“I know. I just came in to see what’s cookin’.”
Tobin watched Jade’s hands as she guided the knife through the perfectly toasted crust, slicing the tart into four equal pieces.
“What are your after-dinner plans, Tobin?” Garnet asked.
“Heading over to Abe’s. He’s got a two-year-old bull he wants me to look at. He’s become as obsessed with diversity in their breeding stock as Ike and Hugh have. What are you ladies up to?”
“I tried to convince Pearl to let Jade come to the range with us tonight.”
“Range?” Jade repeated. “As in golf range?”
Garnet snorted. “Do I look like I golf? No, it’s our gun range night. We only get a limited amount of time. But then again, the sheriff insists we have the range to ourselves after the last scuffle we had with the Gun Club. They challenged us to a shootout and got really ticked off when Vivien beat their best shooter. She won fair and square.” Garnet lowered her voice. “Vivien took her smallest-caliber pistol and created a penis at the bottom of the silhouette target. But it was a teeny-tiny penis. And it had no balls.” She sighed. “So we won’t be invited to their turkey-feed fundraiser this year.”
Tobin laughed. He glanced over at Jade.
She stared openmouthed at her grandmother.
“Pretty accurate depiction of one if I remember right.” She frowned. “You know, I think I might have a picture on my phone—”
“No, that’s okay. I believe you. And I don’t know about going to the gun range. I don’t want to insert myself where I don’t belong.”
Jade handed him a plate.
Garnet actually gave him a little push out of the kitchen.
When Tobin parked in his usual spot in the driveway, he had a moment of doubt. Maybe Jade wanted time to herself. Maybe she’d think it was weird that he’d come back so soon after his meeting.
Tobin exited his truck and breathed in the scents of a summer night. The day had cooled off quickly after the sunset. Out here, air-conditioning wasn’t necessary. Just open the windows and let the cross breezes cool everything down.
That’s why he’d heard the unfamiliar sound when his boot had hit the top porch stair. He paused. Listened. And he’d heard it again. A drawn-out, mournful wail.
Entering the house quietly, he saw the kitchen lights were off. Two lamps burned in the living room. Light from the sitting room spilled across the wood floor. He moved along the hallway to the small space tucked behind the staircase. You wouldn’t even know a room was back there if the door was closed, but it was open and that’s where the sounds he’d heard were coming from.
Just then a violent eruption of musical notes exploded into the air. Angry tones, dissonant chords that evoked that gut-twisting feeling of betrayal.
Tobin leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, letting the music wash over him.
The anger and betrayal in the piece gave way to melancholy, long sweet notes rather than fast and furious rapid-fire runs. Gradually the sense of melancholy began to melt away; the tones became brighter, happy little teases, followed by high- and low-pitched short sections that he swore sounded like flirty dialogue between a man and a woman.
Then once again the tone morphed into one of sensuality. A slow tango of rich and steady glides before gradually the strains shortened, creating an urgency that rose and rose until it reached that long, clear high-pitched note. That piercing swell held, and held and held, then in the next moment it spiraled down, becoming a whisper of sweet nothings and ebbs and flows of soft notes.
But the song wasn’t done; it had one more deep emotion to pull from those strings—sorrow. Not an angry sorrow, but despair. An almost steady drone of it, with little variation in volume, the kind of despair and grief that comes from loss of love.
That’s how the song ended. Abruptly.
Tobin’s heart raced. Somehow through the emotions still zinging through his body, he had the presence of mind to speak so she didn’t freak out. “Jade?”
First he heard a hollow thud. Then, “Tobin?”
“Yeah.”
He heard her footsteps approach and stop.
“I can’t apologize for listening in because that has got to be the single greatest piece of music I’ve ever heard.” He took a chance and opened his eyes.
Jade stood across from him, a violin tucked under her arm, a bow dangling by her leg. She looked the same as she had before supper, T-shirt, hip-hugger jeans, bare feet. The only difference was she had pulled back her hair and secured it at the base of her neck.
Yes, she looked the same, but Tobin knew he’d be seeing her completely differently now. This little whip of a thing who could create such intense magic.