Lure of Song and Magic (23 page)

Oz pounded his head on the tiny closet door as he pondered this unwelcome insight. She'd damned well nearly seduced half his staff just reading a kid's book with her mesmerizing Voice. They hadn't been able to stop talking about the story since. They would probably walk on water for her.

He'd tried playing “The Silly Seal Song” for them while Pippa was away, using Conan's computer files—and they'd responded with shrugs. Oz was afraid that might be a problem.

Like Pippa's eyes, her siren Voice might not translate well into artificial mediums. Or maybe, as she had warned, the song's message could only be heard by children.

He was trying very hard not to consider the ramifications if her book reading and a recording didn't lure Donal out of the audience.

Setting Syrene loose on a stage wasn't happening. Even he couldn't ask that of her.

Chapter 29

Pippa was stirring grated mozzarella into scrambled eggs when Oz walked in carrying his travel mug of coffee and aiming for her shower. With only a water tank for his RV, he'd commandeered the use of her facilities all week. She wasn't surprised by his appearance now—except for the way his jaw had set with determination.

When he emerged from her bathroom, hair still wet from the shower, he was wearing his earring—apparently a signal that he was off duty. Judging from the faded jeans and Metallica T-shirt, she assumed his mulish mood had nothing to do with business. Which meant he'd set his stubborn sights and productive mind on her. Interesting that she had begun to understand him so well.

“Good morning, Gloria.” He acknowledged her mother setting the table for the three of them. “Do you mind if I borrow Pippa for the day?”

“No, of course not, dear. I had assumed you would have plans for the weekend. I am quite capable of entertaining myself.” She straightened the colorfully striped placemats, removed a wilting daffodil from the vase on the table, and began setting out glasses of orange juice.

Pippa loved sharing the beauty of her few carefully selected possessions with her mother. Oz, on the other hand, had a tendency to crash through her fragile existence with the carelessness of the proverbial bull.

She eyed him skeptically now. “I didn't know we had plans.”

“Big ones,” he said in satisfaction, refilling his mug with the coffee Gloria had made with the pot he'd provided. “We're going to ride a Ferris wheel, maybe a carousel. Do you Rollerblade? Bicycle?”

Pippa set aside her skillet and gaped at him. “Whose plans are these? I don't remember making them.”

“Do you want to sit here and fret all weekend? I don't think the set crew would appreciate it if we arrived to help them paint backdrops.”

Ferris wheel.
Santa
Monica
. He had no work left to do and wanted to take her to his place for the weekend to keep him occupied. The beginning of the end, though, Pippa knew. After Monday, their relationship—or whatever it was—would be over. There would be no more reason for Oz to travel up here once production was in place.

And she would have to show him that she could not exist in his world. She'd hoped for just a little more time…

She'd survived without a man in her life all these years. She could do it again. Might as well make the break clean.

“I bicycle. I Rollerblade. I haven't done either in years. What about you?” She scooped eggs on his plate, added Oatnut toast, a hydroponically grown tomato, a slice of mozzarella, and a fresh basil leaf.

“Not in years,” he agreed, studying the selection while taking his seat.

His
seat. He'd already carved a niche in her home. He'd bully his way deeper if she wasn't careful. Oz
used
people, she reminded herself. He was an exploiter. And he was using her now, but she understood his need and sympathized. It had to be hard, surviving these next few days, praying and hoping he'd find his son at the end of them.

“I just thought we could start in the hills and work our way down to the pier,” he continued nonchalantly, taste-testing her Italian breakfast.

Start with uncrowded trails and work their way down to the mobs, he meant. Pippa ladled eggs on the remaining plates and placed her pan in the sink to soak. Steam hissed from the hot metal as the water hit it.

“I'm not afraid of people,” she said. “It's irrelevant where we start.”

“Fine. I'll arrange for bicycles. Maybe concert tickets for the evening. Bring an overnight bag.” He blithely bit into his toast.

Oz's dark eyes taunted her, challenging her to back down. Pippa wanted to bop him over the head with the skillet. “Fine,” she retorted in the same tone. “Arrange for an ambulance and police cars while you're at it. And a better getaway vehicle than a bike.”

His grin had an edge to it. “Think highly of ourselves, do we? I won't let anything happen to the talent. I'm not forgetting we have a show to do.”

Of course he wasn't. He was simply looking for a way to stay occupied, and he'd chosen a high-drama method to keep the adrenaline flowing.

She just nodded, chewed her toast, and worked out an appropriate disguise for the death of a relationship.

***

Pippa wore black, not a California color even in March. Oz assumed there was some significance to her choice, but he'd rather admire how she fit into spandex. The bike shorts featured a yellow racing stripe down the sides that matched the Tweety Bird image on her loose black T-shirt. She'd inked glare-preventing streaks beneath her eyes as if she were a ballplayer and carted a black bike helmet under her arm. He'd almost bet she had goggles in her backpack.

“Don't want to get noticed much?” he asked sardonically as he shouldered the backpack and led the way through the courtyard.

“This is me being me,” she declared. “If you don't like it, you can leave me here.”

Okay, he got that message. “That's Syrene hiding behind an attitude,” he retorted. “I'm betting Pippa never went to the pier.”

“Pippa grew up in the desert with a couple who couldn't afford to adopt her until she earned enough money to make it worth their while. Of course she didn't go to the pier. And even after we moved to L.A., Pippa didn't have time to play.”

“Then it's time Pippa reclaimed her childhood. Pretend we're sixteen and dating.”

“Robbie and I didn't date,” she informed him as they traversed the walk to the parking lot. “We hung out together on a concert tour, worked at the same studio, and got married in Vegas when we had a couple of hours to spare. I have no idea what one does on a date.”

“We look for places where we can make out,” Oz said, leering, when he really wanted to take all the people in her life and slam their collective heads together.

“You're not thinking sex right now,” she perceptively countered. “Your eyes go almost black like that when you're ready to lay someone flat.”

“I don't go around laying people flat. Except maybe you, but I like to think that's consensual.” He gripped her elbow to steer her over a rock outcropping and because he wanted to touch her.

Despite her tough attitude, she still seemed frail to him. He had difficulty juggling his need to comfort the little girl she'd never been and to back off from the prickly woman who would remove his testicles if he encroached too far. She kept him on his toes, at least.

“Maybe we should just have a sparring match and whoever remains standing gets to make all the decisions today,” she suggested, echoing his thoughts.

“I like that idea. Let's remember it for the future. No matter how it plays out, I can't lose.” He'd had his assistant deliver the Porsche after he'd driven the RV up here. He opened the door and helped Pippa into the passenger seat and then dropped her backpack in the trunk. He was hoping she'd packed something silky and sexy in that ratty old bag.

“You're on,” she agreed when he took his place behind the wheel.

Despite the ugly costume, she smelled of the subtle rose lotion he'd learned she used on her face. And he'd used on other parts of her. He smiled, gunning the engine. He needed to replace her supply. And see if they made oils in the same scent.

If he thought about sex, maybe he wouldn't have to think about what he was really doing—falling for a woman who hated his life.

“I choose to live in the hills because I don't like the city, you realize,” she said, reading his mind as she had a bad habit of doing. “I don't like crowds or traffic or designer clothes or shopping.”

“You're not Alys, I get that,” he agreed, steering onto the narrow two-lane mountain road that kept her home isolated from the city. “But the city has other attractions. I'm just showing you a few. We'll have fun.”

He didn't turn to catch the knowing smile he knew was flirting around that luscious mouth of hers. Practically living together for two weeks had to be about the same getting-to-know-each-other rate as months of meeting in restaurants and falling into the sack for a quickie before running to make a morning meeting. He
knew
the damned woman and how her mind worked.

And he'd never know all of her. Pippa held secret facets that fascinated him. Every time he thought he had her pinned, she hit him with a new surprise. And he liked that, which amazed even him. Had anyone asked, he would have said he preferred routine. And he would have been wrong.

“I promise to have fun,” she said solemnly.

He punched the CD button and let a rap song fill the interior. She leaned over and hit Skip, changing the CD until it returned to the Anonymous Four she'd heard the first time he'd taken her off this mountain.

Oz opened the console, revealing his CD selection for her perusal. She purred with delight and began rummaging through his titles. Before long, she had an entire repertoire of beach music filling the rack.

“Mood music,” she declared.

“You really haven't listened to music all these years?” he asked with incredulity when she slipped into a blissful fugue as the car filled with an old rock beat. “Not even an iPod?”

“I hear music and I sing,” she said with a shrug. “It's like falling into water and swimming. I can't not do it—unless it's that ugly stuff you had in there. Rap may be poetry, but it's not music. I need melody.”

He fretted over that all the way down the mountain—while she merrily harmonized with surfing songs. He wasn't certain that she wasn't happier singing than having sex. She beamed and glowed as if she contained her own private sun. And the music filling the car had more life and soul than a choir of angels accompanied by a gospel chorus.

He wanted to take her home and make love to her all day and night. He wanted to put her on a stage and make the world a better place. He wanted to bicycle recklessly down a mountain, singing beside her.

She was a siren. And he was supposed to be immune.

He'd closed his heart, and she made him see what a cold place he'd lived in. He wasn't as immune as he'd thought. How must she affect others?

Oz thought he ought to bang his head against the steering wheel, but that would merely convince Pippa she was right, that she was dangerous. And he had to admit, she was damned dangerous. People would weep if they couldn't have what she offered in her Voice. The power and beauty of her music could melt rocks. He'd bet that keeping her Voice undercover all these years had merely increased the power of it. She'd cause riots if she used it now. And singing was as natural to her as breathing.

By the time he parked the car in the lot at the foot of the biking trail, Oz couldn't restrain his need to kiss her. He dragged Pippa halfway across the console and, despite the awkward position, claimed her mouth, her tongue, her kisses until his head spun with desire and she was practically yanking him back across the console into her lap.

Someone rapped the hood of the car, jarring them back to reality. “Sixteen,” he muttered. “We really are adolescents.”

She snickered. “Necking, and it's not even dark. Shame on you.”

“It's not your Voice,” he warned. “It's you. Your Voice is you. I hear
you
. I want
you
. So don't give me that siren crap.”

“Yes, sir, wouldn't think of it, sir,” she agreed with a laugh. “Is that your bicycle person waiting for us?”

Still shaken by his uncharacteristic desire to show the world this treasure he'd discovered, Oz climbed out of the car and met the bike rental guy. He'd wanted a distraction until they could drive to Bakersfield. In Pippa, he'd found it. He couldn't even think right now.

He wasn't thinking much better a little while later as they biked into the hills of the Canyon. Watching Pippa's slender hips pumping in tight shorts was sufficient to spin his head around backward, and he thought the image of her ass might be permanently emblazoned on his brain. He was trying to bicycle with a boner! She hummed as she biked, occasionally breaking out into one of the songs she'd heard in the car.

Oz watched as other bikers raced toward them, came in range of her Voice, and toppled into the sagebrush, unable to pedal straight while turning to stare. After each incident, she'd shut up for a little while, until they were on a clear stretch, and then she'd sing out her joy again. Until some fool raced over a hill and nearly plowed into them.

“There are too many people here,” Oz griped after the spectator righted himself and pedaled off in embarrassment. “We should have started earlier.”

Pippa pulled the bike to the side of the trail and gave him her wise woman look. “Or I can stop being me, or I can live where there aren't any people,” she reminded him.

“You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? You're projecting something with your Voice that I can't hear but everyone else does.”

“I'm not projecting anything. I'm simply not holding back. I'm singing what I feel. Right now, I'm singing my happiness. I've never had a chance to bike these hills and always envied those who were free to do so. Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Then why are these idiots falling all over themselves?” Oz asked, glaring at the next set of cyclists coming up the path. He nodded in their direction as they raced past. “Most of the cyclists here are experienced. This morning, I feel like I'm in rush-hour traffic on a rainy freeway during a full moon when they let all the zanies loose.”

The smile slid away from her face, and she gazed at a patch of flowers just opening their buds. “Maybe people don't recognize happiness when they hear it. Or maybe they do, and they're trying to find it. Mostly, I guess, I'm a distraction.” She crouched down to pet the tender bud.

“You're not still believing you're a siren luring the stupid to their deaths?” he asked warily, not knowing whether she was avoiding his eyes or simply exploring new territory.