blackberry cobbler. God, I miss that, and flaky buttermilk biscuits.”
“You must have picked up some new favorites from traveling the world.” Even in his jeans with a torn knee, he still had a more polished look with his Ferragamo loafers and … just something undefinable that spoke of how much he’d accomplished. “You must have changed. Eighteen years is a long time.”
“Of course I’m different in some ways. We all change. You’re certainly not exactly the same.”
“How so?” she asked warily.
“There. Just what you said now and how you said it.” He leaned back against the piano. “You’re more careful. More controlled.”
“Why is caution a bad thing?” Her impulsive nature, her spoiled determination to have everything—to have him—at any cost had nearly wrecked both their lives.
“Not bad. Just different. Plus, you don’t smile as much, and I’ve missed your laugh. You sound better than any music I’ve heard. I’ve tried to capture it in songs, but …” He shook his head. His blue eyes went darker with emotion, just the way they’d done all those years ago, and in that familiar moment, she felt his presence as deeply as she ever had from his kiss.
“That’s so … sad.” And incredibly touching.
One corner of his mouth kicked up in a wry smile. “Or sappy. But then, I make my living off writing and singing sappy love songs.”
“Off of making women fall in love with you.” She rolled her eyes, trying to make light of all the times the tabloid photos of him with other women had made her ache with what-ifs.
“Women aren’t falling for me. It’s all an image created by my manager. Everyone knows it’s promo. None of it’s real.”
On a certain level, she got what he was saying, but something about his blasé attitude niggled at her. “You used to say the music was a part of you.” She waved toward the antique upright behind him. “You were so passionate about your playing and your songs.”
“I was an idealistic teenager. But I became a realist.” He scooped up a stack of sheet music off the stand beside the piano. “I left this town determined to earn enough money to buy your father twice over, and music—” he rattled the pages in his hand “—was the only marketable skill I had.”
“You achieved your financial goal. I truly am happy for you. Congratulations on succeeding in showing up my old man.”
“More than succeeded.” His eyes twinkled like stars lighting the night sky.
“So you can more than buy him out twice over. How many times over, five?”
He shrugged, his eyes still smiling.
Her jaw dropped. “Eight?”
He tossed the sheet music—scores she’d written for private students—back onto the side table.
“More than ten?” Holy crap.
“That’s fairly close.”
“Wow.” She whistled softly. “Love songs pay well.” A lot better than the little compositions she made for her students with dreams of putting them into an instruction book one day.
“People want to believe in the message,” he said drily.
“You sound cynical.” That made her sad when she thought of how deeply he’d cared about his music. “Why sing about something you don’t accept as true? You obviously don’t need the money anymore.”
“You used to like it when I sang to you.” He turned on the bench and placed his hands on the keyboard, his fingers starting a simple ballad, hauntingly familiar.
“I was one of those sappy women falling for you.” When she’d been in Switzerland, his baby growing inside her, she’d dreamed of how they could repair their relationship when she got back and he finished his probation. Except, his letters to her grew fewer and fewer until she realized what everyone had told her was true. Theirs was just a high-school romance.
He tapped out another couple of bars of the melody line of one of the songs he’d written for her back when they’d dated. He’d said songs were all he had to offer her. This particular tune, one he’d called “Playing for Keeps,” had always been her favorite. His fingers picked up speed, layering new intricacies into the simpler song he’d composed long ago. When he finished, the last note echoed in her tiny carriage house.
In her heart.
Her breath caught in her throat, her eyes stinging with tears that blurred the image of his broad shoulders as he sat at the piano. She ached with the urge to wrap her arms around him and rest her cheek on his back. She hurt from the lost dreams of what she’d let slip away. Apparently, he’d let a whole lot slip away from him, too. She didn’t want to think about how cynical he’d grown.
Swallowing hard, she let herself dare to ask, “Was it real, what we felt then?”
He stayed silent, turned away from her for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. Finally, he shifted around again to face her. The raw emotion on his face squeezed at her heart.
A long sigh shuddered through him before he spoke. “Real enough that we went through a lot of pain for each other. Real enough that sitting here together isn’t some easygoing reunion.”
With that heavy sigh of his, she realized he’d suffered, too, more than she’d ever realized. Somehow, that made her feel less alone. Yes, they’d hurt each other, but maybe they could help each other, too. Maybe the time had come for a coda of sorts, to bring their song to an end.
“Malcolm, what’s Europe going to be like if just sitting here together is this difficult?”
“So you’ve decided to come with me? No more maybes?”
She shoved to her feet and walked to him at the piano. “I think I have to.”
“Because of the stalker?”
She cupped his handsome, beard-stubbled face in her hands. “Because it’s time we put this to rest.”
Before she could talk herself out of something she wanted—needed—more than air, Celia pressed her lips to his.
Malcolm might not have planned on kissing Celia, but the second her mouth touched his, there wasn’t a chance in hell he could pull away. She tasted like the sweet, syrupy insides of pecan pie and more—more than he remembered. Familiar and new all at once.
The tip of her tongue touched his, sending a bolt of desire straight through him until he went so hard at the thought of having her that he ached. His body surged with the need to take her, here, now. Because based on even this one kiss, he knew it would be even better for them than when they had been inexperienced, fumbling teens learning their way around … then learning the pleasure of drawing it out.
God,
