“Jubilee still owns his club,” Charles Kuralt continued, “but what with property values as they are today, he hasn’t been able to sell it or rent it, so today it sits empty.”

Charles put down his paper and gave his Mona Lisa smile to the camera.

And some people say haunted. But we’re not here today to talk about a massacre, even a massacre as violent as that one sixty-three years ago. We’re here today to talk about Jubilee Johnson and his music, for not even a massacre that took everything he owned could keep a man like Jubilee down. Today he’s a hundred and one years old and still playing, still singing,…and still jubilant.

Leaping out of the bed, Samantha tore through the bathroom and into Mike’s bedroom where he was on his stomach, buried under the covers and about six fat down-filled pillows. “Mike! Wake up. You have to come see what’s on TV.” He didn’t stir so she knelt on the edge of the bed and touched all of him that she could see, which consisted of about a quarter inch of bare shoulder and a curl of black hair.

“Michael! Wake up! You’re going to miss it.” He didn’t so much as mo

ve a muscle; if he hadn’t been so warm, she would have thought he was dead. Climbing into the bed with him, she grabbed his shoulders and began to shake him. “Jubilee’s on television. Maxie’s Jubilee is on Charles Kuralt! Get up!”

One minute he seemed to be sound asleep and the next minute he had grabbed her, pulling her into the bed beside him and began rubbing his sharp-whiskered face into her neck, making her squeal in laughter while he held her down.

“What are you doing waking me up?” he growled in mock fierceness. “It’s Sunday and a man should be allowed to sleep.”

Laughing, Samantha was trying to get away from him as his whiskers scraped her skin. “Mike, Jubilee’s on television.”

It was then that Mike’s face changed and he pulled away from her, moving from hugging her and holding her close to not touching her at all.

“What’s wrong?”

“Get out of here.” There was no more play in his voice; he was in dead earnest now.

She could tell that he was very angry, but she didn’t know why. Was he angry because she’d waked him up? Some people took sleep seriously, but she hadn’t realized that Mike was one of those people. Backing off the bed, she began to apologize. “I’m sorry. I guess I shouldn’t have awakened you, but I wanted you to see the show, but maybe I’ll go upstairs and set the recorder and you can see it later.”

He turned his head away from her. “Take off that gown.”

It took Samantha a moment to understand what he was saying, for at first she thought he was demanding that she strip, but then she realized that she had on her brand-new, very pretty, very thin, very, very white nightgown. Even as the feeling of pleasure began to flow through her, she felt rotten about not remembering his “problem” with white, well, maybe not too rotten, but a little bit bad. Had the sight of her in this plain cotton gown affected him that much, to make him turn pale, to make him unable to continue looking at her?

“I…I wasn’t thinking, Mike,” she said slowly, but even to her own ears the apology sounded insincere. Any man who looked as Mike did, who was as sexy as Mike, who was as sweet and kind and as much fun as Mike was, who was as smart as Mike was, who was as all round wonderful as Mike was, could have his choice of any female on earth. Yet, she thought, he was turned on by her—so much so that he couldn’t even look at her while she was wearing white.

“I came in here to tell you about the TV show and I forgot what I had on. I didn’t mean—” She stopped because he had turned to look at her—and what she saw in his eyes made her take a step backward, for his eyes were filled with something she wasn’t sure she understood. There was need and desire and longing in his eyes, but also desperation, as though he were in need of something she had and he’d die without getting it.

Putting her hand to her throat, Samantha took a step backward. It had been a long while since she’d been afraid of Mike, but she was now. As he moved across the bed toward her, she took another step backward. “Mike,” she began, but he didn’t speak, just looked at her with those eyes and kept coming toward her with the stealth of a wolf.

Samantha, in a cowardly move, gave a little squeal of fright and ran from the room, shutting the bathroom door behind her, then the bedroom door. She leaned against it, her breast heaving. Maybe Maxie could handle young, handsome men stalking her, but Samantha wasn’t quite ready.

It took her a moment to calm her breathing, then she tore her new nightgown off and put on her jeans and a long-sleeved, high-necked shirt that covered most of her skin and went to the library to watch the TV in that room.

It was nearly twenty minutes before Mike appeared in the library and when she looked up at him, she started, for his skin and lips looked nearly blue.

“Are you all right?” she asked, going to him to feel his forehead. His skin was as cold as a salamander’s. “Mike!”

Pushing her hand away, he sat on the couch. “Cold shower,” he murmured, obviously embarrassed by everything that had happened that morning. “Has the segment come on yet?”

“No,” she said, trying not to smile, but his reactions to her made her feel good. Of course, she thought, this was how all men felt before they went to bed with a woman—especially before they went to bed with her. It was much better to allow Mike to fantasize about her than to do what he seemed to think he wanted her to do and go to bed with him, because if she did, he’d probably ask her to leave his house forever. Or maybe he’d just fall asleep during the process of bedding her.

“No,” she said, “you haven’t missed it. I think it’s on next.” She handed him half a toasted bagel slathered with cream cheese, which she’d had delivered.

Sitting beside her on the couch, he ignored the bagel and, instead, took her chin in his hand and lifted her mouth to his. He kissed her for a long time, sweetly, not aggressively, no thrusting tongues, no tearing at her clothes, no hands on her body except those warm fingers on her chin, and that long, long kiss of yearning was almost her undoing. Turning to him, she put her hand on his shoulder and opened her mouth under his. Her body seemed to liquefy, to turn into something warm and soft and yielding as her neck bent back into what should have been an impossible position, but she wanted to blend into him, to lose herself in him.

When he pulled his lips away from hers, she was too weak to sit up and would have fallen back against the couch if Mike’s hand hadn’t caught her.

“Why, Sam?” he whispered. “Why do you tell me no? How much longer am I supposed to wait? You want a marriage proposal first? Because if you do, then will—?”

She put one finger over his lips, not wanting to hear the rest of that sentence. She didn’t want to talk about her reasons behind what she did, didn’t want him to know the truth about her, at least not yet, not when what they had was still so fragile. Maybe someday, maybe later, she could tell him the truth about herself.

Uttering a curse word, Mike grabbed the bagel that was still in her hand, except that now the bagel was a bit crushed from where Samantha had clutched it during Mike’s kiss, and there was as much cream cheese on her fingers as on the bread. She had the disconcerting experience of Mike picking up her hand and slowly, languorously, sensuously, licking every morsel of cheese off her fingers.

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