Jane's Harmony (Jane's Melody #2) Read Free Page B

with a kind of electricity that raised the hairs on Jane’s neck.
    Caleb’s head hung, his hair dangling, and Jane was struck by how unaffected he was by the stage and the lights and the people. She could almost picture him as a boy, playing away by himself in some garage somewhere. He was an artist with something to say, a man baring his soul without fear, and the absolute absence of any fake showmanship was a huge turn-on to Jane.
    Caleb played on—one minute, two minutes, three.
    The crowd was so mesmerized by the sound of his guitar that Jane heard a surprised cheer erupt when he finally leaned in to the microphone and began to sing.
    Baby, baby, baby. Baby, yeah, you know I’m singin’ to you.
    Then Caleb lifted his head and looked right at Jane. The crowd dissolved away and she sat in the spotlight of his green-eyed stare, listening to the voice she so loved.
    Maybe I’ll lay down this pen
    Never write a song again
    Baby, if only you ask me to
    Maybe I’ll smash this old guitar
    Get me a job sellin’ cars
    Baby, if that ’s what real men do
    And maybe I’ll rise before the sun
    Be home when the workday’s done
    Oh, baby, if it proves my love is true
    But if you’ll have me as I am
    The moody poet, the broken man
    Then , baby, I’ll write every song for you
    Because baby, baby, baby
    I don’t care nothin’ ’bout no maybes
    And I can’t wait to fuckin’ marry you
    Fortunately for Jane, her shriek of delight was muted by the outrageous guitar riff Caleb unleashed to punctuate his engagement announcement. The boys at the table all turned their heads toward Jane to see if it was true. She grinned and held up the ring on her finger for them to see.
    “Holy bling,” one of them shouted. “You could signal the space station with that thing.”
    Jane blushed, saying, “It isn’t that big,” but her comment was covered up by another wave of guitar music from the stage.
    She suddenly realized that the camcorder was still in her lapand that she had forgotten to start recording. She picked it up and turned it on, then settled back into her seat to record the rest of Caleb’s performance.
    This is twice now that I’ve been caught off guard by him, she thought, smiling from behind the viewfinder.
    But Caleb wasn’t the only one who could pull off a surprise. At least, she hoped not.

    Caleb was still sleeping the following Monday when Jane sat down with her morning cup of coffee and her stack of parking tickets, then logged on to the Austin Municipal Court website to pay them. At least there was one good thing about getting up early to go job hunting, she thought. She wouldn’t have to worry about paying the meter.
    As Jane entered the citation numbers and paid each ticket, annoying announcement banners kept flashing on the screen with various boring bits of city business that only a civics buff would care about or even read. New deferred disposition rules. Warrant roundup warnings. City vision and values. She had just paid the last ticket and was about to close the laptop when one of these banners caught her eye. Under the heading City Jobs , the notice read: Parking Enforcement Officer opening. Click to apply .
    Jane clicked it just for kicks. A new window opened with a brief online application.
    Oh, what the hell, she thought. At least she’d be able to hit the streets with her first job application of the day out of the way. Her résumé sure didn’t seem to be drawing any interest.
    She typed her future name into the application just to see how it would look: Jane Cummings. She liked it. But they had been engaged for only a week now, she reminded herself, and itwasn’t officially her name yet. She reluctantly changed it back to McKinney. Then she entered her birth date: January 21, 1973.
    “Nineteen seventy-three.”
    When she said it aloud, it seemed so damn long ago already. Another era even. A time you’d tell today’s youth about as they sat slack-jawed with dumbfounded disbelief at all the