Jaxson's Song Read online

  “Don’t ask. And yeah…” Kate spoke slowly and descended after him, “that’s great, don’t get me wrong. But you heard those men.” She lowered her voice and, ahead of her, Jaxson slowed his pace and glanced back over his shoulder. “They think I made the whole thing up. That I…I don’t even know, picked my own lock? And made this up, for what I have no clue. Who would do something like that?”

  “A crazy person?” He shrugged again and picked up the pace.

  “I’m not crazy.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “I didn’t make this up. Someone was really here.”

  “I know.”

  “And—wait—what?”

  “I said I know.” Jaxson sighed. “I believe you.”

  And the funny thing was, he did. Sure, he didn’t know Kate Delaney, didn’t know a single damn thing about her, but he knew people. And she’d been completely terrified earlier. He’d seen the stark look of terror in her wide eyes; violet eyes, he could see now under the brighter lighting, not gray or blue like he’d originally thought.

  No way had she made the whole thing up. “It’s not me you have to convince.” He sent her a meaningful look, then inclined his head toward the officers clustered next to the front door.

  “I think they’ve already made up their minds.” Kate’s mouth tightened. “Nothing is missing,” she called to the officers.

  “If you have any more problems, give us a call,” the older cop, Benson, advised her, not unkindly.

  Jax watched Kate give the man a grateful smile and he felt his gut tighten. Hell. The woman was dangerous. She made him feel edgy and at ease, all at once. And when she smiled, it made him want to do things for her. He felt ashamed now for snapping at her and slamming the door in her face earlier.

  He watched Carl issue thinly veiled threats to Kate, reminding her of the penalty of non-emergency calls to 911, and he felt the unfamiliar urge to put himself between her and the old bastard. He didn’t. That would have been very, very stupid, given his current legal troubles. Somewhere in the house, a clock struck twelve, and Jaxson’s eyes watered as he smothered a yawn. He needed to go home and get some sleep.

  The cops left, shutting the door behind themselves, and then it was just him and Kate, alone in the house. And the ghosts, he amended, exhaling and letting his eyes do a wide, slow sweep of her foyer and beyond that, her living room. He hadn’t seen anything during their inspection of the first and second floors, but he’d felt them—and heard them. Oh yeah, the place was definitely haunted. Not that it was his problem. A glance at the wall clock told him it was past time he left, but still he hesitated.

  He didn’t want to leave Kate, he realized with a start. As if she would want him to stay… Jaxson shook his head and began to follow the officers out the door. He didn’t know her. But he was pretty damn sure she wouldn’t want a strange man hanging around her house after midnight. A strange man in a fucking dress. He frowned, prepared to tell her goodbye and make the short walk to his own house. To go to bed and forget all about a violet-eyed girl who had great hair and too many problems.

  She grabbed his arm. “Jaxson. Wait.”

  Shit.

  “Do you have to…to go?” she stammered, watching one of the police cruisers disappear down the street and around the corner. “I mean, right away?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “I thought, you know, maybe you could stay for a few minutes.”

  Jaxson watched as she hugged her arms around her waist. “What are you getting at, Kate?”

  “Nothing.” She clamped her lips together. “I’m sorry. It’s late and you’ve done enough. Thank you for coming with me…and calling the police. Thank you for letting me in, earlier. It was nice meeting you. Goodnight.”

  He winced at the faint hint of sarcasm in her voice, at the reminder of his earlier rude behavior. He stared down into Kate Delaney’s wide, gray-purple eyes and felt like swearing. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need her. He’d be lucky to make it out of this town with both his life and his freedom intact. The last thing he needed was to throw another complication into the mix.

  “You can stay at my place tonight, if you want,” he heard himself say.

  * * *

  Gabe Bailey adjusted his shoulder holster and clicked his seat belt into place, then stared at his partner in silence for several long, drawn out moments. The veteran officer scribbled notes onto a pocket-sized notepad before tucking both pen and paper into the shirt pocket of his dark blue uniform. The pointed ends of the gold star on his chest reflected the light from the other cruiser as it backed out of the shared drive between the houses at 502 and 504.

  “Carl?” Gabe questioned after several more seconds had ticked by. It wasn’t his place to question Carl Jensen’s mood, or his judgment calls. Not to mention it probably wouldn’t bode well for Gabe’s career if he made a habit of calling his commanding officer’s final word into question. Still, even though he was a rookie officer, he’d never known Carl to be unfair in his dealings with the people of Crystal Cove. Abrupt, yes, when the situation called for it, but not unfair, or short-sighted. And as far as Gabe could tell, Kate Delaney hadn’t warranted that kind of treatment.

  “Sir?” he asked cautiously.

  Carl’s gaze cut to his rookie partner for a split second, then followed the direction of the younger man’s stare to the aging Victorian that flickered a harsh yellow under the faulty streetlight. Carl shifted in his seat and turned the key in the ignition, bringing the cruiser to life. He flicked the wipers on as the first drops of what promised to quickly become a full-on downpour splashed against the windshield. “I thought we were done with these damn calls about this house, when the old lady kicked the bucket,” he muttered.

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow, sir,” Gabe said, still staring up at the old house. A flicker of movement from above caught his attention, and he raised his gaze to one of the two second-story windows that faced the street. A light came on in the room, and Miss Delaney stood silhouetted in the middle of the room. As he watched, she crossed to the window and stood there, staring out. It was too dark to make out her features, but he recognized her long, blonde hair. A flash of lightning lit the sky, illuminating the thick heavy cloud cover and, for an instant, the woman at the window. Gabe started, certain that Miss Delaney had been wearing a pink shirt, not a white one. He watched as her palm went flat against the glass, then she waved. A moment later, she moved away from the window, and the room went dark.

  “Oh, yeah, you’re new around here,” Carl was saying. “The old lady that lived at that house was always reporting break-ins, and strange noises.” He grunted, shifting into Drive and pulling away from the curb. “Toward the end, she swore the place was haunted.”

  “Haunted?” Gabe echoed, twisting around in his seat for one last glimpse of the house before they rounded the corner. “That’s crazy.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  Chapter Five

  Forget About It

  Stay at his place? Kate shifted her head to the side, studying the man who stood, almost reluctantly, in her foyer. He didn’t want her to stay. Not really. Kate knew full well he wanted to be left alone. Whether that was the result of a bad day at work, or if he was one of those people with a natural inclination to be standoffish, she couldn’t say. And speaking of rough days at work—what on Earth did Jaxson do for a living? Kate took in the enormous pink fuzzy slippers he’d put on before they’d left his house, and she suppressed the urge to pry.

  She was almost afraid to ask about his day job. Did he dress…like that? She couldn’t imagine what kind of employer would allow a man to come to work dressed in women’s clothing. Then again, maybe she did know of a place or two that would allow, even encourage, her strange neighbor to show up for work in such an outrageously flamboyant costume. Kate didn’t dare ask him such a personal question, though, even if she found herself increasingly, morbidly, curious about the oddity that her n
eighbor presented.

  Did she want to stay with him tonight? Better yet, did she trust him? The answer to the first was, unequivocally, yes. The last thing she wanted to do was ramble around, alone, in this empty house, especially right after a break-in. And there had been a break in tonight, no matter what nonsense the police had been spouting about the lock being damaged from the inside out.

  She’d worry about the specifics of all that later. Right now it was late and she was tired, no, exhausted. The past forty-eight sleep deprived hours had finally caught up with her and, coupled with the adrenaline rush and subsequent crash, she was ready to drop. But the question remained—did she trust Jaxson? She supposed that depended upon what was at stake.

  “Are you coming or not?”

  Did she believe he was some sort of crazed person who would harm her? Not really, no. For now, she figured, that had to be good enough. “I’m coming. Thank you.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  The wind was howling when they walked out the door. Kate took the time to lock up, pulling tight on the knob to make sure the lock had properly latched.

  Wind-whipped leaves swirled around Jaxson and Kate’s feet, and fat, stinging raindrops pelted them on their mad dash across the driveway.

  “Wait!” Kate held her hands over her head and raised her voice to be heard over the roaring of the full-out storm. “I forgot to lock my car!” A bolt of lightning split the night sky close by, behind Kate’s house. The boom that followed drowned out Jaxson’s response.

  “Tough shit!” he shouted, slamming the key into the lock and shoving both himself and Kate into his kitchen. He steadied her when she slid wetly across the slick white tile, almost taking a header into the table in his effort to keep Kate upright.

  “But—”

  “Forget about it. Nobody’s crazy enough to be out in this,” he said, frowning at the growing puddle of water accumulating beneath himself and Kate.

  “New York,” she blurted, embarrassed the second the words left her mouth.

  “What?” he asked, reaching behind himself to snag a pair of hand towels from the counter top.

  “I-I’m sorry, that was probably rude,” she stammered, accepting one of the towels and forcibly composing herself. “But it just hit me, your accent,” she explained, taking another deep breath and cursing herself for letting her neighbor knock her so far off kilter.

  But that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t him, exactly. Other than his initial reaction when he’d found her on his doorstep—which she’d decided to let go since he’d apologized, helped her, and seemed genuinely sorry for his less-than-cordial behavior—and his, er, unconventional dress, her neighbor seemed normal enough.

  He was so bold, though, and direct, his personality at odds with the image he projected to the world. Silk and pearls colliding in a confusing mix of rough, granite features and eyes that saw too much. It was…unsettling.

  Jaxson coughed and narrowed his eyes, and Kate was mortified to be caught staring at him—again. “Sorry. Um, earlier, when we were waiting for the police, I knew you sounded different. You’re from New York, right?”

  “My family lives in Manhattan.” He finally nodded.

  “That’s where you lived before you came here?” Kate asked, struggling to keep up their conversation while she rubbed at her arms with the daisy-print towel.

  “No.” He tossed his own towel onto the counter and took a can of soda from the fridge. “I came here from Brooklyn.”

  “Oh.” Kate wrapped the slightly damp but still fluffy kitchen towel around her right hand, tilted her head to one side, and began squeezing long sections of hair through the fabric in an attempt to wring some of the moisture from the strands. “That must have been an exciting place to grow up,” she finally said, nodding when Jaxson held out a red and blue can. “Thank you.”

  “It was okay,” he mumbled, avoiding Kate’s eyes. “Look, if you’re hungry, I’ve got sandwiches.”

  “No, thank you.” She popped the tab on her cola. She usually reached for coffee—light cream, no sugar—instead of soft drinks, but the icy, sugary rush was fortifying after the night she’d just had.

  Jaxson shrugged and turned back to the kitchen part of the room, while Kate took a seat on one of the two bleached-wood bar stools that were partially tucked beneath the overhanging counter on the dining room’s side.

  Deciding she’d done the best she could currently manage with her hair and clothing, she set the towel on the Formica, close to her elbow, and focused her attention on Jaxson as he began to assemble bread and cold cuts from a foil package. She sipped her drink as she eyed the sandwich taking shape on the other side of the kitchen. It did look good…and the last meal she’d eaten was a pack of vending machine taco-flavored tortilla chips, crushed and sprinkled over Olivia’s idea of dinner—iceberg lettuce, one cherry tomato, and a shredded baby carrot. Jaxson added several thin slices of white cheese onto his creation before topping it off with a thick slice of deli-style bread; Kate’s stomach growled.

  “Is that provolone and Italian bread?” she asked, catching her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “It is.” One corner of his mouth twitched up.

  “Um, actually, I am a little hungry. Would you mind if I made myself a sandwich?”

  Jaxson glanced up briefly. “Here, take this one.”

  “Thanks.” She flashed him a grateful smile, digging in without further encouragement when he wrapped the sandwich loosely in a paper towel and set it in front of her. “So, tell me about Manhattan, or I guess, Brooklyn,” she said when he’d made himself another sandwich and moved the second bar stool to the other side of the counter so that he was sitting across from her. Outside, a crack of thunder boomed and a gust of wind struck the front of the house, rattling the front door in its frame.

  “Jesus,” Jaxson muttered, taking a deep breath and shaking his head.

  “It’s okay; you’ll get used to it,” Kate said, unconcerned with the storm that raged outside their door. Georgia weather wasn’t all that different from Florida. Slightly less rain, maybe. But she was no stranger to storms. Jaxson, though… “This is a lot different from New York, I guess.”

  “Yeah,” he snorted. “A little. The heat, the humidity, the storms. They didn’t tell me it would rain every other day.” He shook his head.

  “They?”

  “Oh.” He looked momentarily taken aback. “My aunt and uncle,” he finally said. “Sorry. You were asking about New York, weren’t you? That’s kind of distracting.” He smiled wryly as another boom of thunder seemed to vibrate the very foundation of the house.

  “It’s okay. I understand.” Kate shrugged. “After my dad died, Mom took me and Lilly to her cousin’s farm up in Wisconsin and it was rough.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hmm.” She sipped her cola and nodded. “We didn’t stay long, and all I really remember is being frozen all the time. The North Woods may be a beautiful place, but I don’t think we would have ever gotten used to the cold.”

  “So you ended up back in Florida.” He nodded.

  “Georgia,” Kate corrected absently, watching the muscles in Jaxson’s jaw work while he chewed. “I’m from Georgia. The house next door—my house—actually belonged to my aunt, Viola Leclere, my father’s only sister. She passed away last month. For some reason, she left the house to me and Lilly Ann.”

  “For some reason?” Jaxson popped a lone corner of bread into his mouth before wadding up the paper towel and pitching it across the kitchen and into the trash can. “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head and shoved the remainder of her own meal away, pushing back from the counter top and resting her hands on the tops of her thighs. “I guess it’s not so out of the ordinary. Aunt Viola never had any children… Still, I was surprised to find she’d left it to us, because we weren’t close. Lilly and I hadn’t been out here in years.” Kate shrugged. “And we didn’t keep in touch. No letters, or phone calls, not
hing like that.”

  “She didn’t tell you about her plans, you know, before she died?”

  “No.” Kate frowned. “My cousin Olivia was the attorney who handled Viola’s will and estate and even she was surprised. Viola was sick; she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer and was in the hospital when she decided to have her last will drawn up. Out of the blue, she calls Olivia and flies her down her from Chicago to handle the paperwork. Four or five weeks later, Olivia was calling to tell me Viola was dead.” Kate sighed, noticing for the first time how Jaxson was leaning forward and to the side, elbows resting on counter top as he regarded her thoughtfully. Not speaking, not looking away, but calmly, patiently waiting for her to finish spilling her thoughts into the space between them.

  Suddenly, she didn’t want to. Her mouth felt dry and she fumbled with her drink, telling herself it was the condensation on the can that made her feel like she was all thumbs. Kate drained the can in two long swallows and tried not to feel appalled at how much she had just shared with someone who was more or less a complete stranger.

  No, that wasn’t right, she thought as she pursed her lips and slid off the stool to dispose of the can and what was left of her sandwich. Jaxson didn’t quite fit into the “total stranger” category. But in no way did she know him well, and he was moody, and wore women’s clothing, and…

  And she’d just had to remind herself of those facts. A cold chill mist settled over her skin like a film, and she told herself to stop acting like a fool. Sure, she was alone and a little scared and loaded down with responsibility—not to mention the sharp end of lingering grief for her mother—right now, but her mercurial neighbor was not the answer to her problems. At all.

  By the time she’d turned around and made the short trek from one end of the kitchen to the other, Jaxson was standing up.

  “So, um, this is a great house,” Kate said, crossing her arms over her chest and curling her fingers closer to her palms. It was true; the house had a certain classic, old-world charm that she envied. The air here felt pleasantly cool instead of flat-out cold; calm instead of turbulent. The light was dim and gentle and appliances hummed in the background. Somewhere in the house, the steady ticking of a clock could be heard, and Kate dreaded the moment when she would have to go back to the dusty, oppressive silence of her own house.