Walking across the oil-stained planks of the unused mill building, Flint imagined the echoes of crowd applause, the crunch of peanut shells beneath his feet, and an introductory drum roll.
He couldn’t go down this road again.
Rubbing the crease between his eyes, he tried to erase the memories, but they were in his blood, and he’d have to erase himself to be rid of them.
Country music was written for big old barns like this. The soft pine floors and high rafters absorbed and echoed the music at the same time. The bass would rattle the tempo right through a man’s boot soles and into a woman’s heart.
The mill was an ideal venue for any country musician worth his salt.
And he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go back to those days of drinking, flirting, and playing. The music created an artificial high that made him believe he was superman, that he could do it all, have it all—and he couldn’t. He just wasn’t made that way. He could have fortune and fame, or family and love. He’d suffered the torments of the damned learning which he wanted.
“Hey, Dad, look at this!” Adam called from the back end of the enormous building. “There’s a loft up there for the light system.”
And rafters for speakers and video screens. And room enough for a high stage and a thousand people. This temptation was precisely why he’d left Nashville.
Flint dragged his boot heels toward his sons, who were practically bouncing in excitement. He’d never taken them on tour. They’d never understand how precarious music was to their existence.
“The offices would make great dressing rooms,” Jo sang out as she emerged from a door in the rear. “There are big restrooms on the other end for the audience.”
She was glowing and bouncing even more than the boys. Flint bit back a sarcastic reply, unwilling to pop their balloons. They had little enough to be happy about. The mill had officially filed bankruptcy yesterday, sent their employees home, and locked the doors.
They weren’t supposed to be here now, but Amy had known a maintenance man with keys.
“The players would have to stay in Asheville,” Jo continued worriedly, apparently reading his face. “But we could rent a bus to transport them, couldn’t we?”
“Everyone would have to stay in Asheville, including the tourists,” he said. “You have only one motel up here.”
“Can you imagine how that would change if we can make a success of this? We could have music shows out here every weekend.” Jo swung in circles, obviously hearing the music in her head already.
In his head, too. He could hear an entire symphony dragging him into the whirlpool, sucking him under.
“What happened to RJ?” he asked. “I thought he was coming in this week.”
“Randy never did anything he said he would in his entire life,” Jo said as she climbed into the loft. “I think Slim talked to him. He probably figures he can wing it, and people here will still swarm all over him.”
“Arrogant asshole,” Flint muttered, although no one could hear. The kids had turned an old wooden crate into a drum and had their own jam session going.
That was another fear ripping at his gut. He didn’t want his sons caught up in the undertow of excitement and carried out to the sea of unkept promises that was the entertainment world. He hadn’t taught them how to survive yet.
“We could invite some of our friends down for the festival, couldn’t we, Dad?” Johnnie shouted across the barn, bright with eagerness instead of sulking in gloom. “There’s enough room at our house for them to stay. They could bring sleeping bags.”
Our house. They were thinking of his cabin as home. Guilt hammered him. They didn’t have friends here yet. They missed the big house they’d grown up in. He’d torn their lives apart. He had to help put them back together again.
“Yeah, we could do that,” he agreed. Of course, if it was only RJ playing at a dinky concert at the school, their friends wouldn’t have any reason to travel here.
Torn so many ways he couldn’t think straight, Flint watched the sway of Jo’s rounded backside as she climbed down the ladder. Her show made him feel infinitely better, if only for the moment.
The highway had opened Tuesday, so he had no good excuse for staying at her place. And with the boys around, he’d had no opportunity. But Jo hadn’t condemned him for his choices. She’d cheerfully taken the boys fishing when he’d had to go down to Asheville for supplies, and cooked dinner for all of them when he got back. He’d even caught her a time or two squirreled away with the boys and their laptop, singing at songs they guiltily shut down at his appearance. He pretended not to notice.
When she came to stand beside him, she was humming the song they’d created the night they’d first had sex. Flint couldn’t use terms like make love yet. That implied a commitment he wasn’t in any position to ask for, although just standing next to Jo made him want to grab her waist and beg her never to leave. He figured that was just his old impulsive ways creeping up on him, and he crushed the urge.
“I want to hear my songs up on that stage,” she whispered, revealing her longing. “Isn’t that silly? I hate RJ. I want to rip out his innards and feed them to the chickens. But I want to see how the audience reacts when he sings my words to your music.”
Damn, and double damn. Heart cracking, Flint stonily stared toward the invisible stage where John and Adam drummed rhythms out of a crate. A maelstrom of music whirled through his head, and he was going under for the third time.
“I know,” she said with disappointment at his silence. “They’re crap and the audience will laugh him off the stage, which will serve him right. But that song we worked out together—wouldn’t it sound grand in here?”
Heart thoroughly broken by her soft wishes, wishing he could offer her the world, Flint dug his hands into the silk of her upswept hair. He tugged her close to plant a hasty kiss on her brow. “Your songs aren’t crap, Joella Sanderson,” he said with a fervency he felt clear through him. “And if you want, we can nail that tune, and I’ll get it registered so the band can play it.”
She stared up at him with eyes starry with wonder. “You’d do that? Can we do that? You’d let the Buzzards sing our song?”
Flint cupped her ears and gently shook her head back and forth. “Get it through that pretty head of yours, Jo. You are a brilliant songwriter. Your songs touch the heart. People will love them. The Barn Boys will sing your song. Once we get your material in the right hands, you can write your own check. Just be certain you’re ready for success when it comes. There are two sides to everything,” he warned.
Just saying it tore the last shreds of his heart out. He would be opening the road for her to leave. At the beginning, he’d wanted that, encouraged it, needing this last temptation out of his life. But he so hated the thought of losing her that he’d let things slide since then. He was a termite. She had a family who needed her income, and he ought to be offering her all the help he could summon.
Jo hooted her disbelief. “Ain’t gonna happen, but it sure does sound pretty. Mama can’t make a living selling pillows.”
“I wish I could pay her and her friends more,” he said with regret, accepting her digression rather than dwell on his pain. “They’re working like demons.”
“They’re working like demons on chair covers you don’t even want,” she scoffed. “You’re just a big old softy. We’ll probably have to replace them in a month.”
They both fell silent. Unless business turned around, the café wouldn’t be there in a month. He was spending his ticket out by promising his insurance money to the women.
“We’d better get back and start cranking up for your grand opening,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “Now that the road is clear, the tourists will find us again. Maybe we ought to provide entertainment and let a few chickens loose.”
“And molasses. We could make cleaning the streets an annual event.” He had to grin at the image, even if his insides churned in anxiety. “C’mon, guys, we have to get going,” he shouted over the clamor.
“I think a chicken is nesting in Myrtle’s hat. We need to check it for eggs.” Jo snickered, squeezed his arm, and sauntered off as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
She had an immense career ahead of her, and she dismissed the possibility as if he’d told her the sun would come up blue tomorrow.
Someone—or maybe life in general—had sapped her confidence. Joella didn’t believe his promises, or in herself.
Flint thought he ought to kick himself three ways from Sunday. He’d just accepted her talent as part of the wonderful world that was Jo. Instead of helping her, he’d wallowed in selfishness, not giving half a thought to her future.
He could fix that.
Maybe if he had a reason to build this show that had nothing to do with himself, he could survive. Let Jo be the music.
It would eventually mean severing her from his life, but that’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? Remove temptation and go back to looking for a mother for his sons, one who wouldn’t take the music train out of here. Besides, he owed Jo and her family.
With a different purpose to his tread, Flint noted all the barn’s features as he walked through it. If the Chamber could get permission to use this place, he could sell it as a music venue with one hand behind his back.
All he had to do was give up his soul. No big loss.
***
Wearing her Star of the Stardust Café apron over a green floor-length gown, Jo thought she’d achieved a funky respectability for the café’s dinner opening. Admittedly, the skirt had a slit up to her thigh, and beneath the apron, the halter top had a big heart cutout over her cleavage, but hell, she was wearing an apron. She had to get her kicks somehow.
She needed to ground herself solidly in the here and now so Flint’s tempting devil words didn’t slurp her brains out.
He’d said the Barn Boys might play their song. Sing her words.
That had her giddy enough to swing on rafters without listening to his other promises. She’d heard them all before. It was easy to promise fame and fortune, far less easy to accomplish it. She knew better than to crave stardom, but she still desperately longed for recognition.
Elise had called to say she’d filed the lawsuit. Suing Randy’s pants off was Jo’s best chance of earning some respect.
Whistling to clear her head of impossible dreams, she hurried downstairs to the café—the restaurant. Flint would have to change the name if the dining room caught on.
“It’s about time you got here,” Amy said nervously when Jo hurried in. “I need more potatoes.” She gestured at an unpeeled stack on the counter.
“Amaranth Jane, I am not peeling potatoes and waitressing, too. Are you out of your mind? You can’t fix mashed potatoes. It’s too much work.”
“Flint said he could make meat loaf, and you can’t have meat loaf without mashed potatoes,” Amy insisted. “We won’t open for another half hour. I have the first pot cooking. Oh, and we need more pots. I had to bring my own pans for the lasagna. This place doesn’t have enough.”
“Of course we don’t have enough. We don’t cook.” In exasperation, Jo took a seat at the counter, accepted the knife Amy handed her, and started peeling. “Where is the great man? Shouldn’t he be fixing his famous meat loaf?”
“They’re in the oven. He’s gone home to change. The boys wanted to go to the show tonight, and he wouldn’t let them. He’s being mighty grouchy for some reason.”
“He’s nervous. He keeps things all bottled up, and it seeps out like steam. So, what did y’all do with the kids?”
“They’re at mama’s, with Ina and Flo.” At Jo’s questioning look, she hastily added, “Mama’s doing fine. And Ina and Flo are there to call if she gets sickly.”
“Okay, I know. I just worry. You know her joints are hurting.” Jo dropped a spiral of peel in the empty ice cream bucket Amy handed her.
“If only this pillow-making would work out…”
Even in her optimism, Jo couldn’t see how it would, but she wasn’t one to say a discouraging word.
Flint came in spiffed-out in a tan suede blazer and black slacks that draped on his muscular thighs like thin silk. Instead of his usual black, he wore a tan-and-black striped shirt with a stiff collar and cuff links. With his dark hair trimmed and slicked back, he was too pretty for words, so Jo whistled.
He grinned at her and held up a tie. “You think I should put this thing on?”
“You want to drive away the audience?” Jo nodded in the direction of the back room. “The womenfolk would swoon and the men would hate your guts. Leave it off.”
“That’s what I like, a woman who knows all the answers.” He shoved the tie in his pocket and leaned over to kiss her hair. “Umm, you smell good.”
“Yeah, but I think I’ve just been disrespected, so you better watch out, handsome, or you’ll be peeling potatoes instead of me.”
“Disrespected?” Flint asked in incredulity, disregarding her double entendre. He traveled around the counter to check the meat loaf in his new oven. “How’s that?”
“Men don’t like women who have all the answers,” Amy answered for her. “Mama taught us that, but Jo never believes a word she’s told.”
“I don’t want a man who’s afraid of a woman who speaks for herself,” Jo said, refraining from reminding Amy that Evan did what he liked because Amy never objected.
“There’s speaking up, and then there’s flaunting it.” Flint removed the meat from the oven and the redolent aroma of beef and spices wafted around them. But the heat of the admiring glance he sent Jo had nothing to do with meat loaf.
The beef bubbled in hot juice, and Jo felt a kinship for it. Flint’s gaze had her stewing in her own juices. She jumped up from her seat and hastily wiped the potatoes off her hands. “I better set a few places. It’s a shame we lost so much of that Fiestaware. It would look perfect with those colors in the new upholstery.”
Amy looked from one to the other of them, laughed, and returned to icing her cupcakes. “Jo flaunts her opinions,” she informed the world at large. “That’s why the whole town listens to her, and she hasn’t got a man. They’re all afraid of her.”
“They’re all girly men,” Jo said with disdain. “Why would I want a man who’s afraid of my opinions?” But Flint wasn’t afraid, a little voice whispered in her ear. Flint had listened. And acted. And that was why she was madly in lust with him.
“Why would you want a man at all?” Flint asked, coming up behind her with a stack of cloth napkins that hadn’t been aired since the second world war. “You can be rich and famous all on your own.”
“No, I can’t,” she said. “Randy used to tell me that, and here I am, still wearing an apron.” She smoothed the sparkly stars. “At least it’s prettier than the old one.”
Leaving the napkins on the table, Flint fiddled with the knot at Jo’s waist. Jo tried not to squirm while she wondered what he was up to.
“So, don’t wear the apron,” he said. “Show me what you’re wearing under it.”
From the sexy rumble of his voice, he wasn’t wondering what was under the apron. How could she resist his invitation? Jo pulled the apron over her head, then stepped back and faced him, daring him to look and not touch.
It was Flint’s turn to whistle. He checked her out from her green spiked heels and slit skirt to the revealing cutout over cleavage obviously not contained in a bra.
“You may have to put that back on, Jo,” he said with regret. “I don’t want the men so busy looking at those opinions you’re flaunting that they forget to order.”
Amy’s crystalline laughter broke the tension. Flinging the apron at Flint, Jo strode off to flaunt her assets elsewhere, sizzling from the heat of Flint’s regard.
She knew men liked to look at her. She’d taunted, teased, and tamed with her looks for as long as she could remember.
She wanted it to be different with Flint, but damn if she could tell if he was flattering her brains so he could get at her boobs.
And as usual, she wasn’t certain whether she cared what he thought as long as she knew he’d be back in her bed sooner or later.
There was just a little too much of her rebellious mama in her.