Joella had promised to meet him to show proof that she’d written RJ’s songs and that her earlier inspired medley wasn’t just a repetition of the songs he sang with the band. But like all women, she was running late.
“Hey, Flint, did you like my muffins?” With a shy smile, Amy Warren stopped beside his table.
“Your sister fed them to the hogs before I got one,” he admitted. He had some difficulty seeing the resemblance between Joella’s flashy good looks, and this slender woman in her taupe pants suit, sensible heels, and short, salon-styled brown hair, but there was a similarity in the big green eyes he guessed. “The pigs on top were cute,” he lied.
She beamed as if he’d handed her a gold watch. “You liked the pigs? Evan said icing on muffins is silly, but Charlie said cupcakes don’t sell.” She settled on the edge of the chair as if prepared to take flight if he said boo. She learned forward so he could hear over the noise of the band and audience. “I love to decorate cakes.”
Flint would like to say that he wasn’t a dessert man, but he didn’t want to hurt the sparrow’s feelings. Besides, the stage had just darkened, and the band broke into a rollicking number that brought the audience to an expectant silence. Even the little bird turned to watch.
“Muffin man,” a clear soprano rang out from the darkness over the sound of an off-key fiddle, “Muffin man, you listen. You don’t know what you’re missin’.”
Flint nearly choked on his coffee as he located Joella perched on the edge of the stage, not feet from where he sat. The vixen obviously knew she was borrowing words and music from another song. Even in this dim light, he could see her point straight at him and flash a sexy, naughty smile that revved all his engines.
When she caught his eye, her hundred-watt grin of mischief exploded the stage. She didn’t need bright lights. The raucous guitar that erupted behind her was irrelevant. Flint could hear only Joella as the lyrics changed to a laughing paean to life behind a counter.
She not only filled the room with her voice, but her presence. She had donned some outrageous attire of buff leather with fringe that struck her mid-thigh, drawing the unwavering attention of every male member of the audience even in the dim houselights. Beneath her short jacket she wore a glittery red shirt he thought he recognized from the night they’d met. Red beaded earrings swung near her long throat, and Flint almost vowed to become an ear man instead of a breast man.
She had the same effect as a lightning bolt zigzagging across the room. She had a voice that crept down inside him and threatened to turn him inside out. She poured her soul into the music, and if he wasn’t so wise to the ways of the world, he’d already be head over heels for her.
And she was mocking him and the Stardust with her words. Her words. She may as well have autographed them. There was no mistaking the subject and the sly wit, even though he’d never heard the lyrics in his life, and she was borrowing music from an old Beatles’ song. The whole audience recognized her satire and sang along with the chorus.
He was so totally knocked out that she caught him off guard when she jumped down from the stage and wriggled into his lap to the accompaniment of loud whistles.
“Muffin man,” she crooned more softly, wrapping her arm around his neck and branding his chest for life with the heat of her breasts, “Are you listenin’ now?”
Hell, no, not if she meant with his ears. But the rest of him was wide awake and hearing every vibration where her body met his. He was one giant tuning fork. He wanted to bury his face in the thick hair she’d loosely pinned up, inhale her powdery scent, and kiss her nape—just for starters.
But she was so far off his road map for the future that she might as well be from another planet, so Flint fought his natural instincts. As the fiddle died out, he caught her waist, stood up, and reluctantly deposited Joella back on stage. “Not bad,” he murmured for her ears only.
Then he returned to his table and the quiet woman watching in wide-eyed awe.
“Wow” was all Amy managed to say.
Well, he’d wanted a quiet woman. Pity this one was taken.
Unfazed by his reaction, Jo waved at her wildly clapping audience, then ignoring the crowd’s shout for more, she handed the mike back and slipped from the stage to join Flint and Amy. The spotlight returned, and the band struck up a tune Flint recognized from RJ’s repertoire, a disrespectful salute to school rules and young love—a song Joella must have written. He recognized the style.
“Hey, Ames. Where are the kids?” Jo stole a sip of her sister’s cold drink.
“Evan had to go to Charlotte for a meeting this weekend, so I left them with Sally for a little bit. I’ve forgotten what it is to hear adult conversation.”
Flint signaled the teenager serving drinks. She produced a cola and set it down in front of Jo, who flashed him a smile more challenging than grateful.
“Well, boss man, how’d I do?”
Was that nervousness he heard in his brash waitress’s voice? He couldn’t imagine it. She had to know she’d just knocked him out with the power of her voice and talent. She ought to be rubbing his nose in it.
“You need a tune with an extra meter in the chorus, and a faster beat.” He tried to play it cool when his mind was a riot of lyrics, music, and sex. The damned woman had turned him on as if she’d flipped a magic switch. It was frigging unsettling that she had that kind of power over him. “Humor has a rhythm all its own.”
“Uh huh.” Her smile lost its high voltage as she sipped her drink. “It’s just a few rearranged words that I put together today. It’s not as if I was taking them anywhere.”
Today? She’d put all that together in one day? That she took so little pride in her tremendous talent rocked him, but Flint figured it was just a shield of self-deprecation. Women had odd habits like that. He stuck to the topic. “I can hear the same style in the material RJ brought me, but a lawyer isn’t likely to notice the difference. What other proof do you have?”
“Everybody knows Jo’s songs,” Amy protested in puzzlement. “She writes rhymes for our birthdays. That’s part of the fun, to see who she’ll skewer next.” She turned to Jo. “I think the Muffin Man was one of the best things you’ve ever done.”
Jo patted her sister’s hand. “I don’t need a peacemaker, Mama Warren, but thank you.”
“Well, then, I’ll let the two of you slug it out. Don’t think I haven’t heard about the plate fight.” Amy waved at someone coming in and hurried away.
Joella leaned over the table to sip through the straw, flashing her cleavage under his nose. When she saw the direction of his gaze, she offered a sultry smile. “Want to slug it out or go over in that corner and shimmy?”
Flint crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward so he could growl into her ear. “If we go over in that corner and I shimmy, you’ll have to beat off every woman in this room. We wouldn’t want that now, would we?”
She laughed. “Okay, you want to slug it out, I got it.”
Her laughter stimulated parts that needed no encouragement. “You got it in one,” he agreed. Most women wouldn’t have understood the reasoning behind his aggressive suggestion. This one had his number without even trying—if they didn’t fight, months of abstinence would overrule sanity, and testosterone would do the talking. He was already prepared to write an ode to that skimpy red top she was wearing.
To his relief, she shoved her drink aside and sat up straight so he could fall into the green pools of her eyes instead of her chest. Except those dangly red earrings held him fixated.
“Every person here could sign an affidavit acknowledging I wrote ditties for the band,” she announced in her most business-like voice. “Slim probably has the original copies of my scribbling in that trash bin he calls an apartment. We made a demo a few years back in Charlotte. How much proof do you need?”
While he was still pondering kissing her splendid long throat, she hit him with icy pragmatism. Flint had the urge to grab his ears and jerk his head back on
straight, but he attempted to sound functional. “That’s a good start, but a lawyer will ask for proof that RJ wasn’t the author.”
Instead of taking him up on the challenge, she raised a quizzical eyebrow. “How do you know so much about lawyers?”
That cleared the cloud of lust from his head. Flint drained his coffee cup and set it down with a thud that the drum player drowned out. “Because I’ve spent these last few years in more law offices than I ever want to see in a lifetime, and I’m in no hurry to revisit one again. Lawyers have nasty minds.”
She raised her color-tinted eyebrows expectantly. When he hesitated over spilling, she reminded him, “We’re partners in this, remember? If I’m dealing with a crook about to go to jail, I’d like to know it now.”
“You don’t read the trade papers, do you?” he said with a disgust directed at himself and not her. She backed off warily, but he gestured to erase what he’d said. “Sorry. I thought the entire galaxy knew my story.”
She relaxed a fraction. “Maybe the Planet Earth, but you’ve come to Planet Northfork. We don’t even have cable, remember.”
“How could I forget? Listen, we can’t talk here. How about some other time?” Anything to avoid the issue. Damn, he didn’t know if it was cowardice or polite reluctance to spread shit.
“Now’s good. Here’s not.” She stood, and for a moment the spotlight created a white-gold halo of her hair. She gestured at him to follow, then started winding between the tables.
Flint had already deduced that all the movable tables from the shop had been hauled in here in his absence. He wasn’t certain where the rest of them had come from. The chairs were mostly the uncomfortable metal folding kind that the church probably rented out. He hoped he didn’t have to clean this up in the morning.
Those thoughts carried him safely through the room so he didn’t focus too hard on the rhythmic swing of Joella’s fringe over the sway of her hips. She laughed and touched people on the shoulder as she passed by. Flint suffered a mild resentment at watching male faces brighten everywhere her hand lit. With his new-found maturity, he squashed the negativity. No more bad boy fistfights, he reminded himself. He had to get up in the morning and call the kids, and he didn’t want to do it from jail. Joella was her own woman, not his, and he had no reason for jealousy.
To his surprise, she led him out the back door and up the fire escape. Summer thunder rolled in the distance, and the air was thick with humidity as she took a seat on the plank landing and doffed her fringed coat. The clingy red shirt blatantly emphasized her curves, and standing on the stair below her, Flint could see straight down her cleavage.
He eyed the narrow space beside her with misgiving. Sit and avoid staring at her breasts? Or fry in hell smelling her mouth-watering scent without nibbling her nape?
“Did my tenant move out or don’t they mind people using their stairs?” he asked in self-defense. The rent wasn’t a lot, but it covered some of his mortgage.
She flashed that taunting smile again, and he had to sit down or fall down.
He’d climbed his way to the top of the musical heap by using all the resources available to him and hanging on by his fingernails when necessary. Miss Joella’s smile was a challenge to match any competition he’d faced. He took the seat offered.
“I’ll give you my rent check in the morning. Charlie didn’t mind waiting until the first weekend of the month after I got paid.”
Flint gazed out at the heat lightning playing across the mountain until he fully comprehended this new slap in the face. “You’re my tenant. If I fire you, you can’t pay the rent, and I don’t get paid.”
Her voice filled with mock admiration. “You are quick, Mr. Clinton. On the other hand, you could also appreciate the convenience in the winter. Charlie stayed home snug and warm while I opened up for the macho men showing off their four-wheel drives.”
Flint leaned forward with his forearms on his knees, trying not to get too close to the source of that sultry voice. He wanted to kiss the mockery away and make her purr, but that was one of those wrong turns he’d made the first time around, thinking he could control life with sex, as his counselor had so thoughtfully pointed out. He didn’t think Joella was the type who could be controlled. Besides, he had other priorities these days.
“Business is bad in winter?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Once there’s a snow pack down, we get the skiers on their way up the mountain, but yeah, people don’t have much reason to vacation here in winter. That’s why we’ve got to find ways to bring in more jobs.”
Flint nodded knowledgeably, fighting the growing fear in his gut. He’d known the opportunity had been too good to be true. “I looked at Charlie’s books. He seemed to be doing okay.” He’d hoped to do better.
“That was last year. The mill laid off half its work force last Christmas. People living on nothing can’t pay a dollar and a half for a cup of coffee. But that’s another topic from the one we’re out here to discuss. How much trouble are you in, Mr. Big Shot?”
He refused to let her scorn get under his collar. “None now. The law is done with me, and I’m setting out on a clean slate.”
Joella caught a firefly and peered into her fist to admire its flash. Her casual acceptance of his statement reduced the last frustrating, humiliating years to an old song, encouraging him to continue. After today’s tirade, he’d feared she would push him down the steps, but she apparently didn’t believe in grudges.
“Melinda and I parted a few years back because I gave up trying to make her happy. I’d quit playing on the road when she complained about my traveling, but then she bitched about my songwriting income not being enough to buy the pretty things she liked.”
“You don’t have to tell me this part, if you don’t want.” She opened her fist and let the firefly go. “There’s a reason I don’t sing love songs.”
Maybe someday, in his old age, he’d ask her about those reasons. She was a woman meant to be loved—by someone more stable than him.
“Smart girl, but I’m telling you this to explain what happened. We married young and in lust. The music business is lousy for relationships. My divorce lawyer talked her lawyer into taking a lump sum settlement instead of draining me dry for the rest of my life. I figured I needed to be home for my sons. If I didn’t tour, my income would decline. Paying her off from the big money I’d earned touring seemed a fair move to all concerned.”
Jo was sorry she’d asked. Flint sounded casual enough, but she heard pain bleeding from every word. She’d known heartache. She could relate. She just didn’t want to. But she’d started this, and he seemed to need to talk.
Besides, she was enjoying having the big hunk beside her. If Flint shifted half an inch, their hips would rub. His broad shoulders filled all the space, and she had to turn slightly to avoid bumping elbows. That position gave her a better picture of the way his muscles worked over his taut jaw. Despite his sexy charm, he was one unhappy man.
“You gave up a group like the Barn Boys for your kids?” she asked, pretty much in awe of such a sacrifice. She could see him up on that stage. He belonged there. No wonder he was unhappy.
“The money from the albums and touring was real nice, but I was just a backup guitarist. They’re a dime a dozen. It’s my composing talents that they appreciated.”
She was starting to like sharing space with this complex cowboy who was all toughness and pain, even if she had vowed not to have any truck with men these days.
Besides, to prevent upchucking on stage, she hadn’t eaten any supper, and the fight had gone out of her. “You figured you could stay home and write songs. That makes sense. So what went wrong?”
Given their closeness, it was kind of hard to miss his shrug. “Turns out I know the music business fine, but I don’t understand diddley about people. I’d made a bundle over the years, socked away what Melinda didn’t spend, but when I tried to raise the cash, I didn’t have any. I had a music manager, a business manager, a
nd a lawyer to keep up with investments and accounting statements. All I ever saw were the big dollars under assets. Turned out there were even bigger dollars called things like ‘FICA Payable.’ My business manager hadn’t paid the feds in years, and the cash didn’t exist.
“I hired auditors and lawyers and sued, but there’s no sucking blood out of turnips. And of course, the IRS came along with their hands out. By the time the feds were done socking on penalties and interest and whatnot, they wanted triple what I was worth. And I still had to pay off Melinda.”
“Wow.” Jo tried to imagine the mansions and cars he must have owned, but she couldn’t, not any more than she could calculate the sum he’d had to pay. “That doesn’t seem fair. If your manager stole the money, they should have got it from him.”
“I owed it. I didn’t pay it. I neglected my fiscal responsibility. That’s how the law works. I had lots of lawyers explain it to me.”
“Divorce lawyers, lawsuit lawyers, IRS lawyers,” she counted up the woe and hit staggering sums. Just asking Fritz to send a letter to the IRS explaining her tips really were less than ten percent had kept her in fear of jail for a year.
“And insurance lawyers,” he added. “After the divorce, I had to go back on the road to pay my bills. I was getting by on no sleep some nights, operating on empty the rest, and drinking too much. About a year ago, I stupidly borrowed a friend’s Harley after a few drinks and crashed it into an ice cream stand. Lucky for everyone concerned, it was closed, but people crawled out of the woodwork to sue me.”
Oh, dang, and here she was thinking she’d found a man with a head on his shoulders. That’s what happened when she fell into sexy eyes. “With all that going on, when did you have time to write RJ’s music?” she asked with just a hint of scorn. She had no sympathies for drunks. She understood the hell they wreaked real well.
“We finished the song collection a couple of years ago, before I hit the road again.” He didn’t seem to mind her derision, as if he’d already dumped enough of it on his own head and was immune to more. “That collection was the one good thing to come out of that time.” He settled into bitter silence.
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