When Last We Loved Page 4

  “I sent one of the guys to the service station to bring your things back, so I'll expect you downstairs in about an hour.” He turned abruptly and walked out of the apartment. Cassie wondered if he might have sensed her apprehension.

  “Don't be silly.” She carried on a confidence-building session with herself while she showered and changed clothes. “Anyway, it's only for a little while.” She wondered how often Ruthie had uttered those same words after she'd found herself stranded at Bad Boy's. “This isn't the same situation.”

  Cassie wondered how Hoyt would react if he knew that she was living in Dallas. She regretted their argument and the bitter words they'd exchanged, but she wasn't a bit sorry that she'd left Coyote Bend.

  “Next month, soon, I will go to Nashville.” She brushed her silky mane until the bulb in the ceiling fixture reflected on it like a spotlight directed at a black velvet curtain.

  “Put this in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Temple!” Cassie shook her head defiantly, trying to break Hoyt's grip on her memory. “You're not my problem anymore.”

  Chapter 4

  “Oh, my aching body!” Cassie moaned as she slipped between the sheets and settled into her sofa bed for a well-earned rest. Time— three months of it— had slipped away in a busy blur while she mastered the dual arts of waitressing and staying clear of Allen's mad-dog temper.

  She'd lost count of the number of times he'd humiliated her customers with his fists or his sharp tongue because they'd complained about their bill or the quality of the food they'd been served. It was a job she needed too much to walk away from, though, so she'd made up her mind to stick it out a while longer and avoid her boss when he was angry or had had too much to drink

  “Ouch! Oh, damn!” She winced when she rolled onto her side and encountered another lump in the mattress. Her body hurt from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. She remembered the way that Hoyt used to massage her sore muscles after a brutal day in the fields. What she wouldn't give to feel those strong fingers kneading the knots out tonight! A silly little smile played around her lips. Hoyt had other, more intimate ways to help her forget the pain, but she wouldn't dwell on those. Sleep would make her forget. She pulled the pillow over her head and settled into a fairly comfortable position. All the bedtime rituals in the world, though, couldn't prevent the memory of a cowboy's supple body from invading her dreams.

  Cassie had earned enough in tips to pay the repair bill on her car, and she was almost satisfied with the amount she'd socked away for the second leg of her trip to Nashville. Because her shift didn't start until dinner time, she spent her mornings practicing her music or venturing out to do laundry or to shop. The few dates she'd had time to accept had turned into wrestling matches, so she put her love life on hold and concentrated on the future.

  The Stardust's menu never varied. Salads, baked potatoes or burned French fries, and steaks charcoaled over a blazing fire were nightly fare. When the dinner rush died down, Allen shoved the unoccupied tables out of the middle of the dining room and the customers danced to the country and western music blasting from the neon-lit jukebox.

  “That's a hell of a set of pipes you're sporting,” Allen complimented one morning a few weeks later. He'd come in early to air out the restaurant after another one of the cook's overzealous attempts to hurry the potatoes. “I overheard you practicing,” he explained when she answered his knock at the door.

  Cassie was embarrassed. She'd thought she was alone in the building.

  “What would you think of getting a group together and breaking it in downstairs?” His offer caught her so off guard that she didn't notice his eyes ringing up the dollar signs. “Live entertainment would draw bigger crowds. And— who knows?— it might even lead to better things for you.”

  “I'd love it!” she enthused when she'd collected her wits.

  Cassie and Allen auditioned numerous groups before they found the Texas Twisters. The minute she heard their easy, flowing rhythm, she told Allen they need look no further. Allen dickered with the Twisters for a full week before they settled the question of money. Then Cassie set up a rehearsal schedule that wouldn't interfere with her working hours in the restaurant

  “What if they don't like me?” It was opening night and she was a nervous wreck. She'd spilled several cups of coffee and messed up a half-dozen orders, serving rare meat to people who'd ordered well done and putting blue cheese on salads that were supposed to have French dressing.

  “Look at my hands. I'm shaking like a leaf.” She still had to change into her jeans and brush her hair. A lavender blouse laced with silver threads hung in the corner of the kitchen waiting to take shape when she slipped into it

  “I think I've forgotten all the words to the songs we've rehearsed!” she wailed to Allen. Her heart was pumping like an oil well and panic temporarily paralyzed her fingers as she fumbled with the buttons on her blouse behind the unpainted wooden screen he'd set up for her. “What if I fall down?” She was wearing her highest heels. “Maybe I should change into boots or sandals.”

  “If you go scrounging for trouble, it's sure to find you.” Allen was as cool as a summer breeze wafting through a second-story window. “I thought you said you'd performed onstage before. How come you're all stirred up about tonight?”

  “That was different.” She stepped out from behind her makeshift dressing room and smoothed the clinging shirt down over her slim hips. “I knew everybody in the audiences back home. These people are strangers.”

  “Stranger than what?” Allen was no help. He was too busy adding cover charges to the dinner tickets and nursing another drink.

  Cassie ran a boar-bristle brush through her long black hair and breathed deeply to pacify the butterflies that whirled inside her uneasy stomach.

  When she ran up onto the stage, Mike and Scrappy and Jess were almost finished tuning up their instruments. Cassie smiled tremulously, wishing that she could absorb a little of their laid-back attitude.

  “'Bout ready?” A lazy grin curled up the corners of Scrappy's mustache and he winked, wordlessly boosting Cassie's spirits. Scrappy played a mean fiddle, among other instruments, and would join Cassie for several duets. He'd pulled his battered Stetson low over his shaggy blond hair, and Cassie thought he looked more like a gunslinger on the run than an entertainer.

  Mike and Jess were a little tamer in appearance, with neatly trimmed beards and pressed jeans, but Cassie couldn't help worrying if the audience wouldn't hoot them all down as country bumpkins who'd just stumbled in off the farm.

  Scrappy cocked his head in Allen's direction, signaling that it was time to draw open the curtain they'd hung earlier in the week. The Twisters broke into a rousing rendition of “San Antonio Rose,” and the maroon drapes parted. When the boxing-crowd roar died down, Cassie pulled the hand microphone off the chrome stand and introduced the group.

  “We'd like to invite all of you to dance while we're working,” she said, forcing herself to enunciate despite the tremors in her voice. “And if anybody has a special request, write it down and lay it here on the stage. If we know it, we'll play it during the second set.”

  An expectant hush fell over the crowd as she took her place at center stage. While her eyes adjusted to the crude spotlight that Allen had rigged up, Cassie looked into a sea of upturned faces and anticipating eyes and just knew that she was breathing her last. The Twisters sensed her anxiety and, on a silent cue from Scrappy, they took a united step forward.

  Cassie came alive as the vibrations of her opening number radiated through her body. The drums, guitar, and fiddle blended with her voice to create an atmosphere of sound that belonged uniquely to the group.

  The smoky, smooth tones of her voice cascaded over the audience with the boundless energy of a waterfall tumbling into a crystalline pool. As she sang the timeless lyrics, she weaved a magic, musical spell, sharing the hard times and sweet memories that are the common denominators of living and loving.

  “Pay dirt.” All
en slouched in the kitchen doorway and congratulated himself on this find by chasing a shot of bourbon with a swig from his beer mug. He hadn't felt so good since the night he'd found that spare ace in the cuff of his card-playing pants and wiped out old Fred Thompson's four of a kind.

  * * * *

  “I'm going to check out the audience while you guys finish tuning up.” Cassie climbed over the instruments and amplifiers that cluttered up the stage floor. She'd made it a habit to size up the crowd before a show so she could pick out a few customers she could “play to” while getting a feel for the people who'd paid to hear her perform. She thrived on the exchange of energy that flowed between herself and the various audiences who'd shared her emotion-packed concerts.

  Once in a while Cassie spotted a man whose build or mannerisms reminded her of Hoyt. When this happened, her heart would lodge in her throat until she realized that she was staring at a stranger. Cassie wondered if Hoyt ever thought of her, or whether she'd been relegated to the status of a fond memory that he might dredge up some quiet evening over a fine cigar and a glass of brandy.

  What difference does it make? she would ask herself silently when the blues took over. We simply weren't meant to be.

  Cassie peeked through the heavy maroon drapes that were scheduled to open in half an hour. Since Allen had started managing her career, she'd quit counting the days and weeks until she could leave for Nashville. He'd grabbed every booking they were offered— from family reunions to political picnics to sleazy bars where the customers didn't give two hoots about the entertainment— and audiences were now the gauge that she used to measure the passage of time. She lived according to the adage that there was no such thing as a bad audience, only a bad performance.

  “Are we hoedown or cheek to cheek tonight?” Scrappy rosined his fiddle bow with expert strokes. If the audience was rowdy and ready to party, the band served them an earsplitting dose of country rock and stomp-along songs. If the audience was quieter, ready to do some serious dancing, then ballads and two-steps were the order of the evening.

  “Does anybody know how to play ‘Fascination'?” Cassie couldn't believe what she was seeing.

  “What's wrong?” Scrappy hurried over to look himself, then groaned. “Oh, no!” He slapped his forehead with his hand.

  “Don't quote me, but I think Allen has goofed in G major.” She sighed and let the curtain drop back into place. What now?

  “Those people are dressed for a tea dance!" Scrappy exclaimed. He shoved his hat back and scratched his beard. “I wonder what the owner of this ballroom is going to do when he realizes he's hired a country and western act.”

  “Did you get a load of those tuxedoes and ball gowns?” Cassie rolled her eyes. “They're not here to do the Cotton Eyed Joe, that's for sure. They're here to fox-trot!”

  “You'd better see if you can get hold of Allen,” Scrappy suggested. “Who knows? We may have taken a wrong turn off the LBJ.”

  “What's going on back here?” A tall, swarthy man wearing formal clothes eyed the four members of the group with the pained expression of someone who'd just discovered half a worm in his apple. “And who, may I ask, are you?"

  “I'm afraid there's been a terrible mistake here, Mr.— ” Cassie hesitated.

  “Howard Shaw.” The man looked down his incredibly thin nose at her blue jeans and sniffed contemptuously.

  “I'm Cassie Creighton and this is my band, the Texas Twisters,” she explained. “We were hired to play here tonight— at least we think we were, and— ”

  "I paid for a three-piece combo and a girl singer, not Nashville on the Road.” Howard Shaw pressed his lips together in a thin line of disdain.

  “Is there a telephone handy?” Cassie asked. “If we can get hold of Allen Ingram, our manager, maybe he can shed some light on this.”

  “It's perfectly clear to me what's happened. Allen Ingram is a liar.”

  Cassie was about ready to push the panic button. How could Allen have done such a thing? He knew that a band was only as busy as its reputation was good.

  “It doesn't matter who got their wires crossed; we don't have any time to waste,” Scrappy reminded them. “You've got a full house out there waiting to cut the rug, and the curtain's due to go up in twenty minutes or so.”

  “I'm perfectly aware of the time, young man.” Shaw glared at Scrappy. “Now, I'm wondering what the appropriate course of action is.”

  “I've got an idea!” Cassie snapped her fingers. “It looks like we're all going to have to make the best of a bad situation here, so why don't we go onstage and explain the mix-up to the audience and let them decide what we should do? If they want us to stay, we'll play every waltz we know, three times apiece if necessary. If they don't want to hear us, I guarantee that we'll refund every penny you've paid us.”

  “We're dealing with civilized people, young lady, not a passel of cowboys looking to whoop it up on Saturday night. I doubt very much that any of them will be interested in your type of music.” He massaged his temples with elongated, spatula-shaped fingers. “Believe me, Ingram is going to hear about this travesty. I'll see that he never pulls this kind of trick on anyone again.”

  “Well, do we let the audience decide, or don't we?” Scrappy demanded. “If you want us to clear out of here, then get out of the way so we can load up this equipment.” He laid his fiddle in its instrument case.

  “Why do these things always happen to me?" Howard Shaw moaned. He didn't expect an answer, so the band stood quietly while he weighed his options. “I suppose we really don't have much of a choice at this late hour,” he finally grumbled. “I'll explain the situation and see what we can salvage of the evening.” He parted the curtain to step through, and Cassie could have sworn she heard him muttering something under his breath about a lawsuit.

  The majority of his customers had come to dance, so Shaw had relatively few refunds to make. “I'll expect Ingram to reimburse me for every dime I've lost this evening,” he insisted.

  Cassie and the Twisters were ready when the curtain opened. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.” She smiled at a middle-aged man in horn-rimmed glasses who was sharing a table with a perky woman in a light pink formal gown. Neither of them returned her smile. “I know we aren't exactly the breed of musicians you expected this evening. But to be honest with you, you're not exactly the kind of audience we were expecting, either.”

  Dead silence greeted her. Cassie forged ahead.

  “I figure we're all here for the same reason, though— to have a good time— and we want you to know that we're going to do everything in our power to see that you have some fun this evening.”

  “Do you know anything with a rumba beat?” A fortyish blonde wearing a stunning red dress that was slit thigh high called out from a side table. “Harold and I just love to rumba.” She smiled at the owlish-faced man sitting with her.

  Cassie threw a “Help me out of this one!” glance over her shoulder. Scrappy had sucked in his cheeks to hold back the laughter. Mike and Jess kept their stares riveted to the floor. She was on her own.

  “Well, rumbas are kind of out of our league, ma'am.” Cassie hoped her pasted-on smile looked better than it felt. “Something tells me, though, that before the evening is over you and Harold are going to put Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire to shame.”

  The blonde dimpled and Cassie breathed a sigh of relief. One down, a couple of hundred to go. If we get out of this one intact, she thought, we're ready to tackle anything they throw our way.

  “Hit it, guys.” She was going to stand on this stage and sing until every man and woman in the audience was out on that dance floor.

  * * * *

  “I'm sorry, Cassie, but until he sobers up and can make some rational decisions, the ‘Dallas Hayride’ is going to have to go on without you.” The television producer nodded in Allen's direction. “I don't know what brand of bull he's been feeding you, but there's no way we can meet the price he's demanding. We've got a budget and th
e station won't let us go over it by one penny.”

  Cassie glared at her glassy-eyed manager. Allen weaved around a camera and stumbled toward the exit door.

  “I'll see what I can do to straighten this out,” she assured the producer. “The ‘Hayride’ has been good exposure for us. Half of our bookings tell us they saw us here first.”

  “You're a fine drawing card, Cassie. I'd be tickled pink to have you back in the lineup. See if you can talk some sense into him and give me a call next week.”

  “It won't do any good to lash into him tonight.” Scrappy laid his fiddle in the instrument case and snapped it shut.

  “He's been messing up our bookings something awful,” Cassie muttered. “He promised he was going to be more careful.”

  “He does a good job when he's sober; even you have to admit that.” Scrappy was always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. “After all, it can't be easy to run a restaurant and bar, and keep our gigs straight, too.”

  "I run the restaurant and he's the bar's best customer.” Cassie was tired of the apologies and excuses. “Don't you realize that sooner or later his reputation is going to rub off on us?”

  “For better or worse, he's the only manager we've got.”

  Scrappy took her arm and led her out of the studio. “We never even would have had a crack at the ‘Hayride’ if it hadn't been for Allen.”

  “We never would have been fired, either, if it hadn't been for Allen,” she reminded him.

  “Just call it one of those dues-paying days and forget about it.” Scrappy helped her into the van.

  “At least he didn't punch anybody this time.” Cassie shook her head, remembering the night she'd spent trying to scrape up enough cash to bail Allen out of trouble. “Next time I'll just let him rot in jail.”

  “When you've kicked around as long as I have, you'll learn to expect things like this once in a while.” Scrappy started the van and backed out of the parking space.

  Cassie rubbed her temples in frustration. No matter how many times it happened, she would never get used to the idea that this was the normal way to get ahead in the music business.