DREAMTOWN
by Genie Davis
ISBN: 1581247311
Publisher: Fictionworks

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Jazz musician Jake Romero hits the road when a night with a casual lover turns into a deadly confrontation with her jealous mobster boyfriend.

Running out of gas in a small southern beach town, he meets beautiful, restless young waitress Anne Ryan.

Jake's never loved anyone as much as his music, but after a passionate one night stand, he signs on with a bar band and struggles to win Anne's heart.

But he uncovers a dark secret — she's dying. And Jake's not running this time. He'll sacrifice everything he has to try and save her life. Even if it means losing his own.

 

Gulls and cormorants spun through the sky. The waves broke along the empty shore line. A few clouds rolled in taking the late afternoon closer to twilight.

It was a hell of a beautiful place but Jake was looking at her and not the view.

She didn't seem to be judging him, just curious, when she asked "You're leaving your life behind?"

He thought she sounded almost wistful. "There wasn't that much to leave," he admitted.

For some inexplicable reason he wanted to be honest with her, bare to the bone honest. He could offer her that much at least.

"If you run, you think you'll find something better?"

"Well, at least maybe nothing that bad'll catch up to me." Jake took a long swallow from the bottle they were sharing. "One thing's for sure, I don't wanna die over something stupid as this. Very few things worth dying for. True love maybe, but I haven't found that yet."

Anne pulled a blade of grass from the sand, and twisted it. "So what are you gonna do?"

"Play music. That's all I want to do. That's my problem I guess, nothing else ever really mattered to me. So I don't have anything else." He took another drink. "Can't believe I just told you that."

"What should you have said?"

"I dunno. How rich, popular, and well respected I am."

Anne laughed, but the look in her eyes shook him so much he set the bottle down. It was like, no matter who you are, you're the one for me. Nobody had ever looked at him like that before.

He leaned over her, and kissed her softly on the lips. "I want you so bad I can almost taste it," he told her.

"No almost. I can taste it." She reached for his face, and pulled him to her, kissing him, ravenous.

His fingers were trembling when he unbuttoned her blouse. He felt the wind come up and saw darker clouds pushing at the corners of the sky, but he didn't care. He slipped his hands under her skirt, and everything else slipped his mind.

Then the first raindrops came and he looked up. Anne pulled his face to hers. "Look at me. Look only at me."

The rain splattered them, drops turning into a torrent, fast. The thunder cracked, a streak of lightening forked over the water, real close.

He couldn't ignore the storm any longer. "We've gotta get out of here," he said.

Anne held her blouse against her as they ran over the dune. His limp slowed him down, she reached his car ahead of him, and she threw her head back and laughed.

Jake moved up against her in the streaming rain, kissing her lips, her throat.

His hand reached for the car door, he pulled the handle. The door didn't open. He tugged again. It was locked. He reached in his pocket, searching for his keys.

Realization hit him, as he peered in the rain streaked window. He'd been so busy coming on to her in the car, he'd left the keys in the ignition. He cursed under his breath. "Oh, man. I locked 'em in."

Another bolt of lightening crackled, low on the horizon and nearer still.

He saw there was a big white rock at the edge of the road. He didn't even think twice. He bent down and he seized it, and hurled it against the driver's side window. The glass cracked.

And it was like cracking everything inside him that had kept him out in the rain his whole life. It was about fucking time he found a place to take shelter.

He slammed the rock again, threw it straight through the window. He'd never felt this good in his life. The glass shattered on the ground and into the car seat. He tossed the rock aside, and very calmly, reached inside, and unlocked the door.

Anne didn't say a word. He turned to her, a little shaky, she probably thought he was nuts, and maybe she was right.

"The glass," he said, awkwardly. "Be careful getting in."

"If I wanted to be careful, I wouldn't be here," she said.

 

 

A great jazz novel! --Chucks Niles, jazz legend

"She writes with deep understanding. This is a marvelous story of love, redemption and hope" --Olivia Goldsmith, author

...well written and spare…. Dreamtown is about great dreams, self delusions, the great might have beens and the stories we invent for ourselves to deal with the past. --Carole McDonnell, The Compulsive Reader

Genie Davis is one fine writer who puts you through an emotional wringer…. A storm of emotions. Wow! --Suzanne Coleburn, The Belles and Beaux of Romance

 

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