Bassist Instinct (The Rocker Series #2) (5 page)

Xav was coming down the steps and Tess stopped him.

“Fiona, this is my little brother, Xavier Du Pre. Xav, this is Fiona Brooks, my musical theory professor,” she said over the caterwauling in the next room. Xav smiled and shook her hand. Connor and Ryan were singing “How much is that doggie in the window?” While the twins barked their heads off.

“Right about now you’re wondering what you got talked into, I bet,” Xav said with a laugh. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Brooks.”

“Call me Fiona. It’s nice to meet you, too,” she said.

“Well come in, Fiona, just ignore Tate,” Xav said. Tate threw his arms wide.

“I am standing right here and I can bloody hear you plain as day,” Tate said. Xav smiled at him. Amelia and Alasdair Fleming came in and shook Fiona’s hand and sat her down in the living room after Alasdair took her coat and hung it in the front hall closet.

“Tess has told us all about you, my dear,” Alasdair said to her.

“And she has been remarkably reticent about telling me about any of you,” Fiona said smiling at him.

Xav laughed. “Can you blame her?” Xav cocked his head to the kitchen just as a very loud howl erupted from there.

“Xavier lad, would you inform your mother Dr. Brooks has arrived?” Alasdair asked his grandson. Xav smiled mischievously at him.

“I think she should come back and meet everyone, Lally. See them in action, don’t you?”

“Good thinking lad, rip the plaster right off,” Tate said putting his hand out to Fiona who took it and stood.

“That means Band-Aid,” Xav explained. Fiona laughed and nodded.

“I know, my father’s Irish.”

“So’s mine, we have so much in common already,” Tate said.

“So it’s kind of like the UN in here, you’re Irish,” she pointed to Tate. “You’re Scottish,” she pointed to Alasdair, and then turned to Tess and Xav. “And you two have French names.”

“I told you, well-travelled and funny,” Tess said grinning.

They smiled at each other as Tate escorted her back to the kitchen and swung the door wide.

The scene was even better than any of them could have anticipated. Ryan stood next to his boys who sat strapped into highchairs at the small table, he was covered in cranberry sauce, having just had it launched at his face by his younger, by seven minutes, son. Genna, Christie and Piper were laughing, doubled over clutching at each other. Connor was straddling the sink, which was sunken into the granite countertop, singing “How much is that doggie in the window?” into a banana, with Alex dancing like Urkel on the counter next to him. The man was gyrating his hips to the beat that the twins and Edgar pounded on the table while barking. Suddenly everyone went quiet and they slowly turned to the door. There was one last bark from one of the twins in the sudden silence.

“Everyone, this is my professor, Fiona Brooks, she’ll probably curve my grade up now that she knows insanity runs in my family,” Tess said trying to be mad at them but failing.

Connor launched the banana at Ryan, who caught it seemingly without even looking, and jumped gracefully off the sink and turning to help his clone down.

Ryan hugged Tess and said, “Never apologize for your family, lass. You only need to apologize for your friends.” He kissed her cheek and managed to get a smile out of her.

“Thanks Ryan, now I feel better,” she said as she wiped the cranberry he just transferred to her, off her face with his shirt. He grinned.

“Dr. Brooks, I’m Genna, Tess’s mom. I’m so glad to meet you,” Genna said taking her hand with a large smile. Fiona noticed she was pregnant. Tess never said a word. “We were just entertaining the children…” Genna swept the room with her hand.

“Please call me Fiona. Tess has told me absolutely nothing about you all,” she said.

“Now you know why,” said Xav in a stage whisper everyone heard.

“This is my husband, Connor Damon, our son Alex, and our dear friends Christie and Ryan O’Brian. This is my sister Piper Fleming, and her beau Edgar Beasley,” Genna said and Fiona shook everyone’s hand. Fiona thought she had never heard anyone use the term “beau” without sarcasm, but Genna pulled it off making it sound natural.

“These are wee Connor and wee Tate,” Christie said pointing at the twins who were getting very sleepy and barking and giggling quietly at each other. “Ryan and I will take them up for a bath. I should have brought a change of clothes for you, too,” Christie smiled at her husband. Fiona recognized Christie as one of the other people in the car she hit. She looked a lot like her brother, small boned and beautiful. Her husband was slim and feline, with very dark hair, like one of his two boys, the other favored his mother. The blond boy, wee Tate, had brown eyes and the darker one, wee Connor, had blue, but the shape of the eyes were just like Ryan’s. They were both covered in cranberry and completely adorable.

“Take a shirt from our room, Christie,” Connor said with a wink. Christie and Ryan went up the back staircase with the sticky boys, one of whom started saying, “Mama, Mama, Mama,” with each step, prompting the other to mimic him all the way up, and Genna looked back at Fiona.

“They’re ridiculous, but we love them,” Genna said. Fiona laughed. It was a very amusing scene to walk in on; Tess was right, they clearly were a fun crowd.

“The boys are adorable,” Fiona said with a big smile.

“Can I get you a drink, Fiona?” Connor asked.

“I’d love one,” she said.

“Wine, beer?” Connor asked.

“White wine would be great, thanks,” Fiona said.

“Fiona is the woman who hit us earlier,” Tate said from right behind her. She jumped a little at his proximity.

“Are you okay? Sit down, oops, not there, cranberry. Sit here,” Genna said finding a sponge and cleaning up after the boys.

“I’m fine,” she held up her fingers and looked again to make sure.

“How many fingers are you holding up?” Tate asked and she laughed.

“All of them,” she responded.

“Gold star. You play an instrument, don’t you, love?” Tate asked. She nodded, and jumped again when he lifted her hands to look more closely at them. He examined them, made a tsk-tsk at the scrape, felt for calluses on her fingertips and looked over her hands into her eyes. “Piano,” he said softly.

She smiled at him and turned his hand over. “And you play a stringed instrument, but I don’t know which one,” she said and he grinned at her like she was a star pupil.

“Another gold star, love. I’m going to run low if you keep on like this,” he said flirting like mad.

Genna put a glass of wine on the table next to Fiona. She dragged her eyes away from Tate’s and pulled her hands out of his, glancing back at him with a smile. What was he doing to her?

“Thank you, Genna,” she said.

Connor reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a few beers. He held one up and Tate nodded. “Piper? Edgar?”

“I’ll have some of that wine Connor, but Edgar will have a beer,” Piper said and Edgar beamed at her and drew her close to him affectionately. Piper looked just like Genna with the exception of her hair. Piper’s hair was a stunning russet red, just like Xav’s, only much longer. Edgar was bald as a cue ball and brawny like a circus strong man, but with the softest, sweetest brown eyes she’d ever seen. This is where the beautiful people hung out.

“My love?” Connor asked.

“Just water, thanks,” Genna said back to him with a smile as she poured Piper’s wine. “Tess tells me that every time she went anywhere off campus she ran into you. From the movies to the Folger library, I think it’s funny you have such similar tastes,” Genna said.

“It is, isn’t it? One day I was standing watching the lemurs at the zoo and she came up next to me and said we could save on gas if we just went together. I’ve honestly never had a student who was such a grown up before. We even bumped into each other at the Kennedy Center for
Der Ring Des Nibleungen
. I never expected to see a student at a fifteen hour opera, I tell you.”

“She was there with my father, he’d been sitting on those tickets for over a year,” Genna laughed. “He couldn’t talk my mother into going, and Tess was game.”

“Tess is unusual, she’s older than her years.”

“I’ve always thought that, too. Old souls, we call them in Ireland,” Connor said.

“We call them that here, too,” Genna said beaming at him. He was on his hands and knees wiping up various bits of food from his namesake, Alex was riding his back as if he were a placid horse. She loved that he thought of it. She also loved the shape of his glorious ass. He gave her a grin and she knew he knew she was checking him out.

She took a deep breath and refocused on Fiona. Tate was looking at Fiona’s mouth, and when she licked the wine from her lips his eyes darkened. Uh-oh, Tess is not going to like that. Genna looked up as Tess stepped in through the swinging door and she rolled her eyes at her mother. From Tess’s expression, Genna knew at that moment that she was manipulating Tate. By being told “don’t,” Tate couldn’t help himself. Tess wanted him to flirt with her professor. The sly fox, what was she playing at?

“Let’s go out to the living room, my parents won’t entertain in the kitchen,” she turned and looked at Connor again. “Unlike my husband.” Connor winked at her and Fiona chuckled, thinking of him on the counter moving like some kind of rock star. He was gorgeous, she had to admit. But the whole family was, starting with the very pretty man, Tate, Tate Dylan. She followed Genna back out of the kitchen. They were followed by Piper and Edgar.

“Hop off, laddie,” Connor said and Alex, who jumped off his dad and followed Genna into the other room. “Tate, a word,” Connor said and Tate hesitated.

“I know, I promised Tess I wouldn’t, but Connor, she hasn’t got the first clue who we are. No idea at all. It calls to me like nothing else. And Christ, look at the wee lass…”

“Tate, calm yourself. Just don’t be an asshole about it. It’s clear to me she doesn’t have the first clue, which might give you an edge in this particular instance,” he grinned at Tate who didn’t think that was funny at all. “She’s a serious woman, not unlike my Genna, she holds a real job, and she’s not likely to drop everything to follow you around. Just consider your actions for a change, mate, she not like the usual bit of fluff, and you know it. Tread gently, aye?”

“She’s a grown up, Connor,” he said and walked out of the kitchen. Connor looked at the door swinging closed and remembered he said that exact same thing to Ryan about Genna. He huffed out a laugh, washed his hands and went in to be with his family.

Xav and Genna were each sitting next to Tess, with Alex at Tess’s feet, his small body wedged between Tess’s and Genna’s legs, unable to get enough of Tess for the brief holiday. Tess was holding forth about a demonstration she and Fiona marched at last spring on the Mall downtown, with Amelia’s tortoise shell cat, Desdemona, curled up in her lap getting scratched behind her ears.

Connor sat on the other side of Genna and she smiled warmly at him and took his hand in hers. He had never known a closer family. By the time Genna’s first husband died, her little family had forged a tight bond, and they generously, even lovingly, allowed him and his son, Alex, to share it. He knew he was a lucky bastard. He put his arm around her and she leaned into him. He kissed her fingertips, feeling her satisfied sigh.

“There were probably a hundred thousand people on the Mall, and Fiona and I crashed into each other, quite literally, it was sort of chilling,” Tess said.

“Tess looked at me and said: ‘Oh, there you are, do you need a lift home?’ We laughed and went and had lunch,” Fiona said.

“What’s the Mall? Is it a shopping mall?” Alex asked.

“No, it’s the National Mall, it’s the stretch of land that runs from the Capitol building all the way to the Lincoln Memorial,” Tess explained. “Remember when we went to see the monuments last year?” Alex nodded. “That’s the Mall.” They smiled at each other.

“Were you there on your own?” Genna asked. “Aside from the other 99,999 people there, that is.” Tess chuckled.

“That’s another thing, we had both gotten separated from our respective groups, and we had both become bored with them, too. We texted the guys and took off to everyone’s satisfaction,” Tess smiled and Xav gave her a look and leaned over to ask something quietly and Tess giggled a little and nodded at him.

“Out with it, Mite,” Alasdair said and Tess got a little red.

“Well Lally, if you must know, the guys I went with got into a little trouble after I left them. And one of them was being a bit too friendly, if you know what I mean, so Fiona was rather a Godsend.”

“So you are,” Tate said very softly next to her. She turned her head to see if she was imagining things, but he was looking right at her with a decidedly sexy look on his face.

“What kind of trouble?” Genna asked.

“They got arrested for drunk and disorderly, and there may have been some nudity involved,” she and Xav laughed a little. “Don’t worry Mom, I don’t hang out with them much.” Genna rolled her eyes.

“Glad to hear it,” Genna said.

“Sounds like some of the antics we got up to, right Con?” Tate said with an evil grin.

“So Fiona, you’re a music theorist, what kind of music do you theorize about?” Connor changed the subject. His father-in-law didn’t need to hear anything more about his antics, drunk or otherwise. “And what do you listen to when you’re on your own?”

“Hmm. I usually let my students choose any kind of music they want when it comes to assignments. I mostly perform music and teach music, but I don’t listen to the radio, I’m afraid,” she said.

“Fair enough. We’ve established that you play the piano, what do you play? Classical?” He said.

“Almost entirely, I might be able to plunk something out if you hum a few bars and I’ve heard the song before, but yes, mostly, but not exclusively, classical.” Tate looked so happy she gave him a questioning look. He clearly had a secret joke and it was at her expense, she thought. She’d like to wipe that smug look off his face. She’d like to kiss those perfect lips, too. Oh God, what was she thinking?

“If you should be so moved,” Amelia gestured to the piano in the connecting room. “We’d love to hear you plunk something out.” Fiona looked at the piano, it was a lovely old grand. As tempting as it was, she thought she’d pass.