Banjo Man Read online

  “But it’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, I feel so wonderful all of a sudden. So happy and free. You’d tell me if I was out of line, wouldn’t you? If I was doing something you didn’t like—”

  “Oh, I like it, all right. That’s not the problem.”

  “Well, to be honest,” she answered, laughter bubbling in her throat, “I like it too!”

  “Come here.” He slid his body down flat onto the bed and drew her beside him, his hands moving slowly from her shoulders to her hips, molding her body to the length of his. “There, see how nicely everything fits?” His hands stroked her shoulders and back, tracing the ridge of her spine through the soft knit of her sweater. Her skirt had ridden up above her knees, and her legs were tucked between his. His hands found the small of her back, slid down, and moved softly over her buttocks, her skirt sliding against the silk of her panties. “Lovely … your body is so lovely.”

  “I … I didn’t know. I—”

  “You what?” He laughed, nipping her sharply on the shoulder in sheer delight. “Darlin’, you’ll drive me crazy, I know it!”

  Squirming against him, Laurie struggled to roll over onto the safe surface of the bed. “I think we’re both a little crazy, Westin. And I think I’d better get off you or I’m going to be in trouble.”

  “I’m in trouble already!” he whispered as he nuzzled her ear playfully.

  “Rick, really, I … I need to breathe. You know, air. Oxygen. Let’s calm down and talk.”

  Flinging one arm up over his eyes, he drew a deep, steadying breath. “Let me count to a hundred a couple of times, and we can start a conversation.”

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No,” he answered quickly, lowering his arm and grinning at her. His eyes were smoke-dark, with fire sparking in their depths. “Nope, you are perfect. It’s my imperfect self-control that’s giving me a hard time. But”—he laughed, his teeth flashing white in the darkness—“I have a feeling I’m going to get plenty of practice.”

  With a smile Laurie slipped from the bed and snapped on the light. “I may as well get ready for bed. I’ll just have to wear my slip,” she said, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Rick let his imagination run wild as he got out of his slacks and slid under the covers. Silk and lace. Sheer, with a plunging neckline and thin straps that he’d slip with agonizing slowness off her shoulders—

  The door opened and Laurie stepped out in a shapeless white cotton slip salvaged from the convent.

  “Hi.” She looked at him from under her lashes, feeling the heat climb steadily over the slip’s modest neckline, wishing she had something else to wear, something lacy and pretty and feminine. “I … I didn’t expect anyone to see me,” she began haltingly, then was overcome with shyness.

  “It’s fine, Laurie. You look like Juliet, or Sleeping Beauty. Come over here.” His voice downshifted into sexy. “Let the prince give you your kiss!”

  And it was all right. She felt pretty again, desirable and desiring. She sauntered over to the bed, leaned down, and offered him her lips.

  He took all of her, pulling her back into bed and tumbling them both around like puppies.

  “Whoa! Halt! Uncle!” She giggled, disentangling herself from his arms and legs. “Don’t you think we’d better get some sleep? You have a show tomorrow, remember?”

  “No problem, sweet thing. You’re the only thing I’ve got to concentrate on.”

  She curled up next to him, studying him with great seriousness. After a moment she smiled and tucked her hand beneath her cheek, her wide eyes still resting on his face. “Rick Westin, you are a very handsome man, maybe the handsomest man in the whole world. And very sexy!”

  He gave a sharp yelp of laughter. “Thank you, ma’am. Is that your opinion after years of research?”

  “After years of dreaming. That counts!”

  “Yes, it does. I’ll bow to your judgment.”

  “Wise decision. Now, tell me, am I allowed to do this?” She kissed his mouth sweetly, a light butterfly touch.

  “Yes … that’s fine.”

  “And this?” She drew her hand slowly over his shoulders, enjoying the invisible curve of the muscle beneath the warm smoothness of his skin.

  “Yes …”

  “And this?” She bent her head and placed her lips where her hand had been, where the bunched muscles of his shoulder smoothed into the flat plane of his chest.

  She felt him jump, heard the hiss of his indrawn breath. “Now we’re in trouble again!”

  “Oops!”

  Heated laughter rumbled in his throat. “Go to sleep, woman, before I forget my promise and I do attack you. Sleep! Now!”

  Obediently she turned on her side, her back to him, and he nestled against her, one arm wrapped possessively around her waist.

  “Good night, Banjo Man.”

  “Good night, darlin’.”

  “You know,” she whispered, “I think you’re going to be an easy man to fall in love with.”

  “Only for you,” he said, thinking his chest was going to explode. “But now that’s all that counts. And you, you’re like a star so new in the night sky that no one’s ever seen it shine before.”

  Laurie smiled to herself, balanced her body against his, and slipped into sleep.

  Rick Westin was awake all night, but he didn’t mind.

  Eight

  Rick had trouble getting dressed in the morning.

  Laurie was bursting with new emotions, and longed to try them all out. How wonderful to feel her skin tingle, her mouth go dry, her insides melt, her nipples tighten. Pulse, respiration, temperature—everything was fantastically abnormal!

  She walked her fingers down his spine as he slid from bed to answer the wake-up call. She rubbed her cheek against his bare back as he shaved. She tugged playfully at the hair on his chest as he disappeared into his clothes.

  “Now, cut it out!” he’d order with a laugh, not meaning it, and take her in his arms for another kiss.

  She didn’t taste breakfast, and he shrugged and ate her toast and blushed when he met her adoring, wide-eyed gaze.

  “Hey! Cut it out, now,” he repeated, then gave up and leaned across the table to kiss her again.

  It was without a doubt the craziest experience of Rick Westin’s life: spending a sleepless night with the woman of his dreams, fighting the painful tug of physical need, wanting her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, and having Laurie awaken with the incredible aura of a woman fulfilled … simply by having spent the night beside him. Maybe they taught something in those convents he ought to find out about!

  The concert was scheduled for one o’clock, and by noon the auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania was jammed. Rick introduced her to the other performers. The names were all unfamiliar to her, although they elicited their share of screams from the waiting crowd.

  “Do you want to watch from backstage?” he asked. “It’ll be a lot less crowded.”

  “Nope! I’m going to be right out front, in the middle of all those people. I want to see you the way they do—a stranger, a sexy banjo player with wild black hair and inscrutable eyes, and I’ll listen to you sing and indulge my fantasies.…”

  “Write ’em down and I’ll work on them tonight!”

  Laurie had never been to a large concert before, certainly not during her five years in the convent, and before that, in high school, her father had forbidden it. Now, having edged her way into the thick of things, she was overwhelmed by the noise, the press of bodies, the jostling and stamping and shouting. And when Rick came onstage he did seem a stranger, and oddly powerful. The crowd hushed, as if his playing tamed them. She watched them watching him, clapping their hands to his music, laughing at his jokes, shouting out requests.

  It was a strange sensation. Part of her was the woman who had spent the night with him, and part was a shy young girl who stood lost among his other fans. Yet when it was over she was swept by an odd sense of elation
. She alone could go backstage and claim him.

  Something of her feeling must have shown in her expression, because Rick took one look at her face and frowned.

  “Come on, let’s take a quick walk around campus. We’ve got an hour before our obligatory appearance at the president’s cocktail party.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just slipped an arm around her waist and headed her away from the crowd.

  “Rick”—she smiled up at him—“you were wonderful!”

  “It was a good concert … good audience,” he answered guardedly.

  “No, I mean you. You were great! You should do that all the time; they loved you!”

  “Laurie, sometimes you scare me.” His brows were dark as thunder above his clouded eyes. “You’re all or nothing, black or white. Life isn’t that simple, darlin’. Not real life. Listen, those people don’t love me. They see the flash and the performance, but that’s all. How many do you think really hear the stories, or picture the lives that make those songs? That’s what I care about.”

  “But if you did more concerts, more people would hear.”

  “They don’t listen, not most of them.” He stopped and leaned against a tree, pulling her close. She stood with her feet between his, her arms around his neck, looking up at him.

  “It’s just so exciting!”

  “Only at first, Laurie,” he insisted, his voice rough-edged. “But not for long. And it’s all on the surface. Too many people are trying to score, and they all want something, but not what you want to give.”

  “What do you want to give?”

  “The music. The heritage. A glimpse at a world that’s fast disappearing. But I don’t want to give ‘me.’ That I only want to share … and only with one person.”

  She smiled, tipping her head back. “Me?”

  “You.” He nested his chin in the hollow of her neck and went on talking, almost to himself. “See, what I like is to play to a small audience, where I can see everyone’s face, and know if I’ve made contact. That’s why the Stage is good for me. That, and because it lets me get back into the hills every year.”

  Laurie stiffened. Her smile slipped. “Oh, I had forgotten about that.”

  “Well, it’s not until April, but you’ll love it!” He grinned, his dark eyes shining. “It’s all so beautiful: the people, the countryside, the whole pace and texture of life.”

  “But … but you’re gone for six months. On a motorcycle. I’ve never even ridden on one!”

  “Hey, that’s all right. I’ll teach you to ride a ’cycle. You won’t believe how great it is, moving across the fields and hills with the wind in your face, no car between you and the sounds and feel of the land. And we’ll stop at farmhouses and little roadside stands, and talk to the people. Meet their kids and their old folks, and eat their cooking, and—”

  “And my job! I do have a job, you know.”

  Rick narrowed his eyes. “You said yourself that it was just a filler. It’s not a career … something you love.”

  “Maybe not, but I can’t go off and do nothing for six months. I wasn’t brought up that way!”

  “I’m not telling you not to do anything. Maybe out there you’ll find something you really want to do. I know that every year I think, ‘Here’s something else I wish I could do: paint, or write, or take photographs, or learn to whittle or weave or spin wool—’ ”

  “That’s because you’re an incurable romantic! Pie in the sky! What if I want to do something sensible that I’m already good at, like teaching school?”

  “Great! Then teach school, and we’ll only hit the road when school’s out. There’s no problem.”

  “Oh, yes, there is!” she flung back, tossing her head. “I just can’t think of what it is!”

  She glowered at him, daring him to give in to the grin that lurked at the corners of his mouth.

  And then she started to laugh, and the tension vanished like smoke. “What was that?” she asked, giggling against his shoulder.

  “I don’t know. I think I riled that Irish temper of yours. I’m going to have to learn to watch for storm signals!”

  “Hurricane warnings!” she teased back, then sighed. Exhaustion was starting to set in, creeping up from her toes. “You’re just a lot to handle all of a sudden.”

  “Too much too soon, darlin’?” he asked softly.

  “Maybe,” she whispered, hating to admit it, even to herself.

  “Well, we’ll take it slow. Do you want to keep the room and stay over again?”

  “You call that taking it slow?” she asked with a gasp. “No, I want to have a good gulp of brandy at that cocktail party, pile into that speedy Jeep of yours, and sleep on Ellen’s safe little couch for at least twenty-four hours straight!”

  Rick gave her a sweet, lingering kiss, then bent his head and whispered into the silkiness of her hair, “All right, my darlin’. As my mother used to say, ‘There are no shortcuts to heaven.’ ”

  Nine

  Laurie had felt dizzy and faint all morning, through the staff meeting, the briefings, the research.

  “You work too hard, punkin’,” Paula had cautioned kindly over sandwiches at lunch. “And you’re still taking everything so seriously. Remember, laugh a little more, at yourself, at me, at some of the stuffed shirts who come in here claiming omniscience. Anybody. But ease up, Laurie.”

  The office gopher was certain it was the beginning of a new outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease, and kept to the far side of the room. Senator Murphy decided she was getting the flu and should go home and rest or her father would have his hide.

  There was no sense trying to explain that it was simply a case of growing pains. She didn’t have the acne to go with it, so who would believe her?

  Finally, drowning in well-intentioned advice, Laurie grabbed her blazer and fled the office in midday. She rode the bus along Massachusetts Avenue and tried to clear her mind, to sort out her feelings and pull everything back into some kind of perspective. But, after Philadelphia, it was like trying to rake leaves in the middle of a tornado.

  Rick Westin was without a doubt the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her, but her life suddenly felt like a roller-coaster ride. How in heaven’s name was she supposed to know how to behave? Maybe there was a book she should read, a newspaper column, something!

  “Miss?” the bus driver called over his shoulder. “Isn’t this your stop?”

  Laurie’s head shot up, and her briefcase tumbled to the floor with a thud. “What? Oh, yes … thanks. I’m daydreaming again!” And she fled the bus and his amused stare.

  After dropping her coat and case on a chair just inside the apartment door, Laurie headed for the kitchen. A cup of tea would revive her, she decided. Then maybe she’d straighten up the place and surprise Ellen. What was it the postulant mistress used to say? “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop!”

  She laughed wearily and leaned against the wall. The thrumming ache behind her eyebrows called for sleep, not tea, not dusting. And it might be an even better way to keep her mind off that banjo man, just until she could catch her breath.

  Envisioning a quiet room and a cool bed, she hurried into the bedroom.

  Later, Laurie couldn’t be sure just what she’d noticed first: the fact that the room was very dark for the middle of the day, or the rustle of the sheets at her sudden entry, or the fact that the voice that sleepily asked, “Who’s there?” was definitely not Ellen’s! Perhaps it was all three at once that froze her to the spot while her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light. There was Ellen, slowly awakening, lying right next to a man with tousled hair who leaned on one elbow and looked at her through half-closed eyes.

  “Oh … oh. Oh, my,” Laurie moaned through the icy fingers that she had instantly slapped over her mouth. Then, not pausing for another second, not giving her knees a single chance to play their silly game, she spun on her heel and fled the room.

  Ellen followed a minute later, tying her bathrobe around her waist and
then rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

  “Ellen …” Laurie dropped down on the couch and stared, not trusting her voice, her hands hidden in her lap.

  Ellen managed a contented half-smile. “Oh, it’s all right, Laurie. I’ve been awakened before in the middle of a good dream.” She walked over to the coffeepot and plugged it in. “I sure needed that sleep, though. Three nights on the graveyard shift in E.R. is enough to put hair on my chest.”

  “Ellen!” Laurie’s strained voice bounced off the wall, her eyes darting back and forth from the bedroom door to Ellen.

  Ellen looked up with a start and caught her glance. “Oh, Laurie, I’m sorry. I guess I’m too sleepy even to think straight. That’s Dan—the resident I told you about, the one doing the rotation in Kansas City. Well, he’s back, and everything’s fine now between us. And he’s dying to meet you.”

  Blissfully unaware of Laurie’s reproving silence, Ellen poured herself a cup of steaming coffee and came to sit beside her friend. “But what about you, kiddo? What are you doing home in the middle of the day? Lose your job already?”

  “Ellen!” Laurie’s voice was harsh. “What is he doing in there?” Her accusing finger jabbed at the door.

  Ellen’s dreamy sense of contentment vanished. Suddenly she realized that Laurie was not only shocked, she was angry.

  Staring at Laurie, she lifted one eyebrow slowly. “Well, he’s not taking a bath, that’s for sure. Or playing tennis. He happens to be sleeping. He’s been working day and night for ten solid weeks, just flew in, and he’s exhausted.” She threw the words at Laurie like darts. “I brought him home, fixed him a hot meal, and we went to bed. Together. Dan and I. We’re in love, Laurie. And we loved each other.” She watched Laurie closely to make sure the words were registering.

  They were. Laurie’s face turned quite pink. “But here, Ellen? Right here?”

  “Would you have preferred we take a motel room?”

  Perhaps if she hadn’t been so tired, she would have handled it differently, but Ellen was losing her cool. “Laurie, I love you. And I know adjustments are hard—I had some problems coming out after just six weeks. But good grief, wake up and smell the coffee! Things are different now. You’re not eighteen. You’re a woman. I’m a woman!”