The Way You Make Me Feel (6 page)

“I'm sorry,” she mumbled. “What must you think of me, coming on to you like that.”

His eyes were serious on her and he stroked her gently. “You weren't coming on to me and I loved every minute of it. It takes a lifetime for some people to love and feel passion, others feel it from the beginning. I want to talk more about this. Do you want to talk about the dream? You screamed, ‘Bretta, run!' Can you remember what you were dreaming?”

She found she could tell him what little she knew and she was glad she was seeing Dr. Winslow the next day.

Damien spent the rest of the night holding her and his heart hurt when she finally fell asleep. She didn't cry out or call Bretta's name again.

What he knew, lying there as he held her lush body in his arms, was that these powerful feelings were beyond sex, beyond simple hunger. What he felt was life itself.

B
y five-thirty Friday morning Stevie and Damien hit the grass of the running track at the bottom of his huge backyard. The air was cool and faintly damp and Stevie shivered in the dusty rose jogging suit she had packed. Dusty rose was one of her best colors; she liked the way Damien's eyes lit up when he looked at her. She had come awake knowing she had to move, keep busy for the rest of the day.

They talked as they jogged. “D'you take your fitness program seriously, or do you just do it because it's the fashion?” he asked her.

“I couldn't be more serious. I've got great stamina since I started and even my voice has improved.”

“Your voice has always been at its peak.”

“Thank you. Are you
always
so kind?”

“You know me. D'you think I'm kind?”

“I just think you're the best. Damien, no way could I ever tell you how grateful I am to you.”

“You're welcome. If it's necessary, I'll keep saying how much I owe you. I don't think you quite realize what you did. Stevie, I'm taking you to work with me this morning. Think you're up to it?”

She drew a sharp breath and didn't answer for a moment. Then she said, “Well, I handled being in that posh restaurant yesterday very well. Keith Muncy and Jake aren't men I want to contact in my worst dreams. I'll go in with you. The only thing is…”

“The only thing is?”

“That song's still swimming around in my head and I'm always a little crazy when that happens. Could you just shut me up in a room near you and let me work?”

“Sure. I can get you anything your little heart desires.”

“Then we're on.” She didn't talk for a little before she said, “You haven't really asked me again about last night.”

“I've been waiting for you to tell me.” He had lain beside her after her nightmare, half asleep as she moaned from time to time. At dawn she had come awake first and he had found her looking at him when he woke up. She had looked haunted and he had decided to wait until she wanted to talk more.

Now he said, “I want you to be free of this dream, this fantasy that has this terrible grip on you.”

“And I
want
to be free of it. I'm going to keep trying, but it's so damned hard. I keep telling you it's in the center of my mind and I see it clearly, then just as I wake up it begins to dwindle…” She hesitated.

“Into a red-orange ball.”

“Yes.” Her voice was urgent then. “I'm going to keep at it. It's
got
to come.” Then she stopped abruptly and her voice held the edge of hysteria. “Only I'm scared, Damien.”

He reached over and patted her shoulder. “I'm no psychiatrist, but ask yourself
what
it is you're scared of. I'm sure Dr. Winslow has asked you that.”

“A number of times. The question only makes me more afraid. It seems I know I'll die if I see what's in that dream.” Then she said fiercely, “I'm going to face my fears.”

“That's my girl.”

They had slowed as they talked and her heart drummed now. She took a deep breath. “I'm going to sing next Thursday night at Club Insomnia.”

“That soon?”

“Yes. I want to go back. Singing has always been what's saved me. The only time I've stopped was just after my divorce. I felt like such a failure.”

“You could never be a failure, Stevie.”

“Jake always said I was a loser as a wife. I wanted too much, demanded too much. He constantly criticized me for being passionate, said it wasn't natural in a woman…”

“Jake's a damned fool and it's too bad you didn't know that sooner. We're in a heated business where passion is everything. It makes the music flow. Without it we're nothing. Passion is a gift and I want you to be proud of that gift.”

They stopped and he put his index finger under her chin, lifted it. “Are you listening to me?”

“You bet I'm listening. You remind me of my father. My mother could be quite cold. When I was nine, I had a crush on a sixteen-year-old brother who wrote me a note asking me to meet him. My mother intercepted the note and raised hell, but my father took up for me. ‘You like this boy?' he asked me and when I said I did, he talked with me about passion.

“He talked with me about sexual passion and said it was too heavy a burden for children to bear, but I needed to thank God I had that capacity. He said I needed to keep it and nurture it always. Just guard my body like the precious jewel it is. I don't think my mother ever saw it that way.”

“She lost a lot by not seeing it that way.”

“I get mixed up sometimes. My music just fills every cell of my body and I'm on top of the world—and happy—when I'm with my music. Then something comes over me. It seems I'm too happy and I get scared. And I stop feeling passionate.”

He smiled. “We're going to work on that, you and I. We're going to work on a lot of things. Hey, I love having you around, Toots. Two more laps and we go for a shower and a bite of breakfast.”

 

In the sunny breakfast room, Damien asked Stevie what she wanted for breakfast.

“Just surprise me,” she said. “All that exercise has left me so hungry I'll eat anything. What're you having?”

“Mediterranean sardines on wheat thins and pomegranate juice.”

“Hmmm. Sounds—interesting. I've had pomegranate juice and liked it, but just didn't buy it again.”

“It's great for most of what ails you, and the alternative doctors've made studies of very old people in certain countries who attribute their longevity in part to eating a lot of sardines.”

“I ate sardines as a child, with soda crackers. What's a lot?”

“A couple of tins a week.”

“And you do?”

“I do. I intend to live until I'm a hundred or more.” He smiled then and his face lit up because he was thinking that with her as a friend, he was going to enjoy living that long.

“You're smiling so. What's on your mind, Steele?”

He smiled more at her tough stance. She was teasing him and that meant she felt much better. “I'll tell you why I'm smiling, but not now. I'm keeping you around and I like you in dusty rose. You've got an aura I can't quite define, but I'm drawn. You're a tender, passionate woman, Stevie, and I hope you never change.”

“I
did
change with Jake. I had to to protect myself. With you I feel more like me for the first time in a very long while.”

“When I get through with you, you're going to feel every ounce of passion and tenderness you own. I'll see to that.”

She thought then about what Jake had said the day before about Damien being a player. And she asked him, “Do you consider yourself a player?”

He laughed. “You caught me a while back in the middle of my player days. Hell, yes, I was a player of sorts. But I like women too much, have too much respect for them to play them cheap, which is what a player is to me. Respect is a part of my life, Stevie, respect for my whole world and that sure includes women.

“After Honi I hurt so bad I couldn't take it, and seeing other women helped me stanch the pain. But I wasn't going the love route again. I wasn't going to find myself near death again. So I became the Dutch uncle, the perfect escort. Yeah, I know I got a rep for holding them and rolling them, but it wasn't that way. I found women appreciated the fact that I kissed and didn't tell. I've got a lot of women friends, but I want one woman and I want a kid—more than anything.”

“More than you want a woman?”

He drew a very deep breath, expelled it. “No, not really—Listen, sweetie, let's get going. I think you're looking great.” And he realized that he meant that; Stevie was beginning to seem really good-looking to him.

 

Nubian Gold was one of the showplaces of Nashville's Music Row. A building fashioned of black granite and cantilevered sandstone and glass, it was award-winning and eye-catching.

The receptionist, an older woman, greeted them with a big grin. “Mr. Steele, how are you today? And, Stevie, great outfit. Haven't seen you around in a very long time. Here, could I have a hug?” She hugged Stevie a long time. She had heard about the trouble, but didn't mention it.

The decor of the offices was blue-green, with pandanus wood furnishings, chrome and glass. Tables fashioned of heavy plate glass held up by gnarled driftwood added even more luxury.

Sheila, Damien's private secretary and right-hand woman, greeted Damien and hugged Stevie. Middle-aged and very attractive with loosely coiffed silver hair and unlined skin, she was a dynamo. “I've got a room ready for you to compose in,” she told Stevie. “I put in fresh carnations and a big bowl of raw cashews. And oh yes, I'm lending you Robbie, my robin, and his cage to keep you company. If you need anything, just holler. Have you two had coffee?”

They both nodded and went into the cozy cream-colored room that was shaped like an egg and had always fascinated Stevie.

“You know,” she said, “I'm going to have a room built like this one. I wish I'd thought of it while my house was under construction.”

“You can come here at any time.”

“Thank you, but I would like my own. I'll come here, too.”

Damien kept looking at her and, unbidden, a picture came to his mind of her body swollen with his baby. Yeah, he
had
held a few women, but he couldn't remember having a fantasy of quite this intensity, not even with Honi.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” But he knew what she meant.

She shook her head. “Nothing. It's just a strange look.”

“Unwelcome?”

“Whatever it is, I think you know the answer to that.”

 

The room she was in was an inspiration in itself, Stevie thought. She was a success, but Damien was an explosive success. And he gave back to the community with a vengeance. Unlike Jake who largely scorned community activities, Damien helped everyone he could.

She settled down at an oval-shaped heavy-glass table with a pad, a large sheaf of plain paper for brainstorming and a Parker ballpoint pen. Her father had given her a similar pen when she was seven and she had begun to write poetry and song lyrics. The high-powered CD player purred Dvorak's “Romantic Pieces,” and the beautiful melodies swirled around her. She already had the first two verses of the song and the rest of it was very much in her mind.

She leaned back. “The Way You Make Me Feel” had taken over her spirit. It was always a good sign when a song came to life like this. It had lingered on the edges of her creative womb for a while, but only since she'd become closer to Damien had it come in fully. Damien the enigma. A nice guy. A player? Philanthropist. Hunk. One thing she knew, he was out of her league.

Jake had proved to be just your ordinary dog of a man, taking women where he found them. Women had called him at all hours of the day and night. At first he had lied and said they were all business, women he had to see. Later, he hadn't bothered to lie. “You're such a hayseed,” he'd often said. “Not one little bit of sophistication. A man like me is always going to have extra women. I'm too much for one woman. You're just going to have to get used to it, babe.”

She hadn't gotten used to it and had continued to protest. Then the shakings and the slaps had begun and the heavier beating when she'd had him arrested.

Yesterday Detective Rollins and Damien had told her about Bretta and Keith Muncy and how she had stood up for Bretta. Her friend had won her divorce case handily in spite of the high-priced lawyers the wealthy Keith had been able to hire. There had been a large sum of money settled on her, but he had kidnapped and beaten her again and been arrested and sent to prison.

Picking up the Zemaitis Heart-Hole guitar Sheila had handed her, she plucked a few strings, tightened them and began strumming. The room was soundproofed. For a few minutes she simply let the waves of perfect pitch wash over her. The sound of this guitar was like no other she had ever heard and she shivered a bit at the ecstasy it aroused in her. She thought this guitar had a
soul
.

Putting the guitar aside, she picked up a handful of the cashews and munched on them, drank cool lemon water from a carafe. Then she studied the words she had finally written:

She hummed the melody as she wrote. That was one reason she listened to the classics when she composed; it didn't interfere with her own country music when the classics were turned low. Later, when she wanted to proof her tune, she would turn off all other sounds. Was it out there for all the world to see, the way Damien Steele was making her feel? Like him, she had had her heart shattered. Wasn't once enough?