Crimson and Clover (29 page)

Despite her best intentions, she’d only been able to spend one day with Jay in London before he left for America. Two, if she counted the plane ride to New York, and she didn’t. He’d kissed her goodbye at JFK before rushing off to catch his connecting flight to Chicago and she hadn’t seen or talked to him since.

Smoothing her hair, she jumped up and padded into the hall in her stocking feet. Jay turned from locking the door and gave her a smile she thought was somewhat diminished considering they’d had no contact in almost four months.

She slipped her arms around his waist and kissed his neck. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

“So am I.” Accompanying his less-than-ecstatic smile was a hollow note in his voice.

Concerned, Katie pulled back and tried to catch his eye. “Baby, did everything go okay?”

“I suppose so.” He bent and lifted his extra-large suitcase with a grunt of effort. “Only it’s all over.”

“You mean the tour?” Her brow furrowed in confusion.

“The tour, yes. And the band.” Shoulders hunched, he put a foot on the bottom stair.

“The … Jay! What the hell happened?”

The suitcase bumped to the floor and Jay sat heavily on a riser. “Adam happened,” he said in that hollow voice. “Just before we boarded the plane to come home, he announced he’s leaving the group to go solo.”

Katie wobbled over to him on weak knees and dropped down beside him. “That egotistical son of a bitch.”

“That has to be the understatement of the year,” Jay sighed. “It was a shock, yes, but not too bad. We could always find another singer. During the flight I went over a list in my head of all the singers we could ask. I even thought of asking you. Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” he added as she opened her mouth to protest. “As it turns out, I won’t need a singer because Nicky and Stuart cornered me after we landed to tell me they’re leaving, too. They’re going to work more on that synthesizer bullshit.”

“They … ” Words failed her as what he’d said sunk in and she could only gape at him.

“And George,” he continued in a monotone. “He looked like he’d just been knighted by the Queen. The way he behaved you’d have thought we’ve been keeping him prisoner the past three and a half years. He grabbed his bags, waved goodbye and split. So that’s it.”

“Oh, baby.” Katie’s frozen muscles thawed with pity and she pulled his head to her shoulder. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” His hair tickled her neck as he shook his head. “I haven’t really had time to take it all in. Still in shock from my band telling me they don’t want to work with me anymore, I guess.”

She hurried to implement damage control. “I don’t think that’s it. They just want to do different kinds of music, that’s all.”

“That’s enough. They made it perfectly clear they don’t need me to do it.” With a sigh he rose, hefted his suitcase again and trudged up the stairs, leaving Katie sitting in shock.

• • •

“I can’t do this.” Katie tossed the papers she held onto the coffee table of the suite she’d rented at the Plaza Hotel. She’d been staring at documents for fifteen minutes, unable to make heads or tails out of the jumble of words printed on them. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Maureen bit her lip and exchanged a glance full of meaning with Stephanie. Katie looked back and forth between the two of them, frowning with irritation. “What is it? I saw that look.”

“Don’t get your feathers ruffled, darling,” Stephanie soothed. “It didn’t mean anything.”

“Actually, maybe it did.” Maureen’s blue eyes fixed on Katie with an intensity Jay Carey would have envied. “You don’t want to be here, do you?”

In spite of the complete turn-around in Maureen’s attitude regarding Katie’s importance to Jay since Shadowed Knight broke up, Katie was surprised at the question. “No, I don’t. I want to go home to Jay. I hated leaving him only two weeks after those assholes bailed on him like that, and I tried to get him to come with me but he wouldn’t. He kept saying I didn’t need him and he’d be fine.”

“But he’s not fine.” Maureen squeezed her hand in understanding. Incensed at the way the others had walked out on Jay, Maureen had turned into one of his staunchest defenders, doing everything short of instructing the twins’ nanny to look after him. She probably would have done that, too, if he’d have let her. “He did rather have the stuffing knocked out of him all at once.”

“He sure as hell did.” Hot tears filled Katie’s eyes. “I want to go home and be with him. In fact, I just want to go home and stay there.” Maureen’s face was blurry seen through the tears. “He’s been taking all these drugs. He doesn’t really do enough to get hooked, but he used to be like me — we both hated that out of control, disoriented feeling. He usually avoids them, but he’s been experimenting with a lot of them since … And he’s drinking a lot more. I mean a whole lot.” The time she’d told him in anger that he should count more on drugs and alcohol had come back to haunt her. “I want to go home and take care of him. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Oh, Katie. I know. I’ve been bloody selfish for far too long, but Jay really does need you now much more than I do. You need to take care of him and make him stop all these nasty things he’s into.” Maureen gathered Katie in her arms and Stephanie embraced her from behind.

Sheltered by her two best friends, Katie let the tears come. She’d tried to remain strong and positive for Jay, but she couldn’t keep up the façade anymore. The tears she shed were those of relief, relief at not having to deal with a business she no longer cared about and relief at maybe having the chance to get her life with Jay straightened out. From the moment they’d met, Jay had been consumed with the formation of Shadowed Knight and then the ongoing success of the band. If he wasn’t in the studio, he was rehearsing. If he wasn’t rehearsing, he was on tour. Katie had been involved with the launch of MKS and all the attendant headaches that went with it. They’d never had the chance to just relax and be with each other without constant demands pulling at them.

“We would never push you out,” Stephanie murmured against Katie’s back. “Never think that, love.”

“It was never what you wanted to do, anyway.” Maureen ran her hand over Katie’s hair in a soft, soothing motion. “You only got into it to help me out and I’ll be forever grateful. But now I’m going to help you by buying you out and letting you go.”

Katie sobbed harder at their kind words, their loving arms. With each tear, another heavy weight lifted from her heart leaving her lighter and more optimistic than she’d been in years.

“Go home to him.” Stephanie kissed the back of her head. “Go take care of him and make him happy.”

Maureen leaned back enough to smile into Katie’s eyes. “And let him make you happy, too.”

Sunlight shone through the door to the sun porch and lay in a blinding block on the wood of the living room floor. Katie stepped into it and felt the warmth caress the tops of her feet. She slipped on her sunglasses, entered the glass-walled room and shivered as the subtropical heat trapped there chased away the air-conditioned chill from her skin. After a moment to let her body adjust, she made her way across the room and opened the door that gave on the patio. Her body stiff with tension, she stood with her eyes downcast before stepping outside. With a deep breath she looked up, and then sighed with relief. The tulips were gone.

The heat radiating from the patio went through the soles of her rubber flip-flops as if she was barefoot and she scampered across the hot stones to reach the cool sanctuary of the lawn. It was twenty degrees cooler in the shade of a large oak and she let her breath out in relief. Kicking off her footwear, she lowered herself to the cool grass. The white roses surrounding the patio rioted in the sunshine, reflecting the light so brightly it hurt her eyes, even through her sunglasses.

At least the row of pink tulips Jay had planted as a surprise for her had died off; even their spiky leaves had been cut away by the gardener, as if they’d never been there. Of course, the bulbs were still in the ground storing up energy until they would bloom again in spring. But Katie could bear the thought of them sleeping in the earth as long as she didn’t have to see them.

It had been two months since she returned from New York to find that Jay had left her without explanation. He’d taken all his clothes, but his guitars remained in their cases in the game room. He’d left no note and hadn’t contacted her since. Numb with shock, Katie hadn’t left the house in those eight weeks, too terrified to move for fear something even worse was waiting for her.

Two days after her return home, she’d looked out the window into the garden, thinking her own yard had to be safe. Anything had to be better than the memories that assaulted her around every corner in the house; or so she’d thought, until the sight of those damned tulips almost brought her to her knees. She’d turned away from the window and hadn’t looked toward the garden again, even after she knew the tulip’s growing season had ended.

That was one more thing Jay had taken from her; her favorite flowers. She lay back on the grass and sighed. Now she couldn’t even go into her own garden until the tulips were as dead as her heart.

The gentle rattle of glass that heralded the door opening made her sit up, her heart beating with anticipation and a jolt of adrenaline that made her nerve endings sing. As always, her hopes were dashed when she saw it wasn’t Jay. But her heart continued to pound, this time in surprise as she recognized the tall figure of Stuart Brady. She hadn’t spoken to him since just before she’d left for New York when she called to yell at him for a good half-hour over the way he left Shadowed Knight. That last conversation had ended when she’d hung up on him with such force the receiver cracked.

Wondering why he’d come, she observed him closely, hoping to get a clue. The beard and mustache he’d grown suited him, gave him an air of piratical swagger, and she couldn’t help but grin. Seeing it, he grinned back.

“Mind if I join you?”

Remembering that she was supposed to be mad at him, her voice grew cool. “Be my guest.”

Stuart plopped down with a sigh and lay back with his arms crossed behind his head, the mirrored surface of his sunglasses reflecting the leaves of the tree. She waited for him to speak, to offer an explanation to his presence, but he remained mute. With a mental shrug, she turned to him, determined to play nice.

“How are you doing?” she asked at the same moment he posed the same question to her. Startled at their unintentional duet, they laughed. “You first,” Katie told him, smiling as her long-held grudge melted away. Staying mad at Stuart was impossible, not to mention stupid and unnecessary.

Stuart sighed, but a small smile lingered on his lips. “I’m okay. Just takin’ it day by day.”

Katie bit her bottom lip. “Still working with Nicky?”

A brief shrug moved his shoulders. “Yeah. Don’t know if it’ll go anywhere, but we’re keepin’ on.” He turned his head toward her. “Now your turn.”

Katie lay back down, her hands on her stomach. “I’m not okay.”

“I didn’t think you would be,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “You shouldn’t be.”

His was the first honest reaction she’d got since Jay decamped. She much preferred it to the constant refrain she’d feel better in time, given in that tone reserved for those having suffered the death of a loved one. She glanced at him with a faint flicker of hope. “Do you know where he is?”

“No, babe, I’m sorry.”

The flicker was extinguished. “Would you tell me if you did?”

He rose up on an elbow and stared at her, mouth open. “Of course I would, Katie! What do you take me for?”

“Sorry.” She shook her head. “I just have a hard time trusting anyone these days.”

“Especially me.”

Katie’s eyes darted to his face, but he was looking across the garden toward the pool. Those ridiculous shades still hid his eyes and she wished she could see his expression. “That’s over, Stuart. That kind of petty drama doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”

He snorted and waved a languid hand. “And yet the melody lingers on.”

“Not for me. Life, such as it is, is too short for all that shit.”

His sunglasses looked down at her. “Really?”

She nodded. “Really.”

After a moment, he nodded. “Thank you, Katie.”

Her smile was reflected in his shades. “You’re welcome.”

Betraying how uncomfortable he was with the turn in the conversation, Stuart cracked his knuckles. “Last I heard, Jay was in Bombay.”

“Mm-hm.” Her mouth tightened with irritation for an instant. “I heard that, too. Last week, I think it was.”

“Has he not called you at all?” A note of anger colored Stuart’s voice.

“Nope. His mom told me about India. I didn’t bother asking her how she found out and she didn’t offer to tell me.” Katie made a rude noise. “Fuck all the Careys.”

Stuart lay back down, and cleared his throat. “Now that we’ve dived right into treacherous waters, can I pry?”

Katie laughed. “Might as well. I’m in no mood to be evasive, so pry away.”

“Okay. What the fuck happened?”

An indelicate snort was her only answer.

“I mean,” he continued. “Was it because … well, because the band broke up?”

She cut her eyes at him. “Partly. Y’all did him a dirty turn, Stuart, and it really hurt him.”

He pushed his sunglasses on top of his head and Katie could see the sadness in his eyes. “Man, I was afraid of that. I really wish we’d done it differently, I really do. All of us bugging out on the same day, well that was harsh.”

“Harsh?” Despite her words to the contrary, Katie felt a slow anger begin to burn in her belly. “He made you bozos superstars and that’s the way you thanked him. If it wasn’t for Jay, Nicky and Adam would still be playing in fifth-rate underground bands and you’d still be working as an auto mechanic.” She ignored his wince of guilt. “He made you famous, he made you rich, and you all just tossed him aside when you were through with him, leaving him thinking he wasn’t needed. Sorry, but harsh doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

“Oh, God; you’re right, Katie.” Stuart covered his eyes with one hand. “What a bunch of ungrateful assholes we are.”