Riding the Thunder - Deborah MacGillivray [40]
Oh, he’d done the right thing in sending her running from him. Asha was affected by him, his sexuality, but deep down she wasn’t ready to take that step of letting him in—in her bed, in her life, in her heart. She wasn’t the type to sleep around. Her emotions would have to be fully engaged before she’d open the drawbridge and permit him into her inner world.
A soft breeze swirled around him, oppressively hot for this time of year. It whispered All Hallows Eve, despite the holiday being nearly three weeks away. Fallen leaves scurried along, carried on the wind . . . restless ghosts bound for nowhere.
He glanced toward the restaurant, imagining a jack o’ lantern on the porch, carved and aglow, wondering how Asha celebrated the old pagan fire festival. Strangely, faint notes of music floated on the night wind, the rattle of the leaves in the trees almost masking them. He cocked his head, trying to hear the direction from which the sounds came. If Asha were awake and as keyed up as he, she was asking for trouble; he could only play the knight in shining armor so long.
But the music came from the restaurant, not Asha’s cottage. Tossing the half-finished cigarillo to the walkway, he ground it out under his boot, and then headed to see who would be playing music in a locked restaurant at this time of the morning.
There was no way to see into the old overseer’s house from the back, so he walked around to the front to the diner. The blinds were closed along the row of windows except for one looking in behind the register where a night-light lent an orange glow. It was enough to see inside.
A man and a woman were over by the jukebox, slow-dancing. Gene Pitney crooned how true love never runs smooth while the pair seemed lost in the music. Jago glanced around the parking lot to see if a car sat off to the side. Nothing. So, the lovebirds had walked here? Maybe they were staying at the motel. He didn’t want to be Mr. Buttinski, but he didn’t think Asha would care for anyone just wandering in and using the restaurant for their own private party.
Jago strode to the front door and tried the handle, found it locked. Frowning, he rapped his knuckles on the glass, trying to draw their attention. No response. The couple kept dancing as if they hadn’t heard. He tapped harder.
“Well, you both can’t be hard of hearing,” he muttered, and started around the far side of the restaurant.
He entered the motel, intent on finding the night manager. The man—who oddly reminded him of an aging Obi-Wan Kenobi—was at his post, sound asleep. Jago dinged on the little bell twice, but the manager snored along undisturbed.
Sighing, Jago headed back outside and toward the bungalows. “Great! Here I am trying to be honorable and stay away from Asha, allow her time, and what does Fate do? Gives me a Kentucky Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and an aging Jedi on the lam, who wouldn’t awaken if the bloody building was on fire. Worse, I’m starting to talk to myself.”
Something brushed his legs. Glancing down, he discovered the fattest cat he’d ever seen, pure black and with gleaming orange eyes. The tagalong beast nearly caused him to trip several times on the path to the cottages.
He knocked on the sliding glass door of Asha’s cottage. “If she doesn’t answer my knock, Cat, I’ll think Rod Serling is lurking about. ‘Submitted for your consideration . . . a man trapped in the nowhere burg of rural Kentucky. He’s about to discover that being seen, but not heard, has dire drawbacks—dum dum dum—in The Twilight Zone.’”
The light flipped on and Asha came to the door, pulling the curtain back partway. Dressed in a blue silk robe, her long auburn hair was neatly braided and over one shoulder. Her huge eyes stared at him with such longing, yet with a flicker of female skittishness. He wanted to kiss her senseless. For hours.
“Come on, Asha, open up. Trust me.” Jago smiled when she unlatched the door and slid it open. “Despite wanting to kiss you ’til the cows come