Playing for Love at Deep Haven (21 page)

She didn’t move
from the doorway and when he glanced over again he took a longer look. She
looked calmer to the point of timid, which sort of pissed him off. He didn’t
want her to be scared of him, or them. He wanted her to lean into the feelings
between them, not away from them. He wanted her to trust him. No, not just
that. What he
really
wanted was for
her to love him again.

“Hey,” she said
softly, looking toward the windows. “Bad out there, huh?”

“Yeah.” He was
relieved to see she was wearing socks, not shoes, and didn’t have her bags by
her sides. “You’re not going to try to go, are you?”

She shook her head.

Thank God for small miracles
, he thought. He
threw a log on the fire and squatted on the floor by the hearth. Whatever else
happened between him and Violet, as long as he was lucky enough to be near her,
her safety was nonnegotiable.

“Saw a big branch
fall near my car. Anyway, I
 
. . . You
called me a coward.” She cracked her knuckles, shuffling her feet. He
recognized the gesture. She was nervous. He didn’t want her to be nervous, but
he was determined to give her the space she needed to come to him. She finally
whispered, “I’m not a coward.”

He swallowed,
his thudding heart flip-flopping with eagerness. What did she mean? That she
would give them a chance?
Don’t force it.
Wait for her.

“I went up to
the general store when it opened at six,” he said. “Got some food for us. We
should be okay for the next few days. It’s going to get a lot worse.”

“That was nice.
Thank you.”

He poked at the
fire again. Seven hours ago he told her he loved her, and now here they were,
making pleasantries about provisions and the weather. Before him, sparks
snapped and crackled, flying up the flue. “I’m betting we’ll lose power pretty
soon.”

She gestured to
the mountain of firewood. “You brought in a lot of wood. Thank you for making a
fire.”

“Sure.” He hated
the way she kept saying “thank you” in that smooth, modulated Greenwich voice.
He hated the awkwardness between them, the way she stood in the archway and
didn’t come all the way into the room. He hated the way his body hardened in
response to being even this close to her, like he no longer owned it, like it
didn’t belong to him.

Finally he
couldn’t take it anymore. “Violet, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know where
we go. I couldn’t sleep last night, couldn’t forget what you said about how we
could never work—”

“I was pretty
upset last night,” she said, stepping closer.

Back up a little, and she just might step forward
.

“Maybe I’m
pressuring you too much. Maybe you
can’t
just pick up something after nine years just because you want to, just because
you feel . . .” He shrugged, wishing she could understand how much he wanted
her in his life, how much he’d missed her, how much he loved her. “But I’ve met
a lot of people. A lot of women. And nothing feels as right as you and me when
we’re together. Nothing. So you can’t blame me for trying.”

She took a deep
breath, those big brown eyes looking through him, looking into him, more
intimate than any touch and more heartbreaking than any music. She was
torturing him. He looked back at the fire. “But I’m sorry if I made you feel
awkward. We don’t have to—”

“It scares me,”
she said in a wispy voice, and she rocked on the balls of her feet, looking at
the floor.

He stayed
hunched in front of the fire but stared at her steadily. “That I love you?”

She nodded.

“Because you
don’t love me?”

“No! I—”

He was surprised
to see the burn in her eyes, the fierce dissent he hoped he was reading
correctly. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, then closed
it helplessly, looking away. She took a deep breath, her breasts lifting the
ragged hem of the sweatshirt just enough to show a peek of skin over the
waistband of her leggings. His gut tightened, but he forced himself to lift his
eyes back to hers.

“Because we’re
so different. Because I saw what you looked like in your element, and there’s
no room for me there. Because you saw me in mine, and you didn’t like me there.
And because . . . I know Yale was a million years ago, but I still don’t
trust
you.”

He placed the
poker back in the stand and headed over to the chair he’d sat in on their first
night, when they’d drunk Scotch together and kissed in front of the fireplace.
He kept his face turned away from her for an extra beat so she wouldn’t see the
relief there. If she’d told him she didn’t love him—couldn’t love him—he’d have
had no more moves. If there was a chance she did, there was hope, and hope was
all he needed because he’d wait for her.

“All I asked for
was two weeks. You’re ready to bolt after six days. You’re not giving me—no ,
us—
a
chance. I want the whole two weeks.”

Now that he was
seated, she stepped all the way into the room, sitting down on the edge of the
couch, as far from him as possible.

“Everything
between us has happened so fast, Zach. I’m trying to catch my breath.”

“It was always
that way,” he said, watching her. “You were sleeping in my room after knowing
me for three hours, Vile.”

She tried not to
grin at him, but the grin won and she nodded her head like he had a point. He
felt her resistance crumbling. He felt himself getting closer to having her and
forced himself not to pounce, not to take what she hadn’t yet offered.

“The whole two
weeks,” she said cautiously.

“Yes.”

The lights
flickered once, then twice, then held. Violet looked around the room nervously
before looking back at him. She took a deep breath, playing with her hands in
her lap, and he waited, watching her. One strand of chestnut hair had escaped
her braid, and his fingers twitched to close the distance between them and run
his thumb and forefinger down that wavy strand, to straighten it and then let
it go, watching it bounce away. He folded his hands and made himself appear
casual, despite the way his body pulsed with want for her.

“Okay.”

She leaned her
head to the side, and Zach heard the old song by Sarah McLachlan in his head: “
Sweet, sweet, sweet surrender is all that I
have to give.
” He heard it for him, and he heard it for her, and he heard
it for them, because they were crossing the threshold into possible, into
hopeful. A storm raged and savaged the landscape outside, but for him, there
was only now. Now, for him and Violet. Now, for second chances. Now, for them
to find each other again.

Zach had been
told he didn’t smile a lot. He grinned. He smirked. But he smiled at Violet,
who owned his soul, who he hoped, in that instant, would be the better part,
the
best
part, of his forever. The
fire crackled as logs burned brightly, and he didn’t care if they never left
this room again. He watched as her own smile grew until it brightened her whole
face and a light laugh escaped her lips. Her cheeks flushed pink, and her eyes
danced with mischief. She looked like herself—a complete transformation back to
the girl he’d fallen in love with so long ago—and suddenly Zach felt a
lightness he couldn’t ever remember feeling in his life, because as long as
she’d give him a chance, he’d do whatever it took to make this work. For the
rest of his life. Anything.

He leaned
forward, raising an eyebrow and flicking his eyes to her breasts.

“Looking for
something?” she asked in that old saucy voice, lowering her lashes to flirt
with him.

His breath
caught, and his erection doubled in size.

“Hey, Violet . .
.” he said, biting the inside of his lower lip as warmth suffused his body.

“What?” she
asked, sitting up straight, pushing her breasts out toward him.

“Be honest. Want
to write or make out?”

She laughed, and
he could see it on her face—she remembered saying those exact same words to him
once upon a time. History wasn’t repeating itself. They weren’t rewriting it.
But it was theirs to pillage and share, and he wasn’t going to let either of
them run away from it anymore.

“Make out,” she
whispered, holding his eyes as the lights flickered again.

“Then let’s make
out,” he said, as the lights went out for good.

Chapter 16

Four days later,
Violet stared at the fire with her cheek resting on Zach’s chest as it rose and
fell steadily in his sleep.

They hadn’t left
the living room much over the last few days, opting to stay close to the warm
glow of the fireplace. On Thursday morning John had called on the landline to
walk Zach through the process of turning on the generator, so thankfully they
had a couple of electrical outlets working in the kitchen, along with the heat
and water, but by then they’d already made a camp in the living room and it
felt like “their” place.

Once the rain
and wind had finally stopped, they walked, hand in hand, to survey the damage
in Winter Harbor. It wasn’t bad—a few downed trees, lots of wires and debris.
They were told by the local convenience store owner to expect a few more days
without power, and neither of them could possibly have cared less.

They finished
“My Spot” on Wednesday as the storm raged outside. By Thursday night, “Fall(en)
Days” was starting to take shape. Violet had written the words after they’d
broken up in college but had edited them for Zach’s music and played with the
idea of falling and breaking throughout the song. Zach layered it with a
soulful, broken melody and added a catchy chorus that appeared three times and
finally ended the song.

Fallen heart, once brave and beating, lost in a
loveless maze.

Fallen heart, now quakes with aching, oh, these
fallen days.

He was still
tweaking some of the music, but Violet had started writing another poem in the
quiet of her mind as she slept beside him night after night. “Forged in Fire”
promised to be more of an anthem about a phoenix love rising from the ashes of
lost chances. She worked on it every night as Zach slept and woke every morning
to the sound of his guitar playing softly behind her from his favorite chair. A
rhythm established itself as they got used to each other again.

For all that he
had finally said “I love you” to her, Zach mostly kept his feelings close to
the vest, his brooding eyes thoughtful and cautious by nature. He didn’t
expound on his declaration or tell her he loved her every other second, but
he’d murmured it three different times as they made love, and every time it had
made her climax more intensely and forcefully than she ever had in her life.

She looked at
him across the room, assessing the differences between Yale Zach and Rocker
Zach. He was edgier now than he’d been in college, both outwardly and inwardly,
but in the dark quiet of the night, when she lay nestled snug against his hard,
naked body, he told her things softly. As he stroked her hair from her forehead
or lightly trailed his fingers over her back, he’d tell her how he hadn’t ever
managed to forgive his parents for treating him like a commodity instead of a
son. He shared how much Cora’s tough but constant love had kept him from the
brink of total and absolute despair after losing Violet and leaving Yale.

He talked about
how he’d fallen into the life of a rock songwriter after winning a songwriting
competition at Juilliard, how he’d caught the ear of a publishing company and
quickly secured a manager. He told her about how much he enjoyed touring the
first few years as a guitar for hire, how he’d embraced the “fuck you” attitude
so prevalent in the hard rock and heavy metal worlds at first, but how it had
gotten stale over the years. He wanted to write something beautiful. And then
he’d kiss her and stroke her face with reverence and thank her for helping him
to do just that, simply by writing with him again.

He still checked
out her tits at every available moment, and she still teased him that she
wasn’t hiding anything interesting down there. But now, unlike Yale Zach, he’d
call her a liar and grab her with confidence, slipping his hand under her bra
to caress the sensitive skin with skill. Her nipples would pucker for him on
command, and he’d assure her they were the most interesting thing Maine had to offer.
She’d lean into his hand, running hot and wet for him, grappling for his belt
and zipper, needing to feel him inside her, filling her, loving her, owning
her.

“You’re starting
to come back into focus,” he said on Saturday morning, watching her from across
the room as she lay on her stomach on the couch, chewing the crap out of her
pen top. And she was. She could feel it too.

She started to
realize how much of herself she’d lost during her years with
Shep
, how she’d traded her creativity and hope for
something sturdy and safe. She’d changed the way she looked, the way she
dressed, the way she spoke, the way she wrote. Her whole worldview had been
compromised by her need to fit into
Shep’s
world. And
she had fit in. But she hadn’t been herself.

And now she was
with Zach again, and she felt freer and more alive than she’d felt since Yale.
She felt herself loosening up day by day, blossoming under Zach’s attention and
passion and rawness, basking in their mutual respect as they polished off “My
Spot” and “Fall(en) Days.” She felt that fullness in her heart and knew with
certainty that Zach was the foremost desire of her heart and the missing half
of her soul.

And yet.

The words “I
love you” wouldn’t come. They were her last holdout, her last fail-safe, her
last measure of control. Saying the words the first time had led to so much
life-changing pain, she needed to be sure he belonged to her completely, that
he’d never hurt her so deeply again. And she still hadn’t mustered the courage
to ask him why he never returned to her. Until she had those answers, she
wouldn’t be able to give herself to him fully.

Every time they
made love—on the couch; on the floor; against the cold windows, which had been
the most erotic sex of her life, the hot and cold sensations making her body
writhe, her back shivering as he pushed the scalding heat of his flesh into her
body—the words hovered in her head. And her body, pliant and gasping beneath
him, must have betrayed her feelings, no matter how terribly she fought to
conceal them. She loved Zach as much now,
more
now, than she ever had.

But knowing it
and having the courage to say it were two very different things. And Violet
simply didn’t have that sort of courage. Yet.

***

John called on Saturday
afternoon while Violet was on the deck writing. Zach picked up the phone,
peeking out to make sure Violet was occupied before walking quietly to his
room.

“Johnny.”

“Zach. How’s my
shack? The generator working for you?”

“Yeah, it’s
fine, man. It’s all fine. Thanks for calling me back.”

“Sure. You said
it was important.”

“Yeah. You know
how Malcolm was riding my ass to write the last four songs for the new album?
Well, I’ve got two. I’ll have all four if you give me a few more days.”

“Huh. But I want
ballads, Z. And you write angry.”

“I’ve got a new
partner, and this new stuff is good shit, Johnny. More mainstream. Grammy-level
stuff, I’m telling you.”

“And you want to
waste it on Savage Sons?”

“
Malc
promised ten K a song. Upfront.”

“He did, did he?
Out of his own pocket? Because I never approved that. We
barely
give advances anymore, Zach, and yours is capped at five.
You get special treatment because of your track record, but not
that
special.” John paused. “You get it
in writing?”

“What do
you
think?”

“I think I’ll
pay five per song, and they’re mine, and I can give them to whomever I want to.
If he wants to pay you more, that’s between you and him. So you didn’t get it
in writing?”

Zach sat down on
the bed. “Nope.”

“Malcolm’s a
slippery little bastard. I like you, Zach, so I’m going to be honest with you. Ace
is writing too. Shit’s not bad, I heard them recording something yesterday. Saw
them having lunch at the commissary yesterday too. Seemed chummy.”

Zach flinched.
“You know my stuff’s way better than whatever shit Ace is writing.”

“Yeah, I’d agree
with you there. But you’re not, in fact, here, Zach. You’re in Maine. Writing
an . . . opera.”

Zach stiffened,
thinking about his promise to Violet. He needed to deliver $20,000 to her by next
Saturday. While he had most of the money in savings, it would just about wipe
him out. There had to be another way.

“John, what if .
. . what if I needed to make money? Fast?”

“Are you
serious?”

Zach ground his
jaw, hating the eagerness in John’s tone. He knew what was coming and dreaded
it.

“The Mechanics
need a guitarist,” John said. “European leg of their World Tour. Starts on
October 12 in Zagreb, work our way to London, home on December 24.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred a day.
No stipend.”

“Are you fucking
with me?”

“Hired guitar
doesn’t make that much, Zach. You know it. It may not be good, but it’s fast.”

“There’ll be two
shows some days! That’s only fifteen K.”

“Well, along
with the twenty I’ll give you on the four songs, you’d make up most of what
Malc
promised, wouldn’t you? And royalties later.”

And more
important, he’d have Violet’s money for her.

“Or you can take
your chances with Malcolm. But the gig with the Mechanics might be gone if you
drag your feet. I’m actively looking for someone.”

“Give me a
week.”

“I don’t have a
week, Zach. It’s, uh, Saturday? I’ll give you until Tuesday morning. Take the
rest of the weekend. And you’ll need to be in New York by Wednesday. They leave
on Friday night, and you’re going to need to play with them at least a couple
times before you leave.”

Zach took a deep
breath, hating John, hating Malcolm, hating the Savage Sons
and
the Mechanics.

Zach pressed the
end button. He raised the phone to throw it across the room, then stayed his
hand. He needed to get in touch with Malcolm and see if he’d still buy the
songs. If not, Zach was fucked: he’d have to sell their songs and go on tour
for three months—leave her for three months. His insides flipped over. He
didn’t even know if she loved him and he’d be leaving her. There was no way
she’d wait for him; it would be playing into her worst fears about him. But if
he didn’t take the gig, he’d be the reason she didn’t have the cash to buy out
her contract. She’d be sued for breach, and he’d be helpless to help her.

Touring meant leaving
her. Not touring meant fucking up her life and letting her down. Either way, their
long-term chances didn’t look good.

“
Fffffuck
,” he growled, getting up to close the bedroom
door. He couldn’t fuck this up. He couldn’t lose her, and he couldn’t let her
down.

He had no other
choice. He was going to have to call Malcolm and do whatever it took to make
that deal happen. He dialed the phone.

“
Malc
here.”

“
Malc
, it’s Z!” he added some fake levity to his voice.

“
Whaja
want, dickhead? More groveling?”

“No, man. I was,
uh . . . had some bad weather here, so I couldn’t call you back sooner. But I
was wondering if you still wanted those songs, because—”

“Actually, Ace
isn’t the
wanker
I thought he was.”

Malcolm was
pouting. Zach counted backward from ten.

“No one knows
your voice like I do,” he said.

“Yeah, but
you’re too busy for old Malcolm. Writing some bloody rock opera or something.”

“Screw that. I
wrote the songs for you. Two of them already done. You can have the rest on
Tuesday if we still have a deal.”

“You wrote ’
em
already?”

“You said ten K
a piece,
Malc
.”

“Huh. I’d have
to see if I liked ’
em
.”

“That wasn’t the
deal.” An edge crept into Zach’s voice.

“Deal’s
changed.”

Zach tried to
control his tone. “Okay, if you want Ace’s shit to fuck up the album, it’s your
funeral. No skin off my back.”

He waited a
beat. Another. He tapped a syncopated rhythm softly on his thigh as his doubts
kicked in.

“You’re such an
asshole, Zachariah! Yeah, I want your bloody songs!”

Zach’s
shoulders, which had been bunched up around his ears, finally relaxed. “Tuesday
good? I’ll send them via e-mail so you can test them out. I’ll be back next weekend
so we can record them.”

“Yeah, yeah,
yeah. Okay.”

“Don’t let Ace
touch that fucking album. He’ll kill it. In a bad way.”

Malcolm laughed.
“Fuck you, Z. Yeah, okay.”

Zach’s relief
was so great, he could taste it. He wouldn’t have to go on tour, and Violet
would still have her money.

“Hey, Z, what
made you change your mind?”