Diamond (27 page)

He jerked back as if the glass had suddenly become electrified. He heard nothing but the hammer of his heartbeat, felt nothing but the pain ripping through his gut, although he knew she couldn’t see him.

“Damn you, lady,” he whispered. “I need to be whole again, and I can’t do it alone. I need you to love me…as much as I love you.”

But there was no answer from below. She simply blinked and looked away, and the pain of her denial nearly sent him to his knees. His mind knew she couldn’t see him, but his heart had forgotten. He buried his face in his hands, and when he could move, he walked away before he did something they’d both regret.

Mack was waiting for him in the parking lot. He could tell from the look on Jesse’s face that seeing her had been an endurance test he’d nearly failed.

“You okay?” he asked as Jesse slid into the car.

“No,” Jesse said. “But I will be, and so will she when I get her home.”

Mack nodded and started the car.

“I owe you,” Jesse said quietly.

“No, man,” Mack said. “I owed her. I’m just payin’ my debts to a lady.”

Jesse inhaled deeply and leaned his head against the headrest. “Take me back to Union Station, Mack. We’ve got a New Year to bring in, and some pretty important resolutions to make.”

“You bet,” Mack said as he pulled out onto Hillsboro Drive. “And Jesse, when we get back, do you think I’ve got time to call that redhead? Maybe I can get to her house before the clock strikes twelve.”

Jesse laughed. He was glad that some things hadn’t changed. Mack couldn’t help himself. He had a one-track mind.

“Hell, Mack. It’s less than an hour to midnight. Do you honestly think she’s sitting at home waiting on you to call?”

Mack shrugged. “I’ll never know unless I try.”

The assurance with which Mack spoke wiped the laughter from Jesse’s face. Mack was right. Unless you tried, you’d already failed. Jesse’s lips tightened into a grim line of determination. He wasn’t about to give up. Not when he’d just found his reason to live.

“Whatever it takes, I’m comin’ after you, girl,” he said softly.

“What did you say?” Mack asked as he braked for a red light.

“Nothing,” Jesse said. “Just talking to myself.”

Mack nodded and accelerated into the new year.

16

“
Ten…nine…eight
…seven…six…”

Melvin Call had microphone in hand, counting down the seconds with a brimming glass of champagne as he joined the patrons of his club in ringing in the new year.

“You were great,” Twila shouted above the noise as Diamond came offstage.

Diamond nodded her thanks, handed Twila her guitar, and put her hands over her ears, pantomiming her inability to hear or talk due to the racket, then made a dash toward the hallway leading to the club’s office.

Twila slipped the guitar into its case and leaned it in the corner by the stage. She was more than a little surprised by Diamond’s behavior. By all rights, Diamond Houston should be riding on a high that wouldn’t quit. Even if part of it had to do with luck, she’d captured a prime spot in Melvin Call’s show on a very special night in Nashville.

It had been bad luck for the entertainer who’d gotten himself thrown in jail and lost his slot on the program, but it had been the best of fortune for Diamond that she’d been able to substitute. Diamond had gotten the plum job, performed like a seasoned pro, and then walked offstage as if nothing had happened.

“There’s something wrong here,” Twila said. “And I’m going to find out what.”

“Taken’ to talkin’ to yourself?” Dooley asked, leaning down as he shouted in Twila’s ears to be heard over the revelry.

Twila jumped. In spite of the milling crowd, she hadn’t expected anyone to approach her from behind, especially Dooley Hopper.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, and then yanked him toward the hall beyond the main room so that they could continue the conversation in relative quiet.

“Caught her act,” Dooley said, grinning.

“Who was minding the store at your place?” Twila asked.

“Without her, there isn’t one,” he said. “And from the sound of things tonight, I’d better go out and get me some new acts. I don’t think my girl’s gonna be playing joints like mine much longer.”

Twila smiled at his possessiveness. “So you thought she was good?”

Dooley snorted. “Hell, I know she’s good. It’s just that now everyone else is getting the message, too. And it’s about damned time. I’m tired of seeing that look on her face. Maybe if she can hit it big, she’ll forget whoever it was that put out the light in her eyes.”

Twila frowned. She didn’t want to consider that her new client might already have personal problems before Twila had time to work through the professional ones.

“What do you mean?’ she asked. “What do you know about her personal life, anyway? She hasn’t volunteered a thing to me.”

“Not a damned thing,” Dooley said. “But she was runnin’ when I hired her, and I oughta know. When I was younger, I had the same look on my own face more than once.”

“Running from what?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Dooley said. “But I’d bet the lot it was from a man.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” Twila said, fidgeting with an indecently large diamond on her pinky and then yanking at the jacket of her green pantsuit in frustration.

“I don’t suppose you do,” Dooley said. “And you didn’t hear it from me—got that?”

Twila shrugged.

“Where is she, anyway?” Dooley asked.

Twila pointed down the hall. “I was going to check on her. I think she went up there. Probably to get away from the noise. Looked like she had the beginnings of a headache.” And then she sighed. “After what you just told me, maybe it was more like a heartache.”

Dooley headed in the direction that Twila had indicated, moving through the narrow hall and up the stairs with surprising agility for his age and size. If something was wrong with Diamond, he wanted to know.

Twila watched him go, remembering two days earlier how excited Diamond had been that Twila was finally going to meet her boss. And Twila remembered thinking as they parked outside the disreputable building that if the boss was anything like the place, he had a lot of improving to do. But she’d had her reasons for wanting to meet Diamond’s boss.

First, she wanted to meet the man who’d taken Diamond off the streets and given her a chance to survive in Nashville. Second, she wanted to know how big of a fight she was going to have on her hands when she informed said boss that he was about to be minus an employee, because Twila Hart had big plans for Diamond.

The introduction had been a surprise for them and a shock for Diamond. Diamond had watched in amazement as they’d embraced like the old friends that they were. By the time all was explained, Diamond had learned that once upon a time in Nashville, Dooley Hopper had run with the best.

He’d actually blushed and stammered when Twila informed Diamond that he’d been one of the best backup players in the business and gushed about how he could make a steel guitar cry. When Twila had questioned him about his disappearing act, he’d silenced her simply by holding up his hands and showing her the swollen joints and missing digits.

“What happened?” Twila asked.

“Too many fights and too many years,” Dooley said.

It was answer enough.

By the time the “introduction” had ended, Twila had found an old friend and Dooley had faced the fact that Diamond’s days in his employment were swiftly coming to an end.

The noise filtered down to a dull roar as Diamond made her way into Melvin’s office. The solitude that greeted her was almost as deafening. It forced her to face the emotions she’d been suppressing.

Her stomach was in knots, her hands sweaty from anxiety as her heart continued to rocket a pulse out of control. But she’d done it! She’d completed a performance that she’d imagined would be impossible. She hadn’t been able to concentrate for days, and she’d already faced the fact that the phone call she’d made to Jesse had been a terrible mistake. It had forced her to think about the new year and her future and know that Jesse wasn’t in it.

Even now, when her career seemed to be taking a turn for the better, her personal life was killing her by degrees. The only way she’d been able to walk on stage and face the crowd’s merriment was to block out every thought and do what she’d done all her life: suffer the pain and ignore the regrets.

As she sang, she had watched the faces in her audience, aware that the tender and sultry looks being exchanged across tables would later result in some late-night loving. It had done nothing but remind her of her own solitary state and what she’d given up. Of all the things she regretted losing with Jesse, it was always the late-night loving that first came to mind.

She didn’t even remember her final number or walking offstage to the sound of wild applause. All she remembered was handing Twila her guitar and running for cover.

“Oh, Lord,” she said, pressing shaky hands against her out-of-control heart. “Get a grip. If you can’t handle pressure any better than this, you may as well go back to Cradle Creek and beg Morton Whitelaw for your old job back.”

Talking to herself did little good this time except to send her toward Melvin’s desk in search of a box of tissues. That was when she looked down through the glass wall and realized Melvin could see the entire club area from his office.

Diamond thought back, trying to remember if she’d noticed windows on the wall above the stage, and realized that what she’d first thought was a mirror on the upper deck of the club was in fact Melvin’s one-way vision into his world.

“Well, Melvin…what other surprises are you hiding?” she asked, looking around the room.

A matching pair of blue and gold striped chairs sat against the wall opposite Melvin’s desk. Diamond scanned the shelves above, expecting to see a hidden camera or something similar, when her gaze fell on the object lying in the chair closest the door.

Her heart thumped loudly as she caught her breath and stared. The hat’s wide black brim looked too familiar to ignore.

It took three steps to reach the chair, but Diamond thought they were the longest steps she’d ever taken. She lifted the black Stetson from the cushion. It was then that her hands began to shake. She swallowed a moan and blinked rapidly against an onset of tears.

Adjusting the hatband, she gently traced the gold eagle emblem with her fingertips and knew that she could have done so in her sleep. It was that familiar. Lowering her head, she inhaled to catch a faint whiff of the same cologne she’d come to associate with the man who belonged to this hat.

And then realization hit. Wide-eyed, she faced the wall of glass, looked once again at the hat in her hand and then down at the generous view of the stage below. He must have seen her.

“Jesse?”

She clasped the hat to her breasts as her legs gave way.

Dooley found her lying in a heap with the hat beside her.

“Diamond! My God, what happened?”

His anxious shouts went unheard. Diamond’s pale face was answer enough for Dooley that something was seriously wrong. Unaware of the hat’s importance, he tossed it aside and lifted her from the floor.

Twila met him at the door, took one look at the unconscious woman in his arms, and pushed him back inside.

“Don’t let anyone see her like this,” she hissed. “It’ll be all over town.”

Dooley quickly obeyed and laid her on the couch in Melvin’s office.

It was only moments, but it seemed forever before Diamond began to move. When the color began to flow back into her pale, cold cheeks, Twila breathed a sigh of relief.

“Honey…are you sick? If you need to, I’ll get you to the hospital. It’s not far,” Dooley said.

Diamond shuddered. Dooley was the last person she’d expected to see that night. She might have been able to hide her feelings from Twila. But from Dooley, who’d proven to be more than a friend, it was impossible.

She took one look at the tender concern on his grizzly face and began to cry.

He hauled her from the couch and crushed her against the wall of his chest. “What’s wrong? What happened to you?” he asked. His voice rumbled deep in his belly and vibrated against Diamond’s ear as he clutched her tightly to him.

“He was here,” she said, clutching the front of Dooley’s jacket in desperation. “He watched me.”

“Oh, hell,” Twila muttered. “So there is a
he
. Damn, Dooley, you didn’t have to be right.”

Dooley glared at Twila and then patted Diamond’s shoulders awkwardly. “I’m always right,” he said. “I just don’t always know it.”

Twila sighed as Dooley continued his interrogation.

“Who watched you, honey? Is it someone you’re afraid of? Cause if it is, you just tell me who’s bothering you and I’ll kill the sucker.”

“He’d never hurt me,” she whispered.

What she wanted was to go to bed and sleep through this lifetime until it was time to start over. She’d gotten as far in this one as she could go alone.

“Girl!” Dooley pulled her away and shook her gently. “Get hold of yourself and talk to me. I can’t help you if you don’t talk.”

Diamond shuddered and blinked, staring blankly at Dooley and Twila as if coming out of a trance.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I guess you fainted,” Dooley said. “I found you over there by the wall.”

In that instant she remembered the hat, and began to look around the room for it. When she saw it lying on the floor beside Melvin’s desk, she disentangled herself from Dooley and headed for it with single-minded intent.

Puzzled by her odd behavior, Twila and Dooley watched as she picked up the hat, brushed away a speck of lint, and then carefully hung it on the knob of the chair where she’d found it.

“He’ll be wanting it back,” she said quietly.

“He, who?” Twila asked. And when Diamond didn’t answer, she shouted. “Dammit, Diamond, if there’s something in your past that’s going to hurt your future, I’ve got to know or we may as well call it quits here and now!”

Dooley glared at Twila. “Don’t be so dramatic,” he said. “Hell, woman. Nashville’s full of secrets. One more ain’t gonna sink the ship.”