A Match Made in Texas (35 page)

She turned to Kari. “I’m ready.”

“She’s ready!” Kari called out, prompting Jed to grab his walkie-talkie and speak into it.

“The Star is walkin’.”

En masse, Starlet’s entire misfit posse headed for the door, even her mama, who, regardless of her hungover state, looked skinny and beautiful in her tight jeans and low-cut top. When they reached the stairs to the stage, Kari did more clothes adjusting, Jed did more gawking, her mama flirted with a security guy, and Uncle Bernie leaned in and whispered.

“Don’t worry about the hats, Star Baby. I’ll take care of them.”

Starlet gave him a weak smile before climbing the stairs. As soon as she stepped on stage a spotlight hit her, and the entire coliseum released a deafening roar of applause and whistles. She might’ve panicked if a stagehand hadn’t slipped her guitar over her head. The feel of the lacquered wood calmed her, and she walked to center stage and placed her mouth next to the microphone.

“Hi, y’all. You ready for a little music?”

The answering applause had barely fizzled when her band kicked in. Then there was nothing but the music. It washed over Starlet like Texas sunshine, transforming her from an awkward, insecure woman to a graceful, confident entertainer. An entertainer who could tease the crowd, flirt with her band members, and be completely comfortable sharing all the emotions she normally kept well hidden.

As usual, while performing, time flew by much too quickly. And before Starlet knew it, she had finished her last song and was headed off stage to wait for her encore.

Kari met her on the stairs. “You didn’t give enough attention to the Marines in the front row.”

“I thanked them for coming and dedicated ‘The Price of Freedom’ to them. What more did you want me to do?” Starlet took the bottle of water a security guy handed her and nodded her thanks before taking a deep drink.

“Something for a picture op,” her manager said. “Call one of them up and sing to him for your encore.”

Starlet shook her head. “I always do ‘Good-bye Kiss’ for the encore. And I’m not singing that to anyone but—” She caught herself. “I’m not singing that to some Marine.”

Kari smiled the kind of smile that had always scared the crap out of Starlet. It reminded her of Meryl Streep in the movie
The Devil Wears Prada
.

“Well, of course you can do what you want,” Kari said as she studied her manicured nails. “You don’t have to listen to a manager with fifteen years’ experience under her belt. Fifteen years of sweating it out with no-talents so that, when she finally found a person with a tiny bit of talent, she could mold and shape her into the kind of star who fills an auditorium.” She waved her hand to encompass the coliseum before shrugging. “But… if you want a mediocre career that fizzles out after the first two albums, then you go right ahead and make your own decisions. I certainly won’t stand in your way.”

As always, Starlet conceded. “Okay, but I’ll sing one of my other songs.”

Kari shook her head. “ ‘Good-bye Kiss’ is your biggest hit—the one all these people have come to hear. If you leave it out, they’ll charge the stage and trample you like a herd of angry elephants. So I suggest you pretend that the Marine is one of the rodeo cowboys you seem to be so enthralled with and make the best of it.” She turned without another word and walked down the stairs, leaving Starlet with no choice but to do as she said.

Downing the rest of the water, she walked back on stage.

“Well, hello again,” she said when she reached the microphone. “I thought I’d slow things down a bit—maybe sing a love song that you might recognize.” The audience went wild. Once they’d quieted, she looked down at the front row. “But what’s a love song if you don’t have someone to sing it to? What say we get one of the country’s finest up here?”

Starlet’s gaze ran over the Marines. All were dressed in camouflaged pants and caps, green t-shirts, and lace-up desert boots. Most were standing and waving their hands to get her attention.

Except for one.

One arrogant Marine who didn’t seem to be that taken with Star Bentley. In fact, with the bill of his cap pulled low over his face and his booted feet stretched out and crossed at the ankles, he looked like Moses Tate napping on a park bench. And even ninety-year-old Moses had stayed awake during the concert she had done for the small town of Bramble, Texas.

Perturbed by the Marine’s audacity, Starlet had no problem pointing him out. “Now when I said I was going to slow things down a bit, I didn’t mean that you could go to sleep on me.” She waved her hand. “Let’s get Rip Van Winkle up here and see if I can’t wake him up.”

The man didn’t acknowledge her words, but the other Marines did. With a loud whoop, they picked him up and lifted him over their heads, passing him along until he ended up on stage. He didn’t fight them, but he didn’t seem too happy about it, either. Once the stagehands had him seated in a chair, he crossed his arms and stared down at his boots.

Starlet unhooked the microphone from the stand. “What do you say, soldier boy? You think you can stay awake long enough to listen to little ol’ me?”

The audience laughed, but the Marine remained mute. Starlet might’ve continued her teasing if a wave of dizziness hadn’t hit her. Not a little wave, but the kind that made your head feel like it had been flipped in a blender and set on puree. The roar of the crowd sounded muffled and distorted, and the stage seemed to rock like the deck of a ship. Not wanting to fall on her butt in front of thousands of people, she improvised and sat down on the Marine’s lap.

Having dated her share of rodeo cowboys, Starlet wasn’t a stranger to athletic bodies. But no cowboy she’d ever dated had a body like this one. Instead of long, lean muscles, this body had bunched, thick ones. Thighs like hard granite. A stomach like rippled steel. And arms with smooth, knotted biceps as big as grapefruit.

And Starlet loved grapefruits. In fact, they were the only things on Kari’s starvation diet that she did love. Starlet had a half of one every morning—the juicy meat sectioned off and a sweet little cherry in the center.

“If you’re going to sing, sing.” The Marine’s hissed words cut into her grapefruit daydream.

She might’ve been ticked at his attitude if she hadn’t been distracted by his voice. It was familiar. Too familiar. She dipped her head to peek under the cap, but before she could get a good look, another wave of dizziness hit her. She blinked it away, along with her ridiculous belief that she knew this Marine. The only Marine she knew didn’t have biceps the size of grapefruits and thighs like sculptured granite. He was a skinny nerd who worked at some desk job at the Russian embassy. And even if he were in the States, he would never be caught dead at one of her concerts.

Which was just fine and dandy with Starlet.

What wasn’t fine and dandy was this Marine’s arrogance and nonchalance. Starlet didn’t care if he liked her, but he wasn’t going to ignore her. Remaining on his lap just to spite him, she lifted the microphone to her mouth and started to sing.

It wasn’t easy.

“Good-bye Kiss” was the first song Starlet had ever written for the first and only love she’d ever had. It seemed wrong to sing it to someone else. So she did what Kari suggested: she imagined the love of her life and let the words of the song flow from the heart. When she finished, tears rolled down her cheeks, and you could’ve heard a pin drop in the coliseum. The Marine wasn’t so moved. With a grumbled curse, he picked her up and set her on her feet before walking off stage.

Completely humiliated by his brush-off, she quickly lifted the microphone and ended the show.

“Thank y’all for coming. God bless!”

As always, the closing riled the crowd and had them charging the stage, yelling for autographs and tossing pink roses. Normally, she caught one and waved a good-bye. But tonight, it took all her concentration to walk. The dizziness was back and worse than ever. She stumbled over a cord and would’ve fallen if the security guy hadn’t appeared and taken her arm.

“This way, Miss Bentley.”

Struggling to put one foot in front of the other, she followed him. He released her to jump down from the stage and then reached up to lift her off. It was then that she noticed where he had taken her. They weren’t in the long corridor that led to her dressing room. They were at the back of the stage, behind the curtains and lights and amid all the technical cords and wires.

Now why would he bring her back here?

“Wait—” It was the only thing she got out before a rag was stuffed in her mouth and her hands jerked behind her back and tied. Still, it wasn’t until he hefted her over his shoulder and headed for a side door that she figured out what was happening.

Star Bentley, the sweetheart of country music, was being kidnapped.

And Starlet Brubaker had no choice but to go along for the ride.

Did you miss meeting Slate Calhoun, the sexy cowboy in Katie Lane’s first Bramble, Texas, novel?

See the next page for an excerpt from

Going Cowboy Crazy
.

S
LATE
C
ALHOUN SAT BACK IN THE DARK CORNER
and watched the woman in the conservative pants and brown sweater take another sip of her beer as if it was teatime at Buckingham Palace. Hell, she even held her little pinkie out. If that was Hope Scroggs, then he was Prince Charles. And he was no pansy prince.

Still, the resemblance was uncanny.

The impostor swallowed and wrinkled up her cute little nose. A nose that was the exact duplicate of Hope’s. And so were the brows that slanted over those big blue eyes and the high cheekbones and that damned full-lipped mouth. A mouth that had fried his brain like a slice of his aunt’s green tomatoes splattering in hot bacon grease.

The kiss was the kicker. Slate never forgot a kiss. Never. And the few kisses he’d shared with Hope hadn’t come close to the kiss he’d shared with this woman. Hope’s kisses had always left him with a strange uncomfortable feeling; like he’d just kissed his sister. It had never left him feeling like he wanted to strip her naked and devour her petite body like a contestant in a pie-eating contest.

But if the woman wasn’t Hope, then who the hell was she?

He’d heard of people having doubles—people who weren’t related to you but looked a lot like you. He’d even seen a man once who could pass for George W. in just the right lighting. But this woman was way past a double. She was more like an identical twin. And since he’d known Hope’s family ever since he was thirteen, he had to rule out the entire twin thing. Hope had two younger sisters and a younger brother. And not one of them was a lookalike whose kisses set your hair on fire.

The woman laughed at something Kenny said, and her head tipped back, her entire face lighting up. He’d seen that laugh before, witnessed it all through high school and off and on for years after. Hell, maybe she
was
Hope. Maybe his lips had played a trick on him. Maybe he was so upset about losing last night’s game that he wasn’t thinking straight. Or maybe, it being a year since her last visit, he was so happy to see her that he read something in the kiss that wasn’t there.

It was possible. He’d been under a lot of stress lately. Football season could do crazy things to a man’s mind. Especially football season in west Texas. Which was why he had planned a two-week Mexican vacation after the season was over. Just the thought of soft, rolling waves; warm sand; and cool ocean breezes made the tension leave his neck and shoulders.

What it didn’t do was change his mind about the woman who sat on top of the bar with her legs crossed—showing off those sexy red high heels. Hope didn’t cross her legs like that. And she hated high heels. She also hated going to the beauty salon, which was why her long brown hair was down to her butt. This woman’s hair was styled in a short, layered cut that made her eyes look twice as big and was highlighted the color of Jack Daniel’s in a fancy crystal glass.

Of course, Hope had lived in Hollywood for five long years. Maxine Truly had gone to Houston for only two years and had come back with multiple piercings and a tattoo of a butterfly on her ass. So big cities could screw you over. He just didn’t believe they could change someone from an outspoken extrovert to an introvert who hadn’t spoken a word, or even tried to, in the last hour.

Laryngitis, my ass.

That couldn’t be Hope.

But there was only one way to find out.

Pushing up from his chair, he strolled around the tables to the spot where her adoring fan club had gathered. It didn’t take much to part the sea of people. Hope might be the hometown sweetheart, but he was the hometown football hero turned high school coach. In Bramble, that was as close as a person could get to being God.

As usual, Kenny Gene was talking to beat the band. Sitting on the bar stool next to her, he was monopolizing the conversation with one of his exaggerated stories.