Any Way You Want It. Kathy Love

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      Was she that hung up on Peter? Still? Maybe.

      The bartender, a bouncy gal with a multitude of dyed braids sticking up from her otherwise shaved head like so many colorful antennae, appeared with three beers. Before Jo could reach into her purse for her wallet, the businessman still pressed beside her took that moment to turn and offer to buy their drinks.

      Jo smiled, easily flirting with the man. Maggie watched, momentarily distracted from her own strange train of thought. Flirting was an art form, just like music. And a talent that she’d been born without, just like music.

      She glanced over her shoulder, back toward the stage. The man who’d been playing the keyboard now stood at the mic.

      For the first time she realized it was his voice that filled the shadowy bar. A good voice, a bit higher than she would have guessed—something about his features suggested he’d have a husky voice. But the tone was strong and melodic, and a little…

      She realized her skin tingled and she was holding her breath deep in her chest as she listened. His voice was…sexy. Very sexy.

      She forced herself to turn back to the counter and take a sip of her beer.

      “I’m thinking that the fact you thought you heard that music is a sign,” Erika said, startling Maggie from her intent concentration on that voice.

      “What?” Maggie blinked. Again it was as if the man had mesmerized her, now with his singing rather than his eyes or his playing. What was it about him that was so entrancing to her? Aside from his knowledge of undiscovered sonatas.

      “I think the fact that you thought you heard that man playing the very song you were just researching is a sign. Because he couldn’t know it. As you said, it’s not possible. So maybe you just thought you heard it. Maybe it was some weird cosmic occurrence to lead you to this bar, to see him. Maybe Marie Laveau wanted you to meet him.”

      Maggie stared at her friend. She was serious.

      Maggie turned slightly on her seat and glanced back up to the stage. She considered the idea for a fraction of a second, then nearly laughed. Erika was definitely more esoteric than either herself or Jo. And apparently more romantic too. But this was definitely one of her more fantastic theories.

      But the laugh died on her lips.

      He was watching her again. His eyes—she couldn’t quite make out the color from this distance—locked with hers. For the first time, she noticed what her friends had mentioned; there was something different about his left eye. Although it definitely wasn’t lazy. It was…

      “Just look at the way he’s watching you,” Erika said. “He’s into you.”

      Maggie immediately broke her gaze from his, feeling heat burn her cheeks. She shook her head. “You’re making too much of all this.”

      She knew she was saying that for herself as much as for Erika. When she met that man’s eyes, she did feel like something brought her here. Which was crazy. Absolutely crazy.

      Her friends were right, though. She had to have imagined what she heard. Without looking back to the stage, she turned on her barstool and focused on her beer, paying unusually close attention to peeling off the label. She needed to let this go. Picking up the beer, she took a sip, then grimaced.

      She’d liked the wine with dinner better. There, she decided. Everything could be blamed on the wine. She’d been tipsy and just thought she heard that rare, haunting, beautiful music. That was the only reasonable explanation.

      It had to be.

      Chapter 3

      Ren watched the bar from his vantage point on the small stage. People danced and drank and generally acted rowdy and often ridiculous. The usual.

      Okay, scrap that, most people acted that way. Except one of them. His attention was focused on the curvy woman with tousled hair. Hair the shade of…what was that color called? Strawberry blond? Hell, he didn’t know, but it was a good color.

      He watched and sang the lyrics of a Journey song, reciting the words with little thought. It wasn’t like he hadn’t sung the same song thousands of times. Hell, maybe millions. He’d been in New Orleans, working on Bourbon, longer than was probably safe. But then, this was a city of transients. People didn’t stay here long enough to notice that he hadn’t changed one bit in the last ten years. And the return visitors were usually too drunk and into their partying to really give his looks much thought.

      This was a strange place, where he could be the center of attention and be invisible all at the same time.

      He glanced over to a group of revelers on the dance floor. Five woman, scantily clad, flashing legs and cleavage, and working very hard to get him to notice them.

      He smiled. Predictably, they giggled and whispered to each other and began dancing more determinedly. More leg. More cleavage. The usual.

      And while that was good—Ren did enjoy women—the best part was that he could spend the night with one of them, maybe more than one of them, and then they went back to their lives. Ren would be nothing more than a vague memory—just as they were to him.

      Bourbon Street was famous for the best time you didn’t remember. And that worked out well for him. The people were predictable, and he could easily get lost amongst them.

      Plus the atmosphere here effervesced with energy, with life, which made it very easy from him to survive. He breathed in deeply, pulling the vitality in the air deep into his body, feeling it fill him. Human life force, which fed him.

      Women, sex, and human energy. This darkened, run-down bar provided all the necessities he required.

      His gaze moved back to the woman at the bar. But what about that one? There was something very different about her. And not just her rather conservative clothes and lack of exposed skin.

      He smiled. Although that was different.

      No, what intrigued him was that when he’d been playing the keyboards, something he rarely did, he could have sworn she’d actually recognized the piece. He’d been fooling around while the rest of the band set up, and on impulse, began to play a sonata he’d written when he was only fourteen.

      He’d played the piece publicly only once—for his father’s birthday gala. Not that anyone in attendance had known the smug, pompous bastard was his father. And that Ren was not just his father’s favorite discovery, a child prodigy, a performing monkey.

      Ren had played the piece—honestly believing his father would be so impressed that he would announce to the ton that the gifted child seated before them performing his heart out was, in fact, his son. But dear Daddy hadn’t, and Ren had thrown the piece away—because while his father loved his music and his talent, he’d never had a moment’s love for his illegitimate son.

      Ren frowned slightly, even though his voice remained positive as he sang, telling the audience that any way they wanted it, that’s the way they needed it.

      He couldn’t even say what made him think of that song tonight—not the Journey song, which he sang every night he worked. That sonata. He hadn’t thought of the piece in decades. Longer than СКАЧАТЬ