Moonlight Man (11 page)

“Because he thought it was bad for my career.” And then, as if floodgates had opened, her words spilled out. “He didn’t want me to have Jason either. We just … argued a lot about it until it was too late. I think he sort of liked Jason, at least at first, but when I wanted to stay home with the baby, he was furious. He said he owned me, owned my name, owned my career, and I would do what he said or else.”

Marc sighed heavily, his hand smoothing satin fabric over the scars he could still see, even though they were covered and her back was turned from him. He knew he would have nightmares about them. How many nightmares was he going to be forced to endure? “Or else … this?”

“No. No, that started later. I just did what he wanted. He was right. He did own my name, he did own my career.”

“How did that happen? He was your manager as well as your husband, I take it, but how could he own your name?”

“I don’t know. He just did. A lawyer confirmed it. Before Ellis was my husband he was my teacher, my mentor. He was older, and I thought very wise, the right one to steer me through the music business.” She frowned. He could feel one of her eyebrows move against his shoulder. “I was twenty-three when we married, and he became my manager. In spite of the fact that I’d been on my own and raising my little sister for five years, I was a very young twenty-three, very naive. He was also a very good composer and a harpist of fair renown, and I trusted him.

“When I started to get bookings to play at concerts and with orchestras all over North America, was even offered a contract to begin recording, he grew jealous, angry with me. He told me that it was only because the classical music community needed a token woman. I was too young to realize that he was wrong, that plenty of talented women had good positions with many different symphonies, were making recordings of classical music and going on tours. He said I wasn’t very good, that I had to keep working, keep trying harder until I was perfect. But everything I wrote he rejected, until I felt he was rejecting me. He took most of the music I wrote and put it away, saying it wasn’t good enough yet, that when I had “matured” he’d give it back to me to work on again. Some, he let through because other people had heard them. Those comprised the two recordings I made.”

“And then I got pregnant with Roxy.”

“And he hurt you and you left him,” Marc said finally.

She was silent for too long. “Sharon?”

“No. No, I didn’t leave him. I should have. I know that now, but he told me he was sorry, told me I had driven him to it. To make amends, he let me keep the baby.”

“Was that the only time he harmed you physically”

“It was emotional hurts he preferred to inflict,” she said, and he heard the shame in her tone. “He grew angrier and angrier, because I wouldn’t play anymore. I wouldn’t compose. I couldn’t. I didn’t have it in my soul any longer. I used to try. I’d sit there at my harp for hours in the evening after the children were in bed, when he was out of the house, and try to play with joy, the way I used to. But there was no joy in me, only sadness, so I stopped.

“I know I should have left, Marc, but I was so afraid for the children, afraid he would take them away from me. You see, by then I believed he was completely powerful, that there was nothing I could do or say to change things. Unless you’ve lived in fear of that kind, you can never understand. I’ve had a wonderful therapist helping me to understand, and without her, I never would have come through this.

“But I didn’t have her then. I didn’t have even an ounce of courage.”

Pulling himself up against the headboard, he turned to stroke her hair, rub her cold arms below the sleeve of her robe. “You don’t have to go on with this, Sharon. I think I get the picture. I understand why you don’t want to play. I’m just sorry I ever pressed you to do it.”

She lifted her head and smiled at him. She knew neither of them was sorry he had pressed her to do the other thing she had once been so bad at. “No,” she said softly. “You never really pressed me. You just … asked.”

“And he ordered?”

“That’s right.”

“You said something when we were making love. You said, “don’t let it stop this time.” Was that part of what he did to you?”

She nodded, and even in the dim light, he saw color stain her cheeks. “He … didn’t touch me, really, other than in hatred, I suppose. He would … seduce me, I guess is the only word for it, make me want him, and then leave me… unfinished. It got so I hated sex as much as I hated music, and the harder I tried to be successful with either one, the farther from it I fell. He said I had become frigid through having Roxy, that if I had done what he wanted, none of this would ever have happened. And then … finally, he left us. I felt nothing but pure, unadulterated relief.”

“But still, you can’t make yourself play?”

She shook her head, meeting his gaze in the half-light. “Oh, I can play. You heard me at Jeanie’s wedding. I want to. It’s just that I won’t. I told you I wasn’t a failed musician, Marc. I’m simply one who quit.”

He couldn’t even begin to understand. He hadn’t quit what he loved doing because he’d chosen to, but because he’d been driven to it. “Why?” he asked. “Why, when it meant so much to you?”

“It still does. I ache, sometimes, to play. But if I do, then I know I’ll compose again.” Her face closed up, became devoid of expression, yet taut anger strained her voice as she added, “And that, I refuse to do. I won’t give him anymore of myself. Not one more thing!”

M
ARC PULLED THE COVERS
up over her legs and drew her against his shoulder, curling an arm protectively around her. “What do you mean, give him any more of yourself? Does he want you to compose again? How can you let that prevent you?”

Almost to herself, she repeated her earlier words: “I won’t give him any more. He had it all once, and he came very close to destroying it. I won’t allow him to destroy me.”

“How would your composing give him anything?”

“I told you. He owned me, owned my name, owned my music. He still does. The Christmas he came back—we hadn’t seen him for nearly three months—he was nice at first.”

She gripped his hand so tightly, he thought she might crush his bones, but he let her hold him, knowing she needed to draw on his strength for what was coming.

He didn’t want her to go on, but some kind of horrified fascination made him listen. Her sentences were short and choppy, her voice jerky. “He … said he was sorry he’d left, but he’d had things to work out. I knew that meant another woman. He said he still cared about me, wanted things to be right between us again. I should have known he was lying. He always lied to me, but it was Christmas, and I had been terribly lonely even though Jeanie and the children were with me. I’ve always wanted a complete family. I guess because I lost my parents. He … he was supposed to be the one to complete it. I had believed that for so long, and after we talked, I was ready to believe it again. We … well, we went to bed together.” Her voice trembled, but she forced herself to continue.

“I tried. I really did. But I simply wasn’t good enough for him, and I froze up when he started telling me what a bad lover I was. Only this time, I got mad and accused him of being a bad lover too. I knew better than to talk like that to him, but I’d had enough disappointments. He slapped me a few times, then said he wanted a divorce, that he’d never really wanted me back, he’d just been trying to soften me up, and all he’d really come for was my work. He said he might as well be paid at least a part of what I owed him, and maybe he could sell some of my compositions to somebody for a few bucks.

“I told him my music was mine and I wouldn’t give it to him to finance his affair. He went to the desk where he’d locked it up, but it wasn’t there. I’d found the key and moved it. Our shouting woke the kids. I could hear Roxy crying in her room. Jason came out of his. Ellis was shaking me. My face was swollen. I could hardly see, but I saw Jason try to stop him. He tried to help me. He was seven years old, Marc! He was so little, so helpless against an adult man! When Ellis hit him and dropped him in the middle of the room, he asked me if I wanted him to do the same to Roxy.”

She gazed at him, the tragedy of the scene etched on her face, and added in a whisper, “I gave him my music.”

“Yes.”

She blinked, reached up and touched his face, finding it wet. “Are you crying for me?” She sounded shocked.

“Yes.”

“Please don’t. It was worth the trade, believe me. He left, but he still owns my name, and anything I write, so I don’t write music anymore.”

“What happened then?”

“Jeanie came home from a date and found Jason and me on the floor. She called an ambulance and the police, but by the time the police went after him, Ellis had got on a plane and was in Europe. In time, our bruises healed, but Jason still has scars inside. He’s never forgotten that night. For a couple of years, he didn’t even like the smell of Christmas trees, but this year he didn’t say anything when we put it up.

“Anyway, Ellis divorced me and married a twenty-three-year-old student of his. Two or three times a year he releases a piece of “her” music. She’s receiving quite a lot of acclaim internationally. I only hope he doesn’t get jealous of that.”

“
Her
music?” Her stressing of the pronoun hadn’t escaped him.

She shrugged. “If it belongs to him, and it does—that’s ironclad, I was told by a lawyer—then I guess he can give it to whomever he wants and call it hers. All I know is that it isn’t mine, even though a bit of my soul is in each and every note.”

Wrapping her in his arms, he slid them both down in the bed and covered them warmly again. “Your lawyer or his?”

“His, but what difference does that make? A lawyer’s a lawyer.”

“Don’t you believe that for one minute longer!” he said. “We’re going to look into this business, my darling. We’re going to see just how ironclad his “ownership” of your music really is.”

“No!” she said, lifting her head in alarm.

“Yes,” he insisted, gently putting her head back down on his shoulder where he wanted it.

“Marc, believe me, I’m just glad to be out of that mess. I don’t want to stir it up again. He might still hurt my kids or try to take them!”

“I will never let him hurt you or the children! And you won’t be stirring anything up. I can do it in such a manner that he’ll never guess it’s being done until it’s all finished and I’ve proven that he doesn’t own much more than the hairs on his head, if that.”

“How can you do that?” she asked. “Were you a private investigator in one of those lives of yours, until it wasn’t fun anymore?”

He was very still for several minutes. “No, Sharon. I was a lawyer. I still am and it never stopped being “fun.” It just stopped being … possible. And I was once very good at proving things about people.”

“And?” she prompted.

“And now I’m going to prove to a certain lady of my acquaintance that she is anything but frigid, that she can and will have several very satisfactory climaxes before we both go to sleep.”

He must have been a very good lawyer, she thought a long time later.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” Marc caught her and held her by one ankle, leaving her half on and half off the bed.

“I’m going to work,” she said. “I have a family to feed.”

He drew her slowly but inexorably back onto the bed. “How about me? I’m hungry too.”

“Pooh!” she scoffed. “You’ve had enough to last any normal man a month!”

He grinned, clamped his hands around her bottom, and pulled her to him, showing her that he wasn’t kidding, that his hungers were very tangible. That had the odd effect of triggering her appetite, too, but she braced her hands on his chest and pushed him away. He let her go reluctantly, and it was all she could do not to fall back into his arms. It was the only place she really wanted to be. Who in her right mind could choose a library over Marc Duval? she wondered.

But she resolutely turned away, went into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. She hadn’t been in her right mind since he’d first parked his camper next door last August. Sliding the doors shut behind her as she stepped in, she soaped herself liberally. She had just begun to rinse when the doors opened and she was joined by a very large man with very large hands. Soon, she was covered with a slick coating of lather again.

“Marc …” Her voice was weak as she leaned back against him, his hardness pressing into her buttocks, his hands cupping her breasts. “I’m going to be late for work …”

“No,” he said confidently. ”This won’t take long.” He turned her and lifted her onto him. She flung her head back, calling his name as he drove inside her, deep and hard, moving her slowly back and forth, up and down, so that her most sensitive spot rubbed against him. She cried out once, twice, then moaned softly in repletion as she went limp in his arms. He surged into her again, a groan of pleasure wrung from his throat, a deep sound of satisfaction that thrilled her more than anything ever had before.

He let her feet drop to the bottom of the tub, reached around her, and shut off the water. “See?” he said. “That didn’t take long at all, did it?”

Her day at work, however, took much longer than it should have. Never had she been so eager to leave that library. At noon, she watched the door, waiting for Marc to come through it as he had so many times before, big and broad-shouldered and bearded. And this time, when her blood raced and her temperature rose, she wouldn’t bother to fight it. She wouldn’t put on her tight librarian face, make her stare cool and repressing. This time, she would let him see all the delicious things he did to her, every little fantasy he had ever caused her to have.

Only he didn’t come.

She sighed and went out alone for a bowl of soup and a sandwich, looking with disenchantment at the Christmas decorations on the buildings and in the cafe, thinking it was time they came down. Why did people insist on leaving them up until after New Years? A miserable drizzle fell, soaking through everything, running in rivulets across the sidewalk and filling the gutters. After what they had shared last night, to say nothing of this morning, surely he would have wanted to have lunch with her?