IntheMood by Lynne Connolly Read Free Book Online Page A

reported. They said I’d left for a
few months to go into rehab and I’d be back, but it wasn’t the truth. The band
fired me. They had to.” He met her eyes steadily, and all she saw in his now
was honesty. And a simmer of desire, something she’d thought he’d burned out
on. She was glad to see its return. “Jace took me to the facility and shoved me
inside. That was after I ODed for the last time.”
    “So if not for Jace, you’d be dead.” She remembered Jace,
the lead guitarist with Murder City Ravens. Tall, dark and sultry. Or sulky,
they both worked for him.
    “Yeah. I thought he’d taken away my life and I was bitter
for a long time. Too long.” He sighed. “In the facility, they taught me to face
my own problems and take responsibility for my own mistakes. That was when I
called each member of the band and apologized. Thank fuck Jace took his call,
because I’d missed him. We started to be friends again. This recording session
is a way for us to start over professionally. The press has been nosing around,
but we’re sticking to our story that I left voluntarily when my bad habits got
the better of me, and started a new career here.”
    Heady, for him to give her that much power. All she had to
do was make a call, and their carefully constructed story would be in the
toilet. The press loved rumors and she could start the circus with the
information he’d just given her.
    So this gig was far more important to him than he’d told
her. “Am I your secret weapon?”
    He gave her a long, lingering kiss. “More than you know.
After last night it’s far more than that.” She swallowed, and he saw it, his
attention going to her vulnerable throat. He bent and touched a kiss to one
side of her neck. “You can back out from the job if you want, but I want to see
you again personally, if you’re willing. We started something last night and
we’re not done yet.”
    She had to know one thing before she agreed to anything
more. “The junk? You’re off it?”
    “I didn’t even drink for a year. Alcohol was never my
problem, although God knows I enjoyed a bottle of bourbon with my junk. But I
could stop drinking whenever I wanted to, and I did, just to give the band some
shit when they told me to quit. I stopped because I wanted to prove to myself
that I didn’t need anything at all, that I could live my life totally sober. I
even think twice before popping aspirin. I swear it.”
    She had to believe him. Either that or walk away. “My family
has been in the music business on and off for years. Now it’s just the club,
but at one time it was more. My uncle Reggie, Claud’s brother, died of, well,
everything.”
    His face clouded. “I’m sorry.”
    “In his case the stuff he took killed his gift. He played
the sax, like me, but he went the whole Charlie Parker length and paid for it.
He was never as brilliant as Bird, but he wanted to be, and when he was high,
he thought he was.” She shrugged. “He died before I was born, but Claud always
reminded me about that after I started to play.”
    “You’re good,” he assured her. “Not like Bird though. Your
gift is different. Shall we go and use it?”
    She glanced around, saw her instrument case propped against
one wall. She really should ask for her key back from Jack. They were in
business together, but that didn’t mean he could come and go here anymore.
    But today, she had to admit it was useful. She found her
jacket and picked up her case. “I’m ready when you are.”

Chapter Four
     
    They got a cab to his studio, which was, like the club, in
the blues district. V had heard of the enterprise, the news had made quite a
stir in the music industry, but she’d never been there before.
    The studio turned out to be a nondescript building, a shiny
brass plaque outside the only indication of the function the building now
fulfilled. But on opening the door, all doubt was eliminated. A receptionist
sat behind a glass-topped desk, and behind it was