Free From This Day Forward by Deborah Cox

suffocated him, not the heat of the jungle. He'd been transported to Mrs. Longford's parlor in the Garden District of New Orleans. He was a child again, sitting on the bench beside his mother while she played.
    A piano had been far out of reach of the Sinclairs' meager income, but Mrs. Longford, one of the fine ladies his mother had done laundry for, had allowed her to play from time to time. Listening to his mother play was one of the few pleasant memories from his childhood.
    He blinked against the blinding emotion in his breast. The soft, seductive melody settled like a stone on his heart.
    No one in the house knew how to play the piano, no one except perhaps Caroline. Evidently that was one requirement Derek had heeded.
    She played well, better than his mother, but then Caroline had probably had more opportunity to practice.
    My grandmother had a grand piano in her house in Dublin. His mo the r's clear, dulcet voice reached out to him from the past. I used to play all the time when I was a girl, but then the bad times came and we had to leave.
    He didn't want to go inside. He wanted to stay where he was and listen to the haunting music and forget that she would be gone in a month, this woman who made him feel things he'd never felt before.
    What was it about her that made him feel that anything was possible? She made him hope, made him almost eager for tomorrow instead of fearing it as something unknown and therefore threatening.
    Shaking himself mentally, he gathered his resolve before stalking purposefully toward the open door to the downstairs parlor where the grand piano had stood silently for five years. He stopped just inside the door, captivated by the sight of her sitting on the bench, her hands moving magically over the white and black keys as she elicited sounds from the instrument, the sweetest sounds he'd ever heard.
    His breath caught in his throat as his eyes glided over her body, drinking in her beauty. She wore a white gown, the sleeves of which were little more than strips of material worn low on her smooth, white shoulders. A deep V plunged down her back, revealing delicate shoulder blades and soft, ivory flesh. Her brown hair, as lustrous as the mahogany instrument she stroked, was swept up in a chignon and gilded with one of the orchids he had placed in her room every day.
    Caroline reached the end of the piece, her fingers lingering over the last chords. As the melody died away, it was replaced by the sound of clapping. She turned slowly to see Jason standing in the doorway, his body haloed by the red light of the setting sun.
    Still angry after their earlier confrontation, Caroline turned away, glancing back at the keys. "I couldn't resist. I suppose I shouldn't have played without asking permission," she said caustically. "I know I had no right—"
    "Don't," he said sharply. "You're welcome to play as long as you're here. I didn't know its sound would be so true after all these years in the jungle humidity."
    "Why do you own a piano you don't play? Is it just another possession to add to your collection, something else to own just for the sake of owning it?" Calm, calm, she told herself. She was spoiling for a fight, and if she didn't watch her sharp tongue, she'd end up prodding him into another argument.
    "What difference could it possibly make to you?"
    "You own books you don't read and a piano you don't play," she said thoughtfully. "What a pity."
    "What do you mean?"
    She shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, acutely aware that he had come to stand close behind her. "Anyone who knows anything at all about the piano will tell you that the sweetness and tone only improve with the playing."
    "Is that so?"
    "Why yes," she replied as demurely as she could. She ran her hand across the keys from low to high. "Of course, it takes a true master to bring her to complete fulfillment."
    He moved so swiftly she had no time to react before he slammed the lid on the piano keys, and Caroline withdrew her