Fortune's Christmas Baby (Fortunes of Texas)

She should never have come.

The door opened again, someone else going in. If she didn’t hurry, there wouldn’t even be seats left in the back.

A sax solo started and she stood up straight, moved forward to hear it better. Almost like she was in a trance, she continued toward that sound of the music. Nolan might not be exactly who she thought he was, but his music still called to her. It had been

what had first drawn her to him the year before.

That’s why she was there.

She couldn’t afford fantasy. Romance. Believing in happily-ever-after or soul mates or undying love. She had to stay firmly in reality.

But Nolan’s music—it was real.

And if she was going to know the real him, or find the courage to live her foreseeable future as she’d promised him she would, she couldn’t leave the music out.

There was too much danger that it would creep up on her later, play with her emotions, and she’d get hurt.

Or worse, Stella would.

Nolan was just finishing the last phrase of his solo in one of the new pieces when he opened his eyes to see Lizzie standing in the doorway of the club.

Heart in his throat, he cut the last notes short and hardly noticed when the next number started without him. Was something wrong? Where was Stella?

Getting ready to put his horn down and hurry offstage to meet her, he just stood there, looking like an imbecile, he figured, while she scoped out a table in the back and took a seat. When he noticed her speak to a waitress who approached, and saw a little white napkin placed on the table in front of her, he sent an apologetic glance to Daly and jumped into the song.

Before they’d finished another stanza Daly and Branham had both noticed Lizzie, and were grinning at him.

Guess they knew now where he’d been spending his days. They probably figured he’d hooked up with Lizzie again, as he had the year before. He was going to have to let them think it. Taking their razzing was better than getting anywhere near close to his truth.

They’d hear that soon enough. When he told them why he was quitting the band. His free time was all going to be spent in Austin now.

A tall glass of clear liquid with a straw landed on Lizzie’s table. Probably the lemon-lime soda she’d had a few times when they’d been out this past week. She steered clear of caffeine and alcohol. She was nursing.

His baby.

She hadn’t been drinking much the year before, either. Lizzie wasn’t much of a partyer. He knew that about her.

And other things.

Like the fact that she wasn’t swayed by notoriety, or money. To earn her regard you had only to be a decent person. Kind.

And honest.

He hadn’t told her yet that he was going back to New Orleans for Christmas. Or that he’d been thinking more and more about telling his family about Stella while he was there.

She was not only his daughter, she was their family, too, the first Fortune grandchild, whether they liked it or not. Approved or not.

He made it through one song without goofing. And another. He didn’t know how, as he was filled with a hot need to get out to Lizzie. To spend even ten minutes with her like they had the year before. Just talking about music and the way it infiltrated so many aspects of life. It was the background, the foreground, the dressing, the peace. They’d decided that.

It was the bells of heaven, Lizzie had said.

And the crescendo of perfect sex, he’d added, to which she’d eagerly agreed, climbing on top of him to ask for more.

They’d bought a house. Were starting a life together—albeit a part-time one, without an actual relationship. For Stella—not for them. Was tonight’s visit her way of opening the door to more?

Could he even do that? Well, physically, damn straight he could. Right that second. But that would be making her little more than his kept woman.

Closing his eyes, he put every ounce of frustration, of denial, of want and need, into the last stanza of the last number of the set. In a few more seconds he could talk to her.