Page 51 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

ALL THE THINGS

Sebastian

I walked out of that place holding her hand, saw some male heads turn to check her out in her off-the-shoulder sweater, slim leather skirt, and heels, at all that taut body and soft skin and vitality, tightened my hold on her, and thought, Yep, she’s just that good.

But she’s mine. Kept her indoors out of the cold in the bar below while we waited for the valet to bring my car around, looked at those mellow flashes of gold at her ear and throat, and inhaled the scent of her.

Something rich, spicy, and heady that I couldn’t identify, so I asked her.

“Back to Black, by Killian,” she said with a little laugh, her fingers going up to touch the pendant. “And I’ve never had a birthday like this. I’ve never?—”

My car pulled to the curb outside, and I held the bar door for her and said, “Hold that thought.”

She didn’t, but then, Alix generally didn’t do what I said.

Except when she did. Exactly how delicious was that moment of surrender?

I was going to be finding out again in about half an hour, but right now, she was fastening her seatbelt and saying, “If we’re talking about how people look and smell … ”

I said, “How people smell?” I was laughing, and so was she.

“All right,” she said, “the scent of people. Is that better? No, it’s just that—I love your leather jacket. I always have. I love that it’s so simple and scarred. It looks real, and it smells real.” Another breath. “Like you.”

“It was my dad’s.” My throat closed a little at saying it, because that was how wide-open this whole day had left me, and the day before, too.

Making snow angels? Where had that come from?

I lived on the outskirts, keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut.

I was safer that way. And all the same, I said, “His RCAF flight jacket.”

She laid a light hand on the leather sleeve. A hand with short, unpainted nails. A capable hand, slim and strong. “And wearing it makes you feel close to him.”

“Yeah. I guess. He was a pilot. Royal Canadian Air Force, and then he flew for an air ambulance service.”

“Where you get your coordination. And your discipline.”

“Probably.”

“Then why—” she said, and stopped.

“Why what?” I didn’t want to talk about my dad. Or my sister, for that matter. I wanted to talk about how sexy she looked tonight, and what I planned to do to her in a half hour or so, and the conversational transition from “dead dad” to “do you right” was going to be one hell of a leap.

“Why did it sound like you were so desperate after he died?” she asked. “If he had a job like that?”

“First,” I said, “salaries aren’t necessarily the same in Canada. And he was on a sickness benefit. Half his salary paid the rent, bought food, and that was about all. And he wasn’t much of a saver before that.”

“So he left you a jacket and that’s all?”

I would have shifted my feet, but I was driving. “That’s about it. He wasn’t planning to die at forty-eight. And as you can see, I did fine. Play some music, would you? ”

“Can I play you something of mine? My favorite?”

“Sure. Something sexy, I hope.”

“Well, I think it is. Who knows about you?” She fiddled with her phone.

Whatever I’d expected, it wasn’t this. A classical piece, full of yearning, soaring through the darkness. I asked, “What is it?”

“Chopin, Cello Sonata in G Minor.” She paused a minute, then said, “It’s my grandfather playing.”

“Oh.” I blinked. “He’s very good.”

“He is. And it’s my grandmother on the piano. She’s good, too. Recorded thirty years ago, but it still sounds fresh, doesn’t it? Timeless. They played together a few nights a week. She told me once that it—” She stopped.

“Yes?”

“That it was the most intimate thing you could do together. Bringing the music out of each other, having it mingle in the air so it becomes one sound. That it was like the best kind of lovemaking, the kind that transports you and melds you together for that one beautiful moment. That’s what she said.

‘Transports.’ And melds, and all that. I had no idea what she meant. ”

“Your grandmother,” I said carefully, “sounds like an interesting woman. When did she tell you that? About the lovemaking and all?”

“A couple of years ago, after my grandfather died. She told me so much more after he died, but I wish she’d tell me more.

If you talk about the person you’ve lost, if you can still hear the music they made, it makes them feel not quite so gone.

And she has to miss him so much. She’ll never complain, but sometimes, when I’d come into the house … ” She paused.

“What?” I prompted. Just a couple of years ago, and Alix hadn’t known about the kind of lovemaking that transports you? That was interesting. Of course, I wasn’t sure I knew about that kind of lovemaking either, but then, I was shallow.

“Sometimes,” she said, as the music wove around us like tendrils of smoke, “I’d find her sitting in a chair.

Just sitting, her hands in her lap. Listening so hard, like she was imagining his fingers on the strings, the way he bent over the cello and sort of poured himself into it, focusing so hard, his glasses slipping down his beaky nose, because he was never handsome, not really.

But he had the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen.

And maybe, you know, like she was imagining his voice.

His touch. His kiss. He always touched her gently.

That’s what I remember. That he touched her like she was precious as jewels, and he looked at her like he still couldn’t believe he got to keep her.

Not that I ever imagined I’d get that,” she hurried to say, “just that what they had was special.”

“You spent some time with them,” I said cautiously. We were driving by the river again, the road darker than ever on this cold, cloudy night, just the two of us and that yearning music.

“When I came home one day, the summer after high school,” she said, “and told my parents that I’d got into the apprenticeship program, and they flipped out? Yeah, I did, especially after that.”

“Seems like a random thing to choose, though,” I said. “Being an electrician. Not something most girls probably burn to be.”

She wasn’t offended, at least. She laughed.

“You could say that. But I used to go to work with my grandparents sometimes during summers and school holidays—they were realtors, so they could take me—and I got to know the tradesmen they used. This one older guy, Francisco, was their favorite electrician, and he was always really nice to me. He told me how dangerous it was to mess around with electricity if you didn’t know what you were doing, and how meticulous you had to be, which of course made it extra attractive to me.

He also told me that ninety-nine percent of electricians were men, which ditto.

It paid good money and you got to solve problems, and it wasn’t as dirty or heavy as construction or plumbing, so I thought—why not?

I’d be part of the one percent? And wearing a hard hat and work boots?

How badass would that be? Especially since I’d never been able to play team sports.

I couldn’t even play soccer, and if you’re a private-school student in the Bay Area with some coordination and speed?

It’s all about soccer, baby. I couldn’t play volleyball.

I couldn’t play softball. But I was eighteen now, so who was going to stop me?

Francisco introduced me to his boss, his company got me into the union, and my parents threw a major fit.

My mother, but even my father. They were so disappointed, which you know sealed the deal. I can be stubborn.”

“I noticed.” Cascade Locks up ahead. Nearly there.

Of course, we were talking about parent problems, and it was almost as challenging to segue directly into “dirty things I’d like to do to you” from that as from “my dead dad,” but I had faith in my abilities.

I also had a bottle of very good bourbon in a paper bag. The one she’d liked best.

“Ha,” she said. “And I had no money, obviously, so I would’ve had to live at home to be an electrician, at least until I started making enough, and I’m pretty sure my parents would have laid down some sort of ultimatum.

The apprenticeship program is a minimum of four years, like college.

Paid, but … And there’s not much discount housing on the San Francisco Peninsula. ”

“So you moved in with your grandparents instead.” Here came the exit. Good.

“Not exactly. There was much raging and heartburn, and not just by me, and when I was at my grandparents’ again, all furious and red in the face, my grandfather said, ‘You know what you need, if you’re going to do this?

A truck and a fifth wheel trailer. We’ll buy them used, because a new car loses ten percent of its value as soon as you drive it off the lot, and after three years, it’s half price.

You need to learn how to tell a good deal from a bad one, and how to bargain.

You can park the trailer at the side of the house and keep your independence, but still be here with us.

Learn to pull a trailer, and that’s another life skill to count on.

’ See, he knew how much I wanted to be on my own.

Also, he and my grandmother probably still wanted their own independence and privacy, right?

That happens when you get older. You have your routine, and you don’t like having it interrupted.

But they loved having me join them for dinner, and on the weekend, I did the heavy work on my grandfather’s garden.

He had raised beds at the front of the house, because the lot was steep, but once he got to eighty-five, digging was too hard.

He worked with me to connect the fifth wheel to the sewer line, and he got Francisco to put in a mini-split and my little induction stove so I wouldn’t need propane.

Francisco showed me what he was doing, every step of the way, including connecting the electrical system to shore power.

And then my grandparents and I did a legal note so I could gradually buy the trailer and the pickup and they could be all the way mine.

Man, I loved that truck, and I loved that trailer.

You’ll laugh when you see it, because it’s nothing.

It’s small, and it’s a trailer, but it was mine.

And once I learned to fix things myself? It was really mine then.”

“Poor little rich girl,” I said. Through the town now, and almost to the KOA. “Both our pasts are imperfect, I guess.”

She glanced sharply at me. “I’m not whining.”

“No. I see that. But you can have all the things and still not feel free. And I can’t imagine your parents were thrilled with your grandparents.”

“Good thing my grandmother’s a badass, too,” she said, “ and that my grandfather had the courage of his convictions. I wanted to be my own woman, making my own choices. Taking my parents’ money for college, eventually—so much money, too—felt like regression, if you want to know the truth.

I’d saved like crazy for eight years, had that trailer and truck paid off and a bunch in the bank, especially once I got my license, but Stanford costs ridiculous money.

Almost sixty thousand a year without counting room and board, and I couldn’t pay four years of that.

I wanted to go someplace cheaper, but I’d have been cutting off my nose to spite my face, because for what I was doing, Stanford’s about as good as it gets.

Statistics, for being a financial analyst. And it made my parents happy, which I hadn’t done much of to date, so … ”

“Ah. No scholarship?” Here was the sign, and here was the place. Only a handful of trailers in here under the dripping trees, but I slowed down.

“Are you kidding? My mother’s a private equity partner. My dad’s old San Francisco. Didn’t actually matter, because I was old enough to be considered on my own merits and could have got some financial aid that way, but nope, my parents paid. But it got feeling like?—”

I waited, but she didn’t answer. I was around the curve to her trailer, then pulling up beside it. A flash of light in the darkness, a car door opening in the space next door. A black umbrella emerging first, and then a figure going around the car and holding said umbrella as another door opened.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Alix said.

“What?” I asked.

She said, “You’ll see.” And got out of the car.