Diamond (15 page)

Diamond smiled as the familiar strains of “Wildwood Flower” hung on the air. She and the fiddler had similar tastes in music.

“Hey, boys!” Tommy shouted. “We’re here! This pretty lady is Miss Diamond Houston. You guys introduce yourselves while I get myself a cup of coffee and talk to the engineer. I won’t be long,” he told Diamond. “Make yourself at home.”

The men were as different from the boys in Jesse’s band as night was from day. They were friendly but businesslike. And the one man who seemed most likely to flirt was doing it with a modicum of manners. She began to relax.

“I didn’t know I was going to have backup,” she said, as Tommy came back into the room. “I’d planned to accompany myself and leave it at that. Shouldn’t we practice or something before we do the actual recording?”

“Naw,” Tommy said, and looked down to brush a scuff off the toe of his boot. “These boys are old hands at stuff like this. You just start out; they’ll pick up on you real fast.” He winked at her and then walked away with a swagger.

It didn’t sound right, but she didn’t have enough knowledge to argue. This was all new ground for her. If Jesse trusted Tommy then she would, too.

The band members had been briefed ahead of time. This was going to be easy money. No run-throughs, no discussion about arrangement. Just play. That they could do.

Tommy walked into the sound booth and then stared back through the glass at the tall, elegant woman who was seating herself upon a stool.

The engineer came out and fitted her with a head mike, fiddled with the sound adjustment, and then walked back inside the sound booth. He sat down and adjusted the components on the sound panel, then gave her a thumbs-up sign, indicating that he was ready to begin.

Diamond’s hands were sweaty. Her heart raced, and her stomach felt an attack of panic. She closed her eyes, thought of Johnny sitting in the corner of Whitelaw’s Bar, and knew it was time to take the gamble.

She tossed her hair back over her shoulder, tucked the heels of her boots in the rungs of the stool, and let her fingers run lightly over the strings of Jesse’s guitar. She sat alone in the center of the room, unaware of the men tuning up behind her.

She was unaware that one man had already promised the devil two years of his life for a chance to run his fingers through that mane of honey-gold hair falling down her back.

She was blind to the guitar player who’d stopped in midchord when she’d scooted backward onto the stool, unaware that he was lost in lust at the sight of her perfectly curved backside encased in stone-washed Rockies.

She was also oblivious of the fact that the smile she’d given the man on keyboard had momentarily made him forget his name. She was lost in the music going around in her head.

Tommy tried not to stare at the gentle smile on her face as she fingered the guitar strings. But ignoring the length and slenderness of her legs was impossible, as was the possibility of a friendship. The punch in the nose that she’d given him had done permanent damage to his ego.

If he’d been honest with himself, revenge upon this woman was not his ultimate dream. Tommy was blind to the truth about Diamond, unwilling to admit what he actually felt for her. He didn’t really want her out of his life. He wanted her in his bed. But it was never going to happen. As usual, Jesse had gotten to her first.

“What are we doin’?” the fiddler asked.

“Oh…right!” Diamond said, and thought for a moment. Then, without looking up from the guitar strings, she answered. “Easy on the keyboards…bass guitar, you follow me on the melody.” Then she looked up at the fiddler and smiled. “And you, Mr. Fiddle Man, make yours weep. The song is ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me,’ in the key of F.”

“But that’s not a country song,” one of them said. “It’s rhythm and blues.”

She looked over her shoulder, cocked an eyebrow, and replied, “It’s country when I do it.”

Tommy grinned. This was perfect.

She began by humming a slow, melodic rendering of the song as they knew it, but in her tempo. Then her fingers picked across a guitar string…and another…and another…and the man on keyboard forgot for a moment that he was supposed to accompany her when she opened her mouth and began to sing.

The song filled the room and their hearts. It was a slow, plaintive admission of a woman’s failure to make a man love her the way she wanted. Of how she’d take what he had to offer and have no regrets for tomorrow.

They all stared, lost in the clear, perfect pitch of her voice and the song, drawn into the lyrics by the emotion with which she was singing.

The fiddle player blinked, surprised by an onset of quick tears, and pulled the bow across the strings. The no-big-deal session he’d been expecting had disappeared the moment this lady had opened her mouth. She’d asked him to make his fiddle weep, and instead she’d brought tears to his eyes. As they hovered, hidden behind his closed eyelids, it was all he could do to return the favor.

By the time the song was over, the musicians were grinning. They knew good stuff when they heard it, and this woman was better than good. The engineer in the sound booth held up his hand, letting her voice fade along with the last soulful sound of the fiddler’s bow, and then flipped a series of switches on the console before giving them a thumbs-up sign.

She shuddered and dropped her head forward, resting it on the curve of Jesse’s guitar. She felt drained, emotionally and physically, although she’d done nothing more than sing a song.

“Oowwee,” the guitar player, shouted. “Honey, you sure can sing.”

“My God, lady, if you need someone to play in your band, you be sure and let me know,” the fiddler said, and teasingly tugged at her hair as he walked past to put his instrument away. “I could do with a steady job now and then instead of all this pickup work. My name’s on the card.”

She looked up and smiled, surprised that it was over, surprised that they were so friendly and demonstrative. She noted that the fiddler’s name was Doug Bentin and stuffed his card into her hip pocket. It was a complete turnabout from the way Muddy Road had treated her when she’d sung with Jesse.

“Really?” she asked. “You thought it was good?”

“Yeah, lady…really,” Doug Bentin said.

She grinned and looked nervously toward Tommy, who was staring at her from inside the booth. She longed to hear the same approval from him.

For a moment their eyes met. Even from this distance Tommy could see the hope on her face and the expectancy hovering at the back of those damned green eyes. He smiled at her, turned his back to the studio, and looked long and hard at the sound man who’d captured the performance on tape.

“Man, you sure can pick ’em,” the engineer said. “First Jesse Eagle, now her. I’ll run a mix and have the DAT ready by tomorrow. Want to hear the playback?”

Tommy leaned forward. When they were separated by only a few inches and he was certain that no one would overhear what he was about to say, he answered. “No! I don’t want to hear anything. And after we leave, you take that thing and burn it,” Tommy said. “You don’t ask why. You don’t argue. Got it?”

The engineer stared. His mouth dropped, and when it finally closed it was nothing but a grim line. He looked out at the pretty woman with the astounding voice and knew that something dirty was going on. It didn’t make him feel particularly good to be a part of it.

“I asked you a question,” Tommy said. “Do you want me to repeat it?”

The engineer heard the threat behind the question. He leaned back in his chair and stared down at the floor.

“No, I don’t need you to repeat a damned thing,” he said.

“That’s great,” Tommy said, slapping him on the back. “That’s the way I like to hear my people talk.”

Then he walked out of the booth and up to Diamond, slipped his arm around her waist, and bade the boys in the band good-bye, unaware that the engineer had taken offense at his parting statement.

“I’m not
your people,
” the man muttered. He watched the way Tommy Thomas was schmoozing up to the lady and frowned. “You son of a bitch,” he said, and began mixing the tracks as if it was going to be picked up. When he was through, he slipped the DAT into a case and looked around, assuring himself that he was still alone. He walked out of the booth and down a long hallway to his office, then knelt in front of his desk.

The small lock on the lower left-hand drawer turned easily when he inserted a key in the keyhole. He slid the case to the back of the drawer and turned the key in the lock again.

Shaking from the intensity of his anger and suddenly in need of fresh air, he took a deep breath and headed for a side exit. If he never saw Tommy Thomas again it would be too soon.

Diamond was shocked at the suddenness with which the session was over and everyone was departing. She supposed it was because the men were only hired by the hour, as was the studio. Tommy had made that part of it perfectly clear on their way into Nashville.

“Let’s go grab a bite to eat, and then I’ll take you by Jesse’s shoot. They should be through soon, and you can catch a ride home with him, okay?”

Diamond didn’t know what to think. All she could do was agree. Besides, if he was so willing to take her right back to Jesse, then everything must be on the up and up. She slid into the seat of Tommy’s car and buckled her seat belt. This was a whole new world she could hardly wait to explore.

“Don’t we need a contract?” she asked. “Between us, I mean?”

Tommy cursed beneath his breath and then flashed her what was supposed to pass for an engaging smile. “We sure do. First time I get a chance, I’ll swing by the lawyer’s office and get him to draw one up. It’ll just be a standard contract, regular fees, that sort of thing. Don’t you worry yourself about a thing. I’ll handle everything.” He started the car and grinned at her again before backing out of the parking space. “I always do.”

The smile on his face made her shudder. Instinct kept telling her that she should beware. But for the life of her, she couldn’t see anything to be wary of. Only Tommy, doing his job. Doing what Jesse wanted.

“Come on, shiny girl,” Jesse yelled. “We’re going to be late.”

Diamond fussed with her hair and tugged at her dress. Anything further she did to herself would only undo what she’d just spent hours trying to achieve. She opened the door to her room.

“Well?” she asked.

“Oh…my…God.”

Diamond’s heart sank. “You told me to look sexy. If this is all wrong I can change. Better yet, you could go without me. That’s it! You go. I’ll stay. Then I won’t have to—”

“You do. It’s not. And not a chance in hell.”

Diamond grinned. Jesse refuted arguments better than anyone she knew.

The awards ceremony they were attending was to be nationally televised. Jesse had given her carte blanche to pick out something appropriate. From the look on his face, she had.

Jesse allowed himself one groan. He’d told her to get a dress for the occasion. Technically, he supposed that this might be called a dress, since it was one piece and had armholes and a place where a collar should be. But there was this great expanse of bare skin.

It also had a skirt, several inches of one. For her sake, he could say that the absence of sequins and beads should have given it some modicum of propriety. But the damned thing was red, and an eloquent statement of what a curvaceous body beneath minuscule amounts of red silk looked like.

“Do you like it?” she asked nervously.

He ran a tentative fingertip across her breast. Then his gaze raked her body, taking in the nearly nude pantyhose and the three-inch sling-back red shoes and the masses of long, blonde curls falling all over her face and neck.

“You could say that,” he said.

He saw the unabashed need to please shining in her eyes and wished that they weren’t going anywhere except to bed. There, he’d be perfectly willing to let her please him all she needed.

“This will be a first for me,” he muttered as he escorted her downstairs.

“What will?” she asked. “I thought you’d won about every country award there was to win at least once.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “This is the first time I’m going to be praying I don’t win.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because if I have to get up and walk across a stage in front of several hundred people as well as the eyes of the nation, I’m going to be—excuse the pun—hard put not to embarrass myself.”

It didn’t take Diamond long to get the message.

“Oh, Jesse,” she said, batting her eyes in mock flirtation as she tucked her arm beneath his elbow. “You say the sweetest things.”

In a crowd where sequins, fringe, and rhinestones were the rule, Diamond Houston stood out in solitary splendor. Her simple attire was the first to catch the eye of the observer. And then when it did, the woman beneath the clothes was seen to be even more spectacular than what she was wearing.

Jesse and Diamond made it through the crowd outside the auditorium, past the mingling throng inside the lobby, and down the long aisle to their assigned seats near the stage. Everything seemed to be going fine until Jesse stopped in the aisle and stepped aside to let Diamond in first.

She looked down into the smiling face of the man next to whom she’d be sitting and wanted to run. Mack Martin looked up, grinned, and took in her attire with one appreciative, sweeping gaze.

She sighed, pasted a smile on her face, and sat down. She should have known that Jesse would be seated with his band. If he was nominated for awards, they were included.

“Glad you’re here,” Jesse said, letting his hand rest on Diamond’s knee as he leaned across to speak to Mack. “I’ll have to go backstage midway through the ceremony. You guys look after Diamond for me while I’m gone, okay?”

Mack glanced down at Jesse’s hand on her knee and grinned again. “It’ll be my pleasure, boss,” he said.

“I have to present one of the awards. It’s all part of the show, darlin’,” he said, squeezing her hand.

She smiled and tried to ignore the knot of dread forming in the pit of her stomach.

Later, after the ceremony was in full swing and Jesse had gone backstage, Diamond shifted in her seat. He had been gone for more than thirty minutes, and Mack had been nothing but courteous. Maybe she’d made too much of the situation. She watched in silent admiration as first one and then another of her favorite singing stars walked onto the stage and accepted an award. Her eyes blurred and her attention wandered as she envisioned herself in their place, smiling brilliantly as she accepted the award for best song…or entertainer of the year…or—