Читать книгу Lesson in Romance - Harmony Evans - Страница 11

Chapter 2

Alex shoved his cell phone into his duffel bag, leaned his head against the window and wished he’d never come back to New York. The gray waters of the Hudson River were dappled in the sunlight as his limo traveled north to the Catskills.

The nasal-knife voice of his publicist still rang in his ears. Word had gotten out about the tour. She was going nuts fielding calls from around the tristate area and as far away as Chicago and Los Angeles. Everyone wanted Alex Dovington to read and perform at their school. Local and national media wanted exclusive coverage and personal interviews.

What a joke.

He eased back into the leather seat and reached for the familiar green bottle. Tipping it back, he enjoyed a long swig. If they knew he couldn’t read the label of his favorite beer, or damn near anything else for that matter, they wouldn’t want him.

He closed his eyes and tried not to think about what would happen if people discovered his secret. He could almost see the tabloid headline:

Playboy Dummy!

Harlem’s Hottest Saxophonist Is Illiterate

The familiar anger rose within him and he gritted his teeth against it. No matter how much he’d already accomplished in his career, in some people’s minds, he would be branded as unintelligent. But he wasn’t stupid. He just couldn’t read.

True, there were some words he recognized by sight. Ones he’d picked up over the years just by living life. Women. Sex. Money. Music. Jazz. Bar. Liquor. Nightclub. Police. Beer. ATM. A reluctant grin tugged at his lips. Those were among the most important words in the world. At least in his world.

Everything else was a cloud of letters he could never see through. A jumble of puzzle pieces he could never hope to solve.

The cold beer felt like heaven raining down his throat as he took another long pull. He snuck a glance at Cara. If his teachers had looked like her back when he was in school, he definitely wouldn’t have dropped out in the ninth grade.

She sat diagonally from him, reading a newspaper, one slim leg crossed over the other. Her hair billowed out from her head and cascaded down her back in tiny spirals of brown curls spun with gold. He wondered if it felt as silky as it looked.

She lowered the paper for a moment to turn the page and Alex got another glimpse of her face, although the caramel-colored beauty of it had captured his mind the moment he opened his door and found her standing there.

His eyes roamed down the cream blouse and over the navy skirt, all buttoned-up and properly pressed. They curved down her legs, all the way to the peek-a-boo pump dangling from her left foot as it kicked out a sporadic rhythm. No stockings, he noted with pleasure.

Bare legs, one shoe half off, and the wildness of her hair stirred a crazy kind of longing within him. Hmm, he thought. Maybe she wasn’t all business, all the time.

An image popped into his mind. He pictured her lying beneath him, those gold-brown curls moving like waves over the pillows, her fingers linked with his as he plunged into her. Again and again. Gazing into those soft, almond-shaped brown eyes until they slid shut from pleasure and then—

Her shoe dropped with a soft thud on the carpeted floor. Averting his gaze, he turned his head toward the window and jammed a fist under his chin. He closed his eyes, willed his erection to relax.

Now wasn’t the time to be hot for teacher.

He had to finish his new tune this weekend. On Tuesday morning he was due in the studio to record his ninth, and hopefully not his last, album for Sharp Five Records.

The muscles in his abdomen tightened with dread. Mo “Money Man” Lowenstein, President and COO, was breathing down his neck. Sales of his last two albums were lower than expected and Mo had threatened to release him from the label.

And now he had to worry about learning the ABC’s? His eyes snapped open and he nearly let out a cynical laugh.

Sharp Five Records, one of the largest, most well-respected labels in the music business, specialized in jazz, R&B and world music. Being cut from the artist roster would be a major blow to his career, and there were plenty of cats lined up ready to take his place at a moment’s notice.

He lifted the bottle and grimaced as the now-warm remnants of his beer hit his throat. Although Alex dreamed of starting his own label and developing his own pool of talented musicians, he knew it was an impossible goal.

How many business owners couldn’t read? He gathered the answer was zero, unless they were as good at hiding it as he was.

He sighed and looked out the window at the blur of trees going by. Life was so much simpler when he was playing for change in the 125th Street subway station. He wondered if he’d known back then that the music business was more about business, and less about music, would he be sitting here today?

He thought about the manuscript paper strewn all over his living room floor. It seemed like he’d rewritten the tune a thousand times, but there was still something missing. He’d hit a wall, and whenever he tried to fix it, it sucked even worse than before.

Could the problem be writer’s block? He hoped not. If it were, that would scare him more than losing his recording contract. He knew if he lost the ability to compose music, he just might give up playing forever, because it was the only part of his life where he had complete control.

And if he couldn’t play saxophone and compose, what would he do with his life?

He checked his watch and blew out a breath. They’d been on the road for just over an hour, but it felt like an eternity. And they still had about an hour before they reached Cottage Valley Falls, the town where his home was located.

When they’d gotten into the limo, he’d offered Cara a beer, but she’d refused and chose mineral water instead. And that was the last time they had spoken.

The reason why suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks.

Cara was the first woman, the only woman, who knew he couldn’t read, and it made him feel like he had been caught by his mother with his hands down his pants.

She knew he couldn’t read a menu in a restaurant, the warnings on a bottle of medicine, his royalty statements or countless other things. And that was way too much knowledge for him to be completely comfortable around her.

He frowned and tried not to squirm in his seat, feeling exposed and trapped at the same time. Still he had to find some way to get through this weekend and get back to what was important: making music.

One of the advantages to being a bachelor was he didn’t have to justify anything to anyone. The other good things about being single escaped him for the moment and he chalked it up to jet lag, not the fact just being in Cara’s presence made him want to forget about a lot of things.

Alex studied her, half wishing she’d put the paper down. What was so interesting she had nothing to say to him? It was almost as if she didn’t want to be there, either. Although she’d played down the donation part and seemed excited about teaching him, it could have all been an act.

From the little he’d observed about her so far, she was somewhat aloof but radiated a quiet confidence. She seemed less like a gold digger and more like the type who wrote letters to the editor or maybe even the President of the United States.

Chicka-bow, chicka-bow, chicka-bow-wow. The Commodores “Brick House” broke through the silence in all its polyphonic glory, courtesy of his cell phone.

Kiki. He swore under his breath and saw Cara jerk the newspaper forward, but she still didn’t lower it.

Since he couldn’t read the address book, Tommy had programmed a different ringtone for every person in his phone. The man had quite a knack for choosing just the right tone for the individual.

Steeling himself for an argument, he retrieved the phone from his bag and flipped it open.

The first few seconds of the conversation were pleasant, until he broke their date for that evening. When there was a break in Kiki’s angry tirade, he gave her his standard line and hung up.

Leaning his head against the seat, Alex exhaled in relief. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cara lower the paper, her full lips turned up in a smile.

“What?” he scowled.

“I’ll call you, baby,” she said in a mock gruff voice, then burst out giggling. “I guess she’s pretty upset, huh? I think the tourists in Times Square could hear her yelling.”

Alex shrugged. “She’ll get over it.” They all do, he thought as he watched Cara refold the newspaper. When she finished, it looked like she’d never opened it.

“I hadn’t heard of her. Kiki, wasn’t it? She must be new in your scene.”

His forehead crinkled in mild annoyance, although her curiosity pleased him at the same time.

“What do you do, follow my social life?”

She gave a little laugh, stowed the paper in her briefcase, then cocked her head toward him.

“It’s not difficult. You’re in the press a lot.” She curved the index and middle fingers of both hands for emphasis. “The Bad Boy of Jazz, always dating the latest ‘it’ girl.”

It wasn’t his fault he was popular with the ladies, but for reasons he didn’t understand, he wished Cara wasn’t aware of the celebrity gossip that dogged him like a vulture. He shouldn’t care what she thought about him, but he did.

“So I like to have a good time,” he snapped. “So what?”

She held up a hand. “I’m not hating on your lifestyle. I was just trying to get you to smile. Or at least talk to me. You haven’t said a word since we got in here.”

Alex arched a brow, surprised and inwardly happy she’d noticed. “You were busy reading, so I figured, you know, that we’d each do our own thing.”

Her smile in response lit up the inside of the limo, and his heart. The knot in his stomach loosened a bit, and left him confused and tongue-tied. This woman was riding hard on his emotions and didn’t even know it.

His eyes drifted down to the briefcase by her feet, and he managed to clear his throat. “What paper are you reading?”

She hesitated a moment and it was all he could do to keep from tearing his eyes away from her warm gaze.

“The Harlem Gazette.”

Alex noted her slender arms as she reached for her water bottle. Her wrists were small and he imagined a pearl bracelet would look nice encircled around them. But other than small silver hoops in her ears, she wore no jewelry.

“It’s an independent newspaper that’s been around for over fifty years and one of the first black-owned newspapers in the country,” she added. “I also read the New York Times and the New York Post.”

His heart sank, for he knew those papers all too well. The reviews of his music hadn’t been so glowing lately, but the tabloids were more than willing to publish his picture with a woman hanging off his arm claiming him as her “man.”

None of those women understood that he wasn’t interested in a serious relationship. He was married to his music and his career. No one got in the way. Until now.

He gripped his beer tighter. “I recognized the word Harlem but that’s about it.”

She clapped her hands together. “Good!” Her face lit up like a thousand stars and she leaned toward him. “What other words do you know?”

He opened his mouth to run down the short list, but for some reason didn’t want to risk offending her. She seemed so straitlaced, but not in a nerdy way. On the contrary, the conservative getup was appealing. He wondered if it was real or just for show.

That hair. Those legs. All wrapped up in a very pretty package he didn’t dare touch.

He hedged an innocent smile. “Not too many. A little bit of this, a little bit of that.”

“I see. That’s perfectly normal. It’s not uncommon for adult non-readers to be able to recognize some words.”

“Adult non-reader? Is that what I’m called now?”

“It’s a little awkward-sounding, I know,” she acknowledged with a wan smile.

“It’s better than some of the things I’ve been called.” With a grimace, he faced her and memories flowed into words.

“You know, I used to ride the subway to school and I’d see men and women in suits reading the newspaper. They all looked so smart and so important.”

He swallowed hard, looked past her at the countryside rolling by. Suddenly aware of what he was about to say, he hoped she would stop him from making a fool of himself. But Cara remained silent, patient, waiting for him to continue.

He met her eyes. “Sometimes I’d sneak a peek at what they were reading, and even though the words always looked jumbled up, I couldn’t keep my eyes away. Those letters were like a drug.”

A band of dread, mixed with anger, tightened around his chest as he thought about all the times in his life when he tried to make sense of a word, or a group of words, and failed miserably.

“One morning, I was standing next to this man reading the sports section and I couldn’t stand it anymore. Before I knew what I was doing, I pointed to the caption underneath the picture and asked him what it said.”

Alex felt his spine go rigid and he downed the rest of his beer before continuing.

“He gave me a funny look and said real loud, ‘That’s the guy from the Yanks who struck out last night and lost the game, bottom of the ninth, you can’t read that?’”

Shame hooked its claws and dug into him like it had happened yesterday, and he bowed his head and traced his finger along the top of the beer bottle.

Her voice snuck past the pain. “How old were you?”

“Fourteen,” he replied. “A short time later I stopped going to school.”

It was the only time he’d ever given up on something.

When she didn’t say anything, a knot of embarrassment sank low into his stomach. Avoiding her eyes, he curved his hand around the back of his neck and leaned his elbow against the door.

He felt stupid for confiding in her, a perfect stranger. Yet it was her eyes, caring and warm, that drew him in and caused him to talk about a story he’d never shared with anyone.

Why her? Why now?

He felt a tap on his knee, turned and found Cara sitting right beside him, so close he could smell her perfume, a faint scent of vanilla tinged with rose.

“I want to show you something. May I?”

Before he could respond, she took the empty beer bottle and placed it in a cup holder.

She grabbed his right hand, squeezed it gently. The simple gesture startled him into immediate attention.

“There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet.”

He tried to break contact with her before she noticed that his palms were beginning to sweat, but she held firm.

“I know,” he said, distracted because he really liked the feel of her hand on his. “Even I watched Sesame Street. What’s your point?”

At that moment, she tightened her grasp and leaned in close to him, as if she was about to reveal a dark secret.

“Be patient, I’m getting to it.”

Drawing back, she turned his hand to reveal his palm. He looked down, relieved to see it didn’t look as moist as it felt.

“To start to learn how to read, all you have to remember is that there are five vowels.” Slowly she traced each vowel on his palm with her fingertips.

“A-E-I-O-U.”

He hitched in a breath as each letter became an invisible imprint, fingernail upon flesh, leaving a trail of indescribable sensations radiating from his palm to his fingertips.

“The rest of the letters are called consonants.” She circled her finger in the dip of his palm. “Consonants and vowels work together to form words.”

Alex held his breath as she tugged each fingertip down to his palm until his hand was enclosed inside both of hers, warm and gentle.

“The ability to sound each one out individually, then as a whole, is the basis for learning how to read.”

Their eyes met and he thought he saw a flicker of desire in hers. But when she dropped his hand right away, he dismissed the notion. Cara had a lust for letters, not him.

“That’s it?” his voice doubtful.

“Yes, that’s it!”

He pressed a button on the console in front of him and spoke to his driver. “Hey, Frank! Turn this beast around. It’s back to Harlem, my man, we’re done back here.”

Cara giggled. “No! That’s not what I meant. Of course there’s a lot more to it than that. But at its roots, language is made up of consonants and vowels, kind of like the basic building blocks of music are notes and rhythm.”

Leaning forward, he pressed the button again. “False alarm, keep going.”

He settled back in the seat, eyed her skeptically. “How do you know so much about music? Are you a musician?”

“No.” A shy smile crept across her lips. “Well, maybe. But, I’m just an amateur.”

He formed a square with his fingers and looked through them like a camera, appraising her. “Hmm…let me guess. You’re a singer.”

When she blushed and nodded, he swore. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

He reached for the intercom, but Cara swatted his hand away.

“Do you have a problem with singers?”

He crossed his arms. “Yeah. Too much drama.”

She drew an imaginary halo around her head and batted her lashes like a movie star. “Me? Drama?”

Enchanted, his lips curved. It seemed there might be a playful little devil ready to bust out of all that innocence.

“So you can smile,” she teased. “Was that so bad?”

His smile faded, although it struck him funny how a word or two from Cara could turn his mood from happy to sad and everything in between. He moved away and watched the river flow, as wide and vast as the emptiness in his heart.

Sure he had a great career, plenty of money and had dated some of the most desirable women in the world.

But at what cost?

So far, nothing he’d achieved had erased the guilt he lived with every day. Deep down, he feared learning to read would only make it worse.

* * *

An hour later, Cara woke with a start to discover she’d fallen asleep on Alex’s shoulder. She sat up, her face burning with embarrassment. The driver swerved to avoid a pothole and she yelped in surprise when she crashed back into Alex’s side.

“I guess I should get the driveway paved.” He grabbed hold of the seat. “But I’m not up here too often and I always forget how bad it is until I come back.”

Cara gripped the armrest and righted herself. “I just hope we make it there without cracking our skulls open.”

“Don’t worry.” His thumb jerked up to the ceiling. “It’s padded.”

Her lips twisted. “But my head isn’t.”

The limo bucked and Alex caught her in his arms. “Whoops!”

They laughed uncontrollably as the vehicle continued its wild ride up to his house.

By the time they arrived, her stomach hurt. It had been such a long time since she laughed so hard, she’d forgotten how good it felt.

Alex cleared his throat. “We’re home.”

Her heart did a slow somersault as he held her, the heat from his body enveloping her own. Although his embrace was accidental, it felt purposeful, as if she belonged in his arms.

Her chin tilted up and she saw eyes sparked with interest that went beyond a hearty laugh. He ran a finger down her cheek, dislodging a strand of hair stuck there, stroked it briefly, let it fall against her.

She broke away, trembling, and slid to other side of the limo. Warning bells went off in her head, and she had no one but herself to blame.

What had she been thinking, tracing letters on his palm and fingertips in a way that would have made Big Bird blush?

Excitement darted up her spine remembering the feel of his hand in hers. His palm, slightly rough around the edges but soft in the middle, the fingertips callused from years of playing the saxophone.

She’d never done anything like that before. But the grace of her touch hadn’t lasted long. Almost as quickly as he opened up, he shut her out again. Yet just then he didn’t seem to mind having her in his arms.

What was happening between them?

The driver opened up the door and she stepped out, wide-eyed. With its rough-hewn logs, wraparound porch and gabled roof, the quaint little cottage was the perfect mountain hideaway. She fell in love with it at first sight, but her heart raced again at being in such close quarters with Alex.

The air was cooler here than in Harlem. Smelled better, too. Rubbing her arms, her nose twitched as she inhaled the heady evergreen scent of giant fir trees that surrounded the cottage. Somewhere nearby a stream gurgled, completing the Zenlike setting.

Alex appeared at her side, instrument case in hand. “What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful.”

His hazel eyes brightened. “Thanks. C’mon. I’ll show you around.”

He guided her by the elbow as they walked. Her heels teetered over the pebbled walkway. Her heart raced anew at his touch.

Was it her imagination or did his hand linger before he released her elbow to unlock and open the front door?

He showed her the gourmet kitchen, the powder room and the laundry room. With an inner frown, she realized there were no pictures of family or friends here, either. Although everything was model-home neat with modern furniture and artwork, it still felt empty. Did Alex feel it, too?

He picked up their bags and they ascended the stairway to the second floor. “This is the guest room.” He set her belongings down and pointed down the hallway. “My bedroom is down there and the bathroom is in the middle. There’s a linen closet halfway with plenty of towels and soap. I’ll leave you to unpack.”

Cara nodded and stepped inside the tiny room. Jets of sunlight poured through curtained windows. Besides a dresser and a small nightstand, the bed took up the most space.

It’s big enough for two.

Closing her eyes, she indulged in an intimate fantasy of her and Alex on it, doing everything but sleeping.

“Are you okay? You look like you’re going to fall asleep standing up.”

She whirled around, her left breast grazing his bare arm, and nodded.

“I—I guess I’m still a little tired from the drive.”

Stepping back, she crossed her arms, trying to ignore the exquisite tingling radiating through her chest. Time stopped while his eyes scooped and swept over her body like a pleasure bandit, leaving a trail of tight nipples and heat smoldering in her belly. The room seemed to shrink into nothing but unmet need.

Alex cleared his throat. “Ready for lunch? Frank drove up yesterday and stocked the kitchen for the weekend.”

“Sounds great,” she replied, relieved he broke the silence. “After we eat, we must get started. There’s a lot of ground we have to cover.”

Alex grunted low and frowned as if to say, “Not that again!” and left the room, closing the door behind him.

She changed into jeans and a scoop-necked blouse, then flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling, shaken and frustrated by the encounter.

What was his deal? He’d start to relax, but when she brought up the reason why they were here, he clammed up. She wanted to believe it was only fear. But what if it wasn’t?

She didn’t understand him at all, nor did she understand her physical reaction to him. And at this point, she wasn’t sure which was worse.

While it was normal for her to care about her students, her feelings for Alex had begun to brew a long time ago. With him, her concern didn’t start with paperwork. It started with a plea for justice.

Thirteen years had passed since her father, Crawford Williams, a powerful New York City judge known for his tough rule, had sent Alex’s brother Michael to prison.

As always, tears sprang to her eyes whenever she recalled the day she learned her father was responsible for breaking up families across the city.

She had been flipping through the channels, doing her homework and eating dinner, alone as usual, when she caught the tail end of a television news story.

In it, a mother was giving a statement to a reporter on the courthouse steps. Through her tears, the woman told him that she’d written a letter to her father requesting leniency for her son.

“Did the judge even read it?” she said with a shriek that tore at Cara’s heart. “I asked him at my son’s sentencing. He wouldn’t answer and threatened me with contempt of court. If he’d read it, he’d know Michael is innocent!”

She started weeping harder, and a sullen young man Cara learned later on was her son Alex put his arm around her and led her down the steps.

She remembered the reporter turning to the camera, his voice grim. “There goes another casualty of Judge Williams’s notorious crackdown on gangs.”

She sat riveted in front of the screen as he continued. “Neighborhoods are safer, but at what price? With sons and daughters, brothers and sisters behind bars, New York families are suffering through harsh jail sentences handed down by Williams that apparently no amount of letter writing or phone calls can take away.”

Cara remembered racing up the stairs to her father’s office in disbelief, praying that what she heard was all a mistake.

Although aware of her father’s stance against gang-related activity, she didn’t dwell on it or anything having to do with his job. Whenever he was home and talked about his cases, she feigned interest just to please him. He was under the impression she wanted to be an attorney, when all she really wanted him to do was love her.

She found the letter on his desk and was horrified to see more stacked in a box, some opened, some not.

In it, Alex’s mom described how she and her son were devastated by his brother Michael’s incarceration. Although no details of the case were given, the purpose of the letter was clear: a desperate plea for leniency that was ultimately ignored.

The anger and pain of Alex’s mother so mirrored her own feelings about her father that the next day she told him she wanted to be a teacher. By sharing her love of learning with young people, perhaps she could make a difference. Heal people’s hearts, not hurt them, like her dad did so well.

He never forgave her.

Even now, the hollowness she’d felt that day hit her full force, leaving her sick to her stomach.

She wrapped her arms around her pillow and thought about the special bond she’d felt with Alex ever since. In the letter, his mom had mentioned that both Alex and Michael were musicians. For years, she had watched Alex’s career blossom, listened to his music and followed his love life, while he didn’t even know she existed.

A lump welled in her throat at the irony of it all. A tragedy in his life had prompted her to make a positive change in her own that had eventually benefited hundreds of people.

She thought of the challenges many of her students faced. Heart-wrenching, gut-twisting situations most people couldn’t imagine were an everyday part of their lives. Homelessness, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, joblessness, not to mention low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy. Whatever their plight, it was often related to their illiteracy.

Her students came to Beacon House with the hope and desire to change their lives. It was her mission to help them get there. She wanted to do more, needed to do more, but without the necessary funding she was strapped.

Hot tears streamed down her face and she swiped them away, feeling helpless and overwhelmed. Lately her emotions were running higher than ever. But at least now she had a chance to make things right again.

She hugged the pillow and turned toward the window.

Teaching Alex to read was critical to the future of Beacon House, and he wasn’t going to make it easy. She had to figure out some way to get past his fear and reach him.

She thought for a moment. He had a job he loved, money and worldwide acclaim. But there had to something he was unable to do. Some dream he’d never achieved because of his illiteracy. She just needed to find out what it was…and fast.