I'll Sing for my Dinner (5 page)

When she wasn’t busy, Kathy came over to where I was sitting at the bar watching Jared’s band. We chatted a bit, and I could tell she was curious about me, but she didn’t push.

“I’ve never known a Marine before,” I said at one point. “I always imagined them as being very serious and stoic. Jake isn’t that way at all.”

She cocked her head and gave me a funny look. “Most people see him exactly that way,” she said. “I worked for his parents, so I’ve known him since he was a kid. Jake was always different. When he graduated high school, he received a full-ride scholarship to play football, and a much smaller scholarship to study music at a liberal arts college back east. No one who really knew him was surprised when he chose music.”

“Jake played football?” I asked. He was certainly built, but seemed a bit small, being barely six-feet tall.

“He was an all-state running back,” Kathy said. “Fast, quick and shifty, but he ran with power.”

“That’s the guy who carries the ball?” I knew as much about football as I did about building rockets. I had seen it on TV a couple of times but never paid any attention to it.

She chuckled. “Yes, that’s the guy who carries the ball.”

“But Kathy, you still haven’t answered my question. You said most people think he’s stoic and reserved. He’s not that way at all.”

“What I was trying to explain,” she said, “is that he has a sensitive side. He’s always been more interested in music and art than most people, at least around here. I think you bring that out. If you don’t see him as the hard-ass Marine, it’s because he’s showing you that other side of him. Or maybe the side most people see isn’t there when he’s with you.”

“Oh.” I didn’t quite know what to say to that.

“Cecily,” Kathy said, “I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I’ve never seen Jake look at a woman the way he looks at you. I hope you appreciate the kindness he’s shown you, and that you won’t take advantage of him.”

In his truck on the way home, he said, “I was a music major in college. Unfortunately, I suffered some nerve damage to my left hand in the service. I can still chord a guitar, but I don’t have the fine control to play the violin any more, or to get real fancy on the guitar. But I can tell when someone is classically trained. Your voice isn’t just a happy accident. It’s opera quality.”

Suddenly scared, I looked over at him. “Jake, please.”

“I’m not going to ask you about your past, Cecily. But you said you can play anything with strings. Does that include the lute, Celtic harp and the sitar?”

I bit my lip and didn’t answer him. His question really scared me. Was the list he mentioned just an accident?

“Watching you on that stage tonight,” Jake continued, “you turned my brother’s band into a supporting cast without any effort at all. You were the star. You’ve played a lot bigger venues than bars, haven’t you?”

“Jake, don’t make me lie to you. Please?” Oh, God. This wasn’t going well at all. Although the tone of his voice was kind, he was asking all the wrong questions.

“Okay.” His voice mellowed, and I breathed easy when I heard him backing off. “I don’t know how you got here, or what you’re running from, and it’s none of my business. But, honey, a blind man could see that you stick out like a bottle of champagne at a college keg party.”

He didn’t say anything else. I was close to panic. Had I been stupid, performing in public? But I had to eat, and music was the only marketable skill I had. Maybe I should run again, get away before anyone discovered who I was, where I was. But I really couldn’t do that. I owed Jake for the clothes he’d bought me. For feeding me last night. For believing in me just because I asked him to. Hell, he was taking me home, putting me in a soft, warm bed, and not even expecting to share it.

I decided he really was an angel, and as long as I stayed with him, everything would be all right. I just had to believe that. All of my other options led back to the madness.

I hadn’t dreamed the night before. I guess I was too exhausted. But the dreams came that night. Not the worst ones, but I was standing on a stage with spotlights blinding me, and then out of the lights came a face, and he was reaching for me. I struggled to get away, but no matter how hard I ran, he was always there when I turned to look.

~~~

Chapter 5

Jake

It had been two weeks since Cicely came to live with me. I could see her cheeks starting to fill out from regular meals. The seat of her jeans, too. She told me when we bought her clothes that they were the size she wore, and assured me that they really weren’t too big. She obviously hadn’t been on the streets so long that she didn’t remember her life before.

She had a bright, sunny attitude, a quick smile, and an infectious enthusiasm that endeared her to everyone who met her. The shell-shocked look I saw in in her eyes that first day had faded, but the enigma of her past remained.

After she kissed me that night, I made sure to keep a safe distance from her. No more spontaneous hugs. Not that I didn’t want her in my arms, but it would be far too easy to fall for her. The way she smelled and the feel of her lips caused an immediate reaction south of my belt. I couldn’t remember a woman affecting me that strongly, not even my first love.

I got up before she did one morning and started to make breakfast. The next thing I heard was her pounding down the stairs.

“You’re not supposed to be doing that,” she said. “That’s my job. Unless you’ve decided to change our deal. Have you?”

Damn, she looked hopeful. I took my coffee and backed out of the kitchen, and watched her face fall.

We quickly fell into a comfortable routine. Having her in the house felt natural. I think she was trying to hide that she didn’t know how to cook or keep house. I walked into the living room one day and she was reading the label on a can of furniture polish, her brow furrowed in concentration. I realized she was trying to figure out how to use it.

My mom’s cookbooks appeared on a shelf in the kitchen. She would pull one out, then look through the freezer, refrigerator and cabinets checking to see if we had all the ingredients to make a recipe she had chosen. When the recipe in question was beef stew, it was hard to ignore her checking the book every fifteen minutes to make sure she did everything correctly. I found her in the kitchen at the bar several times, mostly just watching, but also questioning the cooks on how to do something or why they did something, or even, “What is that spoon with all the holes in it for?”

It seemed a bit strange that a girl who had never learned anything domestic would suddenly become Miss Suzy Homemaker. I wondered if she was trying to put on an act. After watching her, both at home and at the bar, I decided it was something very different.

She wanted to please people, to make them like her. She was almost desperate to please, like a dog that had been abused. If anyone spoke harshly, she flinched, even though it wasn’t directed at her. And it never was. Everyone loved her. She watched me constantly, gauging my reaction to everything she said. As I became aware of her behavior, I noticed she did the same thing with almost everyone.

I asked Kathy, trying to make it sound casual, what she thought of Cecily. In Kathy’s typical no-nonsense manner, she said, “Someone in that girl’s past deserves to be horse whipped. She’s been treated very badly. I don’t know if it was her parents, or a boyfriend. She treats any kind word like she did her food the day she walked in here. Like it’s precious.”

Occasionally, Cecily teased me about not wanting to sleep with her. But I could tell she had been in situations where she had grown used to giving men her body to survive. That’s not what I wanted, nor did I want her to sleep with me out of gratitude. Hell, I couldn’t decide if I wanted her to sleep with me at all, but I ached every morning when I saw her at breakfast. I wanted to touch her, to hold her, but I kept telling myself it wasn’t the right thing to do.

I had to wonder exactly what she was hiding. Was it only bad experiences, or something more? A drunk tried to hit on her one night, and she reacted as if he was assaulting her. He never touched her, or even came within three feet of her, but she backed away from him, her hand going to the leather thong around her neck, and practically ran in the other direction. Another night, when a sheriff’s deputy walked in the bar, I could have sworn her expression was one of pure terror. She quickly turned and headed for the ladies’ room and didn’t come out until he left.

I took her out to the garage one day and showed her my mom’s car. The dogs followed us. They minded her as well as they did me, and they loved her. She would run with them, play tug-of-war, and scratch their ears and bellies until they had doggie orgasms. I noticed that the box of treats seemed to be emptier than I remembered. I asked her if she grew up with dogs, and she told me her mother had a toy poodle. It was the only time she answered any of my questions about her past.

Pointing to the car, I said, “It’s just sitting there, Cecily. I can probably get it running again in a day or two. It needs an oil change, tune up, and a good checkup. It was running fine when Mom last drove it. Would you like to use it?”

“I don’t know how to drive, Jake. I don’t have a driver’s license. Thanks for the offer, though.” She stood looking at the car, and then she said, “How long ago did your mom die?”

I hated to think of that day, but it wasn’t as though it was a big dark secret. Everyone knew what had happened.

“Three years ago. I was in Afghanistan, and Jared was starting his master’s degree at the university in Boulder. My dad was a pilot, and he, Mom and Mary took off to fly to Aspen for the weekend. The plane went down in the mountains. It took them a few days to reach the wreckage, and it was too late.”

I took a deep breath. The pain was still very sharp.

“The Marines let me out early, before my tour was up. Jared dropped out of school. We came home, sold off all the cattle and most of the horses, and took over the bar. Neither of us wanted to be a rancher. I guess we would have stayed home if that were the case. Mary loved it, though. Dad figured that maybe she’d marry a man who wanted to ranch and they’d keep the place going.”

“How old was Mary?” Cecily’s voice was almost a whisper.

“Nineteen. I think I miss her most of all. You always expect your parents to go during your lifetime, but she had her whole life ahead of her.”

“The same age I am,” Cecily said. “Three years ago, I was nineteen. She’d be twenty-two now. I’m so sorry, Jake.”

I had thought Cecily might be even younger than that. But she had the same enthusiasm for life as Mary. Neither of them ever walked up or down the stairs. It always sounded as though they were in a race.

It helped to think of her as Mary’s age. Mary was only thirteen when I shipped overseas the first time. A little girl. She had been eighteen the last time I saw her, at her high school graduation, so proud of her new smile with her braces off. The problem was that Cecily didn’t look like a little girl. She looked like someone I wanted to undress.

But the problem of transportation remained. The ranch was twenty miles out in the country. Someone had to take her out there, or take her into town. I was dragging her around with me on all my errands, even to get a haircut.

“I can teach you to drive. It’s not hard,” I said.

Shaking her head, she said, “I really don’t want to. I guess it’s kind of a pain for you, though. As soon as I can get some money together, I’ll get an apartment in town.”

“Even in town, Greeley isn’t New York. You need a car to get around. Don’t you get tired of having to go everywhere with me? It can’t be fun waiting for me all the time.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I like being with you. But if you want to go someplace and don’t want to take me, I understand. Just leave me here, or at the bar, or dump me at a coffee shop or something. If I can get to a main road, I can always get to the bar on time to sing. It must feel sometimes as if you’re married, without any of the benefits. I’m sorry.”

So was I. There was no doubt in my mind that I could have the benefits any time I asked. But it did feel good to hear her say she enjoyed being with me. It felt very good. Unfortunately, I had a feeling as to how she would get to the bar if Jared or I didn’t take her. I had no intention of putting her in a position where she felt she needed to hitchhike.

And God help me, every time she mentioned getting an apartment, it felt like a knife through my heart. A wee bit fickle there, Jake? Want to eat your cake and have it too? We had only known each other a month, but I was convinced at times that if I asked her to marry me, she would only ask, how soon can we do it? My problem was that I caught myself daydreaming about a future with her. I hadn’t felt lonely before she showed up.