Cowboy Sing Me Home (15 page)

            “Would you look at that.” Luke watched the
proceedings with a grin.

            She looked.  She didn’t really believe
what she saw, but she looked.  One of the three newcomers was an older man with
a permanently sunburned face and a crease between his eyebrows.  He scribbled
something quickly on the paper and tossed it on the fire.  He started to move
off, then stopped and stared, his face stony, at the growing fire.  When the
paper was nothing more than dark gray ash, he nodded once.  Then he moved out
of the way of the next in line, a teenage girl with a butterfly-shaped clip in
her hair.  She bit her lip and glanced back to someone in the audience as she
wrote.  She giggled nervously as she placed her paper on the fire.  She moved
back quickly and stood before the fire with her hands clasped in front of her
for a moment before she, too, returned to her seat.

            The next woman was one Dusty recognized
from the fracas at the church.  She wrote carefully on the paper and started to
lay it on the fire.  But she stopped and turned to Brother Mark.  “I know we’re
not supposed to say it out loud, but…”

            “It’s okay, say whatever you need to say.”

            “I just want to tell Bonnie Hurst that I
am truly, truly sorry for gossiping about her at the quilting club meeting
while she was gone to the bathroom.  I am sorry and I hope she can find it in
her heart to come forward and write my name on a piece of paper, because I do
beg her forgiveness.”  She gave a little bow and put her paper on the fire.

            On the way back to her seat, another woman
– presumably Bonnie Hurst – jumped up and hugged her.  This prompted scattered
applause and encouraged a few more to come forward.

            Good grief, Dusty thought.  How much
longer was this going to go on?  They had a sound check at Tumbleweeds in an
hour.

            She looked over at Luke, who was
apparently taken in by the whole corny thing.  Of course, if she didn’t know
better, she might get a lump in her throat watching the two old ladies bawling
and hanging on each other.  She was just a little too jaded for that, she
reminded herself as she swallowed.

            They played through another song, and
after a few minutes it appeared that everyone who planned to come forward that
night had done so.  Brother Mark motioned for them to wrap up the song, then
invited everyone back the next night, reminding them to think carefully and
seriously about the burdens they carried on their hearts.  He closed with a
prayer for rain.

            Dusty packed her guitar in the case,
feeling a little like she’d taken a whirlwind trip to a foreign country and was
just now returning home.  Except she wasn’t home, a voice inside her said. 
Because she didn’t have a home.

            “Thank you again for playing,” Brother
Mark said as he shook Luke’s hand.  He turned to Dusty.  “You’re as talented as
Luke said you were.  Thanks again, you did a beautiful job.  I hope all the
nonsense didn’t offend you too much.”  He smiled and squeezed her elbow.

            She sniffed.  “I wasn’t offended. 
Skeptical, maybe, but not offended.”

 “Skeptical, yes, that’s good. I mean, all
this talk of miracles and forgiveness and cosmic mumbo-jumbo –”

            “You know what?  I don’t mean to be rude,
but I have to get back to my trailer and get ready for tonight.”

            “Of course, of course.”  Brother Mark’s
head bobbed.  “Thanks again for coming, and I look forward to the rest of the
week.”

            Bunch of kooks, Dusty thought as she
headed back to her trailer.  She hung Corinne’s things carefully on a hanger
before she choked down a sandwich and pulled out her performance clothes.  She
wasn’t sure why she was so irritable.  This town was nuts, that’s all there was
to it.  All this Jubilee stuff was just not her thing.  She wasn’t used to
practical strangers coming up and talking to her about miracles and forgiveness
and anything remotely personal.  She didn’t want to know about Thelma Jean and
Tally Jean Braxton’s pickling problems.  She didn’t want to feel her throat
grow tight when a grown man watched a piece of paper burn with a look on his
face that said he was laying old ghosts to rest.

            She just wanted to play her music, sing
her songs, and go on to the next town.

            She pulled a slinky silver snakeskin
chemise top over her head, and let the cool fabric drape down to rest between
her breasts.  She slipped a sterling silver cuff bracelet up her arm to cup
against her bicep, and brushed her hair back from her forehead.  She met her
reflection in the mirror resolutely, her eyes and hands steady as she neatened
her makeup.  
This
was more her style.

            She was nervous about tonight, she
realized.  Not about the gig.  About Luke coming back here afterward.  She
didn’t like being nervous.  It meant she might not have the upper hand.

            She would tell him she’d changed her
mind.  She’d warned him that she might, and it was her right, after all.  If
she was feeling this nervous before the fact, then things weren’t lined up in
her head, and she had no business opening herself up to any kind of vulnerability
until whatever those things were got back in line.

            She made up her mind on the drive to
Tumbleweeds.  She would tell him as soon as she saw him, and get it out of the
way so they could get on with the gig.

            Her resolution flew out the proverbial
window the moment she saw Luke Tanner standing on stage in snug jeans, a
pressed white button-down shirt, and a black cowboy hat.  She stopped so
suddenly she had to grip the doorjamb for balance.

            There were plenty of bubble-headed women
who had a love affair with cowboy hats.  Any out-of-work loser with zero
intellect could put on a cowboy hat and he would become instantly irresistible
to them.  Dusty had always held such girls in contempt.

            But now, seeing Luke – who was by no means
a loser and too damn good looking for his own good, without props – with the
brim pulled low on his brow, she got an inkling of what went through those
girls’ heads.  He looked dangerous and tantalizing.  She felt her mouth go dry
and her palms wet, and a flash of heat that could only be characterized as pure
lust.

            She found herself sifting through fantasy
images of popping those buttons off his shirt, pressing her hands to the warm
skin of his chest, pressing her lips to his neck, and tossing off that hat to
thread her fingers through his hair while he cupped her bottom with his splayed
hands and drew her tightly to him.

            Behind her, someone cleared his throat.

            Dusty jumped like she’d been caught in a
forbidden act.  She turned to see that she’d been blocking the door for Toby,
Corinne, Colt and Becca.

            “Excuse me,” she said in a voice that was
a little too high and breathless.  “I was just… checking to make sure
everything was set up right.”

            “You were great at the Jubilee,” Becca
said. 

            Dusty nodded her thanks and watched the
entire troop file in, disturbed by the curl of envy she felt once again when
she saw the happy couples.

            She pushed her way through the gathering
crowd to Rodney’s office, on the pretext of checking for messages.  She lifted
the tattered blinds and looked out at the crowd, trying to ignore Luke, trying
to focus on scanning the crowd, getting a feel for the mood of the night.  She
saw people of all ages, which was good.  That’s what Toby had prepared her for,
and she’d planned a list of songs from every decade starting with Patsy Cline
and Bob Wills and going right up through Faith Hill and Dierks Bentley. 

            But her eye kept wandering back to Luke,
and she realized she wasn’t watching the crowd.  She was hiding.

            “Okay, Rhodes, what’s going on here?”  She
didn’t like this at all.  Generally when she made up her mind to do something,
she did it and that was that.  Now she was waffling in a way she’d always
thought was silly and a waste of energy, besides.  One second she was sure she
wanted to stay as far away from Luke Tanner as possible, the next she was
lusting after him, and the next she was, let’s face it, eating her heart out
for a place amongst his group of friends.

            It
was
silly.  And she was above
silliness.  She told herself this as she strode across the dance floor.

            “Hey.”  Toby touched her arm as she walked
past their table. “Do you have time to sit and have a drink with us before you
get started?”

            She backed away so he couldn’t touch her
again and looked around the table.  If she hadn’t seen Corinne frazzled just a
few hours before, she wouldn’t have believed it had ever happened.  She looked
as perfect and polished as ever, holding her husband’s hand.  Becca was merely
too cute for words, delicate with her golden red hair and porcelain skin,
snuggled up in the crook of her husband’s shoulder.

            “I don’t drink before a gig.”

            “I don’t drink, either,” Becca said. 
“Rodney has concocted a non-alcoholic drink, and to be honest, I have no idea
what’s in it, because he won’t tell me.  But it’s light as water and out of
this world. And I can still get out of bed the morning after I drink it.  I’ll
ask him to make one for you, too.”

            “No.”  Dusty frowned.  She hadn’t meant to
sound short.  “I really don’t have time.  But thanks.”

            She moved off before they could say
anything else, nodded to the band and stomped around the stage to check things
that had already been checked and rechecked.  Her palms itched; they always
itched when she was on edge.

            Luke smiled at her, and the slow sexy grin
had her wanting to say something to erase it.  Not his fault she was a mess,
she reminded herself before she did anything she’d have to apologize for
later.  So she nodded back and moved her facial muscles in a half-hearted
attempt at a return smile.

            He held his guitar and ran through a quick
scale.  “You look mad.  What did I do now?” he asked casually, already
accustomed to incurring her wrath.

            And it didn’t bother him a whit. 

            She was ready to shoot off something smart
when she looked at Stevie.  He looked nervous enough to vibrate out of his own
skin.  She wanted the band on their toes; she didn’t want to have to scrape
them off the ceiling.

            “Okay, huddle up.”  She motioned them
closer so she wouldn’t have to scream.  “Everything looks good to go.  We’ve
got twenty minutes.  You guys take a break and have a drink.”  She could swear
she heard them gasp, even above the crowd.  She pinned each of them in turn
with a piercing look.  “
One
.  One drink, and get back here at
twenty-five after.”

            They didn’t waste any time in taking her
up on the offer, except Luke.  He stood and waited for her.

            “Go on.”  She made a shooing motion.

            “Come sit down and have a beer with me.”

            “I don’t drink before a gig.”

            “Then try this drink that Rodney cooked up
for Becca.  It’s –”

            “It’s out of this world, I know.  I know
all about the perfect little details of your perfect little life and your
perfect little friends.  And believe me, I’m
very
impressed.”  She
unrolled her guitar strap and yanked it over her shoulder.  “But right now, if
you don’t mind, I’d really like for you to go away and let me get warmed up.”

            She blew out a gust of air and glared at
him.

            He stood blandly looking at her for a full
ten seconds before he said, “I get the feeling you’d like to be alone right
now.  I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

            She refused to watch him walk away.  She
bent her head over her guitar and felt like an idiot.

            “I tried to get him to go away,” she
muttered as she sat on her stool and ran through a few scales.  “Not my fault
he practically has to be clubbed over the head before he gets a hint.”

            She kept her eyes on the neck of her
guitar and warmed up fingers that were already warm from playing at the
Jubilee.  But the group in front of the stage kept distracting her.  Toby’s
laughter, Corinne and Becca chatting together like a couple of preteen girls,
Colt and Luke talking intensely over something she couldn’t decipher.  Luke,
fitting right into this group of people like he’d been born to this life.

            Which he had.

            There was too damned much noise in here to
concentrate, Dusty decided.  She picked up her guitar and headed out the back
door.  Stars studded the sky, the air was clean in her nose, and as she leaned
a hip on the air conditioner under the back door light and pushed the muted noise
of Tumbleweeds into the background of her mind, she was finally able to catch
her breath.  She propped her back against the side of the building and cradled
the guitar in her lap.