THE DEVILS DIME (14 page)

As he approached, Addie laid her violin in its case and arranged a soft paisley scarf over the instrument before snapping the lid shut. She must have sensed someone behind her, because she turned, her expression brightening at the sight of him. But a moment later it turned puzzled.

“What?”

Jess simply stood there grinning and shrugging his shoulders.

“Jess Pepper, you’re going to have to do better than that. I’m not a mind reader, you know.”

Jess took a step closer and shrugged again. His mouth moved and he took a breath to speak, but no words came.

Suddenly, Addie seemed to comprehend, and her hands flew to her cheeks. “You didn’t like it!”

Jess stepped forward to take her arms in reassurance, her fear instantly loosening his tongue. “Oh, Addie! No, absolutely not!” Couldn’t she see what her music had done to him? How it had robbed him of his voice? “I mean, you were wonderful. Magnificent. Incomparable. Unparalleled. Incredible.”

“Oh, stop it!” Addie grinned and blushed, and backed a step with each word, as Jess advanced toward her with each accolade. But on the third step, her back made contact with the wall of ivy, and Jess kept moving toward her until he’d pressed her into its soft, green embrace. Then he moved another inch until his Sunday boots straddled her Sunday pumps.

Addie put her hands up to stop his advance, and they rested light and trembling on his black vest. The adrenaline haze still inhabited her sparkling eyes. He covered her hands with his and let his thumbs stroke the fingers that made the music that had nearly driven him out of his skull.

Now he spoke, softly, wanting only Addie to hear.

“I don’t have the words, Addie. There aren’t any words grand enough to...to say what your music does to a person. What it does to me. What
you
do to me. You’re just going to have to see it in my eyes.”

Addie dropped her head, embarrassed, but he knew she understood what he was trying to say. He lifted a finger to her chin and tilted her head upward. “Addie?”

Her eyelids fluttered open and a beatific smile parted her full lips. “Thank you, Jess. You don’t know what that means to me.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, worried, he knew, that she might seem immodest, even as she leaned imperceptibly closer. But modesty be damned, he was going to kiss her. There was no saving her now. That innocent lower lip had drawn him over the edge.

And as his lips touched hers he felt instantly vindicated when she didn’t draw away. He pressed, gently, and she answered in kind. He knew no word to describe the softness, the chasteness, the restrained eagerness. But there was one thing he
did
know. There was no saving him now.

. . .

Somehow she had known it
could
be like this, but in her most farflung imagination Addie had never supposed it
would
be like this. He had taken her into his arms, and she had let him, willed him to, leaned toward him as if to beckon. She moved as a wanton maid might, and yet nothing about his embrace made her feel wanton.

Her bristling nerves were charged as never before, still crashing about in the jangled flurry that always flooded her nervous system after a performance. But he drew his hand down her quivering cheek and the discordant frenzy fell away, swept anew into a pool of lush content.

Strangely, she was glad she hadn’t had a moment to put on her gloves. Her bare hands rose and fell along the broad span of his back. Gently, slowly, she returned the pressures she felt from his hands on her own waist. And that was the moment she faltered and broke the kiss. If he should happen to touch her sweat-soaked blouse she would be mortified.

Jess stepped back and ran a hand through his hair. He looked about him as if stunned that the trees still stood in the same places they’d occupied moments ago.

“Jess, I—” How could she tell him she’d have stayed in his arms past nightfall had it not been for her embarrassing state of disarray. It seemed desperately important for him to know that it wasn’t the
kiss
that had been found wanting.

“No, Addie, I’m sorry, I don’t know what—”

He looked so flustered, embarrassed, that she knew it was up to her to save the beauty of the moment.

“Jess Pepper,” she said softly, as she reached a hand to his cheek and made him look at her. She let a coy smile play about her mouth, but stopped short of outright coquetry. “I’ve heard of singing for my supper, but fiddling for a kiss puts an altogether new twist on things.”

He breathed, relaxed, and his eyes lost the momentary confusion that had filled them until her hand touched his face.

“In that case, Miss Magee,” he winked and cleared his throat, “I believe I shall endeavor to take every opportunity to put your theory to the test!”

She took his hand in a formal handshake just as the orchestra finished their final number and the crowd began to disperse. Some were already finding their way behind the bandstand and were headed her way, seeking her out. As if by an arranged signal they each took a slight step back and fixed their faces in cordial smiles.

“Why, of course, Mr. Pepper, I’ll be happy to let you know when I’m to play next. You are so kind to take an interest–”

Addie froze mid-word, and her hand clamped down hard on Jess’s hand. Her eyes that had felt so playful a moment ago were now riveted on the man who waited not far beyond Jess’s right shoulder. She felt her heart crashing against her ribs.

“Addie, what is it?”

She swallowed, and managed a trembling whisper.

“It’s him!”

Chapter Nine

Addie’s voice shook with emotion. She swallowed and spoke as she gasped for air. “I don’t believe it!”

Jess turned in the direction she was staring. A lone man in an old brown suit stood uneasily next to a massive white oak beyond the path. Jess recognized his upstairs neighbor. Any other man would have been dwarfed by the tree, but this man was tall, thick, and stood his ground even though he seemed unsure of his welcome.

“My father.”

Jess stepped to the side and dropped Addie’s hand.

“He came to hear me play. How did he know...?”

“Go on, Addie. Talk to him. I’ll wait.” Jess moved a step further away.

“But, I...”

“Go on. You’ll know what to say.” Jess began to back away, and as the man by the tree took a step toward Addie, she began to move toward her father.

Ford Magee’s long stride covered more territory than Addie’s cautious step, and they met not far from the back of the garlanded stage and paused for a moment. He held out a hand and they both sat on the nearest bench, an awkwardness still hanging between them.

Her father was first to break the silence.

“You play prettier than your mama sings.”

Addie caught her breath. Two months earlier she’d hardly recognized the harsh voice that flung words at her from his fourth floor doorway to send her on the run. But this was the rumbly voice she remembered, the comfortable sound she’d carried in memory’s ear for twenty years.

“And no one sings prettier than your mama.”

Addie pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve to have at the ready. Tears seemed perilously close to the surface.

“Thank you.”

“Adelaide.” Ford looked at her a long moment, then looked away. He leaned forward and rested his threadbare elbows on his knees. He spoke to the trees, but his words were for her.

“I’m sixty-three years old. I was almost forty when I married Julia...when I married your mother. And for five years, I knew...” Ford leaned down and scooped up an acorn that plopped from the tree and rolled near his feet. “...I knew what it meant to be whole.”

Addie watched him play with the acorn. His crooked third finger jutted off at its own angle. His compass finger, he’d called it. Always pointing toward the North Pole. Or so he’d made her believe as a child.

“She wasn’t as old as you when we married. Maybe that was the problem.” Her father tossed away the husk of the hollow acorn. “But I loved her. And I loved...love...you. Never forget that. Even if I go and do something stupid like I did the day you came knockin’ at my door.”

For the first time, Ford sat up straight and looked at Addie. His eyes were the same as she’d remembered. Warm as a hazelnut, and usually merry, if only around the edges.

“Can you forgive me?” He spoke the words like a man awaiting a death sentence. Addie choked and took his hand. Her eyes brimmed with tears that for a moment robbed her of her own words.

“You came to hear me play.” She squeezed his hand and willed him to understand how much that meant to her. That she could forgive him anything now.

But Ford reared back, a stunned look on his face.

“You knew?” His voice rose on an incredulous note.

Now Addie was flustered. “Well, I mean, you’re here, I assumed you came early enough to hear my numbers. I thought you came to hear me play.”

“Oh. Yes, of course I did. Yes. But I knew before I came you’d be spectacular. You see–”

“
How could you possibly know a thing like that? And don’t tell me a parent just...
knows
.” Addie
stood and moved an agitated step away from the park bench. He could know nothing of her violin. Or who she’d grown to be, for that matter. She knew her mother had refused to write him until the day she died. “Don’t you know an empty compliment is worse than no compliment at all?”

Why was she railing at her father? Addie forced a smile and turned. “I mean, all in all, I’m very glad you came this afternoon and I...I truly hope you enjoyed my...my part in the program.”

Ford stood and took Addie’s hand. He was about to speak when he felt the amethyst ring pressing into his palm and looked down. Addie saw his eyes go liquid as he touched the ring with his large, calloused thumb.

“You’re wearing her ring.”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Then your Mother is really...”

Her father was watching her, searching her eyes for an answer, and she realized that he either hadn’t known or hadn’t accepted that her mother was gone. She took his hand in both of hers and squeezed.

“Two years next month. May 16
^th
. Pneumonia. Neither of us expected it.”

She felt his hand tremble in hers, and before she knew what was happening, her father engulfed her in a wrenching hug. She heard nothing, but the fierce lurches of his chest against her shoulders told her he was sobbing.

She hugged him fiercely back, and when at last he was able, he pulled away.

“I always thought...”

The fragile tether that bound her father’s emotions would have snapped had he completed the sentence. But Addie knew the words he couldn’t say. He’d always thought he’d see his Julia again.

“If it helps, Father, I’ve come to think that Mother loved you too much, rather than not enough. So much so that she couldn’t bring herself to speak of you. But often I’d find her gazing out the window, and then she’d be melancholy the rest of the day. I believe her thoughts were more with you than with me on those occasions.”

Her father suddenly turned his head and Addie watched as he struggled to control a monstrous, strangling cough. She dropped her eyes to the path until at last he quieted and turned to her.