After Midnight by Sarah Grimm

Isabeau Montgomery sat in the dimly lit bar and shook like an amateur before her first recital. Her gaze, blurred by the sudden threat of tears, settled on the keys before her. Her stomach cramped painfully, yet the need was too great to ignore.

With ability as natural to her as the color of her skin, she began to play. The waterfall of music filled the air, washed over her, completed her in a way nothing or no one else ever had. Against the razor sharp sting of memories, she fought…

She was young, vibrant, and born with a raw talent rarely seen. Classical, jazz, or rock and roll, she played it all. Loved all the genres—loved to create. All that mattered was her joy, her love for the instrument beneath her fingers and the music she was so skilled at creating.

For a good ninety seconds, joy returned, the rush of adrenaline and, conversely, the sense of belonging. In those seconds, time slowed, the lines between the past and the present blurred, and she was a child again. There was no longer pressure to be something she couldn’t be, no fear of what her future would hold.

And with the innocence of youth, no idea that everything she held dear could be lost in the blink of an eye.

The song built to a crescendo then quickly faded as pain, her old friend, returned with enough force to quash her joy. Her stomach roiled. Her breath caught.

Tears gathered in her eyes, and she dashed them away. Isabeau ran her hands up and over her face, pushing her long mass of ebony hair away from her forehead. She struggled to pull herself back together. Her fingers were chilled, cooler than normal, yet perspiration pooled at the small of her back. She closed her eyes, took a deep, slow breath.

“I didn’t expect that old thing to be in tune.”

Sweet Jesus.

She jumped at the deep baritone voice, slamming her knees into the piano. The key cover abruptly closed, and she startled again. Heart racing, she rose and faced the double doors she’d obviously forgotten to lock.

She swept her gaze around the bar’s dim interior until she spotted a dark, male frame. “The bar is closed.”

Her tone was sharp, curt, and left no room for argument. Under different circumstances, she wouldn’t inflict such rudeness on a customer, but he intruded on her privacy, her pain. Her emotions were too close to the surface for niceties.

His voice rang with a clipped British accent and the tone of someone unaccustomed to being questioned. “I was here earlier.”

She remembered the voice and didn’t need him to step out of the shadows to recognize him, which he did anyway. She’d served him a few hours ago—dark lager, no glass—and shared with him a smile as powerful as it was sexy. “We were open earlier. Now, we’re closed.”

His eyebrow shot up. His mouth shaped itself into an ironic curve. “So you have said.”

“Then perhaps you should leave.” Hands unsteady, she bussed the table closest to her and carried the glasses to the bar. His words stopped her cold.

“You’re very talented. How long have you played the piano?”

No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. She closed her eyes on a wave of emotion, doing her best to will him away. But even then she knew. The man at her back was not going away.

She focused her gaze on his reflection in the mirror that ran the length of the bar. He was tall and lean, with eyes that shone with intelligence, even in the dim light. His hair was a mix of medium and dark blonde, worn long enough it fell across his forehead, nearly into his eyes, and brushed the collar of his shirt. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw.

The fine hairs on her arm stood on end as he crossed to her. She edged to the side and turned to face him. “I don’t play.”

“Of course you do. You were playing when I entered.”

“You’re mistaken.” She countered his step forward with one in retreat, ensuring that she remained out of arm’s reach.

With a frown, he stopped. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

It never occurred to her to fear for her safety, even though the bar was empty but for the two of them, the lights dimmed in deference to the late hour.

“Let me start again by introducing myself.”

“I know who you are.”

“You do?”

Of course she did. He was the person who brought back her desire to create, whose presence in the room made something inside her sing out. He was the reason she’d been driven to play tonight, after years of resistance. The reason the siren song continued to play in her head, louder than ever before. “Yes, I do.”

“And I frighten you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why do you tremble? You’ve gone pale and look as if you’re ready to bolt.”

She dodged his hand when he reached out as if to touch her. Her breathing grew shallow. She waited for him to comment. Instead, he casually tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels.

His gaze moved around the room before settling on the piano. “What is the name of the song you were playing?”

The walls were closing in on her. Her body trembled so violently she was surprised her teeth didn’t chatter. “I don’t play,” she reminded him acridly.

She desperately needed to put some space between them. However, so far he’d countered every move she made. He moved again, stepped close enough she could make out the intense green of his eyes. It was difficult to hold her ground and not flinch as he took his time studying her features, his gaze lingering on her eyes.

She was not a beautiful woman. Taken separately, her features held the potential for beauty, but together, with her mix of cultures, she had a face like a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces didn’t fit together. Her cheeks were too sharp, her lips too large, and her eyes, pale enough they all but disappeared beneath the dark tones of her father’s heritage. Neither blue nor gray, her eyes brought her the most displeasure. Most people spoke of her eyes as “peculiar” and “haunted.”

Isabeau couldn’t handle such a reference from him. “What do you want from me?” she inquired before he could comment.

“That’s a good question,” he replied, more to himself than in answer to her. “How about your name?”

The way he looked at her made it very, very hard for her to look away. “Isabeau.”

“Isabeau.” His voice brushed across her senses like a lover’s caress. His hand settled upon her arm. His very large, very warm hand.

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Trapped by the contrast of his pale skin against her darker, golden tones, her mind blanked. He dwarfed her, which at five foot three wasn’t all that difficult to do. Her heart raced. His scent snaked into her lungs with each breath she took.

The scent of him broke her from the spell and filled in the gaps. She shifted away from his touch, understanding what brought him back after closing. She’d found it, tossed carelessly into the corner of a booth—his black leather jacket. Soft as butter, it held his scent. Subtle, masculine, and just enough to stir her blood as she’d carried the garment into the kitchen for safekeeping.

Where, with no one to witness the act, she’d pressed her nose to the lapel and inhaled him.

Her cheeks grew warm. She shot him a look from under her lashes. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

She felt his eyes on her as she returned from the kitchen, and crossed to stand before him, his coat in hand. Felt them still as, without asking how she’d figured out what he needed, he removed the garment from her grasp and slid his arms into it. Finally, she lifted her gaze to his.

“I like your place, Isabeau.” His tone hinted he liked more than her place. And even though everything inside her screamed to get him out of there, it was impossible not to get a little bit lost. He was so inherently sexual that any woman would have to be blind not to be affected by his virile good looks and confidence. “Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”

She watched him go, pressing her fingers against her pounding temples. As the door shut behind him, the pain eased, the noise in her skull dropped to a more tolerable level. Five minutes passed before she dared draw a deep breath for fear his scent lingered. She didn’t need further reminders of his visit. The music that pulsed through her system was reminder enough.

He thought he would see her again, but she knew he wouldn’t. Not because the chances of him returning were too slender, or even because a man like him could never truly be interested in a woman like her.

Because she’d been waiting thirteen years for someone to truly see her.

So far, no one had.

Isabeau knew it was him before he cleared the second set of doors. Her stomach fluttered. An overture sprang to life behind her eyes. She stepped out of the kitchen as the inner doors swung in and he stepped through. Noah Clark—the front man for the famed rock band Black Phoenix. Who ten years previously topped the charts, dominated the industry.

Until the sudden, tragic death of their drummer.

Noah Clark, who two nights prior walked into her bar and tipped her world on its axis. Not because he was famous, or had been in his day. Because he made her yearn for more. To be whole, complete.

Something she could never be.

She wanted to retreat. Instead she stepped behind the bar, grateful for its barrier between them. No matter how minor. “I don’t suppose it would do any good to tell you the bar isn’t open yet?”

The slap of plastic against wood echoed like a shot in the large room

“You lied to me,” he accused, his accent made stronger by his irritation.

“I didn’t.”

“You haven’t even looked at what I brought you. Why don’t you take a look?”

“No, thank you.”

He plucked something off the bar, waved it across her field of vision. A compact disc. One of hers. “You told me you didn’t play.”

Her insides clenched. She kept her face blank even as her nerves scrambled. “I don’t play. Not anymore.”

“Why?” He sounded so bewildered she nearly answered him. But what exactly did he question? Why she didn’t play anymore, or why she’d lied to him? Neither answer was simple or painless enough to share with him.

Silence stretched between them. He finally broke it. “Why, Isa?”

His voice was low, intimate, and set off a stirring deep inside.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What would you have me call you?”

“Izzy.”

He stared at her, his gaze probing, pinning her in place. She couldn’t look away. He wouldn’t look away.

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “Izzy doesn’t fit you.”

Nothing fit. Not even her skin. Not since the accident.

Desperate to escape his penetrating stare, she looked down at the bar, at the three CDs stacked before her.

“You’re missing one,” she said absently. “The most important one.” Unable to keep from touching them, she lined them up in chronological order. “People lie all the time, Noah, about any number of things. I would think being a recognized musician you would know that better than most.”

“So you do know me.”

“I know your name, what you do for a living. I don’t presume to know who you are.”

“You would be the first,” he mumbled under his breath.

She shifted her attention from the bar to his cool green eyes.

He flashed her a knock-out smile. “How did this conversation turn to me? We were talking about you.”

“We were?” She pretended nonchalance as panic reigned. Two days had passed since he’d first stepped through those doors, two days during which she’d almost managed to write off her reaction to him as a silly adolescent crush. Except that the music playing in her head remained so loud she couldn’t sleep, and the electric charge in the air was real, not the by-product of decade-old girlish fantasies.

He should have forgotten her the moment he’d stepped into the night. She was nothing special or memorable. Just a girl in a bar. Only, he hadn’t forgotten her. And he looked at her as if she was special.

She’d waited her whole life for a man to look at her like that.

“Isa? Isabeau?”

God, this was hard. She wanted to be seen, held, to be special to someone. Without the music.

“Why don’t you play anymore? Didn’t you enjoy it?”

“It was like oxygen.” The admission slipped out unintentionally and all too heartfelt, exposing more of herself than she meant to expose. Already he could see far more in her than anybody else. If she wasn’t careful, he would see the truth.

He locked his gaze with hers and everything inside of her softened, reacted to him in ways she’d never before experienced.

“Oxygen. I like that. I know that. Not many people do.”

She fought the flash of understanding, of connection she felt with him. She couldn’t soften. She couldn’t change the past, and she refused to relive it. Not even for a man who would understand her on a level no one before him ever had. “The girl you’re looking for no longer exists.”

“What girl am I looking for?”

“The one who lived to create music. She died thirteen years ago. The woman who’s left, she’s just a bartender.”

“I don’t believe that.”

She stacked the compact discs and pushed them a few inches away from her. “It’s true. I no longer make music. I leave that to others.”

“You can’t ignore it, you know.” He sounded as if he spoke from experience.

“No?”

“Music is everywhere. It’s inside you, you can’t ignore that.”

The comment hit her like a slap in the face. She covered her mouth to keep a startled cry from breaking free. Pain, sharp and blinding, knotted her stomach.

She should have known, guessed it when he strolled into her bar carrying her music. Her pain-filled past could be uncovered with a few keystrokes in any Internet café. Her entire life spelled out in black and white, and a bit of it in all too vivid color. He’d seen it all—the truths as well as the lies.

Old fears and uncertainties returned. Her hand dropped away from her mouth to fist against her thigh. “Tell me something, Noah. Is it morbid curiosity that brings you in today, or something else?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Of course he did. Not for a minute did she believe the confusion that flashed across his face. “I don’t play anymore because the music is no longer inside of me. It’s gone.” Except it wasn’t. It cantered through her skull like a caged beast finally set loose. “Now if you want to know anything else, you’ll have to go back to your source.”

“What if I want the truth? Will I find it there as well?”

He couldn’t possibly know of the lie that burned her tongue like acid. “Since when does anyone care about the truth?”

“I care.”

She shook her head in denial. He sounded so sincere she almost believed him. Almost.

“Leave.” She paused at the emotion in her voice. “There’s nothing for you here.”

He hesitated.

Desperate to have him gone, to quiet her painful memories as much as her mind, she shoved the compact discs across the bar top. The stack tipped, one slid off the other and spread out as she’d arranged them a few moments ago. Three unblemished, cherubic faces looked back at her, reminding her of how much she’d lost. “Please go.”

Noah plucked the CDs from the bar without taking his eyes off her face. He didn’t understand that she clung to the slippery edge of control. But then, he didn’t need to understand. He needed to leave her.

Then he did. Just like she’d wanted.

So why did she suddenly feel empty?