Banjo Man Read online

  The banjo player, studying her with those piercing dark eyes, accepted her words as answer to his question. “Well, sweet thing, I can take care of that! A Westin special, coming up!”

  He brushed his fingers lightly across her cheek, rose to his full, lanky height, and headed for the kitchen. At the doorway, he turned to Laurie. “You stay there, now. No funny business. I don’t want to come back and find you fainted dead away on the floor.”

  “Really, you don’t have to worry about me, or fuss over me, or anything,” she whispered, pushing herself up onto her elbows. “I’m okay. And just a cup of tea or a glass of milk would be fine. Don’t go to any bother, please.”

  “I don’t know,” he answered softly, “but I think I’d like bothering over you. You remind me of some little bird that’s been blown about on the wind and needs a place to rest.”

  “I am not!” she retorted, startling herself with her uncharacteristic burst of anger. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she glared at him, her gray eyes wide and flashing. “I’m not a little bird. No, not at all. I’m a grown woman, out on my own, and I can take care of myself. If I can drive from western Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C., without brakes, I can do anything. And I intend to. And I don’t want to be mothered or smothered or … or—”

  “Whoa!” His rich laughter filled the room. “Fantastic. You can bet I won’t make that mistake again. And believe me, mothering and smothering were not what I had in mind. I’ve just got a feeling that tonight might be the luckiest night of my life. I owe Ellen a kiss and Arlo an extra scratch behind the ears. Now, you just sit still, and I’m gonna fix you one of my special midnight snacks. Well”—he chuckled, glancing at the clock—“make that a three A.M. special, comin’ up for … Hey! you know, I don’t even know your name.”

  “I’m probably better off that way!” Laurie tossed back, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her mouth totally against her will. “My name is Laurie O’Neill. Pleased to meet you. And you are …?”

  “… even more pleased to meet you!” Flashing a rather wolfish grin, he moved swiftly from the doorway to her side. He captured her hand between the two of his.

  Messages sparked up the nerves of her arm, warning her startled brain about the deceptive strength of his hands and the surprisingly sensual rasp of the callused pads of his fingertips against her palm. His touch was cool, but her entire arm blazed with hidden warmth. She pulled her hand away as though she’d been burned. “No, I meant your name,” she insisted with ill-restrained exasperation. “Is Westin your first, last, or only?”

  “Ah … an old-fashioned girl who likes formal introductions. Well”—he offered her his hand and a wry grin—“I’m Rick Westin. Banjo player, balladeer, and collector of all kinds of American bits and pieces: songs, stories, people, and places. Satisfied?”

  Laurie tucked both hands warily behind her back. “Yes … mostly.”

  Hunkering down at the side of the bed, he rested his palms on his denim-clad thighs and lifted one dark brow in question. “All right. What else do you want to know?”

  “Well, it’s probably none of my business.…”

  “Come on. Shoot.”

  “How … how do you know Ellen?”

  “You mean how? Or how well?” he asked bluntly.

  Laurie went from pale to sheet-white. “I meant how! I’d never pry, or ask anything like that!”

  “Why not? Everyone else would.” He narrowed his dark eyes and looked at her for a long moment. Then he added with calculated sarcasm, “I mean … you did find me in her bed.”

  “Stop it! I didn’t think … think anything of it even for a moment. And I’d never make insinuations like that anyway; it’s none of my business. Ellen is a good friend, and I care about her. As long as she’s happy, well, that’s all that matters.”

  Rick thought for a second that she was putting him on, but no, nobody was that good an actress. This kid was sincere.

  “Sorry.” He grinned, too pleased with his discovery to sound totally repentant. “You know, that’s nice, really nice. I told you this was my lucky night! Now I’m gonna get you that invigorating, rejuvenating one-hundred-percent-natural, high-energy, low-calorie, mid-octave whippersnapper of a Westin special. Stay where you are!”

  He left Laurie seesawing silently between anger and amazement.

  When he had disappeared safely into the kitchen, and could be heard clanking noisily through cabinets and drawers, Laurie dropped back onto the pillow in exhaustion. She lay still for a moment, her arms limp at her sides, her hands curled on the sheet like pink shells on white sand.

  Slowly, she became aware of a disturbingly earthy, intoxicating scent. Furrowing her brow, she breathed in deeply, letting the smell fill her head and lungs. With surprise she realized it hadn’t drifted in from the kitchen, as she had assumed, but rose around her from the bed and pillow where she lay. It was vaguely familiar, but alien, too, and elusively avoided every label she tried to pin on it.

  She closed her eyes, and drew another heady breath … and suddenly an image flashed on the dark screen of her closed lids: It was herself, so young—sixteen, maybe, or seventeen—curled half-asleep in bed, her own bed in her own bedroom back in the big white frame house in Pittsburgh, the bed with the canopy, and the faded roses climbing the wallpaper … and she was hugging something in her arms, something redolent of that same musky, arousing scent. Catching her lower lip between her teeth, Laurie concentrated on the memory, willing it into focus.

  And there it was. She was hugging a sweater! Some boy’s letter sweater, white wool with a navy band at hem and cuff, and a big, proud B for the Bulldogs. The scent that filled her head then, and now, was a male smell, of after-shave and sweat and that secret, undeniably foreign and exciting scent of … sex!

  Laurie leaped upright in bed, her body damp with the cold sweat of fear. For she remembered well what had happened next: her father’s footsteps in the hall and the bright glare of light, and his anger as he pulled the sweater away and crushed it in his hands. “That is all right for your sister; Katy doesn’t have your potential, Laurie, so she might as well waste herself on being boy-crazy. But not you! You are my gift, my brightest daughter. And I’m ashamed of you. You must save yourself for greater things.”

  That was all.

  The sweater was hanging on a hook by the front door the next morning, and Laurie picked it up and took it back to the boy at school without a word of explanation. Joe, that was his name, Joe Holzpath. A nice boy … And when she graduated, she left home and joined the convent, and her father and mother and all the aunts were so very proud.

  Tears filled her eyes and spilled suddenly down Laurie’s cheeks. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she buried her face against her skirt and cried as she had not cried since that night years before. Her narrow shoulders shook with sobs, and her chest ached with their stifled force. Oh, what had happened to her life? All those days and years gone. But not wasted, oh, please, no. She had tried, she had been a good person, a good teacher, there was certainly meaning to it all, to what rested in the past. Please, let there be some meaning to what was waiting ahead!

  The sudden whir of the blender in the kitchen startled her back to the present. Wiping her face on the blanket, she stood up and tiptoed into the bathroom.

  The girl who stared back at her from the mirror over the sink looked desperately in need of restoration. Her inexpertly cut hair was badly tangled and her skin was far too pale. Laurie splashed cold water on her face, borrowed a brush from the cabinet, and pinched some color into her cheeks. Then she practiced a smile. And when she was satisfied that it would stay where it was supposed to, and not quiver into a frown, she straightened her shoulders, tipped up her chin, and headed for Rick Westin and his red-eye special.

  She only made it as far as the living room when she tripped over something big, black, and hard in the dark.

  “Ow!” she yelped, cradling her stubbed toe in one hand.

  Rick s
auntered in, flipped on the light, and shook his head. “And you said you drove all the way from Pennsylvania by yourself?” There was a distinct note of disbelief in his voice.

  “Yes. Yes, I certainly did. And without brakes.”

  “Sounds like a fool thing to do, woman. I’m all for a little risk, but even I wouldn’t try such a drive.”

  Laurie scowled at him and dropped onto the sofa. She sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes. “Listen, I didn’t plan it that way! I’m really a very calm, sensible, practical person.”

  “Sure.”

  “Yes, I am! It so happens that I had just gotten out … out of my hometown, and headed across the mountains, and I lost my brakes. Ellen’s brother delivered the car, and said he had checked it out, so I thought everything was fine. It wasn’t—” She stared him down, daring him to challenge her story, then shrugged lightly and added, “So I did what I had to do. I drove here. And here I am. And what in the world are all these cases and why are they lying around in the dark?”

  “Banjos.”

  “Banjos? All of them?”

  “Yup! Mostly five-string, some a hundred years old, some all the way from Possum Hollow, Kentucky.” His dark eyes shone with a glint of pure, joyous delight. “Look at that one,” he said, pointing to a dark shape in the corner. “It’s so purty, I wish I could play the case!”

  His enthusiasm was as contagious as measles, and Laurie grinned. “I’ve never heard anyone talk that way about a banjo before.”

  “No, guess not.” He laughed softly, averting his face. Then he met her eyes, and held them with his dark, intense gaze. “Someday I’m going to love a woman the way I love these banjos, and we’ll make our own kind of music together. Then I won’t have to ride to the moon alone.”

  Laurie’s eyes were round as saucers. Why was he telling her this? What did he mean?

  But before she could ask, Rick leaped to his feet, avoiding her eyes now, and strode to the kitchen. In a second he was back with a tall glass of some frothy amber liquid and a small plate of coarse dark bread spread with honey. “Here, get yourself some energy, sweet thing.”

  “Would you please stop calling me that!” Laurie demanded, her hand poised in midair.

  “Why? It suits you.”

  “How do you know? You don’t know a thing about me.”

  “But I bet I’m right! Wanna bet? And let me see, now, what would be an appropriate prize?”

  “You’re crazy!” She laughed, accepting the glass from his hand and taking a tiny sip. “Ummm—this is wonderful. What is it?”

  “A banana–yogurt–summer-squash shake.”

  “Ugh!” Laurie held the glass at arm’s length and stared at it. “Are you kidding?”

  “Nope.” He laughed, that now-familiar glint flashing in his dark eyes. “Go on, drink it down. Guaranteed by Aunt Jess Winters in Skytop, Tennessee, to cure what ails you. Whatever it may be!”

  “And the bread … first tell me what’s in it!”

  “Rye, rolled oats, whole wheat and wheat germ, sorghum molasses. I made it myself.”

  “You’re not serious!”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a real skeptical side to your nature?”

  “No one’s ever fed me health food in the middle of the night before,” Laurie retorted, smiling.

  “Their loss, my gain,” Rick answered, a teasing grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. Then he rose, picked up a banjo case, and came back to sit next to Laurie on the sofa, his thigh stretched intimately alongside hers.

  She felt the heat of his body through their clothes and stiffened. Forbidding her hands to tremble or her voice to quake, she quipped with feigned nonchalance, “I bet that banjo has a story to tell.”

  Rick pinned her with a glance that saw right through her masquerade, but his dark eyes were as gentle as they were penetrating. He studied Laurie briefly, then bent his head and concentrated on the banjo case in his hands. “This banjo, here, was made before the Civil War. I got it from a man who got it from a man who got it from the great Doc Hopkins. That makes me one lucky fellow.”

  Tossing her a boyish grin, he snapped open the case and withdrew the long-necked instrument. “You asked how I met Ellen? Well, it all started with this banjo. When I got it, some of the parquet work here on the neck was chipping. It was late one night after a show, and I was dog-tired and ready to drop, but when my manager handed me this baby, well, I just had to get to work on her. Went to cut a spare piece of wood and slashed my arm open. Ellen was on duty that night in Emergency. Like tonight.”

  “Oh, how terrible!”

  “Sure was. I bled all over the drumhead, and had to replace it. Damn!”

  Laurie shook her head in disbelief. “No, I meant you. It must have hurt.”

  “I’m tough,” he answered simply, a grin spreading over his handsome face. “But I never object to a little sympathy and comfort, especially from a beautiful woman—”

  Laurie was on her feet and talking before he could finish his sentence. “You know, I think what I really need is a little sleep. I’m supposed to start work tomorrow, and—”

  “That’s all right. I’ve got early rehearsals. Just leave the stuff; I’ll clean up. You take the bedroom and I’ll toss my body on the couch.”

  “Oh, no, I wouldn’t hear of it!” How could she ever explain to him about the bed? There was no way she could sleep on that pillow, that sheet. “No! I insist that I take the couch! It’s only fair.”

  Rick forked one hand through his tousled hair, then crossed his arms solidly over his chest and dropped onto the couch. “You want to argue about this, sweet thing? Or you want to get some rest?”

  “I … guess I’ll get some rest,” Laurie whispered, edging backward toward the bedroom.

  “Good. Sleep tight.”

  Nodding pleasantly, she slipped through the door, shut it behind her and collapsed against it, her strength pouring out through the soles of her feet like water from a sieve. So much for any hope of sleep tonight!

  Through the wall, she heard Rick moving about in the other rooms. Then the bright slice of light beneath the door vanished, and all was quiet.

  Quiet as a mouse herself, Laurie slipped to the side of the bed and lay down, fully dressed, eyes staring at the ceiling. The minutes ticked by, slowly, bringing no easing of her tension. She felt like an overstretched banjo string, thrumming with the beat of her own pulse, ready to snap at a touch.

  Sitting up, she partially loosened her dress, unfastened the belt, and lay down again. Then she was up, kicking off her shoes, peeling off her stockings. Lying down, she thought she was going to suffocate; she was afraid to breathe too deeply, afraid to close her eyes. She jumped up, slipped her dress off over her head, and tiptoed to the window in her prim white slip. Opening the window, she drew a steadying breath, then roamed silently about the room, pacing, counting her steps, and trying not to think—about anything!

  I knew it, she grumbled softly to herself. I should have had that glass of warm milk and never talked to him! I should have stopped and called Ellen, as I said I would. I never should have left the convent on a weekend. Maybe … maybe, I never should have left at all.

  Covering her face with her trembling hands, she leaned against the wall. Oh, I don’t mean that, I really don’t! I’m just scared, that’s all, a little scared. Anyone would be, right? I’ve spent every long night for years in a tiny cell, with dozens of other women beyond the curtain. And tonight who’s there but a tall, sexy man with a bare chest and warm, earth-brown eyes. Oh, I’m beginning to sound like my sister Katy, or Ellen, or …

  Her wide gray eyes lit with laughter, which she smothered quickly behind one hand. Goodness, I’m beginning not to sound like a nun! Now, that may be a cause for celebration—one warm milk coming up!

  Laurie stole to the door, pried it open silently, and sneaked out into the living room. There she stopped dead in her tracks.

  Moonlight was pouring through the open window, lighting
the form on the couch with a pale, golden glow. Rick Westin had one arm thrown across his eyes, the other angled across his bronzed chest. His bare legs were stretched the length of the couch, his feet dangling over its arm. Laurie’s hand flew to her mouth. Now she knew why they called them briefs! Not much of this man was hidden, and both what she saw and what she could imagine left her breathless.

  Thank heavens he was sleeping!

  Laurie leaned just a tiny bit closer, marveling at the dark dusting of hair on his chest and thighs, the golden glow of his skin, the loose power in his limbs. And then she pinched herself, gulped a huge breath of air, and spun back toward the safety of her door.

  But not in time.

  Rick’s soft, teasing “ ’Night, sweet thing!” caught her. Pierced her like an arrow.

  And when she finally managed to slip into the less-wrinkled side of the bed and pressed her heavy eyelids shut, the voice remained with her, accompanied by the soft distant strains of a banjo.

  Two

  “Good morning, Paula,” Laurie called to the secretary who was sitting just inside the suite of offices that housed Senator Murphy’s ambitious staff.

  “Well, and a good morning to you, Laurie!” The trim, gray-haired woman’s face lit in a smile at the sight of the newest member of the staff. “You’re looking mighty chipper this morning! Seems we haven’t scared you off after your first week of work.”

  “Not by a long shot!” Laurie quipped. “To tell the truth, Paula, I love being busy. I love the bustle and chatter and responsibility—all the people I’ve met, and the feeling that I’m right at the heart of things.”

  Paula took off her glasses and rubbed the lenses absentmindedly with the edge of her sweater. “Yes, I know just what you mean. After my husband died, I knew I had better get out and get a job, or I’d end up sitting alone and stewing in my own misery. And the pace here does keep one’s mind from dwelling on other things.”