Jennifer Greene - Silver and Spice

“Rafe and Benjy!” Two men got up to take their fiddles from their cases, with laughter and clapping approval from the rest. “Stand up, honey,” Reed ordered her.

Anne obediently stood, for the first time in two hours. Jake’s face went out of focus, but that really didn’t matter. Everyone was laughing. Laughing and happy. The fiddlers’ bows were dancing lightly over the strings.

“You first, darlin’. What do you want to sing?” Reed asked her.

The question made no sense. Anne cleared her throat. “Not sure I understand,” she admitted happily.

“We play Round the Horn. All of us get a chance to sing our favorite tune. Doesn’t matter what kind of music you like-anything goes. Here, honey.” Reed handed her another full glass of Carla’s delightfully refreshing cherry punch.

Jake was suddenly, miraculously by her side, apparently having traveled at the speed of light. He intercepted the glass. Anne looked at him in surprise, took her punch back and leaned contentedly against his shoulder. “Jake wants to sing first,” she told Reed, and took another sip of the homemade nectar. Was she really going to have to sing in front of all these people? Normally, the thought would have struck an appalling note of panic in her. Regardless, she was certainly in a mood to hear everyone else. Especially Jake. He was handsome as the very devil, an oddly watchful spark in his eyes for Anne as he took up the challenge, clearly having been through this before.

Leaning back against the edge of the couch, he took Anne with him; an iron hand crept around her waist. Which was nice, because her knees suddenly felt like Jell-O, and being locked between his thighs was not unpleasant. She took just one more sip from her glass before he started to sing. She seemed to have been dying of thirst all evening. In the meantime, Jake’s first song fell flat. “Violets for Her Furs,” an old jazz melody. It failed because no one else could conceivably know the connotation but Anne, and secondly because Jake, sad but true, was tone-deaf. His second song enjoyed a better reception.

It was “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain When She Comes,” except that Jake’s verse had nothing to do with chicken ’n’ dumplings. “She’ll be teasing up a tempest when she comes” was how it started-and it deteriorated drastically from there.

These people liked their songs ribald. Lord, they went crazy, stomping their feet and laughing. They were really a hard-drinking bunch, Anne thought vaguely, although Jake, behind her, was still nursing the beer he’d started out with. The man to the left of Jake sang a mountain tune about a nubile young lass. The lyrics turned his wife’s ears red; but then, she certainly had a song to match his for lewdness. Carla, the sweet homemaker, came up with a Western melody about cowboys and what they did on lonely nights. As each person took a turn, the tunes grew even lustier. The fiddles had everyone’s feet stomping.

One by one, around the circle of the room, all of the guests offered songs. Anne’s cheeks were flushed from laughter and heat when Reed thumped her shoulder. “Your turn, darlin’.”

With her limbs sheer liquid, Anne was not about to spoil the party. But what song did she know of that nature? She handed Jake her empty glass, ignoring the message he was trying to send her with his eyes. She certainly had no intention of letting him down. The old fear that she could never fit into Jake’s life… Well, one could get tired of being pegged as inhibited and proper.

This was her chance to change her image. Confidently, she delivered a throaty, sexy rendition of a bawdy old Bessie Smith song.

“Keep on truckin’, Mama. Trucking all the whole day long…”

Anne threw one hip west, caught in Jake’s palm.

“She’s the best truck driver this side of town…”

She threw the other hip east, crashing again into Jake’s opposite palm before she could accomplish the bump-and-grind action she had in mind. She delivered the rest of the song in a breathy roar.

“…’Cause she does her truckin’ from the hips on down. Keep on truckin’, Mama, truckin’ all your cares away…”

They definitely liked the chorus. Anne was envisioning a singing career, her cheek molded to Jake’s shirt. Bessie Smith hadn’t been the only one who could belt out a song. Her limp arm extended, Anne accepted pumping handshake after handshake, as Jake moved with her toward the front door. He had one arm tucked under her knees and the other around her waist. Being carried certainly beat walking.

Carla was trailing after them. “Dammit, I’ll kill him for making her sing. If she doesn’t come back here after this because of Reed, he’s going to have that divorce he’s been joshing me about all these years. Jake, you know he was just trying to make sure she wasn’t nervous with a bunch of strangers, that she could be comfortable with this-”

“It’s all right,” Jake assured Carla.

From about a million miles away, Anne was still humming, tapping out a tune on the second button of Jake’s shirt.

“I’m still going to kill him,” Carla reiterated with relish.

Who cared? Who really cared? Murder was on the front page of every newspaper. Jake’s buttons never rated headlines. Because no one knew, Anne thought sleepily. No one had any idea about the sexy hair on his chest. “Thank you for a wonderful evening, Carla,” Anne sang out politely.

“You want an aspirin for her?” Carla asked Jake. “I’ve got black coffee on the stove…”

“Much better than purple coffee,” Anne said happily.

Neither Carla nor Jake seemed to be paying her any particular attention. “It’s my fault,” Carla said. “Everyone who comes in knows the punch is spiked. I should have warned Anne.”

“Carla, there isn’t a bit of long-term harm done.” Over Anne’s limp body, Jake and their hostess exchanged a last peck on the cheek. Which struck Anne as terribly funny.

Giggling, she noticed vaguely that the warm, crowded room suddenly turned into a black chill night. Jake’s chest drew her like a magnet. She tried to mold herself around that warmth like clay. “Want to make love?” she whispered up to him seductively.

“First, I’d like to negotiate these stairs,” he whispered back. “Either you stop squirming or you’re going over my shoulder fireman-style.”

An idle threat if she’d ever heard one. “I had a wonderful time. I love your friends, Jake. I love Idaho. I love this night. I love…”

“Yes?”

Her finger poked his chest. “You never thought I’d sing in front of a bunch of people, did you? Old inhibited, proper Anne. Couldn’t strip in front of that hot tub to save my life. I knew what you were thinking-old, boring Anne. I keep waiting for you to be bored…”

“I have never-” breathing heavily, he adjusted her 110 pounds in his arms at the bottom of the steps “-never been bored with you, sweetheart.” He pressed a kiss on her forehead.

“You do want to make love,” she whispered hoarsely, brimming with satisfaction.

“I just thought I’d take a little on account. Something tells me you’ll be breathing fire in the morning.”

“Like a dragon, Jake?”

“A dragoness.”

That made more sense. She fell asleep.

Anne woke up to a pair of bright gray eyes leaning over her. Too-bright eyes, and an offensively cheerful smile. She dragged her comforter back over her head, and settled her five-hundred-pound head back into the pillow.

“Now, Anne. I have a nice plain piece of toast here for you.”

“No, thank you.”

“One tiny glass of grapefruit juice, two brewer’s yeast tablets…”

“God. No, thank you.”

“All I want you to do is put a little something in your stomach. Then you can go back to sleep while I drive.”

Going to sleep sounded good; grapefruit juice did not. She seemed to be waking up far too fast. Vague, distorted memories from the night before were trying to rush at her. “Did I…?” She spoke directly to the comforter. “Jake, if I did anything to embarrass you in front of your friends…”

“You don’t remember?”

She took a breath. That was a mistake. A knife sliced directly into her temples. “I’m sorry. Really sorry,” she said unhappily. “Jake, it tasted like fruit juice, and there were so many people that it was hot in there. By the time I realized… Carla told me it was homemade, but I thought she meant…”

“Excuses, excuses.” Jake mercilessly tugged the comforter away from her face. “There’s my big drinker,” he said affectionately, a grin just dying to be let out of the corner of his mouth. “When I tell the lady to watch the punch bowl, she certainly watches the punch bowl.” He took advantage of her parted lips to nudge a sliver of toast inside. “I really think you should be all upset about this, honey. I mean, it’s a terrible habit you’ve built up. You’ve had too much to drink exactly once in thirty-one years.” His forefinger tapped her nose. “It’s just a real shame you don’t remember last night, since you had such a good time. You kept most of your clothes on, honestly, you did.”

He sauntered up to the driver’s seat and started the engine. Anne stared after him. As the engine vibrated to life, she rather hastily realized she had a glass of grapefruit juice in her hand, trying not to spill.

She downed it, grimaced and edged out of the bed. It was no small punishment for the night before, trying to get dressed while Jake drove down Killer Road. They were going to Coeur d’Alene; she applauded herself for remembering that…

Jake was humming a vaguely familiar tune when she made her way up to the passenger seat, planning to sit in total silence. The song got to her after a time, though. It was the kind of tune that could drive her crazy trying to remember a title she thought she knew. “What is it?” she asked finally.