Athena's Daughter (14 page)

“Oh, hey!” The girl put a hand on Athena’s
arm and peered up at her through a tangle of black bangs. “I’m so
glad I ran into you. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about
barging in on you last night.”

“That’s okay,” Athena replied automatically.
“Wasn’t your fault.”

“I told Derek that wasn’t Ian’s room, but he
didn’t even listen to me.” The girl shook her head. “I think he
must have been trippin’ or something. I mean, he like insisted on
walking me back to Ian’s room, even though I knew where I was
going. Then after we left your room, he left me standing outside
Ian’s door and just walked away. That was weird, you know?”

“Yeah, it’s weird, all right.”

Oh, that son of a bitch. He’d done it on
purpose, barged into her room with his arm around a girl just to
get her back for what she said on the plane. Athena wished she’d
added some face slapping to her morning wake up call.

After parting from the girl, she went to her
own room to get the large duffel bag she used for laundry. As she
stood in front of the dresser shaking out the heavy canvas folds,
something skittered down her leg from thigh to knee.

With a terrified shriek, she beat on her leg
while performing a stunning rendition of the
Oh-My-God-There’s-Something-On-Me dance. Just when she was edging
over into pure panic, she spied something shiny by her foot. It
took only a moment to register that it was a room key, and when she
saw the number on the fob, she realized it was the key to Derek’s
room that was in her pocket only a moment before.

She paused in her dance – though she
continued to beat her pants leg for stray critters – and reached
into her pocket where she encountered a hole in the fabric. Her
heart started to slow from its furious pace when she realized
Derek’s key was what slid down her leg when it fell through the
hole in her pocket. Feeling like an idiot, she bent and picked up
the key. Next time she went out for one of the guys she was going
to have to track down a needle and thread. Now both pockets of her
favorite jeans had holes in them, and she didn’t have the time or
funds to replace them.

She dropped Derek’s key into her purse with
all the others, slung it over her shoulder in case she needed it,
and grabbed the laundry bag. Her first stop was Derek’s door. Might
as well get it over with first. She rapped on the door.

“I need your laundry.”

After a moment, the door opened a crack, and
a pair of jeans, two shirts and a pair of socks was shoved through
in silence. Equally quiet, Athena tweezed the articles of clothing
between two fingers and dropped them into the duffel bag, grateful
that Derek had never been a fan of wearing underwear. At least he
didn’t berate her for her earlier treatment of him.

Ian and Robin were nicer about the process,
placing their dirty clothes in the bag themselves, and Athena moved
on to Paul’s room. He opened the door at her knock, but instead of
bringing out laundry, he stepped into the hall and took her in his
arms.

“Thank you for the sweet note,” he murmured
into her hair.

“Oh! You’re welcome.” She recovered from her
surprise at the unexpected hug, and leaned into him. “I’m sorry I
was such a bitch.”

“No worries, love. We all get to the breaking
point sometime. Yesterday was just your day.”

“I still shouldn’t have done it,” she said.
“I also shouldn’t have jumped all over Derek in front of
everyone.”

“He had it coming.”

“You think so?” She drew back and looked at
him astonishment.

“I do.” Paul nodded. “He’s been acting like a
right bastard to you since we were in Memphis, and it’s time you
put a stop to it.”

An indelicate snort escaped her. “If you
think I stopped anything, then you’re dead wrong. I think I just
made him more determined to make me miserable.”

Brows arched, Paul shook his head. “If he
keeps it up then I’ll have to step in. No matter what happened in
the past, you don’t deserve to be treated like that.”

“No, I’ll handle it,” Athena protested. “It’s
my problem, I’ll take care of it.” The last thing in the world she
wanted was to be the cause of tension within the band.

As she pulled out of Paul’s embrace, the
strap of her purse caught on his elbow, and its contents spilled
out onto the floor.

“Oh, crap,” she muttered, and bent to pick up
the mess.

“Here, let me help.” Paul squatted next to
her and began handing her keys, scraps of paper with notes
scribbled on them, a comb, and other bits and pieces scattered on
the hallway floor.

Absorbed in tracking down all her stuff, she
didn’t notice when Paul stopped assisting. She did notice that he’d
grown quiet, though, and glanced up in question. What she saw made
her blood turn to ice.

The little photo book in his hands was opened
to the picture Andi took at Christmas. Heads close together, Athena
and Elizabeth smiled in front of the Christmas tree, and not one
angle of Elizabeth’s face was obscured. In fact, she looked more
like Derek in that photo than in any other that had ever been
taken.

“Paul,” Athena whispered. She held out her
hand for the book, but he moved it out of her reach.

“No wonder you’re so brassed off at him.” He
cocked a brow her way. “He doesn’t know, then?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I’m going to
tell him after the tour’s over.” She held out her hand again.
“Please give it to me.”

Instead of handing over the book, Paul rose
to his feet, his eyes still scanning the photograph. “God, she
looks just like him.”

“I know that.” She shoved the rest of her
junk into her purse and stood. “Give me my photo book.”

He closed it, and handed it to her. She
crammed the little book into her purse before anyone else could
come along and see it.

“Paul, please don’t tell anyone,” she
pleaded. “It’s going to be hard enough for me to tell him, but he
doesn’t deserve to find out from anyone else.”

“I won’t say anything, I promise. But,
Athena…” He put a hand on either side of her face. “How did
you…Why….What did…?”

“It’s complicated. I called him, and one of
his sister’s friends answered and told me she was Derek’s fiancée,
and…”

“What?” Paul exploded. He ducked his head and
glanced around the hall. “I mean, what?” he repeated in a softer
tone. “When was this?”

“October, right after I found out I was
pregnant.” Hot tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away,
furious at her propensity for crying at any emotional upheaval. “I
shouldn’t have believed her, but I was already freaking about the
baby and being so far away from him, so I just went with it.”

“Oh, my poor girl.” Paul hugged her tight
again. “He was never engaged to marry anyone except you.” He
cleared his throat. “It’s really not my place to say anything, but
I don’t reckon he’s going to tell you, so I will. He lost his mind
when you didn’t answer his letters. It got to the point where he
thought something bad happened to you.”

“What do you mean, something bad?”
Realization dawned, and she jerked out of his embrace. “Do you mean
he thought I died?”

“You got it. He convinced himself of it, and
nothing any of us said could change his mind.” One shoulder lifted
in an apologetic shrug. “You know how he can get, jumping to
conclusions and all. I didn’t know what happened to make you cut
off contact, but I never believed you’d died. But Derek…”

She recalled the way Derek’s face had gone
white when he saw her at Stax of Wax, and the unbelieving tone in
which he’d whispered her name.

“No wonder he’s so cold to me,” she said,
wincing. “I just thought he was pissed off because I believed
Tina.”

“Yeah, seeing you in Memphis really flipped
him out. I tried to talk to him, you know. Tell him, See? She’s not
dead, mate, never was. But he closed right off, and started in on
you. I don’t know; maybe he feels like a fool for coming up with
such a far-fetched reason when the reality was that some idiot girl
made up a lie about him and chased you off.”

Her lips tightened with a mixture of
irritation and frustration. “So he’s going to take that out on me,
too, I guess.”

“I don’t know, love.” Paul looked
uncomfortable. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, you should. At least I know where he’s
coming from now.” She bit her lip. “It’s good that you’re not
playing tonight or tomorrow. I’m going to have to talk with him
about this before I can even think about telling him about
Elizabeth.”

“If you need anyone to back you up…”

Athena gave him a grateful smile, and patted
his arm. “Thank you. But I have to do this myself.” She squared her
shoulders and took a deep breath to settle her nerves. “Okay. Now,
go get your laundry so we can wrap things up here, and get the hell
out of Baton Rouge.”

After plugging in the portable radio in the
bathroom, Derek sat it on the counter and spun the dial until he
found a station broadcasting rock ‘n roll. The bathroom provided
excellent acoustics, and he turned the volume up letting “Jackie
Blue” by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils reverberate through the
small room. Musical accompaniment attended to, he started the chore
of neatening up his beard and moustache. He squinted into the
mirror, glad to do something that demanded all his attention. Maybe
it would drive Athena from his head for a few minutes.

In direct contradiction of this desire, he
remembered the way she’d berated him on the plane, and a dull flush
of anger reddened his cheeks. From the moment Simon and Paul
announced that Athena would be taking over Richie’s duties, Derek
knew it wouldn’t work. The way the argument on the plane escalated
with such speed proved his point. There was too much anger
simmering below the surface between them to allow a working
relationship.

His face contorted into a tortured grimace as
he worked on the moustache. Of course, anger could be controlled,
and they might be able to overcome that. But not when anger was
combined with all the other shit they carried with them. If they
could jettison that, things might be okay. But as long as he woke
up every morning looking into her wide grey eyes, forgetting for
that brief moment that she was no longer his, that wasn’t going to
happen.

How could he still want a woman who had
played so ruthlessly with his heart, and then tossed him aside like
a used candy wrapper? And just what the hell was she up to looking
at him with that wistful yearning, like she still wanted him, too?
Was she trying to prove she could still bring him to his knees?
Fuck that; he wasn’t falling for it again. Sure, she’d been taken
in by that little twat that his sister let run rampant through his
flat, answering his phone and spreading lies. For the first time
since hearing about what happened, he allowed himself to imagine
how Athena must have felt hearing that he had acquired a fiancée
less than two months after proposing to her. It probably felt the
same way he did when he learned of Athena’s marriage.

Okay, fine. He flung the razor into the sink,
and dampened a face cloth to wipe the remnants of shaving foam from
his upper lip. So she honestly believed that he was the one who
threw her aside back then. He could understand that, but the way
she dealt with it was what he couldn’t take. Instead of trying to
contact him and find out just what was going on, she’d run off and
gotten married and had a child with the son of a bitch. The
marriage he could overlook, but the fact that she gave birth to
another man’s child while he, Derek, mooned around writing her
letters like a pathetic imitation of Robert Browning enraged him.
There would always be that connection with the child’s father, a
connection he could never breach. While showing that photo around,
she even said the little girl looked just like her father – and she
sounded proud of that!

Jesus Christ, he was jealous. And stupid.
Stupid because he would love like hell to knock her up that minute,
to have her belly grow with his child, to forge that connection
with her. It was bad enough before, but now that he’d burst into
her room and seen her standing there wearing nothing but the
briefest pair of panties he could ever remember seeing on a woman,
he was in hell. The tearing desire to throw her to the nearest
horizontal surface and bury himself inside her wasn’t what drove
him crazy, though it was getting harder to ignore. No, it was the
hurt on her face when she’d seen him with Ian’s girl. Yeah, he’d
wanted to hurt her for reaming him out on the plane, but now he
fucking hated himself for actually doing it.

The thought of the girl made him laugh, but
there was no humor behind it. He hadn’t been with a girl since the
day Athena joined the tour. What about that, ladies and gentlemen?
The great stud guitar god Derek Marshall had taken up celibacy
because he couldn’t think about any other woman but the one who
broke his heart.

Why did he still have to love her?

Glaring at his reflection with disgust for
being a weak, pitiable, pussy-whipped fool, he started in on his
beard. On the radio, the deejay stopped reminding his listeners how
fortunate they were to hear his voice until ten every morning, and
got back to playing music. Led Zeppelin’s “Ten Years Gone” filled
the bathroom, and for the first time Derek didn’t fixate on the
guitar parts with the tinge of envy he always felt when he heard
Page play. This time the lyrics were what got him, a wistful
account of love lost and looking back to the way things used to be.
The words punched him straight in the gut and twisted his already
confused emotions into a knot.

“Fuck!” Caught up in the song, he’d allowed
his attention to wander and his hand to slip. Snatching up the damp
cloth, he pressed a corner to the nick just above his jaw line
where it bloomed red as if by magic. The sting of shaving cream in
the wound made him draw in his breath with a hiss as he pressed
hard on the cut. Wonderful. Now he was going to have to spend the
next half-hour with a bit of toilet paper stuck to his face like an
adolescent just learning to shave.