The Song in My Heart (8 page)

It was just as well that Dess, staring blankly at the driver’s back, was oblivious to the lustful thoughts charging through her mind, Erika supposed. While she enjoyed a good challenge and had no shortage of confidence in herself, she had to admit she stood little chance of melting the Ice Queen. Not that she had any intention of trying.
No, uh-huh, no way.

Chapter Six

Maggie trotting happily between them, Dess led Erika down the sharply descending stone path that zigzagged like a drunken sailor down to the water’s edge.

“This is your own private access? And your own little beach here?” Erika asked, awe in her voice.

“Yup, all mine. Well, and Maggie’s. And my mother’s when she stays here with me in July and August.”

“It’s nice and private. Ever do any nude sunbathing down here?”

Dess cut a quick glance at Erika, but her eyes were unreadable behind her wraparound sunglasses.

“Every day,” Dess answered dryly. “Sometimes twice a day, matter of fact.”

“Wow, really?” Erika lowered her sunglasses, her astonishment like two full moons. It was comical the way her mouth opened too, like a fish gulping air, and Dess could no longer keep a straight face.

“Of course not, silly. But go ahead if you want to do it. Maggie and I won’t look, I promise.” Dess tried to maintain her grin, but she quickly regretted kidding about something as forbidden but as insanely alluring as seeing Erika’s naked breasts. She could only imagine those mounds of young, firm flesh with nothing between them and the sun but the warm caress of a breeze.
And maybe the warm caress of my hands
.
God
, she thought,
what is happening to me? I haven’t looked at a woman or even thought about sex in months. Longer, even. And yet now, with Erika, I can’t seem to stop thinking about…sex sex sex!
Well, it’s not my fault
.
This woman practically oozes sex with all those curves and tight-fitting clothes and low-cut tops, skin as smooth as silk and that unmistakable swagger that says “I’m a fuck machine.” Not to mention dark eyes as big as dinner plates and those spectacular dimples. I’m going to fucking kill Sloane
!

“You okay?” Erika stopped her with a hand lightly on her arm.

“Of course, why?” Dess asked around her suddenly dry throat.

“You look a bit pale suddenly. Do you feel sick?”

Dess strolled to the water’s edge, where she spotted a foot-long twig in the sand. She picked it up and hurled it into the lake and watched as Maggie, with a quickness that was remarkable for her stocky frame, leaped into the water after it without a care for the water’s chill. The air, at least, was beginning to warm, with light jackets or a hoodie enough to keep the dampness out. Summer, and its waves of tourists, wouldn’t be far off now, and it occurred to Dess that it would be the first time in six years that she wouldn’t be spending the summer on the island.

“I’m going to miss this place,” she said, pitching her voice out to the horizon as Maggie, her prize between her teeth, turned for the swim back.

Erika had silently stepped beside her. “There’ll be time for a visit or two between our gigs. And Maggie will be with us, right?”

“Yes. I just hope this old minstrel is up to all this traveling and hauling instruments around. And the late-night performances.”

“Sloane and I will be doing the heavy lifting with the hauling and the driving. But it’s going to be a big change, having all of us crammed into a thirty-foot trailer for months. You sure you’re up to it?”

“Not really, no,” Dess said plainly. She wouldn’t lie and pretend she considered this was going to be the best summer adventure of her life. It was going to be a hell of a lot of hard work for very little in return. Sure, it would help hone Erika’s performing skills, get her some publicity and perhaps get her noticed by someone in the business who could really help her. For Dess, however, it only meant one thing—a chance to pay it forward. She’d been lucky in her career as well as dedicated, and she certainly didn’t owe anyone anything for that. But if there was one thing she’d left unfinished in what was otherwise a stellar career, it was helping someone else achieve their dreams. And helping Erika might, she prayed, alleviate the shame she’d carried around inside for well over a decade. A shame that even her self-exile and fall from grace had done little to mitigate.

“Can I ask you something personal?” Erika said cautiously.

Dess picked up the stick Maggie had dropped at her feet and tossed it into the water again. “Sure.”

“You seem, if I can be blunt, awfully bitter about the music business. I get the feeling sometimes that you don’t think I should go for it.”

Dess turned to face Erika. She deserved the truth. “You’re right. I’ve been pretty obvious about it, and it’s not fair to you. Jesus, Erika. I don’t even know where to start. There are so many landmines in the business. I don’t want to see you hurt. Or worse, destroyed. And I don’t know quite how to teach you what those obstacles are without…without leaving you dispirited.”

“You could never do that, Dess. You could never kill my dream, okay? And you’re going to help me so those things won’t happen to me, right?”

They began walking down the beach, Maggie trotting ahead of them with the stick clamped tightly between her teeth, her brown fur dripping a wet trail behind her.

“It’s not that simple,” Dess replied. “I can’t protect you from everything. It can be a soul-eating business, Erika, and you’ll need to be careful. And strong. You’ll need a very solid moral compass and you’ll need to stay true to it. Which, believe me, won’t be easy.”

“It didn’t destroy you, though, right? You’re strong.”

Dess thought about that for a moment. No, it hadn’t destroyed her, and yes, she was strong, but it had come close, and it had sometimes turned her into someone she wasn’t proud of. Some of the people she had thought were in her corner were really only out for themselves. Like Dayna. Dayna’s betrayal had hurt her the most. The rest—the late nights, the killer travel schedules, the pressure of producing hit song after hit song—she’d learned to cope with while managing not to get hooked on booze or drugs. The years of self-centeredness and hard work had stolen the chance to make lasting friendships and to build an enduring relationship with a woman. Those were years she could never get back.

“No, it didn’t destroy me, but that might have been more by luck than anything else. Look, I don’t mean for it to sound all bad, because it’s not. But surviving cancer, it changes your perspective. It makes you focus on what’s important, makes you take stock of things so that you can make the kind of decisions you need to make, for the sake of your own survival.”

“Is that why you left the music business? Because of the cancer?”

Dess focused on a distant fishing trawler. “I left it, and it left me. Because of the cancer, yes. I needed to focus all my energy on fighting for my life, because that’s all that mattered. Not the awards, not the records, not the money, not the crowds.” She swung her moist gaze back to Erika, the subject more emotional than she would have expected, given that she barely knew Erika and typically didn’t confide in strangers. “And then I discovered that the radiation had killed my voice. So that sealed my fate. The business didn’t want me anymore if I couldn’t sing.”

“But you didn’t need to disappear completely from the music business, did you? I mean, you still had your fans. You still had other things in the business you could do?”

“I’d given it all. There wasn’t anything else I could contribute that filled me up the way singing did.”

“But look at your guitar playing, your songwriting. All the experience and knowledge you have. You could have reinvented yourself. You still can.”

Dess smiled to lighten the mood. “I did reinvent myself. For
me
. And I am contributing to the business again. I’m joining you this summer, remember?”

Eyebrows rose from behind the dark sunglasses. “I don’t know what to say. Except thank you.” Erika placed a hand on Dess’s forearm and squeezed lightly. “It means more than you’ll ever know. It’s an honor, Dess.”

The genuineness in Erika’s touch, in her voice, brought Dess back to her own youth, when all that mattered was the dream. And the dream’s fulfillment. She stopped, faced Erika, and clutched Erika’s hands in hers, squeezing harder than she intended, before letting go and dropping her hands to her sides.

“Then promise me you will trust me. Question me, yes. Argue with me, sure. But don’t doubt me, okay?”

“Of course. Anything.”

“There’ll be temptations, you know.”

“I already know about those. Especially lately.” Her smile was slightly wolfish, enough to indicate that she’d perhaps had a fantasy or two about Dess, and the soft flesh behind Dess’s knees tingled in response.

“I’m serious.”

Erika raised her glasses onto her head. Dess expected a cheeky expression, more of the predatory grinning, but what she got was dead-eye seriousness.

Barely above a whisper, Erika said, “So am I.”

Oh shit
, Dess thought, without any clear idea why she was so scared of the many layers—the many wants—within Erika Alvarez’s walls. Those wants, Dess was sure, came with a very intensely spirited determination. A determination that might be hard to rebuff. And there wouldn’t be much, she suspected, that would derail Erika from the things she desired.

“C’mon, honey,” Dess said to Maggie, bending to pet her drenched head. She couldn’t look into Erika’s eyes anymore because they were web-like in their silky pull. “Let’s get you back to the house and dry you off.”

* * *

Erika marveled at how effortlessly they were able to put the finishing touches on the song, “I Want What You Got.” It was clear Dess was a pro at this. She knew exactly where to make the adjustments—when to add a guitar lick, when to change the tempo, how much emotion to put into the words, how to tweak the words themselves for a better fit. On her own, it would have taken Erika four times as long to write the song and it would have been only half as good.

The business of completing the song behind them, Erika needed to burn off some steam. Burrowing so intensely into music left her energized, like a runner still jazzed after the finish line. There was a residual mischief streaking through her, and, if she were honest, she was a little horny too. The music had set all her nerve endings on fire, and she didn’t want the night—nor her connection with Dess—to end.

As they roasted chicken for a late dinner and killed a bottle of chardonnay, Erika pulled her beat-up Martin acoustic guitar from the floor beside her. They were sprawled on the area rug in the great room facing the glowing fireplace, their glasses of wine an arm’s length away on the glass coffee table. Erika was no master guitarist the way Dess was. Hell, Dess made
love
to the guitar when she played it. But Erika could competently play most chords, and she could play bass or rhythm more than adequately. Slowly, she began strumming a C chord, then a D minor.

“
The first time
…” Erika began singing in a voice so low and rumbling, it rattled her own shoes, “
ever I saw your face.
”

She lost herself in the Roberta Flack song, the way she always did when she sang something meaningful or something vocally challenging. Time stood still as her eyes closed to everything but the visions behind them. And the visions that danced before her were of Dess touching her face. Dess closing her eyes, waiting to be kissed. Erika poured her heart into the song, imagining herself kissing Dess, touching her. Dess was a woman so layered with emotion. So richly complex. So bright, opinionated, worldly, strong, accomplished. So damned smart. She was nothing like the college girls Erika had played around with. No. Dess wasn’t the kind of woman you
played around
with, much as Erika’s fantasies tried to suggest otherwise. Dess was a woman of substance, a keeper, a woman to journey through life with. The others, well, the others were merely…fuck material. And fuck material, Erika realized with startling clarity, was no longer a productive way to spend her time. Her eyes fluttered open,, the words of the song continuing to flow from her mouth and meaning more to her than they’d ever meant before.

Dess was staring at her, eyes wide and moist, lips parted in a look of mesmerized anticipation. A tear slithered down her cheek, and Erika’s voice foundered.

“No, don’t stop,” Dess pleaded.

Erika had sung ballads to women before to get into their pants, and the tactic rarely failed. Was that what had motivated her to choose this song to sing to Dess? Oh, she was singing it like it was the last song she’d ever sing, like Dess was the only and last woman she’d ever be with. And it seemed to be having the desired effect, melting Dess, stripping away her defenses. But did she want Dess spread out before her, free for the taking? For using? To fuck and forget? No, Erika knew with conviction. Absolutely not.

Through the slits of her eyes, she secretly studied Dess. She was so beautiful. So vulnerable right now. So in need of touching, of loving, of appreciating. And not because she was the famous Dess Hampton, but because she was a good woman. Erika ended the song, and for a long moment they simply stared at each other, speechless.

“You,” Dess breathed. “Your voice. I don’t know what it does to me, but…”

Without thinking, Erika reached a hand to Dess’s cheek, palmed it softly, trailed a finger along her jaw and caught the tear before it dropped. Dess’s eyes flickered shut. Her body leaned toward Erika, her muscles like a guitar string, taut with desire. Erika’s eyes drifted down to the silky skin of Dess’s cleavage, so tantalizingly exposed by her blouse. Oh, how she wanted Dess. She thrummed with desire for Dess. Nearly exploded from desire for Dess. All it would take now was a kiss, a few strokes, a few whispered words of coaxing, and Dess would be hers.

But she couldn’t. Instead, she pulled her hand away as though she’d touched something hot. She shifted to create distance between them. Cleared her throat to drown out the voice in her head that said she must be nuts.
No
, she thought.
I’m not nuts. I’m doing something smart for once.