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him. “Jake, please.”
    “I’m not going to ask you about your past, Cecily. But you said you can play anything with strings. Does that include the lute, Celtic harp and the sitar?”
    I bit my lip and didn’t answer him. His question really scared me. Was the list he mentioned just an accident?
    “Watching you on that stage tonight,” Jake continued, “you turned my brother’s band into a supporting cast without any effort at all. You were the star. You’ve played a lot bigger venues than bars, haven’t you?”
    “Jake, don’t make me lie to you. Please?” Oh, God. This wasn’t going well at all. Although the tone of his voice was kind, he was asking all the wrong questions.
    “Okay.” His voice mellowed, and I breathed easy when I heard him backing off. “I don’t know how you got here, or what you’re running from, and it’s none of my business. But, honey, a blind man could see that you stick out like a bottle of champagne at a college keg party.”
    He didn’t say anything else. I was close to panic. Had I been stupid, performing in public? But I had to eat, and music was the only marketable skill I had. Maybe I should run again, get away before anyone discovered who I was, where I was. But I really couldn’t do that. I owed Jake for the clothes he’d bought me. For feeding me last night. For believing in me just because I asked him to. Hell, he was taking me home, putting me in a soft, warm bed, and not even expecting to share it.
    I decided he really was an angel, and as long as I stayed with him, everything would be all right. I just had to believe that. All of my other options led back to the madness.
    I hadn’t dreamed the night before. I guess I was too exhausted. But the dreams came that night. Not the worst ones, but I was standing on a stage with spotlights blinding me, and then out of the lights came a face, and he was reaching for me. I struggled to get away, but no matter how hard I ran, he was always there when I turned to look.
    ~~~
    Chapter 5
Jake
 
    It had been two weeks since Cicely came to live with me. I could see her cheeks starting to fill out from regular meals. The seat of her jeans, too. She told me when we bought her clothes that they were the size she wore, and assured me that they really weren’t too big. She obviously hadn’t been on the streets so long that she didn’t remember her life before.
    She had a bright, sunny attitude, a quick smile, and an infectious enthusiasm that endeared her to everyone who met her. The shell-shocked look I saw in in her eyes that first day had faded, but the enigma of her past remained.
    After she kissed me that night, I made sure to keep a safe distance from her. No more spontaneous hugs. Not that I didn’t want her in my arms, but it would be far too easy to fall for her. The way she smelled and the feel of her lips caused an immediate reaction south of my belt. I couldn’t remember a woman affecting me that strongly, not even my first love.
    I got up before she did one morning and started to make breakfast. The next thing I heard was her pounding down the stairs.
    “You’re not supposed to be doing that,” she said. “That’s my job. Unless you’ve decided to change our deal. Have you?”
    Damn, she looked hopeful. I took my coffee and backed out of the kitchen, and watched her face fall.
    We quickly fell into a comfortable routine. Having her in the house felt natural. I think she was trying to hide that she didn’t know how to cook or keep house. I walked into the living room one day and she was reading the label on a can of furniture polish, her brow furrowed in concentration. I realized she was trying to figure out how to use it.
    My mom’s cookbooks appeared on a shelf in the kitchen. She would pull one out, then look through the freezer, refrigerator and cabinets checking to see if we had all the ingredients to make a recipe she had chosen. When the recipe in question was beef stew, it was hard to ignore her