Falling Star (12 page)

She peered around him. In the fridge were three aluminum pans, each clearly marked with a bold black sharpie. "Carley?"

"No, I did this all by myself."

"You're kidding!" She let go of him, and pushed him aside to look beneath the foil lid of the first pan she found. Four chicken breasts topped with mushrooms and nestled in a bed of noodles. Broccoli, cauliflower and carrots in a separate foil cup in the corner of the pan. Even cold it smelled delicious, and her stomach grumbled again. "Oh no. This isn't good."

"It's not?"

"No. Damn you, you cook too?" Now, if he volunteered at a children's hospital, she'd be a goner for sure. She set the chicken marsala on the stove top and turned to face him, shaking her head. She was in such trouble.

He closed the refrigerator and took her hands in his. "Actually, when I said I did it myself, what I meant was, I picked up the phone and called my friend who is a chef, and asked him to prepare three meals that could be reheated in my boat's oven. All by myself."

"Oh Adam, you little—"

"Hey, I picked them up from his restaurant by myself too. I'm a pretty self-sufficient guy, don't you think? Hey, watch this. I'm going to get dinner ready." He reached behind her to switch on the oven. "Just call me MacGyver."

He dodged her playful slug.

While the scent of the Italian dish filled the space, Adam slipped his board shorts back on, but refused to allow her to change out of his tee shirt.

"I don't think I'll be able to wear it again without a raging hard-on after today." He rubbed circles into her back through the shirt. "But this is worth it."

They joked and laughed through dinner. Forsaking plates, they just hunched over the big aluminum pan, fighting over bites of chicken or the juiciest looking carrots. He poured them each a glass of wine, and she watched the moon rise from a most comfortable place on his lap where he sat on a fabric sling-backed deck chair.

"The boat isn't making you sick?" His breath tickled her eyelashes, and the rumble of his words sounded even more musical when she had her ear pressed against his chest.

Jade had his hand in hers, tracing each line in his palm, wishing she knew how to read the story behind each crevice. "No, it's very soothing."

"You might change your mind if the wind picks up." He tightened his free hand around her waist and pressed another kiss on her forehead.

"I trust MacGyver to keep me safe." She felt his smile against her forehead.

"We're not that far out. If it gets too bad we can just head back in."

"Mm, then I'll pray for good weather." She kissed his palm, then ran her tongue along the deepest groove.

"Me too. I love having you all to myself like this."

"I won't want to go to work on Monday, that's for sure."

When he didn't respond, she again wondered about his profession. She adopted a casual tone, and tried something. "How about you? Don't you just love Mondays?"

"The days of the week don't matter much to me. Sometimes I'm at work at two in the morning on a Sunday."

She sighed. "Are you ever going to tell me what you do?" She hated the pouty words, but she hadn't tried this approach, maybe it would work. She stuck out her lower lip. This always worked on her brothers.

"I think you're going to figure it out pretty soon." He held her close. "I promised Dean I'd tell you before this weekend is over."

"Dean knows?" She sat up to face him. "And he didn't tell me?" It couldn't be bad, if Dean didn't try to stop her from spending the weekend with Adam. It couldn't be too exciting either, or Dean would have made it a point to tell her. "Wait a minute…you told Dean before you told me?"

"I didn't tell him. He guessed."

She looked Adam over. Did she miss something? "How did he guess that fast?"

Adam shrugged. "Maybe he's just smarter than you."

"Adam!" She planted her fists on her hips. Oh he did
not
just say that.

With that sexy laugh, he pulled her back into his arms, her cheek against his nipple. "Jade, I'll tell you right now if you want me to." He smelled good
.
"But I wanted to spend this weekend without worrying about it."

"I shouldn't be worried that you're hiding it from me?" She circled his nipple with a middle finger, watching it grow to a stiff peak before her eyes. "You know I won't care if you're a fast-food burger flipper, roadie, or key grip best boy…or whatever they call it."

"That's good to know, but you aren't even close. You don't need to worry. What I do is legal, moral, ethical, and decent. It affects most aspects of my life—a big part of who I am, but I really do own my own car, and this boat, and even my own house." He sighed, and rubbed her bent arm. "But most people see my occupation as me, and vice versa. I just want you to know who I am before I throw that into the mix."

"I already know what kind of man you are."

"Yeah, you told me. Cocky was the word I think you used."

"Hmm, but now I know I was wrong about that." She averted her attention to his right nipple, and adjusted her hips in his lap.

"Oh?"

"Mm hm, I think I said you were 'a
little
cocky', which I now know doesn't describe you well at all."

Typical man, his erection grew with her words. "Maybe if you left my nipples alone, my little cocky wouldn't misbehave."

"I think it's behaving quite nicely." She rubbed against him, and even politely reached down to adjust him.

Kisses are better when smiling.

Adam stood, lowering her to the polished deck, and without a word, led her down to the state room.

* * * *

She woke sometime during the night, disturbed to find that Adam wasn't beside her. It was the first time during the night she couldn't feel his hard body wrapped around hers. After exhausting themselves with a slow session of lovemaking, Jade was surprised she hadn't slept until noon.

She sat upright and looked around. The sheets beside her were cool enough to prove that he had left a while ago.
Where would he…

And then she heard the music. Adam's guitar. One chord, and then another. A picked-out melody, strung through the harmony. The tune complemented the otherwise still and silent night, and then it stopped.

An irrational need to be close to him flooded her body, and she shoved her arms into Adam's shirt, and followed the sound up the stairs and out onto deck, all the way to the front—
bow
, Adam said—of the boat.

When she saw him, she stopped in her tracks. Adam sat cross-legged on the wooden deck, a guitar in his lap. One tiny florescent lantern cast a circle of blue light on the spiral notebook beneath one knee. There was a pencil behind an ear, and he wore only a pair of cotton boxers.

Those same chords, the same melody, then one or two additional notes, another pause, then back to the beginning. Adam lifted his face to the clear starry sky. From her position behind him, she couldn't tell if his eyes were open, but obviously he was lost in his music, concentrating on the flow of notes, and the direction they took him.

He stopped playing, took the pencil from his ear, wrote in the notebook, stuck the pencil back in place, and the process began again. As much as she wanted to stand there watching and listening, Jade didn't want to disturb his concentration, so she turned to tiptoe back to bed.

"Jade?"

His voice startled her, and she jumped a bit before turning back around to face him. "I'm sorry. I woke up and you weren't there. I didn't mean to interrupt you."

"Come here." He laid his guitar aside, and held out a hand. Light from the moon and bluish lantern glow painted the area with a black-and-white old-movie feel.

She walked toward him, wending through the many balls of notebook paper, strewn like shrapnel after a weary battle. His beautiful features came into focus as she got closer. She took his outstretched hand, and he led her around and into his lap.

"I'm sorry I woke you. I forget how thin these walls are."

She didn't realize how chilly it was outside until his warm arms surrounded her. She snuggled back against his chest. "It was beautiful. I didn't want you to stop."

He buried his face in the curve of her neck. "If you give me a minute I'll play some more." He sipped at her skin, licking and kissing. "But I needed a break, and you smell good. Like sex and sleep." He rubbed her arms, warming her.

"I wonder why." She yawned. "So you write music?"

He laughed. "I'm trying, but it isn't working out very well right now."

"It sounded good to me." She settled more comfortably on the deck in the cove of his thighs.

"The music is done. It's the lyrics that are giving me hell." He rested his chin on the top of her head, and together they watched the stars twinkle just like the lights of the distant California coast.

"Wait, so you write music?" Did she just figure out his big secret occupation? No wonder he was reluctant to share that with her. Working in a consignment sort of fashion can't be too stable.

"Yeah." He laughed, the sound rich in her ears.

"Well why didn't you just say so?"

She pinched a few hairs on his leg and twisted. He yelped, and grabbed her wrist.

"You didn't ask if I wrote music. You asked if I was a stunt man or a porn star, but you—" She twisted further. "Damn, Jade, that hurts!"

"Don't mess with a girl raised in the sticks with boys." She had unlimited knowledge of effective torture of a male body.

"I was going to play for you, but if you're gonna be mean…"

She released the knotted hair. "I'm sorry. I'll be good."

He rubbed the red spot on his thigh. "I bet you were a little brat growing up."

"I am an angel sent from heaven above," she recited.

He picked up his guitar, and put it in front of her, then hooked his chin on her shoulder to play. His breath fanned her collarbone, and his words snaked into her ear like a forbidden whisper. "Well, Angel, it's a well-known fact that there are four types of country music." He strummed a chord. "We've got Lovin', Livin', Leavin' and Cryin'. Every song in country music falls into one of these categories."

"Is that right?" There was something fascinating about having a guitar played in her lap. She could actually feel the notes through the back of the instrument where it rested against her breasts. She tucked her hands beneath his thighs to keep them out of the way.

"Yeah, a guy I know came up with this category system, and it's made sense. Anyway, this song is a type one: Lovin'." He tuned one string with a barely perceptible tweak to one tuning key. When it was satisfactory, he continued. "But the lyrics aren't coming to me quite yet, so just close your eyes for me. I'll play it, and you can just imagine the love story in the music."

Jade couldn't keep the grin from her face, but she closed her eyes, and leaned against his shoulder. "Okay."

And then he played.

The straining melody threaded through the strummed chords. She tried to picture a man singing to his lover. Immediately she placed her and Adam in her mind, and she knew she wore a goofy expression as the waves of melody drew her into the dance. Adam hummed along, and she heard his voice in her ear. Maybe she was still half asleep, but the song, with its minor chords and sorrowful tune, changed from being about love to the story of sadness. Adam's purring sent an ache of regret straight to her heart. Even without words, the music made her want to cry when it was all over.

"What do you think?" He continued strumming the chord progression, and spoke quietly into her ear.

"I loved it." She slid her hands down his, until she held the guitar through him. "Adam, it was just beautiful, but…" She bit her bottom lip.
Shut up Jade
.

"But what?" He stopped playing.

"Nothing. I loved it, I really did."

"Tell me," he prodded.

"Well…you said this is a love song, right? A type one?"

He laughed, and nibbled her ear. "Yeah, type one. Lovin'."

"And what were the other types?"

"Lovin', Livin', Leavin' and Cryin'."

She threaded her fingers in between his where they lay against the strings. "I don't know much about music or anything, and I wouldn't even attempt to understand what it's like to write a song…"

He sat still, and she worried she might offend him. "Go on," he prompted.

"I just thought it was more of a Leavin' or Cryin' song. Maybe a type three, three and a half…uh…maybe."

He was quiet for a few minutes, which really worried her. Then he laid the guitar aside, and enfolded her in his arms like before. "You really think so?"

"Well, you know, without the words I mean. Maybe once you get the lyrics in there it will—"

"No…no you're right." The animation in his words relieved her of any guilt at her big-mouthed opinion. "I wanted a love song, and I wrote this. In my mind it's just always been a love song." He clasped both her hands in his. "I never actually stepped back and looked at it. Oh my God, Jade. You're right, it's not a love song!"