Love So Tender: Taking Care of BusinessPlay It Again, ElvisGood Luck Charm

by Stephanie Bond

  He softened his grip, knowing he needed to smooth over his knee-jerk reaction to her idea. She deserved better from him today after what they’d experienced last night. And no matter what else happened between them, he didn’t have any intention of giving up his dreams.

  “You’re right.” He was man enough to admit it. Just selfish enough that he still didn’t like it. “Maybe I’m not looking at the big picture here. But I’ll leave publicity up to you as long as when it comes to you and me, I’ve got equal say.”

  ALYSSA BLASTED one of Brett’s new demo tapes three days later as her “Meet the Presleys” group began arriving at the store to practice for their first public performance. She could feel herself getting drawn back into her old lifestyle as the guitar hummed right through her, the music calling to her soul as surely as the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle she adored.

  She sooo shouldn’t go there.

  But the recording session with Brett two days ago had been inspired. They boosted each other creatively, pinging ideas around the recording booth so fast they’d ended up with some incredible new material. Brett had even jotted down some ideas for another new song.

  Now, as she shut off the overhead lights in the store, Alyssa’s thoughts drifted from their professional successes to their night together. It had been beyond incredible. Not just because the sex with a studly younger man made her knees weak and her toes curl. No, she’d loved the shared moments of conversation about everything from their mutual admiration of Elvis to the hazards of greedy club managers and drunken fans.

  Loved?

  Okay, so that was overstating the case. Maybe. Either way, she’d had a blast remembering what it felt like to live in the moment, with no worries about the past or future. God, it had been too long since she’d been able to just be herself. She was always so careful not to talk music around her sister. And because she and Rosa shared the same friends and same séance group, that meant Alyssa didn’t talk music with anyone these days.

  Until this past week, she hadn’t fully appreciated what a hole that had left in her life.

  She flipped the Closed sign on the front door of Good Luck Charm, eager to conjure up her idol tonight in an effort to find the elusive sense of inner peace that had been missing since she’d asked her sister—and herself—to walk away from the music business. Elvis, patron saint of the Renato sisters, somehow had the answer.

  A crazy superstition? Maybe. Alyssa preferred to think of her conjuring obsession as a way to maintain a strained friendship with her sibling, a common interest to bring them together after so many other shared pursuits were no longer an option.

  Just color them dysfunctional. At least Rosa was still alive.

  Now, as Alyssa lit a vanilla bean-scented incense stick on the checkout counter, Laura Grimaldi danced past her.

  “Alyssa, honey, this man’s voice is sex in stereo.” Humming along with Brett’s chorus, Laura grooved in time to the music as she juggled a plate of strawberries dipped in white chocolate.

  She thought his voice was sexy? Laura hadn’t even seen the man’s hip swivel. Alyssa got hot flashes just thinking about it.

  “He’s great, isn’t he?” In fact, Alyssa had been distracted with thoughts of how wonderful he was for three days straight. They’d worked together on some interviews she’d set up today, their preparation schedule so busy they barely had any time to discuss what was happening between them. That worked just fine for her since she wasn’t ready to dissect all the feelings he’d stirred inside her. He’d only left a few hours ago to pick up some new guitar strings before his set at Planet Soul, but they’d made plans to see each other Friday—their last day to rehearse before the competition.

  Only a few more days and he’d be out of her life. Damned if she should be thinking about him so much when he’d be making tracks to pursue a major career so soon.

  “This is the man whose act you want to promote on Saturday with the séance?” Laura set down the tray of strawberries beside the cash register now that Good Luck Charm had closed for the day. Pulling out her turban, she carefully positioned the prism medallion of her headwear over the place on her forehead she referred to as her third eye.

  “I figured it would be good for your business and his, too.” Alyssa admired her friend’s easy commitment to a career some people considered kooky. The fact that Laura could find personal healing as well as humor and fun in contacting spirits only elevated her in Alyssa’s eyes. “The press will eat it up and the Meet the Presleys group will have a chance to be on TV.”

  “They’ll love it.” Laura popped a strawberry in her mouth while the two of them supervised the preparations for the séance.

  Alyssa’s gaze fell on Hester Schwarz, the little old lady from somewhere out in the middle of the Nevada desert who swore Elvis came and danced with her in her backyard on late summer evenings. She never missed a chance to contact him with the rest of the group.

  Too bad Rosa wouldn’t be here. Alyssa hadn’t been able to get in touch with her all week despite numerous phone calls and messages. Was Rosa angry? Hurt? Alyssa hated not knowing.

  Laura waved the plate under Alyssa’s nose, tempting her with chocolate. “But I have to say I’m surprised you’re representing this guy after the number of times you’ve sworn up and down you’d never go back into the music business. Rosa must be so happy for you.”

  Alyssa nearly gagged on her strawberry. Whenever she hadn’t been thinking about Brett’s hip swivel, she’d been imagining how upset her sister must be that Alyssa was representing her toughest competitor at the Elvis Legacy.

  “Actually, I haven’t had the chance to talk to her about me representing someone else again.” Her sister’s new boyfriend seemed to be keeping her pretty busy. “But that’s just because her boyfriend hurried me off the phone last week when I tried to discuss it with her.”

  One of Brett’s original recordings ended and his cover of “Too Much” rocked the speakers, sending the small gathering into an uproar. Laura twirled around with a squeal while Mrs. Schwarz clapped her hands together in delight. The group’s only male member—Jesus Vargas who still wore his hair in a ducktail at seventy—bowed in front of Hester before asking her to dance.

  All around, approval of Brett’s rendition seemed pretty amazing considering this group of Elvis fans was hard-core. Alyssa fought off the old shiver of anticipation she always used to get when she listened to a musician destined for the top. Brett would be one of those people—if he found a good manager willing to put the time in to make it happen.

  And much as she might secretly hope otherwise, it wouldn’t be her. Couldn’t be. How could she ever go back into the business permanently when Rosa—who adored music every bit as much—could never take the stage again without a serious threat to her health?

  “So he just showed up here last week and said he wanted you to represent him?” Laura opened the front door for two more séance stragglers, the last of the group they were expecting for the practice run tonight. “I’m surprised you finally took the plunge.”

  “Why?” Defensiveness crept through her as she snatched a handful of strawberries and fired them into her mouth one after another. “Brett is incredibly talented.”

  “No kidding.” The prism on Laura’s turban winked in the lights as she pointed to Hester and Jesus tangoing their way around the séance table. “He’s fantastic if he can make those two finally get together after all the months they’ve been circling each other. I’m just saying it’s good to see you getting back into the music industry after all this time.”

  “I’m not going back into the business.” She’d keep her promise to Rosa, damn it, no matter how much she’d enjoyed this brief return to music. That part of her life was over. “Elvis is the only guy I’m promoting these days.”

  Brett’s song faded away on the stereo, filling the room with an empty, uncomfortable quiet. Kind of like her life would be once he hightailed it out of Vegas to strike it big in L.A.

&nbs
p; She lurched toward the stereo to click on the radio, determined to make that resounding silence go away. Her life was not empty—not now, and not when Brett left. She had a terrific shop with a steady business that supported her very comfortably. Plus, she still had enough clout in town to secure tickets to any show she chose. Too bad it wasn’t quite as fun to hear the new acts now that her memorabilia shop kept her ten steps removed from her old life.

  “Why?” Laura watched her so closely, Alyssa swore the other woman used her third eye, too. “Why aren’t you returning to music when we all know how much you love it? The store is cool, but I always thought it would be just a temporary stop for you until you were ready to go back to your true calling.”

  “True calling?” Alyssa told herself that, despite Madame Stargazer’s trappings, Laura was no fortune-teller. She couldn’t know how much Alyssa loved her old job. “I’m a woman of countless skills, my friend. Talent management is simply one among many.”

  A few yards away in the back room, Alyssa could see their group starting to set the mood by lighting candles around the table. She moved toward them, only too glad to sidestep this conversation.

  “Wait.” Laura’s hand snaked out to hold her back. “I’m serious. Why not sell the shop and live your dreams again now that Rosa is better?”

  Blinking back the unexpected pain that came with the thought of not living her dreams, Alyssa paused. Remembered a time that caused her a hell of a lot more pain than a few outdated career ambitions.

  “Why? I’ll tell you why. Because when Rosa wavered two steps from joining Elvis on the other side of the pearly gates, I promised her I would get out of the business for good if she would only get better.” She’d promised everything she could think of, in fact, her panicked ramblings had been frightening for a woman who until then had made her living on slick business maneuvers. “I knew it hurt her to walk away from the spotlight, but I made her do it to save her life.”

  Those months had been such hell. Watching her sister waste away had eaten away parts of Alyssa, too. They were sisters—the only blood connection Alyssa had ever known. And until she’d been faced with the prospect of losing her best friend, her one real ally in the world when even their mother had abandoned them, Alyssa hadn’t realized how much that bond meant. “I’m not going back on that promise.”

  Laura’s grip softened as she tugged Alyssa farther back into the privacy of the storefront while the others remained caught up in their own conversation.

  “I know how sick Rosa was back then.” Laura had met Alyssa for the first time in the hospital cafeteria when they’d both reached for the same packet of sweetener. Laura’s mother had been recovering from a plastic surgery mistake the same month Rosa had been fighting for her life. “Are you sure she even remembers you making this promise? Or that she even cares now that she’s got so much going for her?”

  “A new boyfriend and a job arranging flowers? No offense to the bouquet designers of the world, but deciding when to use carnations and when to reach for chrysanthemums doesn’t seem like the kind of work that would satisfy a woman who’d once entertained millions of people.”

  Kind of like how hawking Elvis memorabilia wasn’t quite the same as promoting the most talented musicians in the world to bottom line-oriented venues who wouldn’t know creativity if it fell in their laps. There had been a challenge Alyssa could really sink her teeth into without pretending to be an uptight corporate type. No one in the music world ever blinked when she carried a guitar-shaped purse into a meeting.

  “I think she’s a lot happier than you give her credit for. I only wish I could say the same about you.” Scooping up the plate of chocolate strawberries, Laura switched off the radio and headed toward the séance table. “But who knows, maybe this new guy will be just the thing to put a twinkle back in your eye.”

  Gliding into the back room with a swish of her floor-length purple cape, Laura left Alyssa to wonder if she’d just stepped into the Twilight Zone. Rosa the depressed was content with arranging flowers while Alyssa the chronically well adjusted needed a fortune-teller to explain how a man could make her eyes twinkle?

  She’d call Rosa again tonight. Try harder to mend the gulf between them and patch up a relationship held together only by their occasional séance meetings and Alyssa’s continual fear something would happen to Rosa if she didn’t keep an eye on her.

  Huffing out a sigh, she followed her friends into the séance circle and prepared to conjure the King for real this time. In order to heal this rift with her sister, she needed his royal wisdom now more than ever.

  But not even a dispensation from Elvis Aron would free Alyssa to follow Brett on the road to fame, fortune and something even more shimmering and elusive…something she dared not name.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “YOU’RE TELLING ME you contacted Jim Morrison?” Brett strummed a little riff from “Come on Baby, Light My Fire” on Saturday morning, hoping to cheer the woman who would be his manager for a mere two hours more unless he could change her mind. “For real?”

  They’d spent the night together, but somehow they hadn’t gotten around to talking about her séance earlier that week. First they’d ripped their clothes off. Then he’d played a few songs for her so they could say they’d done some work. Then they had sex again. And again.

  Hell, yeah, he was crazy about this woman.

  He also happened to be riding the most creative wave of his life with new songs exploding into his brain every time he turned around. Alyssa was the best thing that ever happened to him—personally and professionally.

  “Apparently he faked his own death, only to kick the bucket in a bar fight a few years later over the validity of The Doors’ music.” Alyssa had been on edge all morning as they prepped for the competition, her clipboard and her cell phone hardly leaving her hands.

  “Your Ouija board told you all this?” Brett still wasn’t sure how he felt about her close encounters with dead people, but at least she didn’t seem to take it too seriously.

  “Heck no.” She peered around the ballroom the convention had reserved for the performers to warm up in and stow their equipment. All around them, musicians tuned instruments ranging from bass guitars to bagpipes. Every act west of the Rockies seemed to have congregated at Golddiggers Casino today for the chance of media coverage and a recording contract. “Madame Stargazer was temporarily inhabited by Jim’s spirit. She talked for him.”

  “Madame Stargazer sounds very…imaginative.” His fingers picked out a chord from the Elvis hit “Good Luck Charm” that he wanted to perform today in honor of Alyssa—his personal ticket to the big time. She’d nixed his idea in favor of “Too Much.”

  “We prefer to think of her as highly intuitive.” Still Alyssa didn’t look at him, her eyes locked on the double doors leading into the ballroom.

  “No sign of your sister yet?” Brett knew Alyssa had been thinking about Rosa, her old fears for her younger sibling robbing her of the pleasure she might have taken in a competition Brett was determined to win.

  He hated to see her mired in those old hurts since it was obvious to him she belonged in L.A., wheeling and dealing and inspiring other musicians to new creative heights. Although he’d be damned if she would motivate anyone else quite the way she’d stirred him.

  “No.” Dragging her gaze away from the entrance, she swiped a restless brush of her hand over the back of his shirt, removing lint he knew wasn’t there. “And I know she had to have gotten my messages the last few days. I don’t know if she’s mad at me for representing you or embarrassed that I found out she signed on for this event—” Shrugging, she made a tsk-ing sound under her breath. “I don’t know. We seem to suck at communicating these past couple of years.”

  Laying a palm over his guitar strings, Brett quieted the vibrating chords. “Alyssa.”

  “Yeah?” A furrow creased her brow, worry etched into her heart-shaped face.

  Her eyes were so endless, so full of the capacity
to love and give. He couldn’t imagine what it might be like to have that kind of caring and concern pointed toward him. Ever since they’d connected in the steamy heat of his car a week ago, he couldn’t deny thinking about her pretty much every waking moment.

  In his life as a financial analyst, he’d played it careful and safe. But he was a musician now, if only for a few more hours. And Brett the guitarist didn’t care about playing it cautious. He was falling for Alyssa—Ouija board and all.

  “Who are you representing today?” He traced the delicate curve of her cheek with his thumb, his fingers sinking into the silky fall of her dark hair. “Me or your sister?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I can’t ever not represent my sister. She’s a Renato, you know?” A hint of a smile curved her soft lips. “She’s walking around with my nose and eyes, even if she’s got much better boobs.”

  His eyes involuntarily tracked over her chest.

  “Definitely a matter of opinion.” Pulling his focus back to her face, he reminded himself that he needed to have this out with her now, while he still had a shot at convincing her to stick with him. “But what I mean is—don’t check out on me now when I need you so damn much.”

  “I’m totally prepared.” She reached behind her to retrieve her clipboard off his amplifier. She’d been carrying around notes all day as she ran between the ballroom where he warmed up and the convention hall where the initial acts were already performing on stage. “I’ve got two music execs in the audience just salivating to see you. The séance kicks off in an hour, right before you take the stage. I’ll get things started, but then I’ll let Madame Stargazer run the séance on her own so that I can stick close to you and—”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Lifting his guitar off his lap, he propped it against the amp and set aside her clipboard so he could hold her. “I just don’t want you to let Rosa’s performance rattle you. If she signed on to sing after all she’s been through, she must really need to be here.”