For the Love of Jazz (9 page)

Although he didn’t look at any of them, he felt it as damn near every person in the room turned to stare at him. He focused on the magazine as though it were prize-winning material. Next to him, Mariah smiled at Laura. “I’m getting my hair cut,” she said brightly. “It’s a rat’s nest.”

Laura smiled and said, “I don’t know about that. How do you want it cut?”

“Like Dr. Anne-Marie’s,” she answered. “She has pretty hair. Daddy has to get his hair cut, too. He promised.” Lowering her voice, she said in a loud whisper, “His hair is almost as long as Dr. Anne-Marie’s.”

Dr. Anne-Marie.

Maribeth stalked away, flopping down in her chair, ignoring the pointed look from Laura as she lifted up her magazine. Dr. Anne-Marie. Alex’s brat of a sister. Oh, she hated the girl, always had. With her rich daddy, protective brother and the brain behind that gorgeous face. Everybody in town adored her, from the little kids to the old folks that sat swapping stories in front of the old-fashioned general store.

And Jazz. Even when they had been kids, his face had softened even at the mention of her name. Maribeth stared at Jazz McNeil over the top of her magazine, hatred for him edging its way in.

God, was he gorgeous. He had been so, even as a boy, but now… Standing at six-foot-two, shoulders broad and strong, his midnight hair falling around his golden face, he looked like a dark angel.

No. An avenging one
, she thought as he raised his head and met her eyes. The look in those black eyes was disdain, ice-edged and sharp, and knowledge—the knowledge that she was every bit as responsible for Alex’s death as him.

Alex, beautiful, golden Alex. He haunted her at night. It seemed every time her life started to take a turn for the better, he came back into her dreams. And lately, the pitiful cry of a forgotten baby punctuated those dreams.

Alex had told her she would pay.

His final words to her had been a curse, one she was unable to break. Yes, she was paying. Stuck in this dead-end town with no hope of ever getting out. Barely scraping by on the money she earned at the beauty parlor, she supplemented hers and Momma’s income by sharing her bed with whoever was willing to pay the price.

Yeah, she thought with disgust. She was paying all right and she was damned tired of it.

* * *

They were watching him. Flipping through the magazine, Jazz was aware that there were eyes trained on him from every direction.

The old blue-haired lady, possibly Daisy Graham, was being quite subtle about it. Others, like Maribeth and the gum-snapping teenager now washing Mariah’s hair didn’t bother with subtly. Ella McNeil was in for her weekly rinse and she lifted a manicured hand to wave at her nephew before closing her eyes to enjoy this small bit of pampering she allowed herself.

One pair of eyes in particular bored into his neck.

When he raised his eyes, trying to find the one in question, all eyes turned away. Maribeth? No. She wouldn’t bother him that much. It wasn’t Mabel or Laura, both were busy cutting hair. The girl washing Mariah’s hair met his eyes dead on, sizing him up. Barely old enough to drink, he figured. And not in the least bit familiar. But malevolence lingered in the air.

He continued to study each person in turn. The shy blonde doing manicures would glance up at him from time to time and then lower her eyes once more. She was familiar in a vague sort of way, tickling some distant memory. It clicked and he realized why she was so timid. Beau’s baby sister, a more meek and cowed woman had never existed. Marlene Jo, he remembered. Marlie with the quiet voice and shy manner, sporting bruises from her daddy nearly as often as Jazz and his momma had.

His eyes drifted over her once the memory registered, focusing on the sharp-eyed brunette sitting in the chair in front of Laura. One corner of her mouth curved up and she raised her hand in a casual wave.

Sandy Pritchard. The girl he had been dating the summer Alex had died. She had come to see him in the hospital, had driven him to the cemetery that one time, the only time he had been there. She had also tucked an envelope with nearly three hundred dollars cash into his pocket when she had taken him to the bus station. Then she had kissed his cheek and told him to take care of himself.

They hadn’t spoken since.

He stared at her, their eyes meeting in the mirror.

He remembered Sandy’s final words to him, the words that had haunted him, the words that had led him back home, even if the journey took sixteen years.

“You weren’t driving, Jazz. If you were, that wreck wouldn’t have happened.”

* * *

Chapter Five

Anne-Marie lowered the brush and stared at her reflection. Dark green eyes, troubled and confused, stared back at her. Why was she even bothering? she wondered, flicking the make-up on the dresser top a disinterested glance.

What was the point in getting dressed up, putting on her make-up, and going into town to sit on a barstool and watch other people dance, other people kiss, other people in love?

Or just in lust.

Lust.

Pressing one hand against her flat belly, she closed her eyes. Oh, yes. She was familiar with lust, had been since she had awoken sweaty and panting in her bed the night of her sixteenth birthday. It hadn’t been the sloppy, badly aimed kiss from Dex Embry that had done it.

It had been from a dream about Jazz. He’d been dancing with her on the deck by the lake. At the time, he’d already been gone from her life but not a day went by that she didn’t think of him. She’d written him letters, one a week, faithfully, hoping that somebody would hear from him and she’d get an address where she could mail the letters.

But nobody ever heard a word. On her eighteenth birthday, she had written the last one and then tucked them all in a box. That box was stored in the top of her closet and every spring when she cleaned from top to bottom, she told herself she was going to throw them away.

She never did.

Even after she stopped writing the letters, she dreamed of him. Anne-Marie couldn’t even count how many dreams she had about him. Hundreds. Some bare wisps in her memory, others so potent, so real, she had awoken in tears to discover he wasn’t there with her.

God, it had always been him.

Could a person be born loving another? It seemed she had loved and needed him her whole life. But she was twenty-three before she accepted the fact that he was gone and he wasn’t coming back. Eleven years after he walked out of her life, Anne-Marie finally stopped waiting. She accepted a date from the third-year medical student and after four more dates, she went to bed with him. For all the wrong reasons and Anne-Marie wouldn’t deny it.

Rick Monohan had been good-looking, funny and considerate but when he touched her, Anne-Marie felt next to nothing. The thunder and lightening bolts she had been hoping for never happened and when he called to ask her out a few days later, she refused.

For the past sixteen years, she had tried to fill a hole inside of her, a hole Jazz left when he walked out of her life and for sixteen years, she had failed. She was damn tired of feeling so damned empty, too.

So why are you going into town instead of out to his place?

A frown darkened her face and she glanced around the room. The voice seemed too strong, too certain, too
real
to have come from her. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that somebody was in the room with her.

But she was alone. As always. Alone or not, though, Anne-Marie decided it was a very good question.

Why, indeed.

* * *

Jazz smiled at Mabel and asked, “Are you sure this is okay?”

“Boy, if I didn’t want that sweet girl here, she wouldn’t be here.” Her big voice rang in his ears and echoed on the porch as he knelt to hug Mariah against him one more time. Her first sleepover.

Her newest best friend, Tabby Winslow, Mabel’s youngest grandchild, stood by, hugging Mariah’s overnight case to her chest. “We’re gonna have so much fun,” Tabby whispered, her dark eyes gleaming brightly out of her ebony face. “Gonna eat popcorn and stay up until nine, right, Grandma?”

“That’s right, sugar. And it’s for girls only, so get on with you,” she said, shooing Jazz down the steps. “And you keep those appointments next month. I gotta eat, don’t I?” As she spoke, she slapped her rounded belly with a ringed hand.

“God knows, Mabel, if you miss any meals, you’d just wither away,” Jazz replied drolly, grinning when she cackled out a laugh that scared the birds from the trees.

“Big talk for such a skinny boy,” Mabel said, shaking her head at him as the laughter faded from her voice. “Boy, you need to get some rest, some good food in you and a good woman by your side.”

As Tabby and Mariah raced around the porch and yard, Jazz said, “I’ve had a good woman. I had to bury her; I don’t want another one.”

“Want, maybe not. But you need somebody, Jasper Jr. I never seen a body who needed another the way you do. The way you’ve always needed.” Her wide, deep red mouth compressed into a straight line, her round, cheerful face uncharacteristically somber, Mabel said, “Jazz, honey, some people are meant to go young. Alex, now, God knows he was a wonderful boy, but it was his time. That’s just the way of it.

“And some people are meant to go the distance alone. Me, I buried two husbands. Good men, and I loved them both dearly. And as happy as I was with each one of them, I’d never do it again. And then there are folks like you, so sad, so locked up inside, they’re almost dead from it.” Her round face softened with sympathy and she reached out, patting his cheek with a gentle hand. “Don’t let tragedy ruin your life. That’d be another one. God knows you don’t need that. You’ve had too many already,” she finished. She heaved a sigh

Shaking his head, he headed for the Escalade after hugging Mariah one last time. Five years old, already. Her first sleepover. And if he didn’t get the hell away now, he was going to change his mind and Mariah wouldn’t ever forgive him. Jazz also didn’t think Mabel would be too happy if he decided to sleep outside in her driveway, just to make sure everything went okay. So instead of going back to Mariah for one last hug, he climbed into the car and started it up.

It took less than a minute for it to hit him. He had an entire night to himself. One entire night. With the wind blowing through the open window, Jazz took the turn off to his house at a brisk forty miles an hour. With pleasure, he watched in his rearview as gravel dust filled the air.

An entire night to himself. And he didn’t have a clue as to what he was gonna do with it.

How long had it been since he’d had a night to himself? Right before Sheri got sick, Jazz realized. That last weekend Mariah had spent with Sheri’s folks while he and Sheri went out for dinner. The following Monday Sheri had gone to her doctor and learned she had a brain tumor. Such a bright light, put out so fast, just like Alex. He could still hear her laughter, that loud, bawdy laugh, that low raspy voice. How could that fast-living, fast-talking woman possibly be dead?

With a sigh, he ran his hand over his face. She had gone so quickly, in under six months. Jazz was going to miss her until the day he died. Sheri, God rest her soul, had given him his salvation. Rounding the final curve to his house, he decided he’d go home, dig out his wedding album and take a little walk down memory lane, pay his respects to his wife’s memory.

But as he crested the hill, he realized that he wouldn’t be doing that tonight. There in his drive sat a shiny, little Mustang convertible, fire-engine red, the ragtop down. Perched on the hood was Anne-Marie Kincade. One look at her hit him like a punch right in the solar plexus and all thoughts of Sheri faded away, lost in the fog of need that took over as he stared at Anne-Marie.

Her thick, black hair was falling around her shoulders, shoulders left bare by a simple, white camisole-styled top. Long legs were revealed by a pair of neatly cuffed, black shorts and her small feet were shod in a simple pair of canvas tennis shoes.

She didn’t look like a doctor; nope, she looked like a high school coed, too young and too damn innocent. Until she turned her head and met his eyes. The look in those misty, green eyes was pure woman and Jazz could literally feel it as the blood drained out of his head, straight down to his cock.

His breath caught in his chest as her gaze locked with his, a small, mysterious smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Sweet God, how had she grown up to be so beautiful?

A soft breeze fluttered her hair around her face, framing it in dense black. She slid off the car and moved towards him, that mysterious, teasing smile still on her lips. “Hey,” she said softly, coming to a stop a few feet away. Cocking her head, she studied him in the fading light. “You had your hair cut.”

A soft, illusive scent floated to him on the air and an insane desire to bury his face against her neck seized him. Gruffly, he asked, “What are you doing here?”

Her shoulders lifted and fell and she said, “I wanted to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged, her smooth shoulders lifting and falling. “So here I am.”

Looking at her, he saw Alex. Though they looked nothing alike, he saw his old friend in the arrogant lift of her chin, in the confident way she held herself. The way she offered no explanation for her actions. She was so alive, as Alex had been. So damned alive, and Jazz had felt dead inside for too damn long. He didn’t think he could keep his hands off her if she stayed so close.

“Did you forget who I am, Annie?” he asked, moving closer, until his toes nudged hers.

She had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. “I know who you are, Jazz. I’ve always known you.”

Shaking his head, he scoffed at her, “You don’t know me any more than I know you. Hell, you haven’t seen me in sixteen years and the last time you did see me, I was laid-up in a hospital bed after I killed your brother.”

He wanted to scare her away, and for a second, she paled and her eyes darkened with pain but then her features smoothed out and she shook her head. “Nice try, Jazz.”