Cowboy Sing Me Home

by Harris, Kim Hunt

  “My new boss is a pussycat. And she’d be doing me a big, big favor if she helped me out with this choir thing.”

  “Don’t start. It’s not going to happen.”

  “You haven’t even thought about it. And the truth is, the whole fiasco is your fault.”

  “My fault? How do you figure that?” She leaned over a speaker and jiggled a wire.

  “You’re the one who said Mavis was a screechy no-talent.”

  “I never said she was a no-talent. Just screechy.”

  “You started a landslide. Mavis is home, wrapped up in her crocheted bed jacket, swearing she’ll never open her mouth to sing again as long as she lives, and she doesn’t know how she could have been blind enough to spend the last forty years singing her heart out in that church, and not know that the entire congregation thought she sounded like a cat during a mating ritual.”

  “Now, I never said that.”

  “No, that was Louise.”

  “Anyway, it’s not my fault. Entirely.”

  “But you could help. Every woman in town has their nose bent out of joint over something. It’s going to be a very sad revival.”

  “Jubilee. And I guess you’ll need to start praying for a miracle.”

  His eyes met hers. “I have been.”

  She fought to keep from shifting her gaze away. She lost the fight, then told herself it didn’t matter.

  “Come on, Dusty. Just consider it. If you could lend that angelic voice to such a good cause—“

  Dusty snorted and unplugged Stevie’s steel guitar.

  “Okay, that was laying it on a bit thick. But seriously, you’d be doing Brother Mark and me a great favor. I hate to get this Rain Fest started off on the wrong foot.”

  “No thanks. I’ve played churches before. They’re not my cup of tea.”

  He chewed his lip and studied her. “You know, you get the most awful look on your face when the subject of church or religion comes up. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I just know how ‘the church’ works, and I don’t really buy into it.” She unplugged the drummer’s microphones and snaked them over to the other side of the stage. “My parents and I played a revival one time. I was about thirteen.”

  She could still feel the hot air beneath that tent, and if she tried hard enough – which she wasn’t going to do – she could probably still smell the honeysuckle bushes outside the tent, the scent carried in on the evening wind. She didn’t have to try to remember the boys coming in with their hair slicked down and shirts tucked in, the girls with their cotton dresses and white Bibles. Neither did she have to try very hard to remember how she wanted to be one of those girls. For just one moment, she wanted to be the girl with the cotton dress and white Bible, with barrettes in her hair that matched her shoes, and a bedroom all her own with a poster of kittens on one wall.

  She shook her head at her naiveté. “I believed every word that preacher said. How we were all equal in the eyes of the Lord, how we’d all been washed clean in the blood of the lamb. I thought they were the nicest people I’d ever met. Then I found out they were looking down their noses at us the entire time. They’d made it their church’s mission to rehabilitate us, and me in particular. We needed to be saved from our ‘vagabond lifestyle.’ Like my parents didn’t take care of me and always have my welfare foremost in their mind. So that church took it upon themselves to take me under their collective wing, and see what they could do to make me over. They had it all planned out. One of the women had agreed to let me live with her, but the entire gaggle of them was in on it. They even had a new wardrobe for me. Even my clothes weren’t good enough.”

  She didn’t tell him how much she had wanted those new clothes. How pretty they all looked, skirts and blouses and matching shoes and headbands spread out on the bed like a treasure. How she’d felt like she was in a movie, standing at that woman’s house and looking at all the things they’d bought her. She didn’t say how many countless hours she’d wasted, dreaming that it had actually come true. That she could live in that house, like a normal girl, and have that normal life. Because to tell him would be to vocalize how she had betrayed her parents with those fantasies. Better to concentrate on the wrongs that had been done to her.

  “A few of them had volunteered to tutor me, so I wouldn’t be so embarrassed when school started. I wondered who would be the embarrassed ones. I overheard one of them talking about needing to improve my ‘social skills.’” She shook her head. “Social skills. Like any of those self-righteous, meddling busybodies had any social skills.”

  Luke nodded slowly. “I can see, I suppose, how that would hurt a person’s feelings.”

  “It didn’t hurt my feelings,” she insisted. “My feelings were just fine. What it did was show me the true face behind the church. They say to love your brother. What they mean is, love the ones who are like you, and do your damndest to change the rest.” She looked around the stage again and shrugged. “And that was my last experience with the church.”

  Luke propped a hip on the table and put his foot on the seat of a chair. “Unfortunately a lot of damage has been done by good intentions. I’m sure those women didn’t mean any harm. They just didn’t see past their own concept of what was good and what wasn’t.”

  “Whatever.” She studied the stage. “Tommy has an effects box. Did he have an effects box last night at rehearsal?”

  “That’s his new toy. I don’t think he hooked it up until we got through practicing. Are you trying to change the subject?”

  “Nope.” She picked her way through the equipment and unplugged the small effects box. “I have changed the subject. I don’t think this new toy gets along with my amp.” She rearranged plugs and flipped switches.

  Luke stood and helped her turn the equipment on. “No, I’m sure those women didn’t mean any ill will. Just like you don’t mean to punish the entire town and ruin my Rain Fest for what some women you don’t even know did over a decade ago.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “Now, aren’t you dramatic? I’ve ruined your Rain Fest.”

  “Like I said, I’m sure you didn’t mean to. You were just looking at everything through that chip on your shoulder. I’m not blaming you for this catastrophe with the choir. Some people might. But I’m not.”

  “Not more than five minutes ago you said it was my fault.”

  “I was joking. You can’t help it if you’re all prickly and grouchy and can’t get along with people. I’m sure you would be happy to help if you weren’t so antisocial.”

  After a moment, she sighed. “Oh please. You don’t really think you can manipulate me this way, do you? I am aware that I’m being stubborn. I know those women aren’t the same ones in your church. I’m also aware that I’m holding a grudge against women I’ll probably never see again. And you know what? I don’t care.”

  He raised his brows and nodded, still not saying anything.

  “I can be stubborn if I want to. It’s my right.”

  He chewed his lip, then nodded again. “You have a point.”

  “Don’t play this game with me, Tanner, I’m warning you. I’m not going to be guilted into this.”

  He held his hands out and shrugged his shoulders.

  “The answer is no. No way. No how. It’s not going to happen.”

  He nodded, stood, and slid the chair back under the table. “Okay. I’ll tell Brother Mark. I’m sure we can think of something.” He tipped his hat at her and smiled before he turned and walked out.

  Dusty watched him leave, silently congratulating herself on holding out. She didn’t owe this town anything besides a great performance here at Tumbleweeds, after all. It wasn’t her duty to restore peace and goodwill to the citizens of Aloma County. All she had to do was put on a great show.

  She uttered a thoroughly unladylike curse, one that would undoubtedly have had Brother Mark rethinking the wisdom of allowing her within reach of his church. “Tanner,” she barked as Luke got to the
door.

  He turned.

  She cursed again.

  “What was that?”

  She groaned. “Rehearse tomorrow morning at 9:30 sharp. Four songs, max. And you’d better have the songs picked out by the time I get there.”

  Through the dim light in the barroom, she saw his teeth flash white. Damn him anyway. He knew how this was going to turn out.

  He was wise enough not to say so. He merely tipped his hat again and left before she could change her mind.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Luke neatened a stack of papers on his desk and stepped back to look around the office with a critical eye. He decided the calendar with the bikini-clad women wasn’t the image he wanted to project.

  “Why’d you let Adam get away with putting this trash up all over the place?” he groused to Toby as he jerked it from the wall and dropped the tack into his hand. Adam was their newest deputy and young and eager enough to make Luke feel like an old man.

  Toby mumbled something and stared at the computer screen in front of him. He looked up and cocked his head at Luke. “Don’t act like you haven’t been ogling Miss June all month.”

  “It’s very unprofessional, that’s all. Are you planning on hanging around much longer?” He studied the wall that now boasted a lighter-colored square where the calendar had been.

  “I’m checking my stocks and then I’m leaving.”

  “Why? They’re not going anywhere. Get out of here.” Luke walked to the back where the holding cells were. “You want to put this up in your suite here?” He turned the calendar sideways and slid it through the bars to Kenny. “Don’t be making a weapon out of this thumbtack, you hear?”

  Kenny took the calendar and bobbed his head, but Luke figured the guy was going to pay about as much attention to that calendar as he had everything else since they’d locked him up. Poor guy wasn’t dealing too well with incarceration. Maybe some pretty girls would take his mind off his troubles for a while.

  He went back into the main office and rummaged through the file drawer for something to cover up the bare spot on the wall. “That kid sweats more than anyone I’ve ever seen. I’m going to have to wash his jumpsuit again tonight, it’s just about soaked through at the pits.”

  “You’d sweat too if you thought you were going to prison.” Toby tapped some more keys, then slapped the edge of the desk and grinned. “Yahoo’s up another three points. I told you it would come back.”

  “Whatever.” Luke lifted out another calendar, three years old and featuring a different breed of puppies for every month. It was curled up on one side and ripped through September and October. But still, Dusty might think it was cute and sensitive.

  “You might show the slightest interest,” Toby said. “This is your money, too.”

  “I told you when you started this investment club, I’ll pitch in my money and I’ll bring the beer to the meetings, but sitting in front of a computer watching numbers go up and down…not my idea of a good time.” He flattened the calendar against the edge of his desk and rubbed it up and down to smooth out the edges.

  He heard a car door slam out front and jumped. “She’s here. Get out.”

  Toby had the nerve to laugh. “Let me check IND first.”

  “No. Go on, out the back door.”

  Toby just sat and tapped keys. “I promise I won’t say anything to embarrass you.”

  “I promise I will kill you if you even think about it.” He opened the door for Dusty, who walked in carrying a guitar case and wearing a frown.

  “All right, I’m here.”

  “Glad to see you’ve got a good attitude about it.” He grinned at her.

  She blinked slowly and stared back. “I can not be here just as easily.”

  “No, please, have a seat.” He slid the puppy calendar into the trashcan and dusted his hands together. He resigned himself to the ribbing he knew he would get after Toby spent some time listening to Dusty shoot him down. Not that Luke minded her mouthiness; her go-to-hell attitude was one of the things he found endearing about her. He took a deep breath and smiled as she sat in the chair he held for her. As was her smell.

  She frowned up at him. “If you’re going to do things like smell my hair, I’m leaving. I came here to practice for the stupid Jubilee, not play the 10th grade coquette.”

  Luke gulped. “Sorry. Won’t happen again.”

  Behind him, Toby cleared his throat but didn’t say anything.

  “Toby was just leaving. Weren’t you?”

  “You bet, as soon as I get this quote pulled up.”

  “Which will only take a second. And during which time he will not utter a word. We won’t even know he’s here. Right?” He put a hand on Toby’s shoulder and squeezed as hard as he could.

  “Gotcha.” Toby ducked out of the squeeze and coughed away a laugh.

  Luke pulled up a chair across from Dusty and handed her a hymnal. “Sorry, we’re going to have to share.” Brother Mark had given him two hymnals, but Luke figured things would be cozier if they shared one. “Do you have any favorite hymns you’d like to play?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Right. Dumb question. Okay, this is the first one I thought we’d work on. It’s pretty simple, and –“

  She was already picking out chords.

  “Okay, good. We’ll just – “ He tangled up in his own feet and ended up plopping down across from her. “Good.”

  “Damn!” Toby’s chair hit the floor. “IND went down five points. Five points!”

  “Man, would you shut –”

  “I saw that this morning,” Dusty said, not looking up from the hymnal. “It was down to forty-three at noon yesterday, but some of the tech stocks cooled off a little toward the end of the day because of all the stuff going on in Seattle.”

  “Still. Not as bad as some of the others…” Toby looked back at the computer and scribbled on a piece of paper.

  “Bad enough, especially with that new game coming out. Supposed to be the biggest thing in years.” Dusty kept her eyes on the hymnal as she spoke.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard about it. A buddy of mine saw a demonstration at a trade show a few months ago, and he said it was beyond belief. He played running back with Tony Romo and RG3. He said it was just like being right smack in the middle of Cowboy Stadium. Can you imagine? I think Cade’s going to have to get one of those for Christmas.”

  “Good luck. They’re already talking about market shortages and waiting lists, even before the earthquake. That’s why their stock didn’t take as big a hit –”

  Luke looked from Toby to Dusty, so caught up in their conversation he might as well not be there. “What is going on here?”

  They stopped talking and looked at him.

  “What are you two talking about?”

  “The new gaming system from IND,” Toby said patiently. “See, it’s kind of like the old Atari, only –”

  “I know what a gaming system is.” Luke clenched his jaw and widened his eyes in Toby’s direction, who remained oblivious to the hint. He turned to Dusty. “You mean you’re into all this investment stuff, too? All anyone talks about here anymore is Dow Jones and Nasdaq and price earnings ratio. Yawn.”

  “Yeah, well, my company doesn’t exactly have a 401K plan. Got to look out for myself.”

  “You’ll have to forgive Tanner. Numbers make him irritable.” Toby shut down the computer and stood.

  “What kind of retirement plan do you have?” Dusty asked Luke.

  “He gives his money to me and I invest it for him,” Toby said

  “I save on my own, too,” Luke insisted.

  “That’s true. He has this margarine bowl beside his bed, and every night before he goes to sleep he puts his change in it.”

  “That adds up quicker than you think. And weren’t you leaving?”

  “I’m gone. Good to see you again, Dusty.”

  After Toby had gone, Luke made an honest effort to concentrate on the music and not giv
e her any reasons to get annoyed with him. But it soon became apparent that the hymns held no real challenge for either of them. Things were going too smoothly, and at this rate they’d be done in no time.

  “So,” he said casually. “You handle all your own investments?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Why?” He tapped his foot and thought. Well…

  She thumbed through the hymnal as if he wasn’t even there. He chewed his lip and tried to think of a conversation starter, and studied the way her eyes narrowed just slightly when she read music, as if she was looking at the notes, but hearing the tune. He found himself captivated by the simplest things: the way her bottom lip tilted out and down, almost in a pout, and yet she was the last person in the world he would accuse of pouting. Her brows were perfectly shaped over her dark green eyes. The delicate line of her jaw, and the shadow beneath where he wanted to bury his head. The wink of gold and emerald at her ear, lost in the cool slide of her hair.

  “How do you think this will go over?”

  She suddenly raised her head and looked at him, and he was so caught off guard he started in his chair. He was fairly sure his mouth wasn’t hanging open, but not entirely. He scrambled and looked thoughtfully at the hymn as if he was actually capable of coherent thought with her that close, close enough to touch, with the scent of her in his nose.

  “We don’t do that one much in my church, but it does look like a good one. Want to run through it a few times and see how we like it?”

  They began picking softly through the song. Luke couldn’t concentrate, and when he dropped a note or two, Dusty met his eyes over their guitars and said, “No, like this,” and played the measure slowly and deliberately, emphasizing the notes. He repeated it correctly, and she nodded and smiled, her full lips curving easily and a dimple he hadn’t seen before winking in her cheek.