“There is a man. And more music.”
Maggie froze, forgetting to breathe.
“He is surrounded by music too. He’s very artistic and creative. Just like you. But just like you, he doesn’t play…he did, but he doesn’t now.”
Disappointment washed over Maggie. It couldn’t be Ren. Like the reading was real anyway. And why should she care one way or the other if it was Ren or not? Sheesh.
“Do you know this man?” Hattie asked suddenly. “Because I feel like you have already met him.”
Maggie automatically shook her head.
“Well, he’s definitely in here,” Hattie said, peering into the cup, like the man was standing at the bottom, waving up at her. “Are you sure you haven’t met anyone in, say, the last week or so? I get the feeling this relationship is very new.”
Maggie nearly laughed. If it was Ren, the relationship was so new, it might as well have never happened.
“No,” Maggie said. “No one.”
“More music,” Hattie shook her head, clearly amazed. “The music is very, very important. That much is clear. And I keep seeing one note in particular. B-flat.”
The hair on Maggie’s arms stood on end, a chill running through her.
That was the key of the sonata she’d thought she’d heard Ren play. But then, that was the key of thousands of songs. But it wasn’t any key or any song. It was that song—and the exact right key.
Hattie shook her head again. “Well, if you haven’t met this man, you will. And the attraction I see here is so strong. Very strong. But I also see that you will be inclined to run away from it. You are scared of it. It isn’t clear, but I get the feeling you should be a little scared. This is very intense.
Your feelings are so powerful.”
Maggie found herself nodding. Part of her wanted to ask more. But she couldn’t quite allow herself to believe what Hattie was saying.
“This man is like no other you have met. He’s wounded in some way. And he’s been alone a long time. That is a lot to handle.”
Hattie looked up from the cup, meeting Maggie’s eyes directly. “Just remember that you can’t cut yourself off from life and love because one person hurt you. You need to take risks. You need to live.”
Maggie nodded again.
“And it’s very clear that music is so important to all this. And not just your work. Your whole world seems surrounded by music.”
Then Hattie held the teacup out to her, tilting it so she could see the smattering of fine black leaves clinging to the sides. Maggie looked in, unsure what she was supposed to be looking at.
She certainly didn’t see any of the things Hattie had mentioned. Not even the musical notes.
With a pen, Hattie used the tip to point at a pattern just below the lip of the cup. “Do you see that?”
Maggie nodded, studying where she pointed.
“This is of great consequence too. The way it’s separated from all the other patterns means it’s very important. But I don’t understand exactly what it means.”
Maggie peered at it, trying to decipher what the shape could be. And just as dawning realization hit her, Hattie said her very thought out loud.
“It looks like a face with long hair. And an eye.”
Immediately Ren’s face was vividly clear in Maggie’s head. Long hair and his eye with the white lashes.
“So, what did your psychic tell you?” Erika asked as soon as they stepped out onto the sidewalk.
Despite the bright sunlight and the ever-present humidity, a chill clung to Maggie’s skin. That had all been too strange. And a little too accurate. A small face with long hair flashed in her mind. The arrangement of leaves could have looked like a dozen different things. But it hadn’t. She and Hattie had seen the very same thing.
“Maggie? Are you okay?”
Maggie nodded, even as another chill prickled her skin. She couldn’t talk about it. Not yet.
Instead she asked Erika what her reading said. She was relieved when Erika excitedly told her.
She was going to have a great year. Her career, as an artist, a sculptor, was going to finally take off. She’d actually have several very successful shows. She’d also meet a new guy.
Maggie hung onto that last prediction, telling herself she was right. All fortune-tellers foretold new loves.
“A blond, dark-eyed prince,” she told Maggie, wagging her eyebrows. “Overall, it sounds like everything is going to fall into place.”
Maggie said something appropriate, although she couldn’t have said what it was a minute later.
“Are you hungry?” Erika asked as they approached a restaurant. The smell of spicy food managed to penetrate Maggie’s frazzled thoughts.
“Sure.” Although she wasn’t the least bit hungry, food would be a good grounding sort of distraction.
“So,” Erika asked again once they settled at a table in a quaint courtyard. “What did your reading say?”
Maggie busied herself with the menu, still reluctant to talk about it. But she knew Erika wouldn’t let it go. She’d have to spill eventually.
Maggie pushed the menu aside and said, “I think that musician from last night was in my cup.”
Erika didn’t look nearly as stunned by the announcement as Maggie was.
“Then I guess we know where we’re going tonight,” Erika said, then turned to place her order with the waiter.
R en’s glance returned to the doorway yet again as another woman entered the bar. Platinum blonde.
Not her.
Today had seemed like an eternity. Quite a statement for a vampire. But he’d been anxious to get here tonight and see if Maggie showed up again.
His sleep should have been an escape from thoughts of her. Slumber was always black and empty. He never dreamed. But even with the relentless, drugging weight of the sun’s rays overhead, dreams had still managed to penetrate the blackness. The enforced rest had been filled with images of a strawberry blonde with green-gray eyes and bow-shaped lips.
As he rose for the evening, surprised and confused by the images, he told himself his subconscious had managed to think of her because of the question she’d asked about the sonata.
How could she know that music? Any print version was long gone. Yet she said she was an authenticator. Of classical music. Was it possible she’d somehow seen it? And where?
He had to know.
It could be dangerous if she somehow tied the music of a composer known as Renaldo D’Antoni to him. Such a discovery would certainly require a lot of explaining on his part.
But in truth, he could handle that. He could manufacture some believable lie. After all, she was hardly likely to think, “Ah-ha, vampire!” That just wasn’t the first explanation a person leapt to.
So if she wasn’t going to piece together that Ren, the Bourbon Street rocker, and Renaldo, the classical composer, were the same person, then why not let all this go? There was no risk, no danger. He should just leave her alone.
His focus returned to the doorway to his left as another group entered. Two guys and a girl with a hairdo that went out of style in the eighties. Or should have.
Not even close to Maggie.
He ignored the sinking disappointment in his belly. Okay, he did wonder about whether she had indeed recognized the music. And he could argue that was the reason he hoped she would return. But did he care that much? Those days were far, far in his past and better forgotten.
His attention snapped back to the doorway as three women stepped into the dim barroom. His pulse jumped as he saw black hair—Maggie’s friend. Then he realized all the arriving women had black hair, and they were Asian.
Another wash of disappointment deadened his hope.
Okay, maybe he also needed to admit that he wanted to see Maggie again too. Something about her—she just drew him.
“Dude,” Drake said after they finished up the song, “you’re doing it again. Josie only goes on a vacation far away once.”
It took Ren a moment to figure out what his bandmate was talking about. Had he really repeated the first line of the Outfield song they were performing? Damn, he knew that song like he knew his own freakin’ name. Better, maybe.
“I’ve been distracted.”
Drake nodded. “I can see that.”
Ren opened his mouth to ask what they should play next, when a prickling of awareness, like needles of both fire and ice, tattooed down his spine. He spun to see Maggie and her friends enter the bar from the left side door.
She glanced up at him, meeting his gaze for a fraction of a second, then she looked back to her friend. The tall, black-haired one. Erika?
He watched as they crossed the room and stood at the bar, facing away from the stage. Waiting for a drink. Pretending not to be back here to see him.
Ren moved to the mic, trying to ignore that he felt almost…euphoric? Euphoric was not an emotion he was familiar with but—he paused, curling his fingers around the mic—yep, it sure seemed like euphoric. Even if she was making a vain attempt to ignore him.
“How are you all doin’ tonight?” He played up his learned southern accent, because people seemed to like it. He wondered if Maggie did.
“I gotta tell y’all, I have a friend here tonight. Hey there, Maggie.”
He nearly chuckled as she spun from the bar to face him, her expression somewhere between stunned and annoyed.
But instead of laughing, he waved.
She didn’t wave back. Instead her wide-eyed gape turned to a frown. She wasn’t happy. And he supposed he couldn’t blame her after the way he’d taken off so abruptly last night.
Damn, he should just leave well enough alone. He should just let her stand there and have a drink, while he ignored her. Then she’d realize he was the same ass from last night and lose interest.
He should do that, but he couldn’t.
Just like he couldn’t stop his eyes eating up the sight of her. Tonight she wore a simple pink blouse with a high seam that nipped in to accentuate her full breasts. She wore faded jeans and boots—with a heel, and he’d bet a hundred bucks that she’d borrowed the boots from one of her friends. Her slight concession to Bourbon Street fashion.
Still, her attire wasn’t remotely risqué, but his body reacted all the same. Damn, she was pretty.
“Ah, now I know why you keep messing up the lyrics,” Drake leaned in to say, wiggling his eyebrows as he followed Ren’s gaze.
Ren didn’t bother to reply. It was true: since laying eyes on this woman, he hadn’t been able to focus on anything else. So what would it really hurt if he went for it and tried to seduce her?
Sure, he was a vampire. Sure, she might, by some weird twist of fate, know the music he composed nearly two centuries ago. In the end, she would be just like all the other women he slept with—a tourist going back to her normal life, leaving him behind on Bourbon Street.
Maggie could not believe her ears. Was Ren actually up there announcing to the whole bar that they were friends? This guy really took blowing hot and cold to a whole new level.
“What is he doing?” Jo asked, obviously as confused by the abrupt change in behavior as Maggie was. He really was impossible to understand.
“So this song is for Maggie.” He smiled at her again, then said something to the guitarist on his right. The music started, but Maggie didn’t immediately recognize the tune.
Maybe this was just his way of apologizing for asking her to wait around only to leave almost as soon as they began to chat. Maybe he realized she’d been embarrassed—which actually made her feel even more embarrassed now.
Then she heard the lyrics.
A violent blush burned her cheeks. She could not be hearing this right. He wanted her to want him? He needed her to need him?
This was a joke, right?
“Subtle,” Jo murmured.
“I think it’s sweet.” Erika practically sighed.
Maggie shot Erika an amazed look, then realized that most of the patrons in the bar were looking at her with the same goofy smile Erika sported.
Maggie’s cheeks burned even more. This was just cruel; a mean joke. It had to be. Nothing that happen between them last night could lead her to believe he could mean any of what he was singing.
Suddenly she was back in another place feeling just as stupid, then too the butt of some colossal joke.
Her cheeks still burned, but now with irritation. God, she was so stupid. To come back here—
because a fortune-teller saw it in a bunch of wet tea leaves.
She didn’t say a word to her friends as she strode past the stage and out the door.
She’d made it a block down the street, past the mechanical swinging legs protruding through the window of one of the many nudie bars, when she heard her name being called. But it wasn’t Jo or Erika as she expected.
She spun, slipping on one of the many strands of Mardi Gras beads that littered the street—even though it wasn’t close to Mardi Gras yet. Obviously another joke by the universe to make her feel stupid. But before she could fall, a strong hand reached out to catch her arm and steady her.
She regained her balance and stared up into hazel eyes, one fringed with white lashes.
“Maggie,” Ren said, not releasing his hold on her, although he loosened his grip. Maybe to let her know he wasn’t going to stop her if she really wanted to go.
She told herself to do just that. Go. But instead she remained still, staring at where his fingers touched her bare skin.
And darn it, her body reacted to him. Even as she felt the burn of humiliation, she also felt the hot tingle of attraction.
“I don’t appreciate you making me the target of some private joke back there,” she said, managing to keep her voice even, despite her embarrassment, despite her arousal.
“I wasn’t,” he said, his own voice sounding sincerely confused.
She stopped staring at his hand and met his gaze. “You’d have to be. There was no other reason to sing that song.”
A small smile curled his lips. “Actually, I can think of one.”
“What?”
“Um,” he said, pretending to consider other motives, “maybe because I’ve never been very subtle.
And I wanted you to know I’m interested in you.”
She stared at him, hardly believing he’d just said that.