of the stage.

There was blond movement from the right, and in a moment Thor approached with Kayla connected at his hip as if they were melding into a multi-armed golden-haired Hindu god. She was wearing bumblebee yellow, with a dress that left most of her chest and stomach exposed.

She flashed a bright smile at me. “There you are, Amanda! Are you coming out to the campfire later tonight? Should be a blast!”

I flushed, my cheeks flaring. Evan hadn’t mentioned a campfire, and there could be any number of reasons for that. I made a waving motion with my hand. “That’s all right, Kayla,” I mumbled, “I’m sure that –”

She grabbed my hand with both of hers. “But you
have
to come, ‘Mand! It’ll be perfect! Soft ocean breezes, the wood smoke, the guitar playing …”

I glanced over at Evan. His gaze was shadowed, troubled, and I wondered what was going through his mind.

Then he nodded, his face easing. “You should come,” he agreed. “You and Kayla should stick together, right?”

Kayla’s voice was bright with satisfaction. “Exactly,” she agreed. “It’ll be a double date!”

Tom climbed up on stage, his bald head glistening under the lights, and took his place behind the drum kit. He turned to the bar. “Hank! C’mon!”

The lanky bass player turned, grabbed his beer by the neck, and took his place.

Evan drew a finger along my cheek, then he was back on stage, hefting up his guitar. Sven strode to the center of the stage, grabbing up his microphone. He threw back his head.

“Are we ready to parrr-tyyyy?”

A roar of enthusiasm bellowed from the crowd, and a wide grin spread on his face. “It’s eighties night here in the Club Kasbah, so let’s get it started right!”

Evan stepped on a button before him, and when his fingers began moving the sound was sharp, like a synthesized piano. The rhythmic, staccato notes streamed out, and I smiled in recognition.

Sven leant forward, his eyes bright on Kayla’s. His voice punched into the lyrics of
Too Much Time on My Hands.

Kayla screamed in delight, and we bounced along the floor next to each other, taking each other for a tango sweep, getting lost in the music. The band synched like clockwork. They flowed from song to song, sliding up a key, maintaining the beat, and our feet never stopped.

The band played straight through for four hours – without a break – and by the time they hit the last song my feet were aching. But I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I was glowing, beaming, riding a natural high I’d never known existed. Kayla swept Sven up into an enthusiastic embrace as he came off the stage, and I wished I could do the same when Evan came down with his guitar. I was drawn to him as if by a powerful magnet, and it took a force of will to keep the required distance.

Evan looked to Sven before turning to me. “We need to swing down by the room; I have to drop this guitar off and grab the acoustic. We’ll meet you by the gangplank?”

Kayla smiled. “Yeah, we should swing by our room, too. Put on some sandals.”

Evan looked between us. “All right, then. See you soon.” He nudged Sven, and in a moment they were heading out.

Kayla spun me with glee. “Isn’t he just perfect?” she gushed. “God, ‘Mand, I didn’t know men like him existed!” She grabbed my hand. “C’mon, let’s get going!”

We half-ran down to our small room, juggling positions as we took turns in the closet of a restroom and dug into the overflowing actual closet for sandals and sarongs to use against the breeze. Then we were piling back out again, laughing as we raced down the hallway to the gangplank.

By the time we made it through the security check, the two men were waiting for us at the end, and my heart pounded against my ribs. There was no denying it. Evan was stunningly handsome. The way the moonlight gleamed on his arms, the rippled build visible through his t-shirt, he drew me in as if he was a custom crafted lure, tested against my very soul.

Sven put his arm out, and Kayla nestled beneath it as if she’d been carved to fit. I flushed and came up alongside Evan, maintaining a slight distance between us. We walked through the small customs building, then down the dock.

Kayla looked up at Sven. “So, where are we going?”

He pointed ahead. “It’s just past that snorkel park. Someone we know has beachfront property and has it all set up.” We got to the half-moon archway and he drew her in beneath it. “For good luck,” he teased, then pulled her in to a hard, passionate kiss.

I blushed, looking away. Every ounce of my soul wanted that to be me and Evan beneath the arch, me falling back in his arms, moaning in bliss.

At last they finished, and we continued on, along the side of the old British naval dockyards, first built in the early eighteen hundreds and only fully decommissioned in 1995. You could see through the roofs of many of the buildings. In the deep shadows of night they had a poignant, almost gothic feeling to them.

Sven looked up ahead. “Ah, here we go.” He led us through a series of narrow streets, and we ended up on a shimmering beach drenched in moonlight. A campfire was blazing in the center; a dozen people lounged around it, sipping beer from bottles and poking at the fire.

Kayla squealed. “Oh, Sven, it’s perfect!” She pulled him by the hand over to the cooler, grabbing a pair of bottles, and then they sprawled in a heap to one side of the fire.

Evan looked around for a long minute before moving to the cooler and lifting out two bottles by their necks. There was a weathered log pulled up at the edge of the circle, and he settled on that, handing the bottles over to me. Then he unzipped his guitar case and pulled out the acoustic.

The instrument was gorgeous, its face shining in the moonlight; detailed bubinga wood in layers which resembled a woodland landscape.

I sat cross-legged at his side, then reached a hand out to touch the wood. “Where do you get these things?”

He smiled, looking down at me as he tuned it. “California. Where do you get this love of wood?”

I smiled at him. “My grandfather,” I explained. “He had this quiet cottage up in Maine, near Machias Seal Island. My parents would drop me off there for a month in the summer, back when he was alive. He could carve playful puffins, sleek cormorants, haughty seagulls, you name it. I would sit there for hours watching him turn a block of wood into a miniature animal which seemed one breath away from life.”

He strummed his fingers, sounding a rich chord. “He must have been quite a man.”

I nodded. “My father’s father – they grew up fairly poor. My grandmother died young, of breast cancer. My Dad kept trying to get Grandpa to give up the cottage, to move down to Lenox with us. But Grandpa resisted to the very end.” My mouth quirked up. “He was like me. He would rather live a simple life, on his own terms.”

Evan took a sip of his beer. “Good for him.”

He sat back, gave a strum, then looked down into my eyes.

There was a richness in them, a deep ache, and I was lost.

His fingers danced over the strings, intricate, lush, in the opening notes of Zeppelin’s
Over the Hills and Far Away
.

I sighed. It was stunningly gorgeous. And it was just perfect.

He sang along with it, and where Sven’s vocals had been loud, almost brassy, his were low, rich, and resonant.

I could feel each word delve within me, wriggle into the depths of my soul, and take root there. The world shimmered out of focus, and I was drawn along by the music.

He came to the ending strum, and the notes hung in the night air, almost glistening golden in the crackling firelight.

A ripple of applause came from the listeners, and several bottles were raised in a toast.

He smiled at me, and there was shadow in his gaze, a hollow that seemed more than the flickers of flame. Then he strummed a new key, and the first notes of Guns ‘N Roses
Patience
floated over the fire. His whistle joined in, and then the lyrics.

He came around to the chorus, and I felt the meaning echo deep within me.

I needed patience. I needed to hang on.

The song drifted into the ending section, and the whole campfire was singing along, calling out to the glistening stars above. But all I saw was his gaze on me; all I heard was his low, emotion-filled voice, speaking to me alone.

The final strum, and the applause sounded louder.

I looked up at him. “You are amazing, Evan.”

He smiled, meeting my gaze. Then his eyes rose higher – and stilled.

I turned, following his look.

Hank, the lanky bass player, was at the far edge of the campfire. A slim, bony girl with long, auburn hair was sprawled across him, watching him with attentive interest. He had a tourniquet on his upper arm and was focused on the needle that he was carefully placing against the skin.

My stomach roiled, twisted, and suddenly all I could see was Tanya, her hair nearly that same shade, sprawled in her own vomit. Her eyes stared at the ceiling, glassy, unmoving. Her skin was cold … so cold …

I was on my feet, racing down the beach, my sandals pounding into the sand, tears streaming down my face. There was nothing but the pain coursing through me, the surf washing alongside me, and I was lost … lost …

A strong arm grabbed a hold of my hand, turned me, and pulled me in.

I collapsed against Evan’s chest, sobbing, and he held me against him. His hand came up to twine in my hair. “Shhhh, it’s all right, I’m here.”

It seemed that my pain would never end, that the ache within me was wider than any ocean. But at last the tears settled, and I blinked to look around. The campfire was nowhere in sight. We were alone on a stretch of sand. A grassy bank was to one side, and a thick stand of trees separated us from whatever lay beyond.

He walked me over to the grass, helping me to sit before joining me. His eyes were shadowed. “Amanda, I’m so sorry.”

I wiped at my face. “I’m the one who should apologize. I know people do these things. I just … I haven’t seen anyone using since that day. It brought everything back.” I drew in a breath. “I should be over it,” I insisted. “I should have forgotten all about it and moved on.”

“No,” he stated, “No, you don’t just move on.”

“I don’t know how to explain it,” I continued, “losing someone like that. It’s like a hole, gnawing, and …” I shook my head. “You can’t understand.”

He stilled and looked down the stretch of empty beach. He was silent for a long minute. Then he said, in a low voice, “I understand about loss.”

Something in his voice had me look up. “Oh?”

His gaze shadowed. “This needs to be private, between you and me.”

I nodded. “Of course, Evan.”

He took my hand. “I grew up in a working-class Irish family. My mom was a teacher, my dad a cop, and there were five of us kids stuffed into two bedrooms. Looking back I can see we were barely getting by, but at the time it just seemed the way things should be. My dad was larger than life, holding everything together, always there for us. Building ramps for our bikes, taking us fishing, you name it. He was the one thing in the messed-up world we could rely on.”

He twined his fingers into mine. “I was about fifteen when I was home with my mom, because she was taking me in for a check-up on my broken arm. My brother thought he was a MMA fighter and managed to snap my forearm doing a move on me. We were just arriving home and settling into the living room when the knock came on the door.”