Michele Bravo Playing With Fire Chapter 35

Gus Keller turned away, and his eye was caught by the sight of a baby grand piano in an adjacent alcove. He stared at it, and his fingers twitched a bit.... did he know how to play the piano?

He drifted over to the gleaming black instrument, sat down, and placed his fingers on the keys. Then he began to pick out notes...slowly, and then with more assurance....he knew it all..the scales, the keys from A to F and back again, he knew how to play.

It was a soft, melancholy little tune that he picked out...and he knew its name was Comptine d'Un Autre Été.

How could he know that, he wondered as he played. He couldn't remember his own name, or where he came from, yet he could remember how to speak, how to play the piano...he could remember history, for god's sake...just not his own history.

He looked up from the piano to see that he'd acquired an audience. He flushed. "Sorry," he said to Pretorius. "I should have asked permission."

"Not at all, mate," Pretorius returned. "It was lovely. Play something else. Something..." he glanced down at Taran Tula. "Something to dance to, maybe?"

Keller forced a grin. "I'm afraid my repertoire is a bit limited," he said. He placed his hands on the keys again and then began to pick out the notes, the music from the dancing scene between George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward in They Might Be Giants. He stifled a sob as he played. He could remember sitting in ...in his living room...while he watched this on a big screen TV...

But he couldn't remember where that living room was...

Taran Tula and Pretorius began to dance, a slow dance, with their bodies pressed close together. Pretorius had one hand on her hip, and she was gazing up into his eyes. The rest of the dinner party had gathered to one side and were watching them dance...

Keller gritted his teeth and played on.

Michele Bravo Playing With Fire Chapter 34

Michele Bravo had never been much for jewelry. Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, saphires...they were just colored stones. Beautiful - if put into the proper setting, but on their own...just colored stones.

These opals were something different. They were like living things, with the play of fire within that flared this way and that as you tilted the gem.

She looked up from the opals to see Gus Keller staring at her.

And a frisson went up her spine.

Michele turned back to the opals. Over the past couple of weeks that she'd spent with Gus Keller, she found she was liking him more and more. And thus she was regretting more and more her decision to "teach him a lesson."

She should have cut and run long ago.

She knew...knew...that there was a time when her luck would run out, and when that happened she'd have to have an identity to step into. And she'd worked long and hard to make sure that she had not only one identity but two.

And yet when the time had come for her to make her exit, she hadn't done so. She'd allowed herself to be sucked back in, all out of ego and a desire to teach the false Mr. Largo a lesson.

Well, she'd bring it to an end this weekend. And then she'd disappear...

Michele Bravo returns Thursday...

This blog was on hiatus for some months, as I dealt with my anger, not to mention despair! at Amazon having cut my income in half with one fell swoop, without bothering to consult me, by reducing the price of this blog.

I'm adapting this blog to a novel and that's almost done...but the ending chapters will now appear here before the book is published. Never fear, you'll be the first to know when the book is published, and I'm going to publish it at 99 cents for anyone here who wants to purchase it, before increasing the price after a few months to $5.99, a more representative book price.

Thanks all for your patience.

So look for a new Michele Bravo chapter on Thursday.