The Protector (Lone Wolf, Book 1) (8 page)

We didn’t even have to be
told.
 
Everyone filed into place with
their instruments, busily tuning them, leafing through sheet music and taking
sips from our bottles of water.
 
Some
musicians had started to go exclusively electronic, and—to me—it still looked a
little strange, with e-tablets propped up on the music stands.
 
Just as there was that perfect scent of wood
and rosin, I would always associate happy things with actual paper sheet
music.
 

Though, to be fair, while I didn’t
think I could ever be one of those exclusively electronic musicians, when I
dropped my sheet music or got coffee stains on important sections, had sheets
scatter everywhere and occasionally completely lose a page or two, I very much
saw the appeal of the electronic route.

Amelia loomed in front of us,
nursing an extremely large, cracked blue mug of black coffee as she muttered
crabbily into a smart phone, her mouth twisting from a grimace into something
that
almost
resembled a smile.
 
“All right, gang!” she practically sang out as she ended the call.
 
“They’re in the building!”

Tracy and I exchanged a chuckle and
grin.
 
I was pretty certain that we’d
never seen Amelia look this happy—
or
this nervous.

I glanced up at the rows of
seating.
 
Layne had taken a seat three
rows back, leaning back in her plush theater chair, her chin in her hand as she
gazed at the stage.
 
Her eyes were
bright and focused, and for a moment, I thought she was glancing from musician
to musician.
 
But when I gazed up at
her, I caught her staring…at me.

I hoped to God that my blush wasn’t
that visible, but I could certainly feel my cheeks redden under that intense
gaze.
 
Tracy glanced at me and elbowed
me a little with a chuckle as she placed her violin under her chin and sketched
the bow across the strings.
 
“Who’s the
cutie?” she muttered softly.

“Oh, you know…a bodyguard,” I
sighed and groaned a little, glancing sidelong at her.
 
“My father finally did it—he hired one for
me.
 
It’s because of the accident,” I
whispered to her as she stopped playing, setting the violin in her lap again
with an open mouth.
 
“We think the guy
rammed me on purpose,” I breathed to her.

“Oh, my God,” said Tracy, her mouth
in rounded astonishment, but then the entire orchestra was standing—me a little
less quickly than the others as I tried to rise without the crutches—as Mikagi
Tasuki (and Frederic, carrying her violin case and following close behind),
stalked into the room.

As a violinist, I have to
admit:
 
I was a bit of a Mikagi Tasuki
fangirl—though, really, I think every single person in our orchestra would have
confessed to the same love.
 
Mikagi
Tasuki had, after all, single-handedly transformed violin music from a
classical, kind-of-nerdy thing to listen to, to something anyone on the street
would say they enjoyed.
 
She’d made
violins, for lack of a better word, “cool.”
 
Her specialty was fusing perfectly executed classical music with punk,
pop and rock, and pretty much everyone from any developed country would say
that they knew of her and had heard her music, and had probably danced to a
song or two of hers at any recent wedding they’d attended.

I’d never had the extreme pleasure
of seeing Ms. Tasuki in person, but she looked much like she had on the Tonight
Show, which was one of my favorite performances of hers, and one I had in my
“favorites” folder on YouTube.
 
This
afternoon, she was wearing all black, her chin-length black hair almost
iridescent in the bright lights from overhead.
 
Her dark brown eyes were wide and expressive, and she was willowy and
incredibly graceful in her knee-high riding boots, knee-length black skirt and
jacket.
 
She paused next to Amelia,
glancing at the rest of the orchestra with a small smile tugging at her full
mouth.

Ms. Tasuki smiled widely, then, and
did a little bow to us as silence fell across the stage.
 
“I’m so pleased to be here,” she said
loudly, in her heavily accented, but high and charming, voice.
 
The words rolled out over us as she
nodded.
 
“I am so excited to be playing
with all of you, and I am so excited for the concert tomorrow!”

And my heart, already fangirling,
began to soar.

I mean, probably she says that to
every orchestra she plays with.
 
But Ms.
Tasuki seemed so genuine, what she was saying so heartfelt…That, in fact, she
did want to be here playing with us.

Frederic set her violin case down,
and she had her violin out in a heartbeat, plucking at the strings and tuning
them, drawing her bow across them in an effortless, graceful motion.

All of us picked up our
instruments, too, and in short order, we began the rehearsal.

So I’ve got to be honest:
 
it wasn’t my best rehearsal, not by a long
shot.
 
Being so close to Mikagi Tasuki
had apparently shut down all of the really clever sections of my brain, and
that meant that my hands played on autopilot.
 
Which wouldn’t have been a big deal during any normal rehearsal, though
I always did my best to never phone them in.
 

But in
this
rehearsal,
everyone was
trying
to do their best, but unfortunately, the combination
of nerves (which we’re all really good at managing, usually), of being that
close to a star…it was, apparently, a
rotten
combination.
 
And yeah, it was getting to a lot of us.

Though, to our great relief,
because
Mikagi Tasuki was there, Amelia couldn’t exactly yell her head off, like
she normally would if we’d put in such a rotten rehearsal.
 
Instead, her face took on such a unique
color of red that it appeared several of her blood vessels were breaking.

Mikagi Tasuki was, of course,
perfection, every note perfect and so passionately played.
 
I’d seen enough of her performances on
YouTube and on DVDs to know that she was a world-class performer, strutting and
dancing across the stage while cradling the violin to her chin, playing it like
it’s never been played before, but being able to watch her from behind was a
rare treat, too.
 
Not in
that
way
(though her rear was definitely gorgeous in an objective
she-is-a-beautiful-woman kind of way), but because she kept throwing little
glances and grins back to us, parading across the stage like she owned the
place, but was also sharing it with us, too, cheering us on during the more
difficult sections.

After the rehearsal, and after
Amelia’s face took on a more normal hue, Ms. Tasuki introduced herself to
everyone, demanding that we call her “Mikagi.”
 
Which, of course proved that she was even more of a class act than we’d
thought.
 
When you’re a musician, you
just assume that pretty much everyone with an ounce of star power is a stuck up
narcissist.
 
But not Mikagi.
 
She was humble, down-to-earth and shook
everyone’s hand like she meant it.

I sighed happily and hobbled away
with my crutches and my violin case dangling from my fingers.
 
Tracy snatched the case up from my hand and
walked beside me.
 

“That was
euphoric
,” she
sighed happily, her voice cooing just a little.
 
“Though I think I missed about twenty notes.”
 
Her face screwed up and she sighed.
 
“I don’t think I even missed that many notes
in my first jury test in music school.”

“Yeah, well, I think we were all
just a little dazzled by playing with Mikagi for the first time—I know we’ll
all be a lot better tomorrow,” I told her, confidence not exactly exuding out
of my tone, but I still hoped it’d be true.
 
We couldn’t be worse than that rehearsal we just gave.

Probably.

“So, anyway,” said Tracy, her voice
dropping down to a conspirator’s whisper as we wandered over to the coffee pot
positioned near the coat room.
 
It was
slowly spitting out coffee-smelling sludge, which several people were in line
for quite happily.
 
“That cutie of yours
was making eyes at you all during the rehearsal, if you hadn’t noticed,” she
said with a wide smile, leaning closer.

“Cutie?” I muttered, one brow up
after wincing at that word.
 
Then I
blanched a little.
 
“Oh, God, you mean
Layne.
 
Tracy,
she’s my
bodyguard
,”
I told her firmly, shifting so that my weight was taken off my bad leg.

“That didn’t stop Kevin Costner
from hooking up with Whitney Houston that one time, I’d like to point out,”
said Tracy, chuckling a little as the line for coffee moved forward by a
person.
 
The familiar, comforting scent
of black coffee wafted into the air, and I realized how thirsty I was.
 

“You just want me to turn into a
Lifetime movie, I can see it coming,” I groaned, shaking my head with a
chuckle.
 

“Maybe not
Lifetime
so much
as
Showtime
.
 
Don’t they have
lesbian shows and crap on?
 
I mean, you
were
meant
for your own show.”
 
Her nose was wrinkled in that adorable way she got when she was teasing
me.

“I’m cutting you off from making
anymore jokes about this,” I groaned, rolling my eyes.
 
“My life is
not
the L-Word, Tracy,
thanks for
that
stereotype.
 
And
I’m not getting together with—”

“That was really good,” said Layne, one brow
artfully raised as she cleared her throat behind me.
 
Tracy had suddenly turned as red as a tomato and was carefully
watching the coffee pot with as much concentration as a nuclear scientist gives
a test tube.
 
“You’re remarkable,” said
Layne softly, just for my ears as she curved closer toward me, leaning her
upper body so that her mouth was inches from my ear.
 
She was grinning wickedly, her hands shoved deeply in her leather
pockets, her shoulders curving toward me, her whole body in an angle that
seemed to point to me.

My mouth went suddenly dry as I
gulped down air.
 

“You couldn’t possibly have heard
me.
 
You can’t tell one musician from
the others in an orchestra—that’s the point,” I chided her softly, but my lips
were twisted in a grin before I could help it.
 
“Tracy, this is Layne—my new bodyguard,” I said, a bit louder, clearing
my throat and sweeping a hand toward the gorgeous, brooding woman to my
right.
 
“Layne, this is my friend and
colleague, Tracy Conroy, also a violinist.”
 
I indicated Tracy, who was staring at Layne with wide eyes.

“Hello,” said Layne with another
lopsided grin, her voice going a little deeper as she leaned closer, her full
lips curving wickedly.
 
“You were quite
good, too.”

Tracy giggled a little and blushed
even deeper as she held tightly to her violin case she was now holding in front
of her, a little like I’m sure she used to do in high school as she held her
schoolbooks and was given a compliment.
 
“You probably say that to all the violinists,” she murmured in what I’d
assumed was a joke, but her voice was a little breathy, and I stared at my
friend with wide eyes.
 
She was staring
at Layne with the kind of look she got when she was hitting on someone, all
pouty lips and wide eyes and leaning forward her chest just a little.

Tracy was straight.
 
Admittedly not really arrow-straight, but
she certainly liked men an awful lot.
 

But then, Layne
was
pretty
impressive and gorgeous, and when she was training those intense hazel eyes on
you, smiling her seductive little smile, and tossing some roguish hair out of
her eyes while wearing the hell out of that leather jacket…yeah.
 
I could see being a little flustered.

Like I was, right now.

“You know what we should do?” asked
Tracy then, blinking as if she’d just snapped out of a trance and grabbing my
arm so hard I almost lost my balance on my left crutch.
 
“Oh, sorry,” she murmured penitently,
helping to steady me with an arm around my shoulders.
 
“I just got the best idea!
 
Why don’t we all go out for drinks—we can celebrate Mikagi Tasuki
playing with little old us, we can celebrate…your new bodyguard…”
 
She trailed off with a chuckle and inclined
her head toward Layne and me.
 
“I’m sure
we can think of a bunch more things to celebrate.
 
What do you think?”

I narrowed my eyes and raised a
single eyebrow at Tracy, who was doing her best to appear completely innocent
with her wide eyes, blinking those long lashes slowly with a soft, neutral
smile.
 
Yeah, the innocent act wasn’t
really working.
 
Either she wanted me to
have some relaxed time with my attractive new bodyguard, or
she
wanted
some relaxed time with my attractive new bodyguard.