by Hope Ramsay
Ruby started the water, and before Jane knew what was happening, Ruby had doused her with almond-scented shampoo and was working up a professional lather.
“Of course you want to be irresistible. Well, not to everyone, mind, but just to the right one, you know what I mean?” Ruby said.
“Uh, no.”
Ruby started rinsing. “Now, Jane, don’t you try to fool me. We both know where you spent Wednesday night. And I know you were leaving town because Ricki arrived on the bus last night. But you can’t just give up the field like that.”
“Give up the field?”
“Yes, you know exactly what I mean. And besides, after the way Clay came to your rescue today, calling Eugene and me and everything, you have to admit that he’s kind of living up to what Miriam told you to be looking for.”
Ruby wrapped a towel around Jane’s head and brought the seat back up.
“Okay, now come on over to my station and let’s see what we can do.”
“Uh, Ruby, I don’t really want to change my hair, and I don’t think chasing after Clay is a good idea.”
“Of course it’s a good idea. What woman wouldn’t want to snag herself a sensitive songwriting hero?”
“Well, I…” Jane’s voice faded out.
“Come on now, let me help. I’m just going to put a few little layers in your hair and give it some highlights. It would look so nice feathered around your face a little. It would make it look fuller, you know.”
Oh, yeah, she knew. Ruby was going to do her hair like she used to wear it when she posed for those photos.
“I mean, I know the Farrah Fawcett hairdo has kind of gone out of style,” Ruby rattled on, “but we can give it a twenty-first-century take that will be modern and sexy and drive Clay crazy.”
“Uh, Ruby, I don’t think I want to—”
“Drive Clay crazy? Honey, don’t kid a kidder. And I’m giving you permission. That boy’s been moping around here for months ever since that woman did him wrong, and I think you’re good for him. I really do. He needs to quit worrying about Ray and the store, you know, and start worrying about his own self.”
“He does?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But what about the Peach—”
“Honey, put that out of your mind. I know y’all started out a little fast, but you wouldn’t be the first ones to do that sort of thing. I hear the Peach Blossom is doing a very nice business.”
Jane sat in Ruby’s chair while the hairdresser started combing out her hair. Jane watched Ruby in the mirror for a long moment. “Are you saying I have your blessing?”
Ruby looked up at her. Their eyes met in the mirror. “I have a feeling about you. And yes, you have my blessing. Clay needs to get over Tricia and quit worrying about Pete and Ray. And you just might be the ticket.”
“What about Ricki?”
Ruby sniffed. “That woman broke his heart a long time ago. I am not pleased that he’s let her sleep in his guest bedroom. At least, I hope he was telling me the truth about that.”
“She’s not the one he’s broken-hearted over?”
“Oh, no. He’s broken up about Tricia. She’s the one he wrote the song for.”
“What song?”
“Oh, you know, the one they play on the radio all the time. The Tumbleweed song.”
“Clay wrote that song? The one Bubba Lockheart always plays down at Dot’s Spot?”
“Well, I don’t go down to Dot’s. But if it’s the one with the words about loving more than needing, then that’s the one.”
“He wrote that song?”
Ruby started cutting her hair before Jane could stop her. “Yes, he did. And he’s made some money off it, which is a positive sign. But excuse me for being uncharitable toward that woman. I declare she dumped Clay for that Chad Ames, you know—Tumbleweed’s lead singer. Clay didn’t even fight for her. Instead he quit the band and came back here with the lame excuse that he wanted to help my older brother, Pete, with his hardware store, on account of the fact that Pete’s got lung cancer. If you ask me, he came home to lick his wounds, and he’s going to end up here trying to be Ray’s keeper.
“Now, don’t get me wrong. I would love it if Clay would move back to Last Chance, but he’s got to do that for the right reasons, you know. Because he wants to, not because he’s hiding out or because of some kind of wrong-headed sense of responsibility.”
“Uh-huh.” Jane didn’t nod, because Ruby had her head pointed down and locked into position while she snipped away at her hair.
“The way I see it,” Ruby continued. “I do respect Clay for wanting to help Pete, but I don’t think coming back here and hiding out and pretending he doesn’t have talent is a good career move for him. And while I’m proud of him for his songs, I’d just as soon see him happy as see him having to suffer heartbreak after heartbreak so that he can write those sad country songs.”
“Uh-huh.” Jane found herself suddenly more interested than she wanted to be. Ruby was really dishing the inside story, and Jane was lapping it up.
Ruby let go of Jane’s head and she looked up again, studying Ruby in the mirror. “But the chief thinks I’m—” Jane started.
“Oh, never mind him. He doesn’t like strangers. I want to see him happy, too, but he’s going to be a much harder nut to crack. He loved Sharon, but she died. Stone’s heartbreak is much deeper than Clay’s. Clay gets heartbroke pretty easy. I reckon all he needs is a good woman with a big heart and a good head on her shoulders. But Stony… well, he feels things just as deep, but he never shows his feelings.”
“You think I’m a good woman?”
Ruby looked up with a big smile on her face. “Oh, honey, I know you’re a good woman. I have that on the highest authority there is.”
Jane didn’t ask what authority that might be. It could be the Universe, or it could be…
Well, it was probably Miriam Randall, who appeared to be someone who regularly messed around with people’s lives. All day long, people in the shop had been talking about Miriam and her matches. It really looked like both Ruby and Miriam were trying to tell her that Clay was a Sir Galahad ready to swoop in and rescue her from her life.
Which was something she already knew.
And that’s why she had decided not to go to Dot’s Spot tonight, because all in all, Clay was starting to look too good to be true. And when guys started looking like that, it was a danger sign pure and simple.
Ruby continued with her work. An hour later, Ruby and Jane studied Jane’s reflection in the beauty shop mirror. The transformation was complete. Jane looked…
Hot.
Ready for action.
Available.
And exactly like Miss April in the Working Girls Go Wild calendar, only with her shirt on.
“Oh, honey, I think he’s going to like this. Now, you need to go get yourself dolled up and put on that little huckleberry blue T-shirt that Sharon liked so much when she was alive. Then you get your butt down to Dot’s place and you sing that song for Clay.”
“What song?”
“The one you’ve been humming all day. You know that old Dolly Parton song from the movie with Burt Reynolds.”
“ ‘I Will Always Love You’?”
Ruby grinned. “Yeah, that’s the one. You go down there and sing that for Clay and we’ll see what happens.”
Just thinking about that made Jane’s insides flip-flop. She knew better than to listen to Ruby. Clay was a danger she ought to be avoiding. But she knew right then she wasn’t going to stay home with Her Knight of Temptation. She was going to go down to Dot’s Spot and actually experience temptation firsthand.
Jane waited until nine-thirty before she headed down to Dot’s Spot. By the time she hit the alley beside the Cut ’n Curl, her heart was hammering so hard she could hear it in her ears.
She wondered, not for the first time, if this was a case of being nervous about singing for Clay or just being wound up at the thought of seeing him again.
And then there was the fear that he would take one look at her poufed-out hair and Sharon’s tight jeans and think she was trashy. She didn’t want to be trashy. Not to Clay.
Jane had reached the sidewalk and started to turn up the block toward Dot’s Spot when she heard the familiar and unmistakable sound of air brakes. She looked in the opposite direction toward Bill’s Grease Pit, and, sure enough, the nine-thirty bus from Atlanta was discharging a passenger.
This time, the lady was brunette and wore her hair back in a ponytail. She couldn’t have been less like Ricki if she tried. She had an all-American-girl look to her, right down to the blue calico maternity dress and the gently faded jean jacket that didn’t close up the front anymore. She wore running shoes, and carried a small, generic rolling suitcase and leather shoulder bag.
The woman stood for a long moment under the street-light as the bus pulled away. Jane felt a strange kinship with her. The woman looked lost and forlorn. She stared up the street and absently blew her bangs off her forehead, then wiped a tear from her cheek.
Jane ducked back into the alley and fought the urge to go over to her and ask her if she needed help. Jane wasn’t in any position to offer help. Besides, seeing that big belly on the woman brought back memories that she didn’t want to deal with.
Not tonight with Clay waiting for her.
She stood for a long time and waited until the woman started walking down the street. And then, as if the Universe was laughing at her, Jane realized that the mother-to-be was headed toward Dot’s Spot.
Jane fell in behind her and followed at a distance as she made her way up the street. Hadn’t this happened yesterday? Jane didn’t have a good feeling about this.
Ricki looked like she might burst into tears in the next three seconds, and Clay had to grip his Budweiser bottle to keep from doing what he usually did when some woman sprang a leak. But reaching out for her would be a foolhardy move, since the only reason Ricki was tearing up like that was because of what he’d just said.
“How can you suggest a thing like my working for Dottie Cox?” Ricki said in a husky voice.
“Well, I heard Dottie is looking for help.” He picked at the label on his bottle, avoiding eye contact. “And, based on what you’ve told me about Randy, it sure does look like you need a job.”
“I can’t believe you think I should work for Dot Cox.” Ricki sounded outraged now.
Irritation prickled his skin, and he looked up at her, feeling practically no sympathy whatsoever. His lack of feeling surprised him, since Ricki’s cheeks were glistening with tears.
“Why won’t you work for Dottie?” he asked, leaning forward. “I work for her on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. What’s the matter, Ricki, her money’s not good enough for you?”
“You don’t really work for Dottie,” she countered. “You perform with that awful band, and for the life of me, I don’t understand why. You don’t need to work for Dot Cox any more than you need to work at the hardware store. I know this for a fact.”
He peered at her through the perpetual haze that hung over the tables at Dot’s. “Ricki, are you back here because you think I’m some kind of success?”
“Well, of course you’re a success.”
Clay pressed his lips together as disgust washed right through him. Yep, Ricki was looking for a meal ticket, and she figured he was it, just because a few songs on an album had netted him some royalties.
Oh, if she only knew.
He was tempted to tell her that songwriters were working stiffs just like other guys, only songwriting didn’t pay nearly as well as most other jobs. That might send her away.
He studied her face, and he couldn’t help but compare it to Jane’s. And that irked him, too. That little gal had this way of popping up in his brain every five seconds like some lame advertisement on the Internet. And here Jane was, popping up, and demanding his attention, and making him see just how pitiful Ricki was as a human being.
Ricki wanted a handout, for sure. Jane—who had breezed into town with only the clothes on her back—would claw and kick and scream before she let anyone give her a handout.
Ricki was only too happy to use tears to ensnare him. Jane didn’t even want to cry on his shoulder.
He was wound up tighter than a drum waiting for that little gal to come walking into the bar on her high heels. He was about ready to explode from random, pop-up thoughts of taking her out back and…
Oh, yeah. That would be fun. Immature, crazy, way out of bounds. But fun.
He swallowed hard and looked back down at his beer bottle.
“So you’re saying that if I don’t get a job you’re going to throw me out on the street?” Ricki whined.
He let go of a long sigh and looked up again. “No, Ricki, I’m saying that you’re going to have to move out—sooner rather than later. Have you forgotten how this town gossips? Right now, I don’t need my momma or the Last Chance Ladies Auxiliary sermonizing every time I show my face anywhere. I play organ on Sundays now, and they are watching every move I make. So you need to get your own place, and for that, honey, you need a job. I’ll go talk to Dot for you, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. I can’t believe you’re ready to throw me out, after all we’ve been through together.”
He decided it was best not to touch that last line, because they had been through different things. He had gone through hell; she had gone shopping with Randy’s credit cards.
Clay pushed up from the table. “Ricki, you can’t stay at my place. I didn’t ask you to come back here. I don’t want to rekindle any old flames. And I’d be much obliged if you would get out of my house as soon as possible. I should have never offered my spare bedroom. I should have known you’d move in and try to manipulate me into something I don’t want anymore.”
“But where will I—”
“That’s your problem.”
“But—”
He shook his head. “I’m not rescuing you. You hear me? Not after what you did to me all those years ago. Do you think I’m so pathetic that you can just waltz right back into my life like nothing ever happened? Like you didn’t break my heart, ruin my career, and go get married to someone else?” A flood of anger and resentment ran right through him as he finally said the words that had been percolating in his head all day.
He pressed his lips together before he said anything else that might be ugly. He turned away. And practically ran right into Tricia Allen, the other love of his life. Or, more precisely, he ran right into Tricia’s belly, which was swollen with child.
In all the times that he had dreamed of running into Tricia, he had never imagined her being pregnant. Clay gazed down into Tricia’s familiar face with its porcelain skin, freckled nose, and bow lips. Those lips had once driven him crazy.
Oh, yeah, this face had been the inspiration for dozens of love songs, including “I Gotta Know,” which currently topped the country charts. He had never planned on looking into that face again, although God help him, he’d wasted almost a year of his life hoping to.
Tricia was teary-eyed, too. She wore one of those long flowery dresses that he had always thought were kind of shapeless. She sure did fill out that dress in a way that she had never filled out any of her other flowery dresses. She had to be a good six or seven months pregnant.
“Tricia,” he said, feeling like someone had taken a hot poker to his insides. “How’s Chad?”
The tears spilled over and got caught in her long, dark lashes. “He threw me out,” she said in a little, broken voice that made him cringe. “I’m here to acknowledge that you were right about him. He’s a complete jerk.”
Tricia didn’t wait for any response from Clay. She took three steps toward him and fell into his arms.
And wouldn’t you know it—Jane chose that precise moment to come walking into the bar, wearing sprayed-on jeans, high-heeled boots, and a little blue T-shirt that left nothing to the imagination. Her hair wasn’t in its usual ponytail. Instead she wore
it down but kind of teased up and big.
Real hard lust hit him like a Stinger missile, and it had nothing to do with Tricia.
Especially since Tricia didn’t fit in his arms the way she used to, what with that big belly on her. And for some odd reason, he didn’t feel at all comfortable with her sobbing on his shoulder like that. She was getting snot all over one of his best T-shirts and doing it in front of Dot Cox, the Wild Horses, Ricki, and most important, Wanda Jane Coblentz.
Who stood there studying him like he had just done her wrong. God, she looked good enough to eat tonight. It was kind of amazing, but with her hair teased up big like that, Jane looked a whole lot like Miss April in that calendar of Ray’s. And Miss April was hot—really hot.
No doubt this sudden surge of lust was another manifestation of his current life confusion. A part of him didn’t want to grow up.
Jane studied the back of Tricia’s head for a long moment. Her lips narrowed, and a look of deep disappointment crossed her face. She didn’t say anything. She just stepped around them and headed for the bar.
Clay looked down at Tricia, feeling his own overwhelming sense of disappointment. “What are you doing here?” he asked, just as Ricki jumped up out of her seat and put her fists on her hips. Clay glanced her way. If looks could kill, Ricki was loaded with a quiver of poison darts. He decided to ignore her. Maybe she would go away so he could concentrate on the ex-girlfriend who was pregnant with someone else’s child.
Tricia sniffled and looked up at him with a tear-stained face. “I came because you’ve always been my best friend, and I didn’t know where else to go after Chad kicked me out of our hotel room in Atlanta. I came on the nine-thirty bus.”
Well, of course. That explained everything.
“Clay, unhand that woman.” This came from Ricki, who seemed to think she had some hold over him by virtue of the fact that she occupied his spare bedroom. Which, of course, begged the question of where he was going to stash Tricia.
He was mulling through this conundrum when the honky-tonk’s doors opened with a louder-than-average bang, and Stony strode in accompanied by his deputy, Damian Easley. Each of them was armed to the teeth, wearing their Stetsons low on their foreheads and bearing grim expressions.
