THE DEVILS DIME (42 page)

“I’ve been offered a studio at the Conservatory and I’ll be teaching a few hours each week. Cherise said the department head practically haunted the bakery until she finally agreed to get word to me of his offer.” She grinned and squared her shoulders. “You may now address me as Professor Magee.”

She turned and beamed at her father who hadn’t been able to take his eyes off his exuberant daughter. Couldn’t he see it wasn’t safe for her to be traipsing around New York City? But they’d had that talk, and Ford had maintained that she’d be safe. Her name had been kept out of the publicized reports, and of the three men who’d endangered her, two were dead and one was permanently behind bars.

“Well, then. Congratulations, Professor.” Jess winked and Addie sighed.

Dakota shifted his weight and rocked Jess closer to the carriage. His hand rested on his knee, and Addie reached her hand up and laid her fingers softly on his. He took her hand and caressed it slowly with his thumb.

“Will I see you tonight?” Her voice was quiet, her enthusiasm checked, a hopeful note unmistakable in her tone.

Jess looked down at her hand and then back into her dark, waiting eyes. He kissed her fingers, then cleared his throat. “I’m staying here for a while.”

Her eyes flew wide. “You’re what?”

“I’ve rented a place just up the road. I can write the column from there. It’s a great base for me, and I can stable Dakota there. I want you to see it, Addie. I—”

“But...Jess! I thought we...”

“I’m not meant for the city, Addie. Nearly everything I need is right here. In Williamsbridge.”

“Nearly everything?”

A lump blocked his throat now, and he saw glistening pools begin to form in Addie’s eyes. She hadn’t expected this, and it suddenly felt cruel. But her father had asked him for time with his daughter, and Jess owed him that at the very least.

His hand tightened on the rein and Dakota shied away from the carriage, pulling their hands apart.

“You’re playing again Friday? At the hotel?”

Addie nodded slowly, unable to answer. Neither of them had been ready to let go, but Dakota had taken care of that.

“I’ll be there.” Jess tipped his hat to Ford. “Take care o’ her, y’ hear?”

Ford nodded and Jess dug his spurs into the unsuspecting black, leaving behind a stunned and silent Addie as he and Dakota thundered down the lane and out of sight.

. . .

Jess stared at the Blickensderfer as if he could will it to spill words onto the page. The blank sheet had been rolled into the platen for so long that it had wilted. Six hours, and it was still blank.

Liar. Three days and six hours and it was still blank.

He’d become intimately familiar with his new cottage in those three days, finding endless distractions to keep from writing. He’d fixed the shutters in the sunroom. He’d shaved a half inch off the table legs until the table was just the right height for typing. The Blick was still the Blick.

He’d had his chair sent out from the
Times
. The old one. And then he’d had the great pleasure of moving his office furniture—the smooth mahogany and supple leather Deacon Trumbull had gifted him on the devil’s dime—into Gus’s corner office. It looked really fine there. And Gus hadn’t stopped smiling yet.

Jess rubbed his thumbs across the worn arms of his ancient chair. He’d written his best work sitting right here in its hard, unforgiving embrace. But today the words wouldn’t come. Each time he stopped puttering and sat down and willed the words to flow, the same five letters blocked every coherent thought.

A.D.D.I.E.

It was impossible to drive the image of her dancing eyes from his mind. They’d sparkled with such anticipation, such eagerness to get to New York City and her new teaching post.

Exactly the way he’d hoped her eyes would dance when she answered the question he’d been too much of a coward to ask.

Jess pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, sending flashes of red exploding against his lids. But still her merry brown eyes taunted him. How much time would she need before he and his cottage could mean as much to her as she did to him?

Three months? Six? A year?

Jess fingered the small packet in his pocket, the velvet pouch holding Addie’s amethyst ring. They’d only just found it in Hamilton Jensen’s valise, and when his mother recovered from her grief enough to check on her jewels, she insisted that particular ring—although quite spectacular—was not hers. Fortunately she’d gone to Peckham rather than the police to search out its owner, or it might now be in the hands of yet another corrupt official.

Jess knew he couldn’t delay returning it to Addie. And selfishly, he couldn’t wait to see the smile it would bring. Of course, he wouldn’t have to wait long. After all, it was Friday. He had a date with a fiddler tonight.

She should be here, not gallivanting around New York City. And yet he knew that without her music she couldn’t possibly be his Addie. It was a maddening paradox.

Still, she had to eat, and so did he.

Jess spun his chair around, grabbed his Stetson from the hook as he got to his feet, charged out the door and stomped into the shed that served as a stable. The least she could do was have an early dinner with him.

“Thinks she has everything she needs there in that mixed up city, does she? Hold still, Dakota.” He grabbed the saddle blanket and threw it over the bewildered horse. “Just wait’ll she tries to fiddle. She’ll find out what’s missing. Hold on, horse, whoa now.”

He continued to rant as he threw the saddle on and tightened the girth. He had Dakota so riled up that the moment he planted a foot in the stirrup, the horse took off for the road. The two thundered to the corner and hardly slowed down as they both leaned into the turn.

Dakota saw the sun glinting off metal before Jess did and he shied, then reared. In his distracted frame of mind, Jess was unprepared, lost his grip, and found himself seated rudely in the dirt, suffocating in the exhaust of a sputtering vehicle that lurched to a stop in the middle of the road.

“Ow-ooof...”

Dakota pranced into the ditch, his eyeballs looming white in the shade of the trees.

“...bloody hell?”

“...dammit-ouch...”

“Oh, my lord!”

Jess squinted into the sun and hauled himself up out of the dust. He slapped at his legs with his Stetson and rubbed his tender behind.

“Aren’t you supposed to honk or something? Madcap drivers...” His creative string of expletives died away as he began to hobble to the side of the road.

“And aren’t you supposed to watch where you’re going?”

Jess froze. His back still to the car, he found his tongue and spoke to the ditch. “Addie?”

“Jess.”

From her tone, she had obviously found his abrupt departure from the saddle humorous.

“You want to kill me, I can think of a lot easier ways.” He planted his Stetson on his head, gathered the reins and swung up onto Dakota. The saddle hit him square in the new bruise, but he’d be damned if he’d wince.

The young horse sprang out of the ditch and pranced begrudgingly toward the brass and leather Packard. It was a sturdy-looking vehicle, practical, unlike Jensen’s flashy little Runabout. Addie stood behind the steering wheel, a wide-brimmed, veiled driving hat and duster covering her from head to toe.

“Why would I want to kill you,” she said in a tone that banished all annoyance and replaced it with sheer lust, “when tormenting you is so much...fun?”

Jess eased Dakota forward until he sat eye to eye with Addie. “Fun, you say.”

“Oh, most definitely.” She slipped her hat off and tossed it into the back of the automobile. “Almost as fun as...driving.” Her fingers began at the top buttons near her throat and one by one she slowly unbuttoned her coat.

“Driving...as in this contraption? Or driving...as in driving a man crazy?” Jess spoke slowly, the rhythm of his words matching the slow movement of her fingers from which he could not pull his eyes.

“I suppose it depends upon the...situation.” She had worked her way halfway down the coat and shrugged it off her shoulders. The coat fell to the floor of the car as Jess brought his arm around her waist and pulled her toward him. For once, Dakota seemed to understand his mission and stood perfectly still.

Their lips brushed so slightly that it tantalized him in a way he’d not thought possible, and he lifted her onto his lap to deepen the kiss. Her arms came around his neck and her soft gloves sent maddening messages through his earlobes. With a small gasp, she pulled away from his demanding mouth.

Her eyes danced, brown and brilliant, and penetrated his. She seemed to read with astounding accuracy the message his own eyes were screaming. Her answering smile nearly stopped his heart entirely.

“What about my Packard?” She whispered it so quietly he didn’t register at first that she’d spoken.

“
Your
Packard?” He nudged Dakota with his knees and let the reins dangle on the horse’s neck as the black’s sixth sense told him it was time to return to the stable. Jess stole another kiss before he asked, “That thing belongs to
you
?”

“Mm-hmmm.” Her voice was dreamy now, her eyes dropping lazily to his mouth and up again.

“Why...” he dipped for another kiss, “...do you need...” another kiss, “...a motor car?”

Addie took a long, slow breath and expelled it on a sigh. Her fingers smoothed the hair at his temples as Dakota ambled up to the shed. “So I can drive...” she kissed his cheek, “...a man I know...” another kiss, “...crazy.”

Then she kissed his chin.

Her fingers opened the first button at his throat.

“Or maybe,” she kissed each quivering tendon in his neck, “...to drive...” the cleft below his lip blazed hot and cold as her lips traveled higher, “...to a crazy man I...” she nipped his mouth, “...love.”

Jess crushed her to him and swung his leg over the saddle and slid to the ground. Somehow without removing his lips from hers, he managed to latch the shed gate before he carried Addie across the threshold of the cottage.

Slowly he lowered her feet to the floor and stood cradling her face in both his hands. “Don’t you have to play tonight?”

“Mm-hm,” she murmured, sliding a kiss along his jaw. “That’s why I got the motor car.”

“So you could fiddle on Friday nights?” he asked, not caring that he made no sense.

She reared back. “Oh, Mr. Pepper, there are many, many ways to fiddle on Friday night.” She twined her fingers into the curls at the back of his neck, and her face suddenly turned softly serious. Her eyes spoke even before she said a word. “I have to play, Jess, I need to play. It’s who I am. You know that, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“But...I...”

He saw in her eyes what she wanted to say, and he could easily have spoken the words for her, but instead he waited. It seemed the most important thing in the world to hear her say it.

“Addie. Darlin’.” He kissed her nose and willed her the courage to say what he needed to hear.

“Oh, Jess, when you’re not with me I can’t even think about picking up my violin. I just want you...here...in my arms, and me in yours, because I...” she dropped her eyes, and when she raised them again he knew she finally understood what her heart had been trying so hard to tell her. “Oh, Jess, my fingers just refuse to remember a thing. It’s like I’m all thumbs. Everything I ever knew just flies out the window. And then I think how much I love you, and the music’s just suddenly...there. I love you, Jess. I—”

Hearing the words seemed to solve the riddle of his earlier agitation. She loved him. And he loved her. He had given her the freedom to go where she needed and she had given him the Packard that would bring her home to him.

“I love you, Addie darlin’,” he whispered, and her answering kiss nearly brought him to his knees. She’d solved the problem of how they would be together in this new world they were forging. It birthed a vision he hadn’t even allowed himself to contemplate, and his breathing found its rhythm with hers.