Page 54 of Lady Sings the Blues

15.

Elise

It’s been a week since the bombing attack on Beau’s home. A home which we can’t even consider renovating until the fire marshal and police detectives finish their investigation. There have been some adjustments to living at the compound, such as always having men, pieces and hot mamas underfoot. I want a bowl of fruit loops, but find someone else got to them before me. So we buy more and I hide them, only to discover someone raided my stash.

They’re louder than I’m used to. Party more than I’m used to. And the constant cloud of smoke hovering above our heads in the common from all the cigarettes and other non-tobacco products smoked on a daily basis will probably end up causing me cancer.

Though I relish these quiet moments to myself—they come so rarely since we rolled back into town—I admit, missing waking up next to him this morning. Seems I’ve gotten used to his warm body wrapped lovingly around me, even in sleep. He left for work before I woke. I knew Beau would be gone, he and Duke and Chaos. Some kind of new acquisition. They didn’t really go into it. I understand not wanting to jinx the sale by talking about it until the ink is dry on all the signatures.

As I lay sprawled out on the bed, deciding on whether to get up or stay here for a while longer, my cell begins to ring, making the decision for me. Reaching over to the bedside table where I left the phone plugged into the wall to charge last night, I look at the display. It’s not a number I recognize, though, being local, I answer.

“Hello?” I say into the receiver.

There’s no response at first. Then music. The kind that comes from mobiles parents hang over baby cribs.

So I ask again, “Hello?”

“Hello?” I hearmyvoice say back to me. It’s a prank. Just a prank.

“Who is this?” I demand.

“Who is this?Who is this?Who is this?” The voice, my voice repeats, but each one goes higher and faster as if someone is playing my words back to me in fast forward. Then in that same high pitched voice I hear, “You shouldn’t go out today.”

Damn Hadley for giving out my number. And damn these townspeople for not letting go. Why can’t they just leave me alone? I pinch the bridge of my nose and hang up. The phone rings back several times before it goes to voicemail. Stupidly, I listen and I wish I hadn’t. It’s more of that mobile music and my voicemail message on fast forward. Then abruptly a shrieking laugh cuts off the message.

Somehow the attacks on my car or the empty house, as bad as they were, felt tame compared to the violation of some stranger’s prank over the phone. They found me in my bedroom. My sanctuary. Now I have nowhere safe. Nowhere they can’t get to me.

Shaking, I walk out of our bedroom in an almost zombie-like state. Forgetting to tame the bedhead hair. Forgetting that I only wear Beau’s Easyriders tee. Underwear. No pants. No slippers. My feet stick to god knows what on the way into the kitchen.

The kitchen. The innermost room in the compound. Therefore, the safest room in the compound. But not even the smell of coffee cures my woes.

“Jesus, lass. Are you sick?” The voice I’ve never heard before.

I scream and twist to the knife block sitting on the counter, pulling an eight inch butcher knife firmly between both hands.

“Fuck. Calm down.”

Twisting back to the intruder, I swing the knife wildly, narrowly missing his chest as he steps toward me, in an attempt to disarm the feral animal I’ve become.

“It’s okay, you’re okay.” He holds his hands up, not in surrender, but to reiterate his sentiment. “Elise, right? C’mon, lass. Put the knife down.”

I blink and look at my hands holding the knife, then back at the man who inches closer until one of his arms secures mine to my side. He snatches the weapon from my hands and sighs in a ‘crisis averted’ way, and slips it back into the block, before sliding onto a barstool where he picks up a steaming cup of coffee, sipping peacefully, as if I hadn’t just tried to gut him.

With my brain cleared, I look to the man to apologize but the words get lost. He’s, well, he’s buck-ass naked for one. And as much as I’d like to look away, it’s like my eyes won’t obey my command to do so. He’s an amalgam of piercings—both nipples, gauges in his ears, and even down home with a barbell through the head of his penis. And it’s a hell of a penis. It’s such a penis that I know he’s a natural redhead, not by the hair on his head. This guy—walking, breathing sex appeal.

“My eyes are up here, lass.”

Oh my god. Caught in the act of staring. My face burns. “Sorry about.” I wave my hand in the general direction of the knives. “Trying to kill you. You scared me.”

“Eh, day in the life. No harm, no foul.” As he swallows another sip from his mug, I take the time to notice his light spattering of freckles that I’ll bet turn the ladies on.

Somehow I thought he was being humble with his, ‘day in the life.’ The scar under his left eye suggests otherwise, along with offering a badass edge to his movie star face. As does the gunshot scar puckered over his right shoulder and one lower, left side pelvis.

Awkwardness from potential homicide aside, we’ve done the whole introduction thing backward. I mean, learning a person’s name should comebeforeseeing him naked. He has me at a disadvantage. One I tend to rectify. “So—you got a name?” I ask. “I could give you one.” And I throw out an eyebrow waggle for good measure.

Snickering, he stands to pour another mug of coffee and good Lord Almighty, the back matches the front. What’s the saying, could bounce quarters off his ass? “They call me Scotch,” he says.

“Of coursethey do.”

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