Bassist Instinct (The Rocker Series #2) (37 page)

The music burst out of her and she played for a full hour like it was no time at all. She was in what the athletes referred to as
the zone,
and it was near flawless. When she finished and came to awareness she realized she had been bleeding and there was blood on the arm of her red dress. She was glad Tess made her chose red. She stood and stepped away from the piano and smiled at her crowd. She heard the shouts of “Brava!” from them and she bowed gracefully to them a few times, blew a kiss to where she thought Tess was, waved again and made her way to the wings.

She knew Tess and her family were in the crowd, and she wanted to do a quick encore for Lally. Stepping into the wings, she took a long drink of her bottle of water and assessed her arm. Not too much blood. She ran her right hand down to smooth out her dress, and stepped back out on to the stage. They were still clapping wildly, someone with a piercing whistle was making a scene, and there was an occasional “Encore,” shouted and then the roar that met her became deafening. She went straight to the bench and was nearly playing before the clapping stopped. Rachmaninoff. Three and a half minutes of speed key pounding. She could do it in her sleep.

Once done she bowed quickly and strode off the stage and collapsed in a chair there.

“Fiona, you’re bleeding,” a concerned voice said from the dark of the wing.

“I’m okay, I just opened a cut on my arm. Could you help me to my dressing room?” She couldn’t quite move just yet, the pain in her arm had become rather intense.

“Of course,” she looked up into the flame blue eyes of Clay de Kooning.

“Thank you, Clay,” she said.

“This is my absolute pleasure. Brilliant performance tonight, by the way,” he said kneeling in front of her chair. “And you are flushed and lovely.”

“Oh good,” she said. “I’m glad it was okay.” Ignoring his other statement, she focused on his compliment about the playing. She knew it was nearly flawless, it was part of her gift to be able to remember her mistakes just as she remembered her triumphs. Tonight would be a mark in the triumph side, it really was brilliant.

By the time they got there, a crowd had assembled outside the dressing room door. Tess and her family. Fiona thanked Clay and greeted her friends. Connor and Genna were there, clinging to each other, Connor was staring at her like he was trying to commit her face to memory, and Genna was smiling her beautiful smile. Xav was leaning casually against the wall, and gave her a big grin and the thumbs up. Fiona could have sworn he had grown since she’d seen him on Thanksgiving. Amelia and Alasdair looked like they wanted to adopt her they were so proud.

“Brava, my dear. Brava!” Alasdair said to her with tears in his eyes.

“Rachmaninoff was my gift to you. Now you have eight of them,” she said and he and his wife laughed.

“Thank you, my dear.”

“Fiona, you’ve opened your stitches,” Tess scolded.

“Stitches?” Almost everyone echoed. Tess told her mother, who told Connor, but no one else knew about what had happened to Fiona a few days earlier in her kitchen.

Fiona waved her off and opened the door. There was a plethora of flowers in the small dressing room, and Clay moved several so she could sit at the vanity.

“How did you get backstage?” Fiona asked him.

“I’m on the board,” he said simply and stood to kiss her cheek. “I was hoping we could go to my place, or yours…Hey Connor, Genna, et al,” he waved to encompass them all.

“Clay,” Connor said cautiously, suddenly feeling protective of Fiona. Connor knew Clay’s reputation with women, and he had hoped Tate would have had his shit together by now, and Clay was just going to screw with things. 

“If you all would give us a minute, I need to get out of my dress,” everyone left but Clay and Tess.

“I can help her out of the dress,” Clay said with a devastating grin.

“No you can’t. Thank you for your kind offer, Clay, but my heart is spoken for.”

“That’s sweet, Fiona, but it’s not your heart I’m after,” he said and she would have been offended if he wasn’t so damned earnest.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” Fiona said. “Tess, where are my pain killers, I’m dying.” Tess pulled a bottle out of her purse. Fiona pulled her dress down her good arm and then more carefully down the other. The blood was not actually pouring out, but the bandage was saturated. They looked at her arm together with the same look on their faces. “Ew.”

“Here, pull your dress back up, we’ll get you back to the hotel and re-wrap it there,” Tess said.

A few minutes later they opened the door to Tate standing, waiting with a single red rose in his hand. He looked forlorn. In fact, he looked really awful. His eyes were ringed in black and he had lost weight.

“Tate,” Fiona said and Tess stepped away from them and out the door, closing it behind her.

“Fiona…” he didn’t know where to start.

“Your mom, is she…?”

“Nah, she’s fine…well as fine as she’s going to be. She suggested I come, in that subtle way she has. She said I was a right eejit and I’d be lucky if you took me back. Fiona,” he looked over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. “Fiona, I’m an eejit and I’d be lucky if you take me back but I’m begging you. I love you, Fi. It scares the bejesus out of me but there it is. The way we left it…You didn’t answer my calls…I was afraid I’d blown it for good. Tell me if you’ve moved on, I saw Clay out there.”

“You really are an eejit. I haven’t moved on, Tate, I can’t switch my affections so blithely.”

“Then you still think you might be falling in love with me?” He asked with a little grin.

“No,” she said and his stomach fell to his feet and his grin disappeared. “I’m way past
thinking
, I
know
I love you.” She grinned back. He leaned in and kissed her very softly on the lips and then looked at her to see how that went. She looked like it went pretty well, he thought, and he took her by the upper arms to pull her close and she hissed in pain.

“Christ, what have I done to you?” She clutched her arm to her and he could see blood on her dress. “My sweet Fi, you’re bleeding, lassie.” She nodded and bit her lip hard to keep from crying out.

“I was attacked, my arm was sliced open, nicking the brachial artery,” she whispered.

“You were attacked!”

“I’m okay,” she insisted.

“You’re bloody not, you’re bleeding all over. You played like this?” He was shouting.

“Tate.”

“Oh Christ Fi, was it the Russians?” He was despondent.

“No, it was David Hollander,” she said but saw that he couldn’t place him.

“Who?”

“My colleague, the one we met on the street the day after Thanksgiving,” she explained.

“I’ll bloody kill the bastard. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Can we do this later, Tate? I’m exhausted.”

“Of course, forgive me. I can’t believe you played tonight with that. You are a feckin’ genius, by the way.” She smiled at his praise. “Do you need a doctor?” She shook her head.

“I don’t think so, I need to take a look.”

“Then let’s look.”

“All my stuff is at the hotel.”

“Then let’s get you to the hotel,” he said.

“I have a brief meet and greet in the lobby, but immediately after, okay?” He kissed her.

“Aye, lass. I’m yours to command for as long as you’ll have me,” he said and nuzzled her neck. “I like your hair up like this.” Her hair was up in large combs. “And I can’t wait to take it down.” He opened the door and there was the crowd of some of his favorite people. “She’s bleeding all over the place.” Fiona rolled her eyes.

“I’m okay, just eager to get to the hotel,” they turned to see Liam striding toward them, an older man keeping up with him, walking with the same purposeful gait.

“Fifi, you were brilliant!” Liam boomed. The older man looked at the crowd of people, starting with Tess and moving slowly to Genna, then quickly perused the men. When he caught Connor’s eye he jumped back a step.

“Oh Christ, it’s Kathleen’s boy,” Billy McBride said and Connor hauled off and punched him in the face, knocking him flat.

“Tate, meet my father,” Fiona gestured to the floor.

***

Everyone gathered in Connor’s and Genna’s suite once they finished up at the Wang Theater, because that’s where everyone always gathered. Xav and Tess sat on the floor, back to back, leaning on each other. Genna and Tate administered to Fiona’s arm while she complained about their abuse. Clay had left after a few minutes of undiluted but well received flattery for Fiona at the meet and greet. Liam sat stunned to learn about the newest member of his family. Billy McBride moaned into his whiskey about ungrateful children while holding an ice pack to his jaw. Connor stood in the far corner shooting daggers at Billy McBride, fisting his hands.

“Connor fucking Damon is my brother?” Liam said for the third time.

“It could be worse, Tate could be your brother…Oh wait; he isn’t, is he?” Xav said to Billy.

“Bite your tongue, lad,” Billy said. They all looked across the room at Tate and Fiona kissing on the loveseat. “Who’s his Mam, though?” Everyone looked very uncomfortable for a moment.

“Maggie Dylan,” Xav said looking at Billy very carefully.

“Oh, that’s all right then, she was only ever after Danny Malone.”

“Yes, and she was a married woman while you were out there casting your seed far and wide.” Tate bellowed across the room at him. Billy chuckled.

“Take a look in the glass boyo, you’re the spit of Danny Malone.”

“I’m the spit of me mam, you gobshite,” Tate said.

“Christ, enough!” Connor yelled at him. “Do you know how hard it was for my mam after you left her eight months along? You bastard.”

“Liam, care to tell him how bad it would have been if I stayed? Or even ask the girl.” He waved his hand in Fiona’s direction and sat up to face his eldest son. “I was seventeen, Christ, even ten years later I was shite at being a da. I did you and your mam a favor, so I did.”

“You were twenty two, she was seventeen, you lying git,” Connor bellowed but Billy shrugged.

“Kathleen told you all about me, did she?” He sounded a little hopeful.

“She never said a word,” Connor said. “And who could blame her?”

“I loved her. I named my first child after her.”

“Excuse me?” Liam said.

“Excuse
me
,” Connor said.

“I meant girl child, of course. Christ, the egos in this room,” he said to whoever would listen.

“This is like a soap opera,” Xav said to Tess.

“Except better, Fiona’s my aunt,” Tess said.

“By marriage,” Xav said.

“Oh. Right.”

“But that also means Don Juan over there is our Granddad,” Xav said.

“Only by marriage, lassie,” Billy said to Tess eagerly.

“Ew,” she said back to him. Billy shrugged again.

“It was a damn sight easier when I was in the band.”

“Christ. You will stay away from my daughter, you old lecher,” Connor said and Genna walked across the room to him and took his hand and brought him to the sofa. She touched his face and he pulled her into his lap, burying his face into her neck, inhaling her. His eyes lifted to his father’s. “And my wife.” Billy rolled his eyes.

“It’s a great deal of faith you’re having in my sexual prowess, sonny, I need the blue pill to get anything done these days.”

“Goodnight everyone, we certainly don’t need any blue pill images in our young impressionable minds,” Xav said and went to kiss his mom goodnight. He and Tess left the room in a hurry.

Tate looked at Fiona whose eyes were drifting closed from the pain killer.

“We’re out, too,” he said and Fiona’s eyes popped open when Tate shifted her and they, too, left the room.

“I’ll get you a cab, Dad,” Liam stood.

“Fine,” Billy stood and looked down at Connor. “I know I was shite, but I’m very proud of all my children. Each of you has a gift.”

“
My
ego doesn’t need stroking, it’s as big as yours, man; the lassie’s is not. Did you bother mentioning that to Fiona who just played her heart out to a pack of strangers while she damned near bled to death on the stage? No, you didn’t. Did you say anything at all to her?”

“We don’t speak lad, not that it’s any of your business. But I’m here, ain’t I?” Billy whined and Liam raised an eyebrow.

“She’s my sister in more ways than just blood now, and I’ll not have you hurting her anymore, aye?” Connor gave him a threatening look.

“You’re a McBride and no mistake, lad,” Billy said proudly.

“Will you be celebrating the New Year with my lovely bride and me, you old reprobate?” Connor asked.

Billy nodded at Connor and walked out the door.

“Liam, you too,” Genna said.

“Thanks, that’d be very nice,” he said smiling at Genna. Liam couldn’t believe the rock star’s wife was so wholesome and good natured. It wasn’t what he had expected, in fact the whole crowd was impressively down to earth. Connor Damon was his brother, which meant excellent concert seats for the rest of his life. He lifted a hand in farewell with a giant smile on his face and left with his father, leaving Connor and Genna alone on the sofa.

“Genna my love, you are my serenity amid the madness.” He kissed her and could feel the feet (or elbows) of their child kicking him in the side. He put his large hand on her belly and she laced her fingers with his. “In a lifetime of incredibly good fortune, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I love you more than life itself.”

“And I love you, Connor. Hey, we’re in Boston, how ‘bout a walk in the Common?” She grinned at him and he grinned playfully back.

“How ‘bout I love every inch of you and then, if you can still walk, we’ll have a walk in the Common,” he suggested.

“I like that idea, I’ve seen the Common in the dark already, now that I think of it.”

“Just bloody kiss me woman, before I burst into flame.” She laughed and kissed him.

***

“You knew Connor was your brother, didn’t you?” Tate asked as they brushed their teeth.

“Yes. That bartender was pretty obvious. I sent a picture of young Billy to Liam, hoping he’d see the resemblance. When I saw the pictures on the pub wall of the two of them, I couldn’t deny it. I think Ryan figured it out, too.” Tate nodded at her.