Trapped Under Ice (39 page)

“Yeah, I know,” he groused. “Just let me try one more time, Beth?” he begged, sounding just like the ten-year-old he was challenging.

“Sure, go ahead. Just remember, rock star,” she whispered flirtatiously, “you’re going home with me tonight.” She flashed her eyes at him in that way, making his heart do the rumba as she left with a come-hither smile. He just about put his guitar down and followed her, but Patty taunted him again.

“Maybe I should just go get my baby brother. Maybe he’d give me some competition.”

“You’re going down, Chump,” Chad countered, adjusting the strap of his guitar.

An hour and a half later, Beth and Roger and the gang noticed it being perceptively quieter in the living room. “I wonder where everyone went,” Beth mused out loud.

All of a sudden, they heard a roar go up from downstairs.

“What the hell?” Roger exclaimed. He looked at her with a smile, and they both took off, climbing over the coffee table to beat each other to the door to the basement. A hip-check putting her in the lead, Beth reached the bottom of the stairs with Roger, Susie, and Pete bringing up the rear.

They couldn’t even step down on the floor because her whole family was gathered wall-to-wall, standing room only, watching Chad rock out on Guitar Hero. Finally getting a hang of the timing, he wasn’t even really watching the notes any more as they flew across the screen on expert mode. Patty stood with his mouth agape, but his eyes gazing in awe at the rock god his uncle turned out to be.

“Wait till I tell the guys about this!” he shouted jubilantly.

“Has he always been this much fun?” Susie asked Beth.

“No,” Roger answered for her. “Before he met Beth, he was a real ass.”

“A
real
ass,” Pete seconded.

“Oh no, he wasn’t,” Beth chided.

“Yes, he was!” the two argued in unison.

Chad glanced up and caught sight of Beth on the bottom step. RREERT. An off-note sounded. “Okay, show’s over,” he announced, his expression guilty. “I need to spend some time with your Aunt Beth.”

“Aww. Come on, Uncle Chad. One more.”

“Yeah,” came a general murmur, “one more.”

He looked at Beth and shrugged, a huge grin on his face.

“Yeah, babe,” she shouted over the crowd, “one more.” She smiled at him with a mixture of fondness and pride.

Without need for further urging, he ripped into another song.

An hour later, Beth was on her way to the bathroom when a pair of strong arms reached out and pulled her into a bedroom. Chad saw her coming before she spotted him, and ducked into the bedroom where coats of various sizes and designs lay in a colorful heap on the bed. Once in the room, he pressed her against the wall with his body, hands on either side of her on the wall, kissing her until she was breathless.

“Ummm,” she moaned, “what are you doing to me?”

He grinned. “Being Thanksgiving and all, I just wanted to show you how thankful I was for you.”

“Oh really?” she said, kissing him back and smiling.

“Seriously,” he pulled away and regarded her in earnest. Touching her hair, he began singing, without accompaniment, his newest song, which she hadn’t yet heard. He sang to her, his face still inches from hers, his eyes never leaving her face.

Before you, I was a lost soul

Wandering around, my heart with a hole

I’d have fun with my friends

But when it came to an end

I had no one to rehash the day with

No one just to lie with

Making our music in the dark

Just you and me

Making our music in the dark

Before you, I lived, my life barren

No one to take joy or to share in

The good times I had with my friends

But when it all came to an end

I had no one to rehash the day with

No one just to lie with

Making our music in the dark

Just you and me

Making our music in the dark

With you I can share my private thoughts

And get into trouble just to get caught

You’re the insider to all my inside jokes

And you fix whatever inside of me is broke

Before you I had no one to wink at

No one to even make me think that

My life could be more than just empty

Because now you’re here you just tempt me

Making our music in the dark

Just you and me

Making our music in the dark

And now I’ve found my home in you

No one else will do

I’ll spend my whole life through

Making love to you

Making our music in the dark

Just you and me

Making our music in the dark.”

Chad drank in her face as he sang, ending with his heart in his throat. Beth shattered the ice that held his heart for so long, and he was never more thankful to have her to love.

As he sang, he turned Beth inside out. He had the curious ability to be a goof one minute and to set her heart racing the next. She never thought she could have a second chance at love, or that someone would be able to break through the guard she put around her heart when Paul died, but she was so incredibly thankful Chad did.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

M. J. Schiller lives in the Midwest with her husband, four children, and cat, Serena, who is her writing/napping partner. When not stirring up trouble as a lunch lady (coincidence? You decide.) she is a slave to/worshipper of her laptop. Her first book,
Taken by Storm
, was published by Crimson Romance this past fall. She loves to attend concerts, karaoke, and nap (oh yeah, that’s already covered.) She is from St. Louis, went to school at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and now resides somewhere in the middle of the cornfields of Central Illinois. Find out more about her at
www.mjschillerauthor.blogspot.com
, and look for her next book,
Abandon All Hope,
the second in the Rocking Romance Collection, early this summer.