Cowboy Sing Me Home (33 page)

She couldn’t bring herself
to say anything.

“How much time
do
we
have, Dusty?”

After a long pause, she
said, “I’m supposed to play in Shreveport next week.  On Thursday.”

She was intensely aware – as
she thought he was – that she’d said ‘supposed to be.’  Not ‘I will be.’  The
difference was small, and yet left an opening big enough for her to feel like
she was standing on the edge of a precipice.

“So, in order to be ready
for Shreveport by Thursday, when would you have to leave here?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

He was quiet, and they
watched lightning arc across the sky.

“Then I was right,” he said
with a sigh.  “We don’t have much time.”

She cleared her throat. “So,
it wouldn’t be a good idea to waste that time, would it?  It would probably be
better if we enjoyed what little time we do have.”

“I intend to.”  He took her
chin and drew her head around, then kissed her softly.  “I intend to enjoy
every second.”

She’d bought a reprieve. 
But she saw the hint of a challenge in his eyes, and a promise. 

That was confirmed a second
later when he said, “Until day after tomorrow.  And then maybe we can talk
about where we’re headed.”

She opened her mouth to say
something to push him away, but that little voice spoke up again and she was
afraid to say anything, for fear of saying the wrong thing – something that
would get her in deeper than she was prepared to go.

She turned in his arms and
pretended to be interested in the storm.

“Tell me about her.”

“Tell you about whom?
            “Your little girl.  You said you had a daughter.  What was she
like?”

She
definitely
didn’t
want to go down this road.  “She was like a baby.”  She cleared her throat and
looked at her hands.  “Her name was Anne-Marie.”

“Will you ever be ready to
talk about her?”

Dusty took a deep breath,
asking herself the same question.  “I don’t know.”

She felt Luke’s slow nod. 
“Fair enough.  I have another question.”

“I may not answer it.”

“I know.  You said you had a
baby, but you didn’t say anything about a husband.”

“I had a husband, too,” she
said softly. 

            He stroked her arms, and
cool wind blew her hair into his face.  She smoothed it back.

            “I was afraid of that,” Luke
said.  “Did you love him?”

            She was silent for a long
time.  “I honestly can’t say.  I remember that I
thought
I loved him.  I
remember that I was very excited to have a family, have a home.  I latched onto
everyone in his life.  I adopted his family right off, got real excited about
making a home for us.”  She hadn’t thought about those days in a very long
time, but now the memories came back with color and texture, and she couldn’t
help but smile at the naïve girl she’d been.  “I think I was as in love with
the idea of having a permanent home as I was with him.”

            He squeezed her arms.  “What
happened to you, then?”

            She shrugged.  “He blamed
me, for the baby’s death.  Whatever we’d had. . . love or affection or
whatever. . . there was nothing left of it, eventually.  Just pain.  We looked
at each other, and all we could feel was the pain.”  She couldn’t even recall
his face, now.  And the thought of him just led her to thoughts of Anne-Marie. 
The two were inextricably linked.  “So I left.”

            “And he let you.”

            “He certainly wasn’t going
to lift a hand to stop me.  Like I said, he blamed me.”  She pushed his arms
away and stood as thunder cracked.  “Come on.  We’re going to be late.”

            Tumbleweeds was already
jumping by the time Luke and Dusty splashed through the parking lot.  They
could hear the crowd and the maxed-out jukebox as they sprinted through the fat
drops of rain, and a chorus of cheers greeted them as they came through the
door.

            “Look!” Rodney shouted,
standing on tiptoe to be seen over the line of people at the bar.  “Line
dancing.”

            Luke grabbed Dusty by the hand. 
“Come on, let’s jump in.”

            He led them around the edge
of the crowd, and they were both greeted by name as they worked their way
through.   

            “We have to get started.” 
Dusty backed away from the dance floor.  “We’re going to be late going on
stage.”

            “So we’ll be late.  Come
on.”

            Dusty hung back.  It was
unprofessional to join in the dancing when she was supposed to be the one
providing the entertainment.

            She saw Corinne and Toby
there, and several other people she’d met during the week.  Even Louise was in
the line, her bony hips wiggling like she’d done this every day of her life. 
As Dusty watched, Corinne turned the wrong way, bumped into Stevie, and
laughed.  She saw Luke and Dusty and waved for them to come over.

            Probably she was just
overemotional after her conversation with Luke, and thinking about Anne-Marie. 
But the casual gesture touched Dusty.  She remembered the night of her first
gig at Tumbleweeds, watching all of Luke’s friends laughing and talking, and
her jealousy of their closeness.  She’d resented the few feet and millions of
miles that separated her from the rest of the world.  It had been that way all
her life; she’d been on the outside looking in.  And now she was being invited
to step inside that circle of friendship.

            Over the noise of the crowd,
Dusty heard the voice again, wordless this time, but a pleading, hopeful voice
that spoke only in a language her heart could understand.

            Maybe this time.

            “Do these people look like
they’re anxious for us to get started?” Luke motioned to the bustling crowd on
the floor.

            “Come on, then.”  Dusty took
his hand and she stepped into the line.  Stevie froze when he saw her.

            “I was just gonna –”

            She took him by the elbow. 
“Show me how the steps go.” 

            “Show you – okay.”

            The jukebox blared, the
crowed roared, and Dusty danced.  She laughed when she fumbled the steps, and
laughed even harder when Luke did.  She had fun.

            She was so caught up in the
fun that Luke had to remind her they did actually have to play, and she was
still smiling when she took the microphone. 

            “Welcome to our farewell
night at Tumbleweeds.”

            The crowd roared, followed
by a few boos.

            “I know, I know,” Dusty
said.  “But all good things must come to an end.  I want to bring your
attention to something first, though.”  She twisted the mike from the stand and
walked over to the nearest window.

            “Okay,” she said, holding
the mike close to her mouth.  “Now everybody be real quiet.”

            The crowd shushed each
other, and gradually silence fell across the room.  When it was completely
still, Dusty lifted the mike back to her lips and said softly, “I want you to
hear something.”

            She lifted the mike and held
it to the open window.  The patter of rain and crack and rumble of thunder and
lightning filled the room over the speakers.  A cheer went up from the crowd,
loud enough for Dusty to hear it in her blood.

            She jumped back on stage and
stuck the mike back in the stand.  “Like I said, all good things must come to
and end, but not tonight.  Tonight, we party!”

            She counted off quickly and
the band dove into “Hello Texas” with gusto.  The dance floor filled with
whirling skirts and twirling bodies.

            Dusty looked at Luke, who
was grinning from ear to ear.  Instead of rolling her eyes – her usual response
to what she called his ‘goofiness’ – she just grinned back and sang her heart
out.

            She always had fun when she
played, but this was different.  She wasn’t just playing to the crowd; she was
part
of
the crowd.

            The air of celebration
colored the entire night.  Dusty kept telling herself it was okay, repeating in
her mind her earlier words to the crowd.  Maybe all good things
did
have
to end, but she’d never experienced a night like this, a sense of belonging to
a bigger whole, and she was going to allow herself this one night.

            So she let the tide of
energy carry her and ended up having the best show and best night of her
career.  She was in such a good mood by the time the show was over, she only
put up a token protest when Luke suggested they go to his place after the
dance.          

            “Come on.  I swept the
floors and took out the trash.  I even put one of those air freshener things in
the toilet paper holder.”

            “You sweet talker you.”  She
grinned and snapped shut her guitar case.  “How could I resist that?”

            They each took their own
pickups to his house.  By the time she pulled into his driveway behind him, the
rain had let up and she was beginning to question the logic of coming here. 
She’d never actually been with a man on his own territory.  The event seemed to
carry implications she wasn’t prepared for, especially in light of their
earlier conversation.

            He had said, though, that he
would wait until day after tomorrow to discuss anything serious.  So she
climbed out of her pickup and slipped her hand into his when she met him on the
sidewalk.

            His house was neat and
masculine, and suited him perfectly.  A print of a cowboy on horseback and a
black and white dog making their way through a snowstorm hung over his sofa,
and a brightly colored Indian blanket lay across an easy chair.

            “I have a bottle of wine if
you’d like a glass.”

            She rubbed her hands
together.  “That sounds great.”  She stood in the middle of the living room
after he’d left, her hands in her pockets, feeling lost.  He had a Larry
McMurtry book on the table beside his chair, and a crossword puzzle with a few
blank spaces.

            “Hobble,” she said when he
came back a few minutes later, carrying two glasses of wine.

            “I don’t think any woman’s
ever said that to me before.” 

            “It’s 13 down.  Six letter
word for shuffle.”

            “Ah.”  He handed her a
glass.  “You look like you’re about to bolt.”

            “That’s because I’m kind of
starting to feel like this has the air of a special occasion.”

            “This?  Nah.  This is
nothing special.  In fact, I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but that’s why
I took so long in the kitchen – I forgot you were even here.”

            She laughed and almost
choked on her wine.  “Is that so?”

            “Yeah, I made a snack,
watered the plants, and then all of a sudden I thought ‘I’ve got company!’”

            His eyes twinkled at her
over the rim of her glass.  “Take it easy, Dusty.  It’s no big deal.”

            “Still…”  She set her glass
down, then took his and put it beside hers.  “I’d feel better if I had more of
the…”  She slid her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, then kissed him
until he moaned and cupped her bottom to press her to him.  “… the upper hand.”

            “Well then, you ought to
feel much better.  Because I’m yours to command.”

            Afterward, Luke refilled
their glasses, and Dusty lay on her stomach, studying the way the dark red liquid
clung to the side of the glass when she tilted it. Luke lay beside her, his
finger idly tracing the curve of her spine.

            She’d drunk only enough of
the wine to get the nerve up to broach what was on her mind. “You pray, when
Brother Mark prays at the end of the service.” 

            “Sure.  I pray.”

            Dusty chewed her lip.  “You
honestly believe in that?  Believe there’s something or someone up there
listening?”

            She expected a flippant
answer, a typical nothing-too-serious Luke answer.  Instead, he put his chin on
her shoulder and said softly, “Yes.  I do believe in that.”

            Dusty twirled the glass stem
slowly between her fingers, feeling oddly left out.  She set the glass down and
put her head on the pillow, enjoying the comfort of his weight at her back, his
pillow under her cheek.  “I have to admit, maybe Brother Mark is onto something
with all this forgiveness stuff.  I see a difference in the town.  Today, I
almost ran the stop sign in front of the bank and the lady I pulled out in
front of smiled and waved at me.  If I’d have done that a week ago, she would
have chased me down.” 

            Luke admired the way the
sheet slipped low and mounded over her bottom when she moved, the way her hair
drifted across her face.  He reached down and slid his fingers through it and tucked
it back over her shoulder.  The candlelight flickered across her face, casting
her skin in a tawny glow.