Crossed Bones (45 page)

"Would you like to come in? I was about to make some coffee."

He shook his head. "I'm leaving."

It wasn't unexpected, yet I still felt a terrible pain. "Where are you going?"

"I have a gig in
Chicago
, then
Detroit
. BAMA Records has offered me a real nice contract for two albums. Don't tell Nandy, please. She's still bird-dogging me." His grin was rueful. "Anyway, Emanuel has released me from my contract with Playin' the Bones. He was really decent about it."

"Congratulations." I tried to put some enthusiasm in it. "I always knew Zinnia was too small for you."

"There was a time I didn't think so." He wasn't going to let me off the hook so easily.

"You have a lot of talent. In more than music."

"Thanks." He reached out and touched my cheek. "If Spider, Ray-Ban, and the sheriff hadn't gotten between us, we might have made something of this."

"We might have." I was finding it hard to speak around the lump in the back of my throat.

He kissed me gently on the top of the head, turned around and walked away. I saw he was driving Bridge's Jaguar. Well, it was a fine car for the man whose family had made an empire of selling Dodges.

As Scott drove away, I knew something special had just left my life. Why hadn't I been able to love Scott completely? Was it because Coleman was in the way? Or was it because I could only love a man I couldn't have? Loving the unattainable was safe. That love could never be tested by day-to-day reality.

As I passed through the parlor, I saw Jitty's fractured reflection in the cut-glass decanter.

"Three men in one night, Sarah Booth. Tinkie was right. That must surely be a record." She was wearing jeans rolled up at the ankles, white canvas shoes, a cotton shirt, and a bandana on her hair.

"Looks like you're having a picnic," I said as I pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

"Looks like you're having a hangover."

"Nothing like pointing out the obvious, right?"

"It's obvious to me that you're a fool. Pick up the telephone. Call him. He'll come back."

I shook my head again. "Scott deserves a woman who can love him without reservation. I'm not that woman."

"And Bridge?"

I shook my head. "I'm glad he wasn't behind Ivory's death, but I don't love him."

"Pass some more time with him. A man like him has to grow on you."

"He's not a mold," I said, preparing the coffeepot.

"No, he's a rich man who's going to be spending a lot of time in Zinnia, what with his new blues club and all."

"He may be your dream, Jitty, but he isn't mine."

"Dreams are peculiar things, Sarah Booth. I don't think this is Ivory's exact dream, not the way he imagined it, but I think this may be the best outcome he could have hoped for. Emanuel saw the truth. Ivory would be proud of him."

I plugged in the percolator and turned to face Jitty. "Ivory would be proud. Of Emanuel and Scott both." It was something good from all of the bad things. "I wish he were alive to see it."

"Oh, he sees it, Sarah Booth. Don't you worry about that. He knows."

She spoke with authority, and who was I to question the wisdom of a ghost? I poured a cup of black coffee and started the long exercise of pulling my life back together.

"I'm sorry Scott is leavin' town. Now that he's gone and you aren't gonna run off with him, I can see he had the potential for makin' a mighty fine baby."

Babies were the last thing I wanted to think about. "Connie managed to snare a sperm."

"That's a mighty big assumption," Jitty pointed out.

I looked at her long and hard. It
was
a big assumption, and if nothing else, I'd learned my lesson about assumptions the night before.

"Sarah Booth, you didn't get the man you wanted, but you still have the dream. You got to remember that's the important thing. Just hang on to the dream."

I wanted
to
believe in dreams. Ivory had believed, and in the end, he had achieved nothing short of a miracle. His music would be heard by the world, his club would survive, and his son had been humanized by his love.

"Feel it, Sarah Booth. It's there. Your dream is still there. Where there's life, there's hope. It's a cliche because it's true."

Although my head was still pounding, I did feel better. I finished my cup of coffee and put the cup in the sink. Looking out the kitchen window, I saw my family cemetery. The tombstones were nearly white in the August sunlight.

"What're you gonna do?" Jitty asked.

I suddenly knew. I was going to put on my boots, saddle
my
horse, and ride. I would let Reveler gallop over the cotton fields, with Sweetie Pie by my side, and in doing so, I'd start the process of healing my heart. Whatever I'd lost, I still had Dahlia House and the land.

"I'm taking Reveler for a ride."

Jitty's smile took on a wicked glint. "Keep those thighs tight, girl, you never know when the right man's gonna walk into your life. When he does, you clamp those legs around him and make him scream for the Jaws of Life to cut him free."

"You're a bad influence, Jitty," I told her.

"Maybe so, but I'm the one who knows you best. And I know you don't need a man, you just want one."

She was right. I didn't really need a man. I might want one, but I could live without one. That would be small comfort when I climbed into my bed at night, but for the moment, with the hip-high cotton fluttering in a gentle breeze, it was enough.

"Come on, Sweetie," I said, picking up my boots from the back porch. "Let's ride."