Heartbreak, Tennessee (4 page)

 
Naturally, Sheryn had been envious of
Dollywood since its inception. When Dolly had built her little empire in Pigeon
Forge twenty-five years back, buying a local theme park in the little town at
the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains and pouring millions of dollars into it,
Sheryn had been an unknown act playing church halls and nursing homes. She’d come
a long way since then, but she’d never forgotten her vow to build something
even more grand some day.

Amber unlocked the
door and pushed it open a crack, then returned to burrow under the warm bed
covers. Sheryn swept into the room, stopping to bend and hook an arm around
Amber’s neck and plant a kiss on her cheek.

“Amber, you would not
believe this place I found this morning. The Sunset Diner. These names! I tell
you, I am tickled to death. I couldn’t have come up with better names myself. Why,
they’re just crying out to have a song written about them.”

“Oh, really,” Amber
murmured.

“Maybe if there’s
time...”

“Forget it,” Amber
said. “You came here to look into building a theme park, so that’s what we’re
going to do. No getting side-tracked, remember? Gray gave me strict
instructions that you were not to start any new projects until this one was
either finished or dead in the water.”

“He’s no fun,” Sheryn
pouted.

She and Gray made a
tremendous team. Sheryn was responsible for vision, and enthusiasm, and wild
ideas that more often than not led to success, no matter how avant garde. Her
offbeat song ideas had often climbed the charts, catching the attention of a
jaded public. She had been known to plague the road crew with ideas for the
show which, though sometimes unorthodox, often produced wonderful effects. And
Gray was content to work behind the scenes, negotiating the details that Sheryn
found so bothersome, making sure her contracts were properly reviewed and their
investments were performing and her image was well promoted, and solving the
daily emergencies that defined their hectic life.

And Amber was always
there, filling in the details, doing the legwork, running errands, memorizing
the packed calendar, even smoothing the couple’s ruffled feathers now and then
during a disagreement.

“Fun or not, he gave
me strict orders,” Amber said, yawning and stacking the pillows for a back rest
before leaning back on the bed. “Besides, it wasn’t me who wanted to come here
in the first place. I was trying to talk you out of it, remember? Go ahead and
sit down, since I’m sure I won’t be able to talk you into letting me sleep
another half hour.”

“This is the best part
of the day! Besides, girl, you never sleep this late,” Sheryn said, unwrapping
foil from the food she’d brought. “Are you coming down with something?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think
so. I guess I was just really tired from the drive,” Amber said. She could feel
color rising in her face as the events of the night before came back to her.

Had she really sat in
the cab of a truck with Mac McBaine? Worse yet, was he the man who’d invaded
her dreams toward morning? Her eyes widened as she recalled the warm, callused
hands on her skin, the rough stubble of his face arousing her senses as his
lips traced the lines of her neck...

“Or, did you have a
really wild night after I went to bed, perhaps?”

Amber looked sharply
at her employer and best friend, but Sheryn was concentrating on her breakfast.
Half a dozen biscuits were stacked on a paper plate along with packets of
butter and jam. There were thick slices of country-cured ham, too, and tall
steaming cups of coffee. As Sheryn unwrapped the last package, Amber sat up a
little straighter.

“Don’t tell me,” she
said, ignoring Sheryn’s question. “Did you really order country-fried steak?”

Sheryn grinned and
speared one of the batter-coated steaks with a plastic fork, plopped it on a
plate and handed it to her.

“Well, when in Rome, I
always say.”

“Yes, I have to
remember this is exotic fare for you. I guess, for a gal born and bred in
Chicago, you’ve come a long way,” Amber teased, grinning. Not many of Sheryn’s
fans were aware of the true story behind the star’s arrival at the top of the
charts; the public version of her history left out the privileged upbringing,
the childhood spent at the symphony and ballet lessons, rather than on a farm
in the country.

Amber sliced off a big
piece of steak and popped it in her mouth. “Wow, this really takes me back. I
haven’t had this in years.”

“Yeah, ever since you
got me started eating that rabbit food, I haven’t had a decent meal,” Sheryn
said, taking a big bite out of a buttermilk biscuit swathed in butter and
honey.

“Rabbit food!” Amber
couldn’t help laughing. “It’s just a low fat diet, and as I recall you were
extremely grateful last year at the Country Music Awards when you managed to
squeeze into that size-eight dress.”

“Yeah, yeah. But we
gals have been good long enough, don’t you think? I say we deserve a little fun
now and then. Just don’t tell Gray.”

“I promise,” Amber
said solemnly. She happened to know that, new diet or no, Sheryn routinely fell
off the wagon and indulged in all her favorite things: ice cream, and
cheeseburgers, and french fries and pizza. Luckily, she seemed to have the
metabolism of a teenage athlete, and had no trouble at all maintaining her
famous bombshell figure.

The two chatted lazily
as they finished their feast. Five years before, when Amber had finally
finished her night school degree and begun working for Sheryn, she’d expected
to be answering correspondence, filing, and keeping the star’s calendar
straight—all during the hours of nine to five. By the second week, when
Sheryn had dragged her home to have dinner with her and Gray in their sprawling
Nashville mansion practically every night, she saw that the job was going to be
a little different from what she had anticipated.

Sheryn
did
need help getting things in order,
it was true. Gray, to whom she’d been married for two decades, did his best to
keep her organized, but it was a full-time job, and he was plenty busy managing
her career, which in the last decade had gone through the roof. He had an
entire legion of professionals to supervise; together, Gray and Sheryn’s
business manager, booking agent, public relations staff, and the inevitable
accountants and lawyers, kept things going behind the scenes.

While they were
gracious with all the people who worked for them, the two of them welcomed
Amber like family, knowing she had none of her own. Respecting her silence on
the matter, they never pressed for details about her history, but opened their
door and hearts to her. Though she never was able to communicate it in words,
Amber was eternally grateful.

Before long, Sheryn
was counting on Amber for everything from wardrobe help to traveling companion
and chauffeur to dietitian.

“So,” Amber said,
licking a few last crumbs from her fingers, “I can’t wait to hear what you have
planned for the day, dressed in that.”

“Oh, come on,” Sheryn
said, coloring a little. She was wearing a tight denim bustier top with a sheer
overblouse. Her full breasts swelled over the top of the bustier. Her jeans,
decorated with rows of rhinestone rivets, were practically painted on, and a
pair of high-heeled black mules completed the outfit. Her hair, dyed a shade of
blond so pale it was nearly white, was piled in an up-do with a few tendrils
curling around her face. “I wanted to look nice for the fine folk of
Heartbreak. After all, they may be seeing a lot of me.”

Amber sighed. “Well, I
guess you’re just lucky you can pull that look off. You must have been
extremely good in a past life to get those cheekbones and that perfect skin.”

“You’re not so bad
yourself,” smiled Sheryn. “In fact, Gray and I have been talking about how we’re
going to have to fire you if you get any better looking—can’t have you
upstaging the star with those killer green eyes and mile-long legs!”

“Oh, get out of here!”

Chucking a leftover
biscuit at Sheryn, Amber felt much better than she had upon waking. She pulled
herself out of bed and slipped on the tortoise-shell glasses she wore for
paperwork, pulled on the robe that matched her navy silk pajamas, and settled
into a chair across from Sheryn.

“OK, let’s see,” she
said, opening up a notebook and scanning her hand-written notes. “I don’t know
when I’m going to convince you that there just isn’t a lot to see out here.”

“Oh, but there is! Small
town America!” Sheryn said grandly, lifting her arms in an elegant swoop. “I
want to see it all, to drink it in, to absorb it! I want the people of
Heartbreak to think of me as—as just another neighbor!”

Sheryn sighed and
continued. “That’ll be the day. But to get back to the point, I’ve written down
all the local attractions I can think of. Even the bowling alley. By the way,
Sheryn,” she added, glancing up, “I don’t think it’s such a great idea for you
to just go walking around here on your own. Small town folks notice everything,
and I do mean
everything
, out of the
ordinary and send it on down the grapevine before you can catch your breath.”

“So what’s wrong with
that? Just think of it as free publicity! Besides, I just feel so at home here!”
Sheryn interrupted, licking butter off her fingers and stretching luxuriously.

Amber rolled her eyes.
“At home? Don’t forget, I know you grew up on the North Shore of Chicago,
remember? You were eating shrimp cocktail at the country club while these folks
were cutting their teeth on grits and fried mush.”

“Well, I do think I’ve
adapted pretty well,” Sheryn said smugly, taking a dainty sip from her
Styrofoam cup.

“No one could argue
that,” Amber murmured. Sheryn’s following included people from every walk of
life, and it was her great gift that she was able to treat every fan like a
long-lost friend. And the crazy thing was, she seemed to mean it. Her love of
people was as expansive as her personality.

“Let’s talk about
names some more,” Sheryn said, tipping back in her chair and threading her
fingers together thoughtfully. “I still like ‘Sheryn’s World’, but I want to
find something a little zestier—”

“Sheryn, please. Names
are the
last
thing we need to worry
about now. There are a million little details to think about first.”

“But names are so
important!” Sheryn winked. “They put a picture in people’s minds. Why, we
wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t let it slip that your hometown was named
Heartbreak.”

“I know, I know—I
should never have opened my mouth.”

“Oh Sugar, don’t you
see, it’s destiny!” Sheryn savored the last syllable with characteristic drama.

“I still think it’s
absolutely crazy to pick a town just based on the name,” Amber muttered.

“Well, there was the
story you told me, too,” Sheryn said. “You know, how the frontiersman made it
all the way through the Appalachians with his family only to lose his wife to
illness, and so he stopped right
here
”—Sheryn
emphasized the word as though she expected the long-dead settler to materialize
right there in the room—”and built a home, pouring his broken heart into
hard work.”

Amber turned away
slightly and lowered her eyes. She could never tell that story without getting
tears in her eyes. Part of it was the sweet sadness of the tale, but mostly it
was memories of her mother telling the story while she worked at her sewing
machine, mending and tailoring for the ladies of the town while Amber lay
stretched out on the floor on her stomach, chin in hands, listening raptly.

How her mother had
loved Heartbreak, the only home she’d ever known.

Amber cleared her
throat and blinked hard. Time to change the subject. Tears were not an option,
not today, not here. If she were going to cry at all, it would have to wait
until she was back in Nashville. Safely away from the threat of all these
memories.

“There’s dozens—probably
hundreds—of towns that would be every bit as suitable for the park.”

“But they’re not
called Heartbreak,” Sheryn said stubbornly. “People would come for that alone,
even if it
wasn’t
my park.”

Amber sighed loudly. She
should never have opened her mouth. Six months ago, spending the holidays with
the Sawyers, she’d finally relaxed enough one evening to tell Gray and Sheryn a
little about her past. A roaring fire and a good brandy loosened the lock on
her heart, and she told them a little about what it had been like to grow up
fatherless in a town of a few thousand people.

A town that just
happened to be named Heartbreak.

Sheryn had fixated on
the place, asking for details like a child begging for just one more gumdrop. Too
late Amber recognized the tell-tell signs of a scheme forming in Sheryn’s mind—the
light in her eyes, the way she leaned forward, tapping her foot excitedly.

At least she hadn’t
told them about Mac.

“It’s not just the
name,” Sheryn continued. “I get a good feeling from this place. And you know
what I always say, we women need to trust our intuition.”