Changes (The Magic Jukebox Book 1) Read online

  Last night she’d made love to someone who wasn’t Peter. And it had been glorious.

  For the first time since she’d heard her mother’s voice emerging through her cell phone, she smiled.

  ***

  “So, how did the move go?” Nick asked.

  They were seated in an elegant dining room at the inn, its glass walls offering a generous view of the ocean. The sky above it was a spread of colors, pink and purple, a few blue-gray clouds rippling across it like the swirls of fudge in the ice-cream he and Diana had devoured last night.

  No eating ice-cream out of a waxed-cardboard tub in this place, he thought. The tables were draped with linen; the silverware was sterling silver and weighed heavily in his hands. He’d traded his jeans for a pair of tailored slacks. His legs were used to denim, but this was where Diana had wanted to eat dinner.

  She’d insisted on paying, too. “I’m exorcising a demon,” she’d said. When he’d argued that that wasn’t much of an explanation, she’d elaborated. “I came here with Peter to see if we wanted to book our wedding here. And I came to realize I didn’t want to book a wedding with him, here or anywhere else. I just want to eat here like a normal person, not trying out the caterer’s tasting menu and bickering with him over whether the crab puffs are better here or at some other place we also looked at.”

  “Does that mean we should order the crab puffs or avoid them?” Nick asked.

  Diana laughed. “Order whatever you want. We’re celebrating.”

  Cheerful though she was, he sensed an undercurrent of…not quite tension in her, but something. Something gray, something down. “What are we celebrating?” he asked. Personally, he wouldn’t mind celebrating the hot sex they’d enjoyed last night—and the promise of more hot sex tonight, if she was willing. But he suspected she had something else in mind.

  “The big move today went perfectly,” she told him. “Nothing broke. Nothing was lost. Everything fit into the one truck, and it’s all in the warehouse now. My first major deal!”

  That was worthy of clinking his wine glass to hers. She’d ordered a bottle of some fancy red with a French name, and it tasted great. He just had to remember to be careful with the delicate glass. Pick it up the wrong way, and the thin stem might snap in two. He was used to handling basketballs, not crystal goblets.

  The waiter came to take their orders. Just to be safe, Nick skipped the crab puffs—they sounded too fussy for his tastes, anyway—and ordered a steak. Diana requested something a lot more elaborate, involving shrimp, asparagus and assorted other ingredients that were listed on the menu in elegant gold script.

  Once the waiter was gone, Nick gazed at her. A candle enclosed in glass sat at the center of the table, flickering amber light over her face. She’d worn a lacy white blouse and a dark skirt, and one of the several thoughts circulating through his mind was that he’d love to tear both the blouse and the skirt off her and do the naked tango with her, right here, on the plush carpet, with that panoramic view of the ocean beyond the glass wall.

  Another thought was that he still sensed a shadow of something in her eyes, an emotion that didn’t have anything to do with celebrating. Asking was probably a big mistake, but he asked anyway. “What went wrong?”

  She’d lifted her glass to drink—and the graceful goblet seemed to fit her hand a lot better than his. His question made her pause, the glass inches from her lips. She looked perplexed. “What do you mean, what went wrong?”

  “Sure, the liquidation went smoothly. Your first big score and all that. But…I don’t know. You don’t seem as happy as you should be.”

  The smile that curved her mouth was sweet and sad and almost helpless. “I had a difficult conversation with my mother, that’s all.”

  Nick smiled, too, suspecting his smile was just as helpless. “Mothers,” he muttered. “What did she say?”

  Diana sipped her wine, lowered her glass and sighed. “She found out that I’d ended things with Peter. I was going to tell her—in person. And really, it should have been up to me to tell her. But Peter told her, instead. She’s furious.”

  He imagined her mother would be even more furious if she knew Diana had broken her engagement because she’d heard a song at the Faulk Street Tavern. And more furious yet if she knew Diana had spent last night in Nick’s bed. “Any particular reason she’s upset, or just in general?”

  “Both, I think.” Another sad little smile. “My parents love Peter. Maybe more than they love me.”

  “I doubt that.”

  She dismissed his words with a wave of her hand. “They’ve been dreaming of this wedding since Peter and I were in diapers. Peter’s parents are their best friends. Peter and I grew up together. It was all so perfect. He was everything they could hope for in a son-in-law. The right blood lines, the right schools, the right income.”

  “Maybe they thought he’d make you happy.”

  “Who knows?” She took another sip of wine, then leaned back as the waiter appeared with their salads. “I don’t think my happiness was particularly high on their list of concerns. When I said I wouldn’t be happy with Peter, my mother seemed to think that was irrelevant. She acted as if I was selfish for not going through with the marriage. I was letting everyone down.”

  “That’s their problem, not yours,” Nick said.

  “They’ll make it my problem,” she muttered, looking disconsolate. “My sister had to move all the way to England to avoid their manipulations. I always tried to compensate for that, to be the best possible daughter. If I married Peter, I’d still qualify for that title. But that’s not a good reason to get married.”

  Nick nodded his agreement.

  “I want to be my own person,” she said. “For once in my life, I don’t want to have to worry about making everyone else happy.”

  “You won’t get any argument from me.” Of course, he hoped she’d make him happy later tonight, when he finally got to strip off her blouse and skirt. But he’d make her at least as happy.

  “Mothers,” she said glumly, echoing his earlier plaint. “If I ever have children, remind me not to meddle in their lives.”

  As if Nick would be available to issue that reminder when she became a mother. But he played along. “I’ll remind you.”

  “Your mother can’t be as bad as mine,” she said.

  He caught himself before swearing. “She’s worse.”

  “Does she meddle in your life?”

  Tell her. The nagging voice of conscience resonated in his head. The little angel on his shoulder. The voice of Gus, dispensing words of wisdom while she stood behind the bar at the Faulk Street Tavern, slicing lemons.

  He picked up the steak knife the waiter had brought for him, hefted its wooden handle, set it down. He gazed out at the water. He tried to find the courage to come clean. “I’m not…I’m not the guy you think I am,” he finally managed.

  Diana peered intently at him. Her eyebrows dipped slightly above the bridge of her nose. “What guy do I think you are?”

  He shrugged. “A social worker. A do-gooder. Someone who runs programs for kids.”

  “And you’re not that?”

  “I am.” Deep breath. Tell her. “I did time in the juvenile justice system.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly, and her brows straightened, her frown fading. He watched her watching him. She didn’t look pleased, but she didn’t look horrified, either. He wondered how many people with criminal records traveled in her circle.

  “That’s it? Okay?”

  “If you were a juvenile…well, lots of kids screw up when they’re young. Then they grow up and put their past behind them.”

  Nick had grown up. At times he felt he’d skipped right past grown-up to old. But he doubted he could ever put his past behind him.

  Tell her.

  “I was convicted of attempted murder,” he said.

  ***

  Chapter Fourteen

  Diana dropped her fork. It clattered against the edge of her
salad plate and fell to the thick carpet with a muted thud. In a matter of seconds, the waiter had scooped the fork off the floor and set a clean replacement to the left of her salad plate.

  As if the pretty plate of arugula, endive, grape tomatoes and balsamic vinaigrette could tempt her. Her appetite was gone.

  Murder?

  Attempted murder, he’d said. Was she supposed to be relieved that his intended victim was fortunate enough to have survived?

  Tears clogged her throat, a salty lump that made swallowing next to impossible. What did she know about this man? They’d locked gazes over a song at a bar. She’d left her fiancé for him. Well, for herself, too, but Nick Fiore had been the catalyst—Nick, with his dark eyes, his dark hair, his intensity. His rugged physique. His modesty. His innate goodness.

  What goodness? He’d nearly killed someone!

  Oh, God. She’d made love with him. She’d lost herself in his arms, several times. She’d never known sex could be so pleasurable, could leave her feeling satisfied on such a soul-deep level. She’d never slept more soundly than she had last night, enveloped in his protective, possessive warmth, lulled by the steady rhythm of his breathing.

  “The verdict was wrong,” he added.

  “Of course it was,” she snapped, a strange, frantic energy bubbling along her nerves. Didn’t every convict believe the verdict was wrong? Didn’t they all believe they’d been cheated, misunderstood, abused by the system?

  She’d made love with a would-be murderer!

  “I didn’t want to tell you,” he said. “I was afraid you’d react this way.”

  “What way?” Her voice sounded brittle to her, like thin ice splintering. “Juvenile justice. Sure. Some kids get busted for smoking a joint. Some get nailed for underage drinking. You got convicted of attempted murder.”

  “Diana.” He reached for her hand and she recoiled. Shoving back her chair, she searched the dining room for their waiter. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t remain seated at this table. She needed air. She needed to move. What she really needed was a long jog on the beach, but the sun had set and she was wearing a skirt, and—

  “Is everything all right, miss?” the waiter said, whisking across the room to their table.

  “Please cancel our dinners,” she said. “I’ll sign the check to my room.”

  “Diana,” Nick said.

  “If you’re hungry, you can stay and eat your steak,” she said with what she considered extreme generosity. “I’ve got to go.”

  Nick stood, dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He handed the waiter a wad of cash. “Here. Keep it.”

  Diana rose to her feet as well. “I said I’d sign it to my room.”

  Ignoring her, Nick shook his head at the waiter, who seemed dumbfounded by the amount of money Nick had handed him. Diana didn’t wait to watch them settle up. She bolted out of the dining room, through the inn’s quaint lobby and out onto the porch.

  The night was pleasantly cool, the air thick with the ocean’s perfume. The breeze rising up off the water tangled in her hair as she raced to the edge of the porch, her hands fisted around the rail as if that was the only way to keep herself from charging down the bluff to the beach. She gulped in deep breaths and kept her eyes open so they wouldn’t fill with tears. A few faint stars pricked the night sky.

  She heard footsteps behind her. She didn’t have to turn to see Nick. She could feel him, his essence shimmering in the air around her, sparking as if the atmosphere was charged with electricity.

  “Can we talk?” he asked.

  She refused to look at him. “It’s a free country.”

  “My father used to beat my mother.”

  Her no-tears strategy wasn’t working. She felt her vision swimming. A strange dizziness washed over her, making her legs feel weak.

  Maybe she swayed, went pale and appeared about to faint, because Nick gripped her arm, firmly but gently, led her away from the railing to one of the sturdy Adirondack chairs, and lowered her into it. As soon as she was settled, he released her, as if he could sense that she didn’t want him touching her.

  He sat in the chair next to hers. She continued to stare out at the ocean, afraid of what she would see if she looked at him. A murderer? The son of a wife-beater? The man with whom she’d spent a night making love?

  “My father beat my mother,” he repeated. “Usually he just smacked her around a little, or hit her in places where it wouldn’t show. When I was a child, I couldn’t do anything about it. Except watch. Or withdraw. Usually my mother would tell me to go to my room so I wouldn’t have to see it. I could hear it, though. The walls were thin.”

  “I’m sorry,” Diana said, meaning it. It must have been traumatic for him. Maybe the trauma of it was what had turned him into a criminal.

  “When I got older and stronger, I tried to talk my mother into leaving him. She kept saying he didn’t mean to hurt her, he loved her, he just had a temper. She’d tell me it wasn’t my problem. She said I should just leave when my father acted that way. But one night, when I was fifteen, I didn’t leave.”

  Diana didn’t want to hear this. It was going to be awful. She wished she could press her hands to her ears, but even if she did, she knew she wouldn’t be able to block out Nick’s low, steady voice.

  “My father had been drinking. He came home late, and his dinner was cold. He started smacking my mother around. And I just couldn’t stand it anymore. So I pulled him off her and hit him. Pummeled, him, really. I guess I was a little crazed. All I wanted was for him to stop beating her. I wasn’t trying to hurt him.”

  “But you did,” she said. Her horror was gone, replaced by a forlorn sense of resignation.

  “Maybe I did mean to hurt him.” Nick sounded resigned, too. “I swung a chair at him. In the court, that chair became a deadly weapon. He was knocked out cold. My mother was screaming that I’d killed him. She called the police and they arrested me.” He fell silent, apparently lost in memory for a few seconds. “My father was hospitalized for a while. Broken ribs. A fractured skull.” He exhaled. “Yeah. I meant to hurt him. I’d been watching him hurt my mother all those years. Every now and then he’d whack me, too, until I got too big for him to take on. It was his turn to experience pain. I wish I could say I felt guilty, but I don’t.”

  “The justice system found you guilty.”

  He exhaled again, a long, weary breath. “The public defender assigned to my case thought I’d be charged with assault, but it wound up being attempted murder. He was sure I’d be acquitted, because my mother would testify that my father had been battering her and I’d only been trying to defend her.”

  He fell silent. All Diana heard was the whisper of the waves lapping the shore. “So how did you wind up convicted?” she finally asked.

  “My mother testified that my father hadn’t done anything to her. She said he was a good man and she had no idea why I tried to kill him.”

  Diana gasped—and finally turned to stare at Nick. He stared back at her, his eyes piercing, his chin raised slightly, as if daring her to deny what he was telling her. “Why would she do that?”

  “Who the hell knows? Maybe she loved him. She was his wife. So she sacrificed me.”

  “Oh, Nick.” What else could she say? She thought her mother was awful because she was trying to pressure Diana into marrying Peter. That seemed so trivial compared to what Nick had endured. His mother’s choice was so much crueler than anything Diana had ever experienced. “Have you worked it out with her?”

  A cold laugh escaped him. “What am I supposed to work out? I was fighting for my life, and she turned her back on me. She refused to tell the truth, and I wound up with a criminal conviction.”

  Emotions spun like a tornado inside Diana, buffeting her. “You make it sound so straightforward, Nick. I’m sure it was more complicated than that. Battered wives don’t think clearly.”

  “Are you defending her?”

  “Of course not. She did a terrible thing to
you.”

  “I spent three years in the system, Diana. Locked up. When I aged out of the juvie system, my criminal record was sealed, but it’s there. I’ve got a conviction. I’ll have it for the rest of my life—because my mother couldn’t bring herself to tell the truth.” Another long silence, and he said, “I’m telling the truth now, Diana. I didn’t want to tell you, but you deserve to know.”

  Her eyes welled with tears, making him appear to waver as she gazed at him. “Thank you for trusting me,” she said.

  He emitted a bitter grunt. “Yeah. I trusted you, and you walked out on me.”

  “I was shocked. You can’t blame me for that.”

  He shrugged and looked away. She interpreted that to mean he agreed. He wasn’t blaming her.

  And she was beyond shocked now. She’d been shocked when he told her about his conviction, but now she was even more shocked that his mother could have betrayed him the way she had. She was shocked that a boy could have been so abused by his mother and the justice system, and yet have matured into the person Nick was, a decent, caring man who watched out for other children and kept them from falling through the cracks the way he had.

  Her struggles seemed so petty in comparison to what Nick had lived through. Her mother was upset because she wasn’t going to marry the man her mother wanted her to marry. Peter was upset because she’d broken up with him. They were angry with her because she’d changed—but she was convinced that change was for the better. She was stronger and more self-possessed than she’d ever been before. They would simply have to accept it.

  They might be annoyed and disappointed. But they had never testified against her. They’d never lied in court, leaving her to suffer for a crime she hadn’t committed. The irony of Nick’s past—that he’d been convicted of a crime because the woman he’d fought to defend had abandoned him—was a wound she couldn’t begin to fathom.

  “Has your mother apologized for her part in what you went through?” Diana asked.