Liz Talley - His Uptown Girl

Mr. Hibbett shook his head. “Maybe so. I’ll gather the pieces. Here’s my toolbox if you two want to get started on boarding up your windows. I still have to fetch the video loop for the detective.”

Dez took the old-fashioned toolbox from the man and set it by her door, which fortunately hadn’t been hit. “Let me grab some plywood and I’ll be back.”

“I’ll help you,” she said, stepping over the shattered glass and following his broad shoulders.

“I can probably get it myself if you want to stay here.”

“And do what?”

“Sweep up the glass?”

His suggestion had merit but for some reason she didn’t want to be alone. Which was stupid. The perpetrators were likely random kids, and there was little danger with a policeman standing yards away. Dez must have sensed her hesitation because he waved his hand. “Come on, then. I might need an extra set of hands after all.”

She followed him across the street, wincing when she saw that the vandals had knocked holes in his art deco door and the one large window that had earlier held the name of the place—Blue Rondo.

She stopped and stared at the ruined window. “That sucks.”

Dez looked at the destruction. “Yeah, but it can be fixed.”

He opened the front door and stepped back so she could pass. When he reached past her to flick on the light switch, she caught his scent—something woodsy and primal that suited him, and made her very aware of how masculine he was. Of how long it had been since she’d been close to a man she found attractive. Hunger stirred within her. She wanted to touch him, breathe him in.

Light flooded the room and she squeezed her eyes shut against the startling brightness.

“So here we have Satan’s lair,” he said, wryness shadowing his voice along with humor.

She opened her eyes, wondering how he could be jovial when what he’d been working on had been damaged. “Okay, I’ve never actually called it Satan’s lair.”

“Den of iniquity? Palace of prostitution?”

Eleanor snorted, shifting back a step because Dez’s presence overwhelmed her. “I never said any of those things, Dez. Besides, we don’t have time to wade into those waters right now. Maybe another time.”

His gaze flickered over her worn jeans and ragged sweatshirt. She didn’t flinch, but a silly voice that sounded a little like her mother’s whispered she should have taken a bit more time to fix herself up. At least a brush through her hair.

Shut up, voice. It was an emergency.

“Definitely,” he said, with not quite a purr in his voice. Okay. Nothing in his voice indicated he wanted to strip off her clothes, but her fragile ego needed to cling to something, right?

“So where’s the plywood?”

He jerked his thumb at the bar. “In the back. Stay here.”

With the grace of a jaguar...or maybe just a natural athleticism...Dez disappeared behind the bar, giving her time to look around the club.

Clean gray walls met tiles that glowed with metallic patina, making a unique pattern of charcoal and onyx. Several black tables were piled in a far corner, awaiting placement. Cool cobalt-and-gold-glass pendants hung from the ceiling, above where the tables would eventually sit. A covelike stage with plenty of room for a good-size band was on her left, with a grand piano created by the gods sitting front and center. She’d never thought to see a Fazioli in a club across from her shop, but then again, she’d never thought there’d be a jazz club in her sedate block of Magazine either.

“A Fazioli?” she asked Dez when he returned lugging several sheets of plywood and then sliding them onto a piece of cardboard.

He glanced at the piano, and in his gaze, she saw incredible pride. “Yeah, that’s my baby.”

The piano didn’t look like a regular piano, but she’d known exactly what it was, having seen it in a magazine once. The design was called M. Liminal, and it had a futuristic appearance that seemed at odds with the art deco...yet oddly right.

“I hope you have a crazy-good alarm system.”

He slid the boards closer to her. “Who do you think called the police? I was playing a gig on Frenchmen when I got the call from the alarm company.”

“Thanks for being Johnny-on-the-spot,” she said, walking toward the piano. “This piano’s beautiful in a weird way.”

Dez leaned the plywood against a support column and joined her next to the stage. “It was a gift.”

Eleanor ran a hand over the shiny silver top. “Some gift.”

His gaze shuttered as he stepped onto the platform. “Yeah.”

He lifted the lid and ran his fingers over the keys, his hands masterful, playing a light run of exceptional beauty. How ironic to see such exquisiteness in the chaos of destruction.

Something shivery skipped up her spine, and the moment felt prophetic, as if there was always the possibility of beauty in the midst of ruin, a truth held tightly in a city crumbling away.

The click of the lid jarred Eleanor from her musings, from her appreciation of the man before her.

“We better get back. It’s late,” he said, his voice sounding faraway, as if he, too, felt something in the moment.

She glanced at the Timex on her wrist. 11:56 p.m. “Morning’s one blink away.”

Looking up she caught his gaze and her stomach trembled at the raw desire she saw in his eyes. This time she didn’t have to imagine the invitation. The moment crackled with electricity, making her lean toward him rather than take the steps toward the door. For a moment, she wanted something she shouldn’t with a man who was so far away from her normal kind of guy he was completely off the charts.

His gaze slid to her lips.

Instinctively, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Y’all coming?” The voice at the door grumped. Cranky Mr. Hibbett.

Eleanor blinked the intense moment away. “Uh, sorry. I’d never seen a Fazioli before.” She pointed to the piano as the older man, whose fuzzy eyebrows knitted together, waved a hand at her and headed toward the leaning plywood.

“Bah. Stare at pianos later. We’ve got work to do.”

Dez leaped off the stage and grabbed the opposite end of the boards, helping Mr. Hibbett maneuver them out the club door.

Eleanor stood there like a fool, watching.

What was wrong with her?

She scratched her head, jerked the ugly scrunchy from the ponytail and scraped a hand through her hair, wishing she didn’t feel so inept, so awkward, so...old.

Dez Batiste was too young for her. Too hip. Too cool. If she wanted to get back into the dating pool, it would be better to don a conservative tankini and slowly descend the steps into the water. Not bling it out in a string bikini and do a swan dive off the high dive into deep waters.

’Cause that’s what Dez Batiste was.

Deep waters in a string bikini.

She needed a nice sedate man who sipped Scotch and talked about the stock market. With gray around his temples and an enviable golf handicap. A guy who wore Dockers and Ralph Lauren. Her type of guy.

Right?

Right.

So Dez could haunt her fantasies, but he wouldn’t be part of her reality. Because he was a young, hot musician and she was a middle-aged mom and antiques dealer.

God. How boring was that?

Sounded as if she’d given up.

Dez popped his head back inside. “You coming?”

She wished.

“Oh. Sorry. Flashback of Katrina,” she said, hurrying toward the door.

Actually, she hadn’t been thinking about Hurricane Katrina, and the way her store had once stood with gaping black windows, the debris from the looting scattered around the sidewalk. She hadn’t been thinking of the empty display case holding the moniker for her store, but Dez didn’t have to know her little moment wasn’t about the past. And he damned sure didn’t need to know she wanted to rip off his clothes and have her wicked way with him.