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Ramona jerked her phone out of her back pocket. “I oughta call him back here right now and let him whip both your asses. Get out of here before I decide to do just that.”
“But Joey needs his phone and his keys.” If the woman had any affection for her brother, maybe this technique would work.
Ramona stomped her foot. “And I need a damn makeover.”
“Come on.” Sol pulled Emmy’s arm, but she stood firm.
“No.” She shook her head with a sigh, accepting what she had to do. “I am really a stylist with my own salon, so if a makeover is what it’s going to take, you’ll get a makeover.” She unzipped the bag and pulled out the box of color she’d picked up for a client yesterday. “The only color I have in my bag is Red Hot Red.”
“That’ll suit me just fine...probably.” Ramona grinned. “Make me happy, and you’ll get what you came for.”
* * *
SOL BREATHED IN a gulp of the afternoon heat, thankful to be leaving the place with all of his teeth intact. It had been touch and go for a while, but Emmy’s plan had worked.
She held up the keys and phone, flashing them in the sunlight. Joey let out a whoop and came running from the cover of the bushes.
“You did it!” He grabbed his sister in a tight hug. “Thank you. Thank you!”
“You know I’m here for you, sugar.” She swatted his backside. “Now go get Patsy. Husband’s due back any minute.”
“Whooeee, yeah! I’m coming for you, Patsy! Daddy’s here.” Joe Wayne darted around the corner of the house as Sol and Emmy headed back toward their cars at the end of the street.
She cast Sol a sidelong glance. “Gonna admit you were wrong? My idea turned out to be a winner.”
“I admit I was wrong.” Sol stopped and, covering his heart with his hand, gave a slight bow. “You’re a wizard. That woman looked like a different person by the time you got finished.”
EmmyLou raised her hands in front of her and flashed him a wicked smile. “Some people say I’ve got magic in these hands.”
His groin clenched with need at her comment, but before he could respond verbally, Joe Wayne tore out of Ramona’s backyard on Patsy, giving a war whoop and a thumbs-up as he passed.
Sol decided to let Emmy’s last comment go unchallenged and changed the subject. “So, did this flash of genius really come to you here? Do you always travel with your tools?” He pointed to the bag slung over her shoulder.
“I keep this one in my trunk because I go to homeless shelters and nursing homes pretty often. Sometimes the school there in town.”
Her kindness touched him, but the warm glow immediately turned to an irritated flare as he realized he seemed to be the only person in the world not on the receiving end of it. She was always bent on knocking him down, no matter the situation. “Playing me as a gay guy to those people was a bit unfair, don’t you think?”
Her laugh held no remorse. “He believed it, didn’t he?” They reached her car and popped the trunk, slinging her bag into it. “And now I’ll be on my way.”
Looking closely at her face, Sol could see the tired lines around her eyes. “You’re not heading home right now, are you? You’re in no shape to drive.”
“Nope. I’m going back to the hotel and sleeping until midnight. That’s a full eight hours, so I’ll be fine.” She pointed to the car parked too close behind her. “Will you watch me out?”
Sol directed her back slowly until she had room to pull forward onto the street. As she gave him a wave of thanks and goodbye, he ignored the fleeting feeling of regret that she wasn’t staying a little longer.
He stalked back to his truck and unlocked his door just as a pickup pulled alongside his.
Ramona’s husband.
“Hey, Demitri.”
Sol’s neck hairs rose with apprehension at the menacing tone. He jerked the driver’s door open but couldn’t get in quick enough.
For such a big guy, Ramona’s husband moved fast. He ran around his vehicle, and his fist connected with Sol’s nose before Sol could pivot out of the way.
Crunch!
Pain and a multitude of colored lights exploded behind Sol’s eyes. He lost his balance and staggered backward, coming up against the side of his truck. The metallic taste of blood coated his tongue, and the hand that he raised to his face soon dripped with red.
“We don’t like your kind around here. Go away and stay away, you hear?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Climbing back in his truck, he roared up the street.
Clenching his teeth shot pain through Sol’s cheekbone that drilled into the sinus cavity straight into the damn-this-is-excruciating center of his brain. He found a sweaty handkerchief in his back pocket and used it to catch the blood that poured from his nose like someone had turned on a faucet. Without a doubt, it was broken. He typed Hospital into his GPS and waited while the routing loaded.
“Thank you, EmmyLou Creighton.” He ground the words out through the pain.
The woman’s name had become synonymous with torture in his private lexicon. He would get even with her if it was the last thing he did.
And between her shenanigans and her brother’s, it very well might be.
* * *
NO MATTER THE story behind it, Sol had taken the punch meant for him, Joe Wayne learned when he stopped back by the beach house late that afternoon. He couldn’t let that pass without showing his gratitude. And so, despite Sol’s pretend anger and mock protestation, Joe Wayne had decided to stay an additional night at the beach house. He’d fixed a nice dinner from the provisions Sol had on hand—steak on the grill, baked potatoes, salad, and fresh fruit for dessert. He’d opened Dad’s wine cabinet and served one of the best reds in the house. And now, as they sat on the deck, he strummed his guitar and serenaded his new friend, who sported a swollen nose and two black eyes on his behalf. In between songs he filled their glasses—the good crystal stuff, not what they left out for renters—with Dad’s cherished Four Roses.
Yessirree, Sol Beecher was a helluva man. He walked taller on one leg than most men did on two. Fact was, he was exactly the kind of man Dad had always wanted EmmyLou to end up with. Too bad there was so much bad blood between them.
“That’s the night... I remember...best of all.” He strummed the final chord of the song and let it drift away on the warm night breeze from the Gulf.
Sol rested on a chaise with his head tilted back. His friend gave a grunt of approval, which Joe Wayne had already learned was about as complimentary as the stubborn mule got. “You ever think of trying to go professional?” Sol asked. “Being from Nashville, don’t you know people who know people?”
Joe Wayne took a sip of the bourbon to ease the tension that popped up in his jaw at the question. “I am a professional. Small-town bars and honky-tonks, mostly. No major gigs in a helluva long time,” he admitted. “But I make enough to eat on and to buy enough gas to move on to the next place.”
“You live out of motels?” Sol lifted his head and eyed him directly, looking like a raccoon with something on his mind.
“Not usually enough money for a motel room.” Joe Wayne shook his head, but he couldn’t hold back the grin. “There’s always a woman wanting to take the star home with her and take care of his needs.”
“Sounds like a lonely life.”
“Something else we have in common.” Joe Wayne strummed another chord, fleshing out a new song with a few plucks and the emotion weighing on his heart. “Lonely men...lonely women...settlin’ down...on Lonely Street. Not an end...not a beginnin’...just a hope...someday they’ll meet.”
“Never heard that one,” Sol said.
“Just made it up.” Joe Wayne fingered the tune playing in his head. It would probably be gone by morning. Alcohol was an effective eraser. He brought the song to a close.
Sol clapped a couple of times—high praise from Mr. Surly. “Ever play in front of a big crowd?”
That one took a swig to answer. “Ever heard of the Grand Ole Opry?”
Sol nodded and then hissed in pain and took another gulp.
“Eighteen years ago, me and EmmyLou shared that sacred circle.”
His companion sat up real quick-like and drew a sharp breath between clenched teeth. “You and EmmyLou performed at the Grand Ole Opry?”
“In the circle.” Joe Wayne couldn’t hide the pride even if he wanted to...which he didn’t. “Ever hear of The Fullers?”
He watched recognition dawn in his companion’s eyes. “Hell, yeah. I had some of their CDs.”
“Our CDs.” He tapped his chest with his finger. “Me and EmmyLou’s.”
Sol was all Mr. Interested now. He straddled the chair—maneuvering his artificial leg almost as well as his real one—and cradled his bourbon between his hands. “What happened?”
“Well, ya see, I was good, but EmmyLou was the draw.” Joe Wayne’s jaw was flapping loose as a goose now, his mind running through rationalizations that would justify giving up his sister’s story. “Hell, you saw the pictures of her in there on the wall. Beauty queen with the voice of an angel.” Sol would understand her better if he knew. And besides, EmmyLou... EmmyLou and Mama...had blown everything way out of proportion. What happened wasn’t that big a deal—hardly a deal at all, actually.
He tried to wash away the bitterness on his tongue with another sip. Nope, still there. He gulped, and the bourbon surrounded his anger, making it palatable and much easier to swallow. And it slowed him down. “But this ain’t my story to tell. Ask EmmyLou.” A few strums on the guitar, and the tension released in his arms and neck, his back and his hands. “What was that song I had going a minute ago?”
“Lonely men...lonely women,” his companion sang in a voice that wasn’t half-bad, but not half-good, either.
Joe Wayne’s fingers took off on a different tangent, the first tune lost in the marine fog in his brain. “Not half-bad...not half-good...life’s weird math just don’t add up. Not half-sad...not half-happy... ’less I’m sipping from a cup. Bourbon helps to fill the spaces...helps my mind to wander free. One good slurp and I’m expoundin’...on life’s geometry.”
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_217b11ce-f44a-568a-bb74-4a06ec8f6a54)
THE NINE-HOUR DRIVE back to Taylor’s Grove was as uneventful as Sol’s week had been once Joe Wayne left. No traffic jams. Very little construction. Bright sunshine the entire way. Even the diner he’d stopped at in northern Alabama had food that rivaled the one at home.
Yet, with all the rightness surrounding him, his world was a half bubble off plumb. Because of EmmyLou Creighton Fuller.
He couldn’t get the damn woman out of his mind.
True to his word, Joe Wayne left after the Patsy caper, though not for a couple of days. But when he did, he locked up the family suite and all its secrets therein.
That door—and the woman it had come to symbolize—was sealed off, which frustrated the living hell out of Sol.
So she had secrets. Hell, everybody had secrets. He sported one of the biggest ones around. Over and over—when he was drunk—Joe Wayne had reminded him that he’d lost his leg in an honorable endeavor. “Nuthin’ to be ashamed of.”
He wasn’t ashamed. He simply didn’t want all that hero attention.
But the next time Joe Wayne and his sister got together...if there was any drinking involved—and, of course, with Joe Wayne there would be—the information would undoubtedly be divulged. Probably in the form of a ballad. Oh, yeah, Joe Wayne had sworn that the Patsy fiasco made them blood brothers of a sort, and implied that the status gave Sol an exemption from being discussed. But the saying “Liquor is quicker” seemed to have been invented with Joe Wayne in mind.
And how long would EmmyLou’s mouth be able to hang on to such a juicy bit of news?
Only until the next time it opened...which was never a long wait.
The answer lay in finding a way to keep the woman quiet, and the closer he got to home, the more urgent the need became.
He turned off the radio in his truck, needing the silence to concentrate.
The secret behind the private suite’s door would’ve given him leverage. Each time he passed it, he paused to look over the structure and assess its weakness, fiddling with the real estate agent box, trying every random combination that came into his head. None worked.
The greatest frustration came from the assurance that the harder he tried not to think about the mystery of EmmyLou, the more obsessed he became. She was the human equivalent of the real estate agent box, and all he needed was the right combination.
One entire rainy afternoon even found him searching the term EmmyLou Fuller on his phone. What little information the query turned up was fifteen years old or more. She and Joe Wayne had a couple of big hits on the country music charts. She’d participated in beauty contests from the time she was five until she was seventeen but never went on to any of the big ones like Miss Tennessee.
Her life involved no huge scandal as far as he could tell. She hadn’t been kicked out of pageants for drinking or having sex with the judges.
One day she simply slipped from public view and was forgotten. So why the name change?
He supposed he could hold what little he knew about her over her head—a preemptive strategy to have in place when Joe Wayne put his real sister before his fake blood brother. But letting her know that he had something on her before it even came up seemed like overreaction.
Or maybe he should just level with her. I don’t want people to know about my fake leg just like you don’t want people to know about your fake name. Deal?
And he could watch himself slide from half man to no man at all in her perspective in a matter of seconds. Or worse, she’d start being kind to him and giving him that pitying look.
Oh hell no.
Despite the fact that it aggravated him, the one thing he liked about EmmyLou Creighton was how she didn’t cut him any slack because of his bum leg. Except the day her dog had humped it—she’d seemed sympathetic then. He’d hated that.
The Cadiz exit appeared, and Sol left I-24 to make the rest of the trip on two-lane roads. As he approached the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp, he glanced at the rearview mirror.
What he saw wasn’t so much his own reflection with two bluish-green bruises circling his eyes and a piece of adhesive tape holding his nose in place. Instead, it was the answer he’d been searching for.
He grinned at the painful sight.
* * *
“JOE WAYNE WENT on and on about your friend he met at the beach house. Sol?”
Her mom’s mention of Joey and Sol in the same sentence brought a flush to Emmy’s face. The thought of her brother’s hijinks was bad enough, but adding Sol Beecher to the images made her want to crawl in a hole...or seek a new identity. Again.
“Sol’s not really a friend,” she corrected her mother, sensing the turn this conversation was about to make. “Just a guy from Taylor’s Grove.”
“Well, Joe Wayne told us he’s not married, and he’s around forty.” Yes, indeed. Thar she blows! “I never dreamed that Podunk town you moved to might have an eligible bachelor near your age. You shouldn’t let this opportunity pass you by. Lord knows, you’ve let that happen too often—and I’m not just talking in the marriage department.”
The long-familiar tightness in her gut, which always accompanied a visit or phone call from her mom, twisted into an ache. “This isn’t an opportunity, Mama.”
“Nothing ever is with you. That’s exactly the kind of failure talk that got you where you are. Nowhere.”
EmmyLou bit back the retort on the tip of her tongue. Mama never heard when she talked about her successful salon or how much she loved living in her beautiful home on the outskirts of the friendly village. If it didn’t somehow bring direct attention to Mama, it was considered a failure. Emmy had learned the rules of engagement long ago.
A blessed beep sounded in her ear. “Hey, I’ve got another call, so I’ll have to let you go. Tell Dad I love him. Bye.”
“Think about what I said.” Her mom rushed and got in the last word...as always.
Emmy tapped the button without checking the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Hey, EmmyLou. It’s Sol.”
Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Heat surged through her at the sound of the wolf-like growl. She gritted her teeth. “Hi there. You back? And all in one piece?”
A long pause brought the hairs on the back of her neck to attention. “You talked to your brother.”
