His Melody (9 page)

He reached into a bin, grabbed an album, and handed it to her.

She looked down at the sleeve and grinned. “Miles Davis.”

He handed
her another
.

“John Coltrane.”

And another.

“Peabo Bryson.” She nodded. “Very eclectic.”

He shrugged. “I like what I like.” The once over he gave her as he said that made her shiver.

“I see,” was all she could think of to say in response.

“I thought this might cheer you up, but we can go back upstairs if all this is a painful reminder.” His green eyes were filled with concern.

She warmed all over. “What? Oh. No.” He must’ve taken her silence as a sign that she was upset. “No. I like it down here.” She liked that it was just the two of them and that he wanted to share this with her. She fanned herself with an album sleeve.

He shifted a few crates to the floor from an old tattered loveseat. He sat down and patted the space next to him. She walked over and sat next to him.

“Hand me that,” she said, pointing at one of the crates that rested on the floor.

He picked up the crate and set it in her lap.

She began thumbing through the album sleeves. “M.C. Lyte,” she said, pausing to look at one of the covers.

He fingered the brightly colored album cover, his hand brushing against hers in the process. “That’s one of my favorites.”

“Really?” She turned to look at him.
A mistake because his eyes had a hypnotic effect on her.

He nodded.

She moved her gaze from the bristles of blond hair on his head to his strong jaw line and then down to appreciate the way his T-shirt fit over his biceps and pecks. She couldn’t help herself. It’d been so, so long.
Since the divorce.
And her ex-husband was the only man she’d been with since her junior year in college when they started dating. She bet—hoped? No, hoping was not the right thing—Austin could do things to her that her ex had never even heard of. Well, whether it was the right thing or not, she definitely hoped he could. More than that, she wanted him to.

Trying to turn her attention to something else, she asked, “How many records do you have?”

He grinned. “Lost count a while ago.” He sat back on the loveseat and rested his arm over the top of the seat cushions. “I didn’t use all of this for D.J.’ing, but it’s all music I love.”

“I see.” It was clear he loved music as much as she did if not more.

Once again, she was fascinated by what she learned about Austin. That didn’t help her deal with her constant desire to touch him one bit. She was very much aware of how close the arm he’d slung over the top of the sofa was to the back of her neck.

“You know what I’d love to do?”
Besides you
, she added that last part silently. She wanted to share a little of herself with him because he’d shared so much with her that night.

“What?”

“I want to be a music manager.
Nobody to tell me what to do or when to do it.
I could help artists pursue their dreams instead of being the one to curb those dreams because I have to keep some record company’s bottom line in mind. I already have a few people in mind who could be huge with the right management.” Her heart sank a little as this made her think about the hard call she’d had to make to the manager of the R&B group in Miami. When she’d had to tell him she wouldn’t be at the club Monday night, she’d felt like the walls were caving in around her. The group would be taking the stage in less than forty-eight hours and some lucky person would discover them. Her dream would become someone else’s reality in less than two days.

“Why haven’t you done it yet?” Austin asked, breaking into her thoughts. “You probably have lots of contacts at the record labels and all the other right places. You’ve worked in the industry since you got out of college, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, distracted by the fact that he’d been paying so much attention last night when they’d talked for hours. She’d told him that right after college and getting her C.P.A. license, she’d started out in the accounting department at a division of a major record label in California. She’d barely mentioned her ex who’d been a vice president there. The same ex who’d been the reason she moved clear across the country and back home to Georgia so she could start over free and clear of his shadow.

“So you could let them know you’ve jumped to the other side, decided to be a manager,” Austin said. “You could let those artists you mentioned having in mind know that you could help them with their careers. Instead of looking for a job, you can create your own. Why not go for it?”

“I don’t have enough money saved.” She said it more defensively than she meant to, but he’d touched on a question she asked herself constantly. A question Jen also kept putting to her. “After this little fiasco, I don’t know when I’ll have enough. It seems like every time I get close to having enough saved, something bad happens.”

“Something bad is always happening.” He said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “You can’t control that. What you can control is whether you hand out updated resumes to jaded record execs or brand new business cards to hopeful artists when you get back to…Atlanta.” He looked away from her when he said the last word.

“Guess it’s something to think about.”

He laughed.

“What?”

“Oh. Nothing. It’s just that I say that same thing when I’m not fixin’ to take the advice someone has given me.”

She grinned. He had her there. She looked up at him and was lost in his gaze. What was she doing? She was only here for a few days. She shouldn’t—couldn’t—be getting wrapped up in this person she would never see again.

Grayson Meadows, Austin Holt, whatever name he wanted to use didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was getting under her skin in a very disconcerting way. Warning bells should have been going off. Instead, all she could think of was how good it felt to be close to him, talk to him,
hear
his voice.

And the only thing she wanted, sitting in that basement with him, was for him to wrap those big strong arms around her. Even if her car got fixed within a week, she had the feeling she wouldn’t make it out of Sweet Neck without falling for Austin. The scariest part of that was the thought of falling—and leaving—alone.

Chapter Ten

The next day, Melody went for a walk to try and get her head on straight. She needed to figure out what to do about the car. Should she stay until it was fixed? Should she get it fixed at all? Austin had said it would be in pretty good shape with a new engine. And why should she be in a hurry to get back to Atlanta? It wasn’t like she had a job waiting for her there. She needed to start looking for one, though. She didn’t have enough money saved to strike out on her own yet.

She really didn’t Especially now with a huge car repair bill hanging over her head. It wasn’t just some lame excuse to avoid taking the scary step of striking out
on her own
. She didn’t care what anyone said.

Shuffling along on the shoulder of the road, she looked around her at the cypress, beach, and oak trees and acres of farmland that expanded on both sides of her. It was so quiet and peaceful out there.
So many acres of nothing noisy or impatient.
Just green and brown and blue everywhere.

There was another reason besides looking for work that she needed to go home. Austin. She was becoming attached to this man who would never be in her life again after she left Sweet Neck. Not only was he attractive,
but
there was so much else about him she adored. He was funny. Smart. Sexy.

There was just enough of an air of mystery about him to draw her in and make her want to know more—want to know about the few things he wouldn’t mention.
Like Grayson.
The smart thing to do would be to go back to Atlanta the next day whether or not she had him fix the car. Now, about having him
fix
the car…

Melody was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t even notice the old woman with a white scarf wrapped around her head and tied under her chin until she’d almost run into her.

“Oh. Excuse me. I’m sorry,” Melody said.

The woman smiled and held out a papery, gnarled, pale hand. “Such a pretty girl.” The woman touched her hand to Melody’s cheek. The hand was oddly cool on the sweltering summer day. “Hot out here,” the woman said with a thick accent. “Would you like a nice cool glass of lemonade? You come with me.” The woman pointed down a dirt path that branched off from the main road. Tall pines grew on either side of the lane. The old woman looked harmless—after all, nobody she’d seen in Sweet Neck looked harmful—but why in the world was she inviting a stranger in for lemonade?

“I’m sorry, you are
?...
” Melody said.
“I am called Blanche Leroux,” she said. “You’re new here.
I seen
you with that Holt boy. Ha, I can tell you things about that brood.” Blanche threw a sharp look over her shoulder. “Plenty o’ things.”

“Leroux? Is that Cajun?” Melody asked. They were quite a ways from Louisiana, but upon listening closer, she realized the woman had a Cajun lilt to her voice.

“Yes,
chère
.” The woman wrapped her shawl closer around her shoulders. Melody briefly wondered how she could stand wearing one when it had to be at least eighty degrees out. Then she remembered how cold the woman’s hand had felt and gave an involuntary shiver. “You coming or not?” Blanche asked.

“Why do you want to tell me about Austin?” Melody asked. She was wary even though curiosity was killing her.

The woman just smiled and started walking down the dirt path she’d pointed to earlier, the long skirt of her emerald dress dragging on the ground as she moved. She waved over her shoulder, gesturing that Melody should start moving, but she never stopped walking or turned around. She seemed certain Melody would follow her.

Curiosity won out over caution, especially after what the woman had said about “that Holt boy,” and Melody followed. After all, she should be able to outrun this old woman if anything crazy happened.

At the end of the path, they came upon a wood cabin with kudzu creeping over it. The warped gray planks making up the siding could have used a good layer of primer and some paint. Maybe they needed replacing instead. Really, someone should have torn the whole thing down and started over.

The woman walked up onto the sagging porch and opened the door. She beckoned to Melody with a crooked finger but didn’t wait for Melody to enter before she walked into the house.

Melody wandered inside, but stood just inside the door. Inside, it was cool and dark. Zydeco music played on low volume from another room.

“In here,” a voice called from Melody’s left.

She inched into the house and peeped around the corner into the room from which the voice had come. Thick pieces of velvet—not curtains, just long rectangles of velvet fabric—covered the windows. A few chairs were scattered around the room. In the center of the room sat a small metal table. It reminded Melody of a card table. On one side of it was an armchair, and on the other side was a stool. In fact, the few pieces of furniture in the room were all mis-matched.

The Zydeco music she’d heard upon entering the house came from this room. A phonograph sat in one corner of the room, and a record was rotating around on it.

Melody caught sight of a one-eyed alligator and muffled a scream.

The woman laughed. “Relax,
chère
. It’s stuffed. Ain’t gonna hurt you.” Blanche had pulled the scarf back from her face. Melody walked into the room, and as her eyes adjusted to the low light, she could see that the woman’s watery eyes were pale blue. Her gray-blonde hair hung in unkempt tangles around her neck.

“So…” Melody started, but she was unsure of what to say after that.

“Have a seat.” The woman pointed to the armchair on one side of the card table.

“I could take the stool—”

“Sit.”

Surprised by the woman’s commanding tone, Melody went to the armchair and sat.

Blanche scuttled over to the stool and had a seat. She clasped her
gnarled,
arthritic-looking hands together and closed her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she sat rigid on the stool. There was complete silence except for the Zydeco music for a moment. Then she opened her eyes and smiled. “Just reading your aura, making sure I was right about you.
Yeah, you the right one.
I’ll be right back with that lemonade,
chère
. The woman bustled off to the kitchen, which
was room two out of three rooms
in the cabin. Melody could see a small bedroom off the opposite end of the living room.

At least Melody could watch what this strange little woman was doing as there was no wall between the kitchen and the living room. If the woman didn’t pour two glasses of lemonade from that same pitcher and take a sip before Melody drank hers, Melody would leave her glass on the table untouched.

The woman laughed and set a glass in front of Melody. “You think I’m crazy,
chère
. I see that in your eyes.” Blanche took a sip of lemonade from the glass she’d poured for herself. “You’re not the only one. Talk to anybody in Sweet Neck, and they’ll be right in league with you. But I’ve been on this earth a very long time. I see things other people don’t see because they can’t see past their own noses. I take in more than they do.”