Small Town Girl

by Rice, Patricia

  Flint stepped protectively in front of her. Jo caught her arm and tried to get her to leave through the back. Amy dug in her heels. “No, I have to talk to him. Both of you, go outside and help Mama keep the kids from coming in.”

  Flint looked reluctant. Evan’s footsteps over the hall’s wood floor echoed with anger. Amy prayed she knew her husband better than anyone else. She pointed at the kitchen and set her mouth as firmly as she could to hide the way it trembled.

  Giving Amy a hug, Jo dragged Flint out the back.

  “I’m in here,” Amy called. “You could have phoned, you know.” She was trying to be more assertive, but that sounded just plain whiny.

  Evan burst in looking one volt short of blowing a fuse. Amy wondered if she could pop his circuits like Jo accused her of doing to the café’s. He still looked gorgeous, even if his blond hair needed a trim, and he was wearing a golf shirt instead of a suit. Since when did Evan play golf?

  “What is the meaning of this, Amaranth Jane?” He shook his checkbook at her.

  “Let me guess.” She tapped her finger against her lips. “Leather, brown, rectangular—a cow died to protect your checks?” Once upon a time she used to tease him like this when he asked obvious questions. He didn’t laugh now.

  “It’s empty, Amaranth. I deposited my paycheck in there Friday, and it’s empty.” He flung the checkbook at the table and drove his fingers into his hair. “I put a deposit on an apartment, and they called me this morning to say it bounced. How is that possible? We have a money market to back up the checking.”

  “An apartment?” she asked as pleasantly as she was able. She was wilting inside, but she refused to show her spinelessness. “Does this mean you’re no longer living with Linda?”

  “That’s irrelevant! Where is my money?” He paced up and down as if he didn’t know what to do any more than she did. For ten years, he’d told her what to do and how to do it. And now he’d lost that right.

  His sudden vulnerability raised her foolish hopes. She was almost ready to grant him the right to tell her what to do again—if only the last few weeks would go away.

  Just conjuring up the image of Linda kissing that freckle on his neck reduced Amy’s shattered heart to dust. She’d honestly thought Evan loved her, that they would get through rough times together. Instead, he was opting for the easy way out. “You really do think that just because I don’t argue with you, that I’m dumb, don’t you?” she asked, curiosity getting the better of her common sense. For the sake of the kids, she really needed to know that there was no hope left for their marriage.

  At her question, he stopped and stared. “Have you been drinking? I know your mother used to tipple…”

  “Keep my mother out of this.” Suddenly furious at this example of how little he knew about her—and how little he cared—she pointed at the front door. “You can just walk yourself back out of here, Evan Warren. What did you think I would do when I found out you were leaving me? Break down and cry myself stupid? That cash belongs to our kids. If you’re going to desert them, then you can damned well take money from Linda to set up your love nest.”

  “Did I ever say I minded supporting the kids? I deposited my paychecks so you could pay the bills.” His gaze swept the family room Amy had so lovingly decorated, his glance taking in her mother’s hopes for the future and seeing only disarray. “But I see no reason I have to support a house this size. You don’t need the place for entertaining.”

  “My house?” Amy’s bravery stumbled into retreat at this unexpected blow. Elise had warned her, but she had honestly believed the man she’d married cared about his children. This wasn’t the man she’d married.

  “You can’t take the house,” she protested in horror. “This is where your children live.” Ice coated her heart at the possibility that he would rob Josh of his beloved play set in the yard, and Louisa of her brightly colored nursery.

  “You’ll have to move when you get a job anyway,” Evan said, shrugging as if he wasn’t ripping lives into tatters. “You won’t have me to suck dry any longer.”

  She’d have to move. Away from her mother and Jo and her support system.

  Amy shivered and stared incredulously at the man to whom she’d given her heart so many years ago. “Why would you do this to your children? Do you hate me that much?”

  Evan looked at her pityingly. “You never had any ambition, Ames. Northfork is a roadblock on the road to success, and you want to stay. I don’t. It’s that simple.”

  “You didn’t ask me to leave with you.” She hated that she could even feel hurt after what he’d done, but she needed the pain to cut the ties binding them. “What about all those times you said you couldn’t have done it without me? Did you never mean that?”

  He glanced impatiently at his Rolex. “Of course I meant it, but you’re not the only person in the world who can be useful. I have a meeting later today. Give me a check for half of what you’ve stolen so I can pay my rent, and I’m outta here.”

  “Useful?” Anger began to steal across the hurt. “That’s all I was, useful? I put you through school, helped you get jobs, gave up my own career to build yours, had your kids, and that was being useful?”

  “Look, we can do this the easy way, or I can call my lawyer, all right? I said I’d pay support. What in hell more do you want? Everything I own?”

  “Got it in one, big boy.” Her heart had just been hacked out with a hatchet, but for the first time in a long time, Amy smiled—even if it was a malevolent smile. “I invested ten years of my life in you, and that note’s come due, with interest. You owe me what little bit you’re worth and then some. I’m gonna make sure you pay every dime.”

  How had she never understood that ambition had turned her husband’s soul to stone over the years? She’d have to learn that trick to survive.

  ***

  “What are the two of you doing?” Marie demanded, joining Jo and Flint at the partially open kitchen door where they’d stationed themselves to make certain Evan didn’t hurt Amy.

  “Nothing, Mama.” Jo hastily closed the latch.

  Flint winced at her mother’s suspicious regard, and got out of her way when she opened the door to hear for herself.

  At the sound of Evan’s shouts, Marie’s eyes narrowed in fury. “I’ll be damned if I let that turd talk to my daughter like that!” Tilting forward at full throttle as fast as her joints allowed, she slammed inside the house, mother hen going to the rescue of her chick. Although in the case of Jo’s mother, it was more like irate eagle after a turkey buzzard.

  Jo collapsed into Flint’s arms, and he protectively tightened his grip, but uneasiness crawled beneath his skin. He remembered all too well those days of screaming matches, before he’d walked out on Melinda just so the kids wouldn’t have to watch their world disintegrate. He couldn’t do that to his sons again.

  “Amy just declared her independence,” Jo murmured. “Mama’s gonna kill them.”

  “You don’t think Evan will hit her?” he asked, expressing his immediate concern.

  “Nah, Evan’s not that kind. He’ll hide behind lawyers. Mama’s likely to rip a piece of hide off him before he escapes. We should go put sugar in his gas tank.”

  “Not if Amy’s changed the car title to her name,” Flint said wryly. “I’m almost sorry I introduced you to Elise. You Sanderson women are scary enough without legal aid.” It was bad enough watching the lawyer help Jo tear his music apart. What would happen if he and Jo got involved and it ended like this? As it had to. He wasn’t returning to the world opening up for Jo. He couldn’t do that to his kids.

  She broke away to perch on a deck chair and watch his sons teaching Josh to bounce on the trampoline. “Elise has been helping Amy find a good divorce lawyer. We both owe you.”

  She hesitated, and Flint figured she was trying to find some way of bringing up the subject they’d both been avoiding. They’d all been working 24/7, which had made it simple to avoid confrontation. But the angry
shouts inside raised ugly images.

  “Elise says the record label won’t sue you if I take the cash,” she said tentatively.

  Flint shrugged and tried not to let his gut grind at the thought. “I’ll still pay. The lawyers will negotiate for some of the settlement to come out of our royalties.”

  A year of hard work, down the drain. His hopes for a future income for his boys, gone. He’d be much safer not calculating the extent of his losses. Anger at the injustice simmered just below his skin, but he had no business taking it out on Jo. “They never put my name on the album, so I have a bargaining chip or two,” he continued, rubbing the bent fingers of his left hand. “Elise explained that you can get more if you continue with the lawsuit instead of settling now, didn’t she?”

  Might as well dig his own grave while he was at it. A drawn-out lawsuit with a shark like Elise would ruin his reputation and guarantee he wouldn’t have an income for the next decade.

  Beside him, Jo nodded. “She told me I could get my name recognized and put on those songs, and I’d be paid royalties for the rest of my life, plus Randy’s advance money. It just might take years. What do you mean, they left your name off the album?”

  He couldn’t sit still and discuss this. He got up and paced the deck. Accidentally kicking a tennis ball, he leaned over to pick it up, then squeezed it between his fingers as he tried to find words that didn’t make him sound like the sorryass he’d become. “Since I dropped out of sight, our business manager has been pushing Randy’s career, helping him kiss Martin’s butt. That’s the head honcho at the record label.”

  He didn’t know why he was helping her tear his heart out. Except for that one spectacular night a week ago, they weren’t even sleeping together. “Reckon they figure it’d be better for sales if everyone thinks Randy wrote and sung those songs himself.”

  Jo’s eyes went wide and she jumped up, apparently on the verge of erupting like Mount St. Helens. “We wrote those songs, and Randy still gets credit for them, even if I make him pay through the nose?”

  “If you take the cash route and don’t sue,” he agreed. “Look on the bright side, he’ll have to pay someone big bucks to write songs for the next album. There’s your opening.”

  His reward for trying to be peaceful was Jo’s fist slammed into his biceps. Flint stared at her in disbelief. He knew better than to tell her she was beautiful when she was mad, but she lit up like a July Fourth firework display.

  That his heart could do back flips in admiration at a time like this told him what he’d been denying for too long—this ache in his middle wasn’t going to go away any time soon. He loved her beyond reason—which was why he was willing to let her go.

  “You’re building up a caseload of resentment to get rid of me, aren’t you?” she demanded. “You’re shoving me away just the way you did Melinda and your music and your family. Well, maybe you’re right. If we’re going to be staring at each other across a courtroom for the next decade, we can’t ever be friends, can we?”

  Or anything else. Flint’s rage at fate found an outlet in this stupid argument. “I’ve already given you the rope to hang me, what more do you want?” he shouted, flinging the tennis ball at the basketball goal on the drive rather than shove her against the wall and kiss her until she promised him everything he wanted. Only little boys believed they could have everything they wanted.

  “A little trust would be good,” she shouted back. “For just once in your life, Flynn Clinton, admit that you can’t do it all yourself!”

  “Oh, right, this is coming from someone who thinks her brains are in her boobs, and that she’ll never be more than a friggin’ waitress! Grow up, Joella. This is the real world. Every prize has a price. You gotta fight for what you want and not quit just because a couple of dickheads took you for a ride.”

  Her big eyes stared at him in astonishment. “Look at the pot calling the kettle black.” Before she could hit him again, she stalked off, head high, golden curls flying.

  Flint figured she’d walk clear back to town that way. What in hell had made him say those things to her?

  Maybe she was right, maybe he was trying to tell her to get the hell out of his life.

  And maybe he was right, and that’s what she needed to do.

  Or maybe, just maybe, she was right and he was a friggin’ shitpot who needed to stand up and fight for what he wanted. Except what he wanted meant messing up her future just like Evan messed up Amy’s.

  Twenty-seven

  Friday afternoon, the day before the Mill-Aid concert set off the MusicFest, eighteen days and fifteen hours after he’d last made love to Jo—not that he was counting—Flint learned about Jo’s meeting that morning with the city men in suits. She hadn’t called yet to tell him if she’d decided to sue or settle.

  At least she’d had the decency not to rub his nose in his fate by bringing the Nashville cats to the café. She’d been all that was polite ever since last week’s harsh exchange of words, but the atmosphere in the café wasn’t the same. Flint almost wished he could tick her off so she’d throw dishes at him.

  “They drove up in a big Rolls Royce,” Hoss was saying, not having any understanding of the spikes he was driving through Flint’s soul. “Heard one of them wore a diamond ring bigger than a golf ball.”

  Not lawyers, then, Flint concluded. Record producers. They must be pushing for the cash settlement.

  He would lose regardless of her choice, so there was no point in adding his opinion. She’d practically moved in with Amy to help her sister cope with the divorce, anyway.

  This one-day-at-a-time business sure looked bleak without Jo in his tomorrow. Despite her differences with him, she and his sons had become thick as thieves. The way his kids took to her, he’d even caught himself picturing her at his side when he had to deal with their awkward teenage years. Jo could give them the sensible woman’s view that he couldn’t. She might not be maternal, but she knew how to keep males of any age in line.

  Flint had to smile at that knowledge, even if it was a hopeless dream. This must be what was called payback time. Now he had some understanding of how Melinda had felt staying home while he was out on the road, taking the glory.

  “Sure it wasn’t Randy who picked her up?” he asked, disguising his heartbreak. “He’s supposed to be in town by tomorrow.”

  “Didn’t see them myself, can’t say,” Hoss replied, unconcerned and clueless. “But I reckon I’d’ve heard if it was.”

  That was something anyway. Flint glanced over at his sons. They’d had their heads bent over that computer for weeks, earplugs in place as if they were fooling him about the stolen music. He didn’t have wireless internet in here, so he couldn’t imagine what in heck they were doing when their fingers flew over the keyboard.

  If he could have kept the café, wireless internet would be an interesting possibility. Jo wasn’t the only one who could be creative.

  After Hoss settled his bill, Flint strolled over to his sons’ booth. They hastily shut down their program, and he tousled Adam’s hair to show he knew what they were up to. Both boys grinned with innocence. “It’s almost time for the dinner crowd. Set up the tables before Jo gets here, willya?”

  They jumped up eagerly, unlike the sullen kids they’d been in the spring. His heart swelled with pride and love as they chattered about their friends coming tomorrow. He wanted them to always be this happy. He never wanted to smash their world apart again.

  Well, he could always let Jo have the café, and he could move into the loft upstairs and work for her. For his kids, he just might consider crawling that low.

  Promptly at five o’clock, Jo swept in on waves of excitement so vibrant that every person in the room turned to stare. Of course, that shimmering red outfit of hers practically screamed Look at me! Since that first dinner, she’d dropped the apron in the evenings and gone for the hostess look. She would have graced the finest restaurant in Nashville.

  “I talked to the record label,”
she whispered to him as she grabbed the stack of colorful tablecloths her mother and her cronies had whipped up out of the damaged materials. “They’re taking me out to dinner after work.”

  “You know what they say about sitting down with vipers,” he said laconically, drying off a mug and shutting the dishwasher with his hip.

  The fire of challenge rose in her eyes, and he figured she was just about to light into him when his cell phone rang. With regret, he answered it rather than enjoy an exchange of barbs with Jo at her best.

  She hurried off to spread the cloths while he assured the Barn Boys’ manager that hotel rooms were arranged and ready. Whether he liked it or not, he’d become the contact man for half the people coming in. If he was rich, he’d open a damned hotel.

  “That upholstery is purple,” Amy complained, tying on her apron and joining him behind the counter as he hung up his phone. “I know Jo likes color, but purple?”

  “All the other fabric was too heavy or too light or something.” Flint had let most of the decorating discussion go over his head. At this point, he’d even hang ferns if he thought it would help. The ladies had assured him that covering the pink vinyl would be all he needed. He’d yanked the booth cushions off their frames, and they’d stapled away as if they knew what they were doing.

  “Well, it ought to hide stains if you don’t cook anything greasy.” Amy popped a roast into the oven.

  Jo showed Johnnie and Adam how to make little castles out of the white linen napkins, then hurried back to the counter. “The record company wants me to send them recordings of all my songs,” she whispered.

  “You don’t have any recordings except the one with the Buzzards,” Flint pointed out, glad that the glory hadn’t gone to her head, and she was still talking to him.

  Apparently already apprised of the news, Amy began chopping sweet potatoes for a casserole, ignoring their whispered conversation.

  “Elise has been negotiating. The label said they would set me up with musicians in Nashville as part of the settlement,” Jo continued hurriedly as more customers entered. “It will just be a studio record, one your publisher can use to sell my songs to other artists.”