Ravensong (16 page)

She snorted, but she was
obviously pleased. “You just stay away too long.” She grabbed his
hand and started dragging him toward the house. “James and Margaret
are on the way. Come in and talk to me before they get here and we
have no time.”

Joshua allowed himself to
be dragged toward the house by his step-sister, shrugging his
shoulders at Adam as they moved past. Adam watched them go, feeling
a protective worry gnawing at him. Damn it all, he and Mary had
been hoping Joshua would take a more than passing interest in a
woman, but why did it have to be so complicated? Joshua didn’t need
anything to upset the careful balance he’d constructed for himself.
Especially not with everything so messed up with Terry and his
daughter.

His eyes shifted to his
wife where she was watching him worriedly. He drew a deep breath.
He knew once he entered the house, she’d want to know what was
wrong with her son. Adam hated giving her more worry. Not a day
went by that she didn’t fret about Joshua. He laughed silently. Not
a day went by that
he
didn’t worry about his step-son too.

* * *

Elena halted outside of
Joshua’s office despite herself. She had caught his voice and knew
she couldn’t pass by without listening for just a moment. The
weekend had been hell. She’d fought with herself all Saturday and
Saturday night, not allowing herself to call him. But Sunday she’d
given up the fight. Realizing it might cost her her job, she’d
called; however, he wasn’t home.

Now Elena couldn’t help but
wonder where he’d been. Had he gone out with another woman that
quickly? The thought of him with someone else infuriated her. She
wished desperately she’d never called that Sunday. She’d told
herself she’d be cold with him during the meeting this morning, but
he’d never shown up. After the meeting was over, she’d decided
she’d never speak to him again. And then she’d heard his
voice.

No amount of solid reasoning could
make her walk past with her nose in the air like she wanted to. She
loved his voice. It was deep and intense. She liked the way it
rumbled from way down in his chest. More than that, she wanted to
hear what he was saying.

“
Howdy Chief, how was your
weekend?” came Alice’s greeting.

Elena glanced at her watch.
Ten o’clock, Monday morning -- he was two hours late.

“
Busy.”

“
What did you wind up
doing?”

A pause. “Went down to my
mother’s in So. Cal.”

Elena’s heart skipped a
beat. She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself,
praying he was telling the truth and then chiding herself for the
misguided interest in his social life.

“
The whole family
there?”

“
Ever last one,” he said in
a cowboy accent. Elena smiled to herself.

“
How’s the twins? Hell, how
old are they now?”

“
Ten, goin’ on
twenty.”

“
And your sister, what’s
her name?”

“
Jennifer.”

“
Was she there?”

“
Yeah, and James and his
wife.”

“
How old is Jennifer
now?”

Another short pause.
“Twenty-one. I’ll be damned. I still think of her as a scrawny
kid.”

“
So Susan’s sixteen or so.
Driving yet?”

“
No, Susan’s
fifteen.”

“
Your mama sure raised a
passel of kids.”

Joshua’s laughter. Elena
shut her eyes, wishing this personal conversation was her right.
She didn’t even know who the people were they were talking about,
but despite herself, she longed to, especially after the beautiful
night they’d shared.

“
Yeah, she always thought
the more the merrier.”

“
How old was she when she
had her first?”

“
Eighteen and her first was
me.”

“
She ever marry your
daddy?”

A more tense pause, then
Joshua sighed heavily. “No, she was too smart for that, thank God.
My
daddy’s
a
regular sonuvabitch. ‘Bout the only good thing you can say about
him is he’s a handsome bastard.”

“
So that’s where you get it
from?”

Elena tensed waiting for
Joshua’s response to the baited question. It came with a low
chuckle. “You best be talking about my looks, lady, if you want a
job.”

Elena could almost hear the
batting of Alice’s eyelashes. “What else would I be talking about,
Chief?” she said innocently.

The playful banter was more than Elena
could take. Squaring her shoulders, she hurried down the hallway,
refusing to glance inside his office. She never stopped for a
moment until she was safely behind the inner door of her own office
and had it locked.

* * *

Elena avoided Joshua, but
it wasn’t easy. For some perverse reason, he decided to show up for
every morning meeting, and he was always on time. Just when she was
sure he no longer had an effect on her, she would look up at his
entrance and catch her breath, marveling again at his
appearance.

If a man had learned how to
enter a room for the maximum effect, it was Joshua Ravensong. He
hadn’t been voted
sexiest man of the
year
three years in a row for
nothing.

Once their hands had
brushed when they’d both reached for the same coffee cup. Elena had
pulled back, probably a bit too dramatically, but she couldn’t hide
the trembling in her fingers when he was near. Then she’d made the
mistake of looking up into his intense black eyes. She almost quit
her job then.

So, she immersed herself in
her work. It wasn’t hard to do. This close to the tour there were
hundreds of things that needed her attention -- the biggest of
which was finding an opening band to tour with
Avalanche
.

Julian had assigned her this latest
chore and had given her a list of prospective bands. Elena had been
going to nightclubs every night for the past two weeks. She dragged
Kate with her, but even Kate was beginning to whine about it. Not a
single one of the bands had been any good so far.

Elena knew without a doubt
that Julian had set her up once again. He kept assigning her tasks
that were nearly impossible to complete, hoping she would fail.
Keeping her job had taken on a much more intense quality. She
couldn’t lose it now because that would mean Julian would
win.

She reached across her desk
and popped open the compact disc machine, jerking out the latest CD
and tossing it directly into the garbage can. She braced her elbows
on the desk and rubbed her temples with her fingertips, closing her
eyes for a moment. Tears threatened. This was one test Julian was
probably going to win. How was she going to pick the band to open
for
Avalanche
? Why
weren’t the band members doing it?

Julian had made that point
very clear when she’d asked to run a few bands past them. The band
members were too busy rehearsing now and couldn’t be bothered. The
way Joshua pushed them to get the songs exactly right, she knew
this wasn’t a lie. There was no one to help her. No one.

She fumbled open a bottle
of aspirin and downed two with a sip of cold tea. She grimaced and
placed another CD in the machine, punching the play button. A
pounding, discordant sound issued forth, only increasing Elena’s
headache. She closed her eyes once more and went back to rubbing
her temples. There was no way she was going to beat this one. No
way.

She jumped and looked up
when the disharmonious music suddenly went off. Joshua was standing
before her desk, staring at her with raised brows. He lifted his
mouth in his crooked smile and tossed a zip drive and a photo onto
the desk blotter in front of her.

“
They play tonight at the
Bandstand on Market at nine.”

She held his eyes as she
reached for the photo. She glanced at the cover.
Rage.
There were four
guys in leather and grimaces posing on it. She frowned. Was this
another sick joke?

His eyes danced with
mischief. “Just try it. You’ve tried everything else.” He cocked
his head and peered into her overflowing garbage can. “And I do
mean everything.”

She drew a deep breath and
tightened her hold on the photo. He flashed another closed mouth
smile, then turning on his heel, he headed for the door.

Elena absently licked her
lips as her eyes followed the line of his behind in his
tight-fitting jeans. For some reason, the memory of him stark naked
intruded on her thoughts at that moment. She shook her head and
grabbed the zip drive, inserting it into her computer.

She might as well try this.
She
had
tried
everything else.

* * *

“
What’s the name of this
band again, Ellie?” whined Kate as she sipped at her frothy pink
drink, named for some unmentionable sex act.

Elena chewed on her inner
lip and shifted uneasily in her chair. “
Rage
,” she said absently, toying with
the top of her mineral water.

Kate slumped in her chair
and sucked on her straw. “What kind of music do they play
again?”

Elena tapped her toes
nervously on the sticky floor. “A mix between blues and rock.
You’ll love them.”
I just hope I
will.
They’d sounded wonderful on her
computer, but that didn’t mean they would sound anything remotely
similar live. Not very many bands worked for the natural sound
Joshua demanded
Avalanche
attain.

A grudging respect was
beginning to bloom inside Elena for Joshua’s genius. Oh, she wasn’t
about to go worshiping it the way David and the guys did, but she
couldn’t help but admit he knew his music. He knew other more
disturbing things, but she just wasn’t thinking about that right
now.

Until the rogue in question sauntered
into the club.

Kate bolted upright in her chair and
patted frantically at her hair. Elena closed her eyes briefly and
tried to disappear inside her leather jacket. Oh shit, speak of the
devil himself!

He’d already drawn a crowd.
They hovered around him, inhibiting his entrance and laughing at
everything he said. Elena could see the flash of his white teeth as
he entertained them with his wit and charm. She hated him, she was
sure. Especially because he looked damn gorgeous in his trade-mark
jeans, white collared shirt, boots and black leather jacket. His
hair was braided down the middle as usual and the earrings in his
ear glittered in the faint light overhead.

His eyes met hers over the
top of his adoring fans. Elena looked away. No use encouraging him.
There was nothing between them. She didn’t need to spend the night
with him sitting anywhere in her immediate vicinity.

“
Just keep breathing
naturally,” said Kate.

Elena turned to look at her
friend. “What?”

“
Here he comes.”

Elena glanced up to see him moving
through the crowd. At a glare from his bodyguard, they parted
reluctantly as if they hated having to give him up to anyone else.
They could have him as far as she was concerned.

“
God, he’s gorgeous,” said
Kate dreamily.

Elena glared at her friend
and took a sip of her mineral water, fixing her eyes on the stage.
She hadn’t told Kate about her one night in Joshua Ravensong’s bed
and she wasn’t about to. If he so much as breathed a word, she’d
make sure he never bedded another woman again.

“
Hello, Kate,” he said in a
lazy drawl.

Elena caught the shimmer of
light in his ebony hair as he bent over Kate’s hand, planting an
old fashioned kiss on the back of it sure to send Kate into a
coronary. Kate fluttered her other hand at her throat and batted
her lashes.

“
You are a charmer, Mr.
Ravensong, sir,” she said in a Southern accent.

Elena rolled her eyes and sipped at
her mineral water. God, Kate was simpering...that was the word, or
so Elena thought. She was still thinking about vocabulary when
Joshua threw himself gracefully into the chair between them. She
quickly forgot it. He smelled delicious -- spicy and oceanic, or
something.

“
Hiya, Ellie,” he said,
wiggling black brows at her.

She stared at him. “Ellie?”
She gave him
the
glare.

He chuckled and extended
his legs under the table, lounging in his chair as if she’d invited
him to stay all night. He flashed Kate a conspiratorial glance and
shrug, then shifted his focus to the stage. Kate giggled, until she
caught
the
glare.
It worked on Kate. She slumped in her chair and sipped at her sex
drink.

A waitress quickly appeared
at Joshua’s elbow, leaning over him so he could have an
unobstructed view of her cleavage. So could Elena at his
side.

“
What can I get you?” she
purred, thrusting her breasts almost in his face.