The Barons of Texas: Jill (6 page)

He slowly smiled. “Of course. Let’s go.”

A sudden thought occurred to her. “Wait. You haven’t told me where we’re going yet.”

“Midnight Blues. It’s a brand-new blues club down in Deep Ellum.”

“Blues—okay. Then there’s one more thing. Please,
please
, tell me we won’t run into anyone we know there.”

“We won’t run into anyone we know there.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously on him. “Are you sure?”

Amusement glinted in his eyes. “I have to admit, I don’t know where all our friends and acquaintances are spending this evening, but the club is new, and
most people haven’t caught on to it yet.” The amusement vanished as his gaze darkened and heated. “Besides, what’s the worst thing that can happen? That they see you looking like an incredibly desirable woman?” He put his hands on her shoulders, and when she started to pull away, his hold tightened. “Relax, Jill,” he said, his voice soft. “You look more beautiful than I’ve ever seen you look.”

“Don’t
touch
that door handle.”

Confused, she glanced around at Colin. “Why?”

He strolled up with that almost irresistible lazy smile of his, all signs of heat gone from his eyes. “Because, Jill, a woman always waits for her date to open the car door for her.”

An objection formed in her mouth, but she swallowed it. Politely, she stood aside while he opened the door for her; then she slid in. He tucked the excess of her skirt inside the car, then shut it.

As he circled the car, settled his long frame inside and drove out of her driveway toward downtown, she reflected that she was beginning to understand how the women he dated felt. When he concentrated all his attention on a woman, as he had on her for the past hour or so, he was incredibly sexy.

He glanced at her. “Allowing me to open the door for you wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Of course not. But since most women are as able as a man to open a door, it’s a silly custom.” She held up her hand in a pacifying gesture. “But if that little gesture helps to build up a man’s ego, then I’ll do it—though, as I said before, it’s silly.”

He chuckled. “You sound as if you’re suffering.”

“Sorry. It’s just that you’re asking me to turn one
hundred and eighty degrees on how I think and dress, which must mean that a man, or rather Des, values a woman’s looks over a woman’s brain. It’s rather disheartening.”

“Maybe at first a man is drawn to a woman because of the way she looks. But to keep him beside her without anything else going for her but her looks is a whole different story.”

“Really?” She’d never thought about it before.

He nodded. “So what I’m trying to do is
soften
you, Jill, and to teach you to accept attention from a man, any man you want—Des, if it turns out he’s your heart’s desire.”

Des? Heart’s desire? What a funny way of putting it, she reflected. Not only funny, but wrong, all wrong. “And you’re going to teach me how to attract a man, right? I mean, Des.”

He nodded. “And keep his attention once it’s on you. Let’s face it, you’re a formidable woman who lets all men know, right off the bat, that you’re not interested in them—unless, of course, they have something you want for your business.”

“Am I really that bad?”

He smiled gently. “Pretty much.”

She mulled over what he had said. “Did you mean it when you said I looked like a very desirable woman?”

He glanced over at her. “Honey, believe me, that was an understatement.”

A thrill shot through her. She should remind him not to call her honey, but at the moment it was beyond her. She
felt
desirable, she realized with a start, and it had nothing to do with the dress. Surprisingly, it had everything to do with Colin. She wondered if he
knew it, then decided he did. It was all part and parcel of the little indoctrination program he was putting her through.

She picked at the hot-pink silk of her skirt in the same way she would pick at lint. “How did you know how this dress would look on me? It probably didn’t look like much on a hanger. And not only that, how did you know it would fit me so perfectly? You even found matching shoes that fit.”

He shrugged, taking a corner. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“Oh, come on. Luck had nothing to do with it. You must have a lot of experience in buying clothes for women.”

“Actually, no, but I’m a quick study. And don’t forget, I did have the advantage of spending last night with you in bed.”

She closed her eyes. She’d walked right into that one. But he needn’t worry. If she lived to be a hundred, she doubted she would ever forget, in her fog of pain and medication, that she had slept the night through in his arms. “I’ll pay you back for the dress and shoes of course. Every nickel.”

“Whatever you like. By the way, did you have a chance to look over my ideas for our two properties?”

There it was. The reminder of the reason he was doing all this, and she supposed she should be relieved. She chewed on her bottom lip. If there was one thing in the world she understood, it was business. So why, then, did she have butterflies in the pit of her stomach and heat crawling through her veins? It was almost as if she was a teenager on her first date.

And why did she have the feeling that learning to
be a femme fatale with Colin as her teacher just might be the hardest thing she had ever tried to do?

From the moment she’d hit puberty, she had known that she was beautiful. She only had to watch the reaction of the boys at her school, and even some men, as she walked into a room or passed by them on the street.

Only her father appeared unmoved by her beauty. In fact, if anything, he seemed to keep her at more of a distance and treat her with slightly more coolness than he did her sisters, although it was so subtle she doubted anyone else saw it. Sometimes she was even able to talk herself into believing it was just her imagination. After all, why would he be harder on her than he was on Kit and Tess? It didn’t make sense. But then he would slight her again, and she would know she was right.

Her father never kept any pictures of her mother out, nor did he allow anyone to talk about her in his presence. But once their uncle William had pulled out an old photograph of a breathtakingly lovely young woman and had told her and her sisters that the woman was their mother. Studying the picture, she had realized that she’d been born with her mother’s classical beauty. She’d also realized that perhaps the resemblance to her mother might explain her father’s attitude toward her. She had always had the impression that her father had never forgiven his wife for having the automobile accident that had killed her.

Nevertheless, since he was the only man whose approval she wanted, she had learned early to disregard her beauty. And like any child seeking love from a parent, she would work all that much harder to please
him with her brains and hard work. To her knowledge, she had never succeeded.

He had been dead for many years now. And she had fulfilled the condition of his will, which stated that unless she and her sisters earned
his
idea of a fortune, they would lose their portions of the company. Yet, his powerful, domineering presence remained, and she still lived her life the way he had taught her. It was not only the way she had learned to survive, it was the only way she knew to live.

In order not to be hurt, she had become completely self-contained, emotionally isolating herself from people as much as possible. She didn’t even like to be physically touched. No wonder that even the idea of these upcoming lessons in learning to beguile a man was making her nervous.

“Jill?” Colin snapped his fingers in front of her face.

“What?”

“We’re here.”

“Oh.” She glanced around and saw that they were in a parking lot.
“Oh.”
She automatically reached for the door handle.

“Uh-uh.”

Damn. She waited impatiently for Colin to walk around to her side of the car, open the door and extend his hand toward her. She took it, allowing him to help her out, but not happily. “Tell me something. Does a man’s ego really rise or fall on whether or not his date allows him to open the door for her?”

He smiled down at her. “A man’s ego is a fragile thing, Jill.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute. I’d bet money that yours isn’t. And I’m sure Des’s isn’t.”

He put his hand on her back and guided her across the parking lot. “Let me put it this way. A man who truly likes and respects a woman enjoys doing things for her, such as opening doors. And usually it makes the woman in question feel honored that the man thinks enough of her to go out of his way to do things for her.”

That idea had never even occurred to her, and reflecting on it, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

When they reached the sidewalk, he took her hand. She barely managed to stop herself from pulling away. She couldn’t remember ever holding a man’s hand before. Odd, she supposed. Most couples held hands, but then, she had never been part of a couple.

Deep Ellum was so named because it consisted of the blocks literally at the end of Elm Street, lying in the shadows of downtown Dallas and stopping at the gates of Fair Park. In its heyday, during the twenties and thirties, Deep Ellum became famous for its many blues clubs. All the greats had come there to play. Since that time, the street and the area had gone through many reincarnations, but always it had remained an alternative to the norm.

Today the term had grown to incorporate 170 acres of previously run-down, deserted warehouses three blocks east of downtown Dallas. But now the warehouses were being turned into high-priced lofts for people who wanted to enjoy a different way of living, and the waiting list was long.

But the main strip remained Elm, and its present-day clubs were the birthplace for many new cutting-edge bands and the home for trendsetting styles. Some of the old shops that had been there for fifty years or more still remained, but other shops now held
art galleries, fashion-forward jewelry and clothing boutiques, restaurants, coffee houses and more.

With a firm grasp on her hand, Colin maneuvered them through a mixed crowd, where people seemed to be chatting and laughing with one another, oblivious to the fact that they were blocking pedestrian traffic.

It was hard for her to find one person who didn’t have tattoos, or rings in either their noses, eyebrows, tongues or belly buttons, or a combination thereof. Their hairdos ran from bald to spiked, and the hair colors rainbowed from scarlet and orange to blue and gold. But finally she also saw more normal-looking people, even older couples coming out of restaurants or coffee houses.

At one point Colin looked at her and laughed. “Fun, huh?”

“Do you come down here a lot?”

“Maybe not a lot, but whenever there’s something interesting going on, and there usually is, I try to come down. Don’t you own quite a few of the old warehouses down here that are being converted?”

She nodded. “I bought up as many as were available, but I’ve never come down here at night.”

“Maybe after this you’ll want to.”

He angled them toward a black doorway. As soon as he opened the door, music sailed out. She hesitated only because the interior of the club was so dark, but Colin kept her hand in his and ushered her into the club.

Inside, Colin stopped to talk with a big, burly man who had walked over to meet them as if he was an old friend of Colin’s. While the two men talked, her
eyes gradually began to adjust so that she could see the stage.

A young, white, skinny guy played the guitar. An older black man sat on a straight-back chair slightly to the right and behind him, playing another. There were also a drummer, a saxophonist and a pianist, but they might as well not have been there, as far as the two guitarists were concerned. They were each taking different parts of the song, trading licks as if they could read each other’s minds, making their guitars talk to each other in a language that everyone there seemed to understand at some level. She was no expert, but even
she
knew she was hearing something transcendent.

She felt the shawl being whisked off her shoulders; then Colin led her toward the back of the room. She glanced at him just long enough to see that he had her shawl over his arm, then returned to inspecting the club.

Blue neon made random pathways of light across the ceiling and walls. The neon revealed large, stark, black-and-white photos of blues legends, all holding their beloved guitars. She recognized the names—Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and other masters. Other pictures showed Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith.

Interspersed among the portraits were other black-and-white pictures of old black men, sitting in rocking chairs on their run-down front porches, playing their guitars. The pictures plainly said that the men might not have glass for their windows, but their souls were full, fed by their guitars and the music they made. Other pictures showed black people walking up and down rows of cotton, stooped over, picking and filling
their burlap bags. Under all these pictures were brass plaques that simply said The Birth of the Blues.

Colin’s hand extended past her and pointed to an empty booth of midnight-blue leather. She slid in, and Colin slipped in beside her. Her nerves jumped at his closeness.

The music was loud, but a long way from earsplitting. Nevertheless, he put his mouth close to her ear. “Move over a few more inches and give me some room.”

She gestured to the other side of the booth. “What about sitting over there?”

He shook his head and gave the waitress a smile as she walked up to them. Jill had no choice but to move closer to the wall, though it did no good, because he simply followed her until his side was against hers.

The blond waitress, who had an ample bosom and a pin on her white blouse that spelled out Maggie, gave Colin her entire attention. But Jill did manage to get in her order of white wine. Colin ordered beer.

As Maggie sashayed off, leaving menus, Colin slid his arm behind her along the top of the booth’s leather back. “What do you think of the place?” he asked, leaning toward her, his mouth once again close to her ear, his breath warm on her skin.