Chapter 8 #2
Strength rose from the metal beast around her, flowing into the song, into her voice.
Muscles pumping adrenaline, lungs pumping icy air.
Vitality boomed, bass in the space between notes.
The hills dropping into a ravine. Legs bunching, leaping—
“Whoa!” Cadenza ripped her eyes open and braced her arms against the steering wheel like she was about to fall. Life and excitement and speed thundered in her chest. She laid a hand over her heart, breathing slowly to calm it. Images with the music. That was…new.
“Well, I’m glad one of us is feeling better.” She pet the dashboard. “I, however, might be losing it.”
Heart still racing, she locked the Ferrari, scooped up her things, and retreated to her apartment. Out the balcony door, the stars woke in the dark sky, like in her vision.
She shook her head. “It’s a good thing you had herbal tea today. You’d really be a hot mess with caffeine in you,” she told herself. “Talking to myself, seeing things.” She shook a finger in her own face and tried to joke. “Really, Cadenza, what will people think?”
Her mother’s voice drifted to the front of her thoughts. Cadenza, what will people say? That my daughter is a pazza?
Pazza. Crazy.
Cadenza ripped the newspaper open to the middle and smacked it down on the couch to read. I’m not crazy, Ilaria. And you’ll see that when I make it to Italy and wow the direttore. Now shut up, I’m trying to read.
“Threatened Yosemite Toad Population Down by Fifty Percent in New Study,” the third page headline read. She flipped to the beginning of the newspaper. Maybe there’d be something less depressing.
A photo of her with Canon at the Opera House smiled from the front page with the caption,
Canon Richards, candidate for State Senate, poses with supporters and girlfriend, Cadenza Cavalieri.
“What?!” Cadenza stormed down the stairs, through the garage, pausing only a heartbeat when she saw the Ferrari was gone—when did Taran come for it? She hadn’t heard the engine fire up—and down the hill to the cottage.
“Canon!” She banged on the door. “Canon, you need to fix this!”
Frame drums danced up her arms.
“Hello.” Taran answered the door, golden and relaxed. The drums deepened, wrapping around her stomach.
“You—” Cadenza lowered her hand. “What are you doing here?”
He spread his hands in mock apology. “I’m afraid I live here.”
“Yeah, no, I know.” She threw a look up the hill to the Ferrari-less garage. Taran’s rhythm picked up weight, waves washing in and out. Porca miseria, why is this man so disorienting? “I just thought you’d be—”
“Cadenza.” Canon came to the door behind Taran. “Come in. What’s up?”
Her head flipped between Taran and the garage one more time. “Where’s the Ferrari?”
A smile quirked up the side of Taran’s mouth. “You mean ‘your car’?”
She flushed. Parts of last night were fuzzy, but she did remember calling the Ferrari hers.
“How’s your head?” Taran brushed her eyebrow with his thumb. The waves solidified, rumbling like thunder in her chest. “The lump’s still there I see,” he said. “Have you been icing it?”
Canon peered closer. “What happened to your head?”
She answered Taran first. “I haven’t had time to ice it since this morning; I just barely got home.” Now that he brought it up, she could feel a headache starting behind her left eye. “And,” she said to Canon, “some asshat ran me off the road last night.”
His eyes narrowed. “Did you get a license number? Who was it?”
Cadenza huffed. This wasn’t why she was at the cottage.
“No, we didn’t get a license,” Taran said.
“And whoever it was had the balls to just drive off.” He dangled two curved fingers like Cadenza the night before and winked.
She hid a laugh behind her hand. “Definitely one of those compensation trucks, eh, Canon?” He clapped Canon on the shoulder, pushing him a step back inside the house.
“We didn’t get a license?” Canon lifted an eyebrow and shoved forward again, clearing the threshold this time to stand next to Cadenza.
“Taran found me just after the accident and helped me get home,” Cadenza said.
Canon leveled a flat stare at Taran. “Thank you then, for helping her.”
Taran crossed his arms over his chest. “It was my pleasure.”
Cadenza watched their posturing, eyes narrowed.
“I’m sorry I was still at the rally. I wish you’d called me.” Canon laid a hand on her arm, possessive, like someone who didn’t have to wonder whether or not he could. Like a boyfriend.
She shook off his hand and waved the newspaper in his face. “Canon, have you read this?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Vasilios and I are pleased. The front page is great coverage.”
“Great coverage?” She made a fist to keep from slapping him. “But the caption. Canon, I’m not your girlfriend.” She toggled a finger between them. “We’re not dating, remember?”
“Oh, you’re not dating?” Taran lifted his brows in exaggerated surprise. “Imagine that, Canon, the newspaper getting it wrong. I’m sure you’ll call them right away and clear it up, isn’t that right?”
Blood rushed to Canon’s cheeks, and his jaw tightened. “I never told them we were, but of course I’ll get it straightened out.”
Some of Cadenza’s ire faded. She could deal with a misunderstanding. Although if Canon hadn’t told the reporter she was his girlfriend, who had?
“Caddie!” Drostan came through from the kitchen and set a tray of drinks on the coffee table. “How’s your head, lass?” He hurried to the door.
“We were just talking about that.” Canon replaced his hand on her elbow.
“Aye, we were. And about the astonishing news that Cadenza is single.” Taran made room for his father in the doorway, stepping in between Cadenza and Canon. Thunder rolled across her back when his shoulder brushed hers.
“I’ll agree that’s astonishing, Caddie dear, considering how wonderful you are, but how long have the lads here kept you on the porch?” Drostan asked. “Bugger, what a bunch of bachelors we are. Come on in. We were just about to have some games and the like, good craic.”
He ushered her into the living room and handed her a glass. “The boys in the shop towed your car up this morning. You found the loaner I left in the garage?”
“I did, Drostan, thank you. I had to go to Columbia today, so I really appreciate it.” She sat in the love seat.
“Of course. I’ll get your front door repaired in the morning.”
Canon followed her into the house, but Taran maneuvered in front of him to plop into the other half of the love seat.
He rested one arm along the back and crossed his ankle over his knee.
Far enough away so he wasn’t touching Cadenza but taking up enough space that no one else could sit next to her either.
Canon’s mouth smiled at Taran, but his eyes shot daggers. “Chess tonight? Although since that’s a two-person game, maybe we should do teams. Cadenza, play on my side?”
“Chess, sure,” Taran jumped in, sparing her from having to answer. He smiled back at Canon, the lamplight casting shadows and making his canines into points. “If you feel like losing again.”
Cadenza pressed her lips together. The pushing, the positioning.
The cracks at Canon’s expense. Understanding dawned, and her mouth popped open in surprise.
Taran was keeping Canon at bay for her. His drum song surged.
Rhythm rolled up her arms, thundered through her head.
The ocean roared, a wave of bass looming over her.
Dizzy, she stretched her arm along the back of the love seat and let her fingers rest on the back of Taran’s hand as if by accident. The wave peaked and crashed through her, but she fought her way forward.
It worked last night, she thought, breath held as if she were actually swimming. I just need to find it.
Taran’s heartbeat, deep and steady. A rock to cling to in the storm.
There. She exhaled.
Taran glanced at her hand on his, and she snatched it back with an apology. His heartbeat faded.
He smiled, eyes sparking gold. “No apology needed.”
Canon cleared his throat. “Are we going to play?”
“Or I’ve got a better idea.” Drostan rubbed his hands together and capered down the hallway.
He returned with two black instrument cases.
“We could play. In honor of our musical Cadenza, gracing our humble cottage with her presence this evening.” He bowed with a smile and removed a gleaming fiddle from one of the cases.
“Brilliant!” Taran drew a drum and a double-sided playing stick from the other case. The head stretched over a circular frame about a foot and a half in diameter. He slid one hand onto the back side of the drum and rattled off a rhythm with the stick.
Cadenza jerked upright. “Play that again.”
“You like the bodhran?” he asked.
“The what?”
“The bow-ran. This is a bodhran,” he held up the drum. “And this is the tipper.” He wiggled the stick. His wrist rocked up and down, striking the tipper against the drum, beating out the same rhythm as before.
His rhythm. The same rhythm, the same frame drum music that ran up her arms and teased her hair every time he was around.
Drumsong came at her from all angles. Out loud from the bodhran. Trilling along her skin from Taran. She closed her eyes, dizzy again. She needed his heartbeat.
Without touching him this time, Cadenza focused on just Taran, riding the trail of his music to its source, to him. There at the core of the song, she found his heart. The backbone of the rhythm. A quiet eye in the center of the storm.
The drums settled. Still pounding, like the night before, but now around her like a bulwark, instead of crashing into her like a tsunami.
She leaned back into the couch, success blooming in her chest, like a secret smile.
“Yes,” Cadenza said. “I think I do like the bodhran.”
Canon swiped his phone camera closed. Reopened it. Closed it again. No one noticed. The Norroways were absorbed in their playing and Cadenza wasn’t paying him any attention. Frustration clawed at his insides at that, but he channeled it into his smile.