When Next We Love (18 page)

He groaned. “No, it wasn’t your fault. But you did cause the fiasco at Pennekamp.”

“Yes.”

“And you did pour coffee all over me.”

“Not on purpose! Really!” They were laughing together, naturally. It was a wonderful feeling, one that relaxed Leigh. She continued thoughtlessly, “Besides, I didn’t hurt you badly. You were just fine …” Her words trailed into a choked whisper and halted. Last night. You were just fine last night. That was what she had been about to say. But she didn’t want to find out about last night. She didn’t want to hear that she had been just another black cat in the dark, silver-streaked or not.

This time she could have kissed the waitress. The lady, who told them her name was June, descended upon the table with a pen and sheets of paper in the nick of time to save Leigh from struggling out of her awkward predicament. “One for Cindy, Marilyn, and Louisa, please,” she whispered conspiratorially with a wink. “And a special one for June and Dirk, please.”

“Surely.” Derek set his cocktail fork down and agreeably made out the autographs. Leigh noticed that diners at nearby tables were beginning to watch them curiously.

“Perhaps we should get the check,” she suggested, motioning with her eyes to explain her statement.

“Umm.” He finished his last scrawl. “June, would you get our check, please?”

“Right away, Mr. Mallory.”

It was easy to stall Derek then. They were both involved with finishing their food quickly. But they had a forty-five-minute drive still ahead of them.

“Ready?” Derek gulped the tail end of his beer.

“Yes,” Leigh picked up her own beer and gulped down the remaining half a glass. She was plotting as she rose from the table.

“It’s amazing how sleepy a good meal can make you,” she yawned as they climbed back into the car.

“And liquor.” Derek reminded her.

“Yeah, the beer,” Leigh agreed, with another strenuous yawn. She curled into the seat. “I never have had a tolerance …”

“Leigh?”

Praying she was a good enough actress to carry off her charade, Leigh failed to respond. She kept her eyes closed as he repeated her name. Was it possible to fall asleep so quickly?

At any rate Derek didn’t push her, and as the car rolled along the road, drowsiness began to overtake her in reality. She awoke with a true start to find that they were parked in front of the Star Island estate.

“We’re here,” Derek said, nudging her gently. “Can you make it, or shall I carry you?”

“No!” Leigh sprang up and opened her door. “No, I’m awake. I’m fine.”

She tripped over the first step. Her faked nap turned real had left her groggy and disoriented. As she wavered for balance, Derek came behind her and scooped her into his arms as James appeared at the front door with a respectful, “Welcome home, sir.”

“Thank you, James,” Derek responded cheerfully. “Mrs. Tremayne fell asleep on me. I’ll bring her up to her room. Will you bring in the bags, please? And tell Emma I’d like a cup of coffee in my office.”

Leigh nuzzled into his warm chest as he carried her up the stairway, absorbing the scent of him, straining to remember every wonder of him, the feel of his breath, the touch of his skin. Tears were pricking at her eyes again. She had the uncanny feeling that this would be the last time he ever held her in the gentle, imprisoning security of his arms.

He lay her softly on the bed in the room that was once more hers. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered. “I’m going to get hold of the group so that we can start tomorrow and look over the sheets you’ve written.”

For a moment he paused, looking down at her. Leigh felt that he was going to kiss her, and she longed for him to do so. But he didn’t. He moved a stray lock of hair off her forehead, his fingers lingering tantalizingly. Then he spun quickly away.

Her door closed, then reopened. He stood in the doorway, glancing upon her prone body reflectively. “Leigh,” he said quietly, “I want you to tell me one thing. I’ll never bring it up again, I promise. But answer me now, and tell me the truth.
Was that you in Atlanta?”

Thank God the room was dark. Leigh winced and bit her lip. To subdue the tears in her voice she spoke harshly. “Yes. Yes, it was me. Now, can we drop it, please?”

“S
TOP!”

Derek’s voice sounded stridently as the instruments that now crowded his studio discordantly quieted. “You’re flat, Leigh, start concentrating!”

Leigh bit her lip and nodded. The others, she knew, were looking at her sympathetically, but no one was going to rush to her defense. This was their last rehearsal before moving into the recording studio, and if Derek was being harsh and nitpicky, well, it could only be expected with the grueling schedule he had set. Leigh also had to admit that her voice had gone flat and that she wasn’t concentrating. They had been rehearsing ten hours a day for a month straight. Granted, Derek worked long into the night, hours after the rest of them had called it quits, revising, improving, tearing the original work apart until it was musically perfect.

“Roger, take it back to the beginning. One, two, three, four.” He ran his fingers through his hair as Roger began the bars of slow drum beats that introduced the final song. Derek came in on lead guitar, Bobby on bass, and Shane on the keyboard, then the crystal tones of John’s flute, a sign from Derek, and their harmonized voices, Leigh taking great care to keep hers high and clear.

The song ended with a repeat of the slow drum beats. On the last Roger threw his sticks in the air and shouted, “Whew! I’m for a drink! Anyone care to join me?”

“I surely will!” Shane replied, rising from his bench and stretching. He tensed his fingers and curled them. “John? Bobby? Leigh?”

Agreement followed all around. They began to troop out the door, Leigh escorted forward by Roger.

“Why isn’t Derek coming?” she asked him. “We’re done, right? What else can he be doing?”

Roger gave her a quick hug. “Don’t worry about Derek, love, he’s always like this when he’s really into a project. He’ll come out when he’s ready. Tomorrow things will get better.”

Leigh didn’t think so. Since the night they had returned from the Keys, Derek had barely spoken to her except during rehearsal and that was usually to yell. In public he had been polite, solicitous, but even then, distant. Leigh lived in his house, slept not forty feet from him, but might as well have been living on another planet. The only meals he took with her were when the entire group ate together. Otherwise, he avoided her like the plague.

“What’ll it be, Leigh?” Bobby, self-elected bartender for the night, demanded as he shuffled through Derek’s game room liquor cabinet.

“A Coke!” Leigh smiled wanly. “Anything else and I’d crash over on my feet. How do you all stand this pace?”

“You get used to it.” Shane chuckled, patting her shoulder in encouragement as she sank into a plump chair. He walked over to the corner phone, saying, “’Scuse me. I have to call the home front.”

“Damn!” Bobby muttered, producing Leigh’s Coke. “I’d better do the same. I promised Tina to take her to dinner.”

Leigh chatted idly with Roger and John while Bobby and Shane made their phone calls. She was comfortable with the group now, close. Every night they had spent an hour together talking like this, an hour that Roger described as the “wind-down.”

“Oh, brother!” Bobby exclaimed with disgust as he rejoined them and sank disheartened into the sofa. “As if Tina isn’t annoyed already with this rehearsal schedule! Her mother has come down with the flu and can’t sit with Lara for us.” He grimaced. “No dinner out.”

“Angie and I can take Lara,” Shane offered.

“No, you can’t, but thank you,” Bobby replied, draining his Scotch swiftly. “Angie has her dance class tonight.”

“I’m sure she won’t mind skipping,” Shane said.

“You’re not going to ask her.” Bobby smiled wanly. “She missed a class for us a few weeks ago.”

“Don’t you have a live-in housekeeper?” Leigh asked him.

“Mrs. Smikle is on vacation,” Bobby responded tiredly. “And Tina is funny about Lara. There are only a few people she’ll leave her with.”

“Well, how about me?” Leigh queried. “I’m sure Tina would trust me! She knows I’m crazy about Lara.”

“Leigh, the offer is great, but no. You’re exhausted.”

“I’m tired of rehearsing,” Leigh agreed amiably. “But I’d love to take care of Lara! And she goes to bed in a few hours.”

“Are you sure …” Bobby was trying to dissuade her with his words but his eyes leaped with pleasure.

“I’m positive!” Leigh stated firmly. “Call Tina back and tell her you’re still going to dinner. I’ll change and follow you now. I’m not sure I can find the house by myself.”

“There’s no need to do that.”

Leigh’s eyes shot to the doorway where Derek was entering. He rubbed the back of his neck tiredly as he approached the liquor cabinet and poured himself a liberal portion of gin and added a splash of tonic. “Bobby,” he continued, “bring Lara over here with her portable crib. She can spend the night. Tina can come to the studio with you in the morning and pick her up.” He eased himself into a recliner. “You and Tina can have a whole night alone.”

“Gee …” Bobby muttered. “That sounds great. But are you two sure you want to do this? You haven’t had much time alone yourselves.”

Leigh winced and felt pink staining her cheeks. Bobby, as well as the rest of the group, assumed things were still good between Derek and Leigh. Nothing else had ever been said about their impending “marriage,” by either of them. The group, knowing their leader as they did, took Derek’s often abrupt behavior toward Leigh as normal. He was, they believed, frenzied and harassed by the work load that fell his way.

“I promise you,” Leigh said, controlling the note of bitterness and sarcasm that threatened her voice, “Derek and I would both love to have Lara.”

“It’s settled,” Derek told Bobby. “Call Tina.”

“Thank you, both. I really appreciate this. And one of these days”—he winked—“I might be able to reciprocate the favor.”

Leigh felt her stomach lurch.

An hour later Lara arrived for the night and Bobby and Tina blissfully repeated their thanks and headed off for a romantic evening. Leigh took Lara into the game room, where she read the little girl stories and played pat-a-cake. She was heartily surprised when Derek chose to join them, followed by dignified James with a tray of steaming cocoa.

“Snack, ladies?” he inquired, folding his long legs Indian fashion and sinking to the floor beside them. He patted the loop rug. “Right here will be fine, James.”

James knelt to the floor, his brittle old bones creaking. “Sorry, old boy!” Derek chuckled, “I should have taken the tray myself.”

Offended, James sniffed. Then his basilisk features actually crinkled into a smile. “I don’t mind at all, sir.” His smile became reproachful as he continued, “I could do this with considerably more grace, Mr. Mallory, if I were to have more opportunity in the field of catering to little people.”

“James!” Derek groaned. “I have my mother to nag me about my lack of procreation, thank you.”

“And Lord Mallory,” James supplied.

“Yes, and Lord Mallory.” Derek agreed. “Well, James,” he snapped suddenly, “would you like to join us for cocoa? Or are you going to kneel there and stare at me like a mother hen all night.”

“Certainly not, sir!” He rose to his feet with a huff. “I shall be in the kitchen, sir, playing gin rummy with Emma should you require my services.”

Lara had scrambled her chubby little limbs to reach her plastic cup of cocoa. Now she called after him, “Thank you, James.”

James bowed stiffly, the silly smile back on his face. “A pleasure, Mistress Welles, a great pleasure.” He shot Derek a final, reproachful glare, sniffed again, and left them.

“So, Lara,” Derek questioned the little girl, “are you enjoying your stay?” A twinkle lit his eyes as they gazed upon the child, but Leigh could see the signs of strain in his face. The thin lines that edged his mouth and eyes were deep, the fine angular cast of his face gaunt. Why did he drive himself so hard? Leigh wondered. She longed to stretch a hand to him and ease his tension with gentle fingers. But she didn’t dare. What was going on was more than work, she was sure. Derek was purposely burying himself, and purposely keeping a distance from her.

Lara scrambled to her stubby legs with childish grace, throwing herself into Derek’s arms, cocoa and all. “Wuv it, Uncle Derek, wuv it!” she proclaimed.

Derek grimaced as cocoa lapped onto his shirt. “Good, sweetheart. Finish your cocoa now, and have a cookie. We have to get you to bed or your mother will have our necks.” He grinned at Leigh with a wink.

Crazy, Leigh thought, how her heart began to pound. He had proved he wanted nothing more to do with her …

“Yes,” she said lightly. “Finish up now, Lara, so we can get you into your pajamas.”

Lara happily crunched an oatmeal cookie and drank her cocoa to the last drop. She giggled with hysterical delight when Derek swooped her into the air and tickled her tummy. Then Derek looked to Leigh questioningly. “Where is she going to sleep?”

“The crib is in my room,” Leigh replied. “I wanted to be sure I’d hear her if she woke.” She lifted her hands helplessly. “I was afraid in a different place she might be frightened.”

“Okay, munchkin!” he told Lara, tossing her to a position on his shoulders. “Auntie Leigh’s room it shall be.”

Leigh followed the giggling pair up the stairway. In her room she delved into the bag Tina had packed for her daughter and found her pajamas and teddy bear. Derek waited while Leigh washed Lara, helped her brush her tiny teeth, and changed her into the rag-doll patterned footed sleeper. Then he took over, popping Lara high into the air, kissing her soundly, and tucking her in.

“Lull-by, Uncle Derek,” Lara demanded sleepily as she hugged her teddy bear. “Lull-by, please?”

“Kiss Leigh good night, munchkin,” Derek said, “then I’ll do the number of your choice. Maybe we’ll do some harmony.”

Leigh leaned over the crib to receive Lara’s obedient kiss. Soft hands curled around her neck and she hugged the little girl warmly in return.