In the Midnight Rain (27 page)

And it occurred to Ellie that she wasn't looking for her father at all. With movements as natural and calm as she could manage, she put the picture down. "Where will I find the bathroom?" she asked Connie.

"Right back there, honey. Take a left at the kitchen and you'll see it."

* * *

Marcus found the evening painful, which surprised him. He'd been looking forward to it for days. But somehow, it wasn't as pleasant to wander down memory lane as he had expected. It was piercing to see the gap between what they'd been at eighteen and what they'd become.

Some of it was good, and he managed to get Connie smiling a bit, teasing her about the ways the boys had fallen down behind her. She saucily tossed her head, and informed him they still did, thank you very much. But he knew she had the same lump in her chest that was crowding out his pleasure in the task.

On the other side of Connie, Ellie was quietly intense. Her curly hair was loose around her face, but that didn't hide the telltale marks on her: a beard abrasion, faint but distinct at the edge of her jaw, and one small love bite, low on her neck. She avoided Blue's gaze, but there wasn't anyone in the room who couldn't feel the heat moving between them, or failed to note the way Blue teased her, tried to catch her attention, tossed little bits of paper at her, like a boy with a crush.

The loving had done good things to Ellie. She had a kind of heated glow, almost visible, that obscured the sharpness of her features, made a man look at her smoky eyes and plump mouth. She was focused on the task, very seriously picking out photos to go with the faces of boys she'd never met.

But as they were winding down, Connie made a ribald comment about one of the girls, and Ellie let go of a surprised hoot of laughter that was bawdy and deep. Her face tilted into an exotic arrangement of cat-slanted eyes and slash of cheekbones, her teeth white and large, with one front tooth just a little bit lapped over one next to it.

Recognition struck him like a donkey kick. No longer déjà vu, no more niggling doubt. He knew that tooth, that deep laugh. He knew that careless shrug and the loping, loose walk.

For a moment, he simply stared, unable to quite take it in. Winded, he put a hand to his chest and wondered if he would have a heart attack, wondered if all the work on the memorial had finally just unhinged his brain.

But now that he suspected, it was more amazing that he hadn't put it together before now.

Abruptly, he stood, moving clumsily in his panic. "I just remembered I have to get something done by morning. Alisha. Let's go."

His wife looked bewildered when she glanced up, but she took one look at him and nodded. Sometimes, he got overwhelmed with war images, and she probably thought that was it now, considering. She made their excuses and joined him in the dark car. She didn't say a word or push for more than he wanted to say, or sulk because they had to leave. As he started the car, she simply put her hand on his leg and gave it a squeeze. They drove home in silence.

14

A
s Blue and Ellie were getting ready to go, Florence rushed to the door. "Hold on, Ellie! I almost forgot to tell you—the journal is ruined. Mildew got it, and the pages are all stuck together. I'm real sorry."

Ellie covered her pinch of disappointment. "That's too bad. You can't read anything?"

"Not a word. I threw it in the fireplace."

"I'm disappointed." She suspected it hadn't been ruined at all, but a decision had been made to keep it private. "But I appreciate the effort, anyway."

Blue touched her nape lightly, brushing the hairs that grew there. "Let's go," he said, and his voice rolled down her spine like sunlight. Which made Ellie remember how his shoulders looked with that glossing of butter yellow sunbeams this afternoon, and her hips went soft.

She raised her eyes. Let him see her hunger. "Let's do."

He took her upstairs to his bedroom, which was rumpled and smelled of him, and threw back the covers and fell down on the bed. "Come here," he said in that bourbon voice, his mouth cocked in the slightest and most promising of smiles. Ellie went, and he enfolded her, tangled their arms and legs together, and kissed her deep, as if he were drinking life from her lips.

And she let herself go, let herself accept the masterful craft of a ladies' man, the shuddering, exquisite, almost painful depth of pleasure he delivered. His big hands were gentle and urgent by turns, and he laughed when they almost slipped off the bed. He could chuckle when he was in her, and he held her tightly afterward.

Ellie, who had never been pretty, lay on his rumpled bed in a room lit with a single fan light on the wall and felt as gloriously, sensually beautiful as a Titian model. Her body ached in places, rubbed raw, and the muscles in the backs of her legs and her shoulders held a faint tremble of exertion. But her skin tingled and her bones were liquid with satisfaction.

Laughing low in her throat, she turned to him. "Lord have mercy," she breathed, and put her hand on his round-muscled upper arm. "You are a master of your craft, an artisan of the highest measure, a king of the bedroom arts."

"I think I like it when you get around to talking," he said. He opened his eyes and gazed at her soberly, the blue of his eyes an almost painful shade. "It's not me, sugar. This is not standard operation." He brushed her nose with his thumb. "We've got one hellacious chemistry goin' here."

Because his beautiful mouth was so close, because it was so easy and she'd thought of it so often, she put her hand on his cheek and kissed him. He closed his eyes and responded with the same gentle sweetness she gave, and it sent a tiny arrow through her chest. She settled back on the pillows with a sigh.

Lazily, he moved a foot over her ankle. "Tell me how you came to be so interested in music, Miss Velvet."

She laughed. "Don't even go there, Larry."

"But you are kinda velvety. I like it. Though I guess I can understand why you wouldn't like Velvet Condom." He started to laugh, ducking his head into her neck.

Ellie felt the giggle rising and bated it. "Don't get me started again."

"Music," he prompted.

"Oh, yeah. It's simple. I know you'll find this hard to believe, but I was the homeliest child on the planet."

"No, I can believe it." He rubbed her stomach with a grin.

"Thanks." She rolled her eyes. "Way too much hair, big nose, skinny as a rope." She shuddered. "Needless to say, even without the Velvet angle, I was not invited to be a member of the popular crowd."

"Okay."

"So I took up music. I sang in the choir and I played instruments and traveled with the marching band."

"Ewww. Doomed yourself to eternal geekhood with that, didn't you?"

"Yep. But it was good for me in some ways. I got to travel, go to these competitions in big cities and stay in big fancy hotels with the other geeks."

"What'd you play?"

"Oh, a little of everything. Took piano lessons from the time I was about six, started with clarinet in third grade, got hot for the cello in middle school, and switched to saxophone for most of high school. Oh, and I sang alto at church and school."

He lifted his eyebrows. "You said you don't have any musical talent."

Ellie laughed. "I don't! I can carry a tune and I can play okay, but I just was not born with the music gene. I love it, but love does not a musician make." She looked up at him, liking the way light shone through a fall of his hair around his face. "How 'bout you?"

"Same thing, really. Not the geekhood—
I
was cool, you know."

"No. I bet you were one of those loner rebel types. Black leather and cigarettes."

A twinkle lit his eyes. "Yep. James Dean, all the way. The trouble was, I really liked school, and it was the only thing that didn't bore me out of my mind, except music. Rosemary's sister Florence turned me on to Bach when I was about fourteen, and I made my way through the Great Composers series then. I knew I had no talent, but it still made me happy."

"The Great Composers, huh? I got them through the piano." She rolled her eyes. "Some are definitely greater than others."

Suddenly, her stomach growled. Loudly. She laughed. "I guess I worked up an appetite."

"You? Hungry? What a surprise." He chuckled, and put his hand on her tummy. "I'm starving myself. Let's go see what we can find."

He stood up and stretched, and Ellie lay where she was, admiring his lean, long form, the high round of his rear end, the molded shape of his legs. He tossed her a long shirt to put on and dragged on his jeans. Ellie slipped on the shirt and padded with him down the stairs.

It wasn't until they got to the kitchen and Sasha whined at the backdoor that she realized she'd forgotten April. "Blue, I have to go let April out! She'll be dying."

"All right." He grabbed a bag of chocolate chip cookies from the cupboard and drew a glass of water for each of them, handing Ellie hers. "Let's do it. She can come back here." He bent and kissed her, once, and opened the door. "I want you sleeping in my bed tonight."

"I can't go out like this!"

"Sure you can. Nobody around for miles."

She laughed. "If you say so." The tails of the shirt covered her to midthigh. "But I don't have tough feet like you. What about stickers?"

"No stickers in that field." He held out a cookie, backing away as if it was a lure. "Come on, little girl."

"All right." She followed him out into the pure, unbroken stillness of a country night, with a billon stars twinkling in the very dark sky. She breathed in, deeply. "I had forgotten how much I loved the country," she commented. "I love the quiet so much."

"Me, too." He offered the bag and Ellie took a handful of cookies out. "The whole time I was a kid, I couldn't wait to get somewhere else. When I got out there, I found out cities just aren't my style."

"I like cities. I like the movement, the energy, but I like this better. You can always drive into a city for a fix. It's harder to do it in the reverse."

"I keep wondering what'll happen to Brandon Grace. Going into the Air Force, that's brave—and there's a commitment, too. He won't be able to just come home."

"He sure is cute," Ellie commented. "He looks like Tupac Shakur with hair."

Blue laughed. "You're right. Never noticed before." He gave her a look. "You like rap? Seems a little off your usual style."

"I make it my business to pay attention to the music world." She munched a cookie, and thought about it. "I can't say I like a lot of rap. The critics are right—a lot of it is misogynistic and violent and antisocial. But the best of it is an anguished kind of poetry that's very powerful. I really took it personally when Tupac got himself killed. Cried my eyes out."

"I'm surprised, Miz Connor. He was a two-bit gangster."

"Maybe." She shrugged. "He was also beautiful and young and very talented. Some of his songs ..." She trailed off as they reached her porch steps. "Sorry. Don't get me going on him. It's still a sore spot."

"You have a soft spot for dead musicians in general, I guess."

Ellie inclined her head. "Maybe so."

From within, April barked sharply, and Sasha, who had come along, barked back, leaping on the door to scratch eagerly.

Blue opened the door and April sprang out, rushed for the grass, and squatted with an almost audible sigh. "I'm sorry, baby," Ellie said, and gave her a cookie. "Blame Blue. He distracted me."

April gulped the cookie, licked Ellie's hand and raced up the hill with Sasha, tumbling, bumping each other, racing back and forth. "Dogs have great body language," Ellie said.

"They do. Very physical." He looped an arm around her shoulders, and to her amazement—she would have thought some heat might be dissipated by now—Ellie felt an immediate response, one that deepened when he turned to her in the cool air, and put his arms around her and kissed her. His hands fell wickedly and pulled up the tails of her shirt, and the night touched the back of her thighs along with his fingers. "I like physical."

She reached between them and unfastened the ties to his robe and cupped his organ in her hands. "Me, too," she breathed. "But I swear if we have sex again, I won't be able to walk for days."

"Ditto," he admitted, and took her hand instead They walked a little ways, and he said, "Your mama was sure pretty."

"She was." The sorrow from earlier welled in her throat again, and this time Ellie didn't have to fight it so hard, so the sense of loss didn't seem so intense.

"What happened to her?"

"She came home at Christmas, had me, then took off again when I was about six months old. My grandma said she was really sad the whole time, and she wasn't surprised that the next thing anybody heard about her was when a cop came to the door to ask my grandmother to identify a photograph of her body. She overdosed on heroin."

"Ah, man. That's sad."

"I've always wondered what made her so unhappy." She shook her head. "There's nothing to really account for it, you know?"

"There's not always a reason for things," he said. "You're a historian, so you want answers, but that doesn't mean they're always there."