When Last We Loved (17 page)

Don't look back!
she admonished herself sternly. She killed time, flipping through the pages of a fashion magazine that didn't hold her attention.

Forget those blue eyes, that hard, lean body. Forget Dee Dee's victorious smile, the triumphant tilt of her cotton-candy head when the signatures were indelibly fixed to the contracts.

She should have heeded Hoyt's warning. She'd become careless, though, and wound up with what she wanted. Now she had to run with it. But could she ever run far enough to escape those memories that stalked the corridors of her mind like old ghosts trapped in a time warp?

* * * *

“It's your decision, Cassie.” Hoyt had shrugged noncommittally when he'd laid the responsibility for the contracts at her feet. She couldn't read the expression in his eyes, and she was stunned by his callous attitude. Anxieties that she couldn't verbalize were tearing her apart. How could somebody so good with words when it came to writing songs be so helpless when it came to saying what was in her heart?

“I don't know if I'm ready for Nashville yet,” she'd hedged. Her stint at the Petroleum Club was over and Bo Davis was pressing her for a commitment. He wouldn't wait much longer. There were too many other hopeful unknowns willing to fly to hell and back for an opportunity like the one he was offering.

“You're as ready as you want to be. The contracts are here on my desk. We can sign them whenever you give us the go-ahead.”

Hoyt had left her alone then and had gone to oversee the horseshoeing in the barn.

“I don't know what's made you so wishy-washy all of a sudden. I thought this was your big goal in life, to become a singer,” Dee Dee had remarked, her eyes already bidding Cassie farewell even while she mouthed the friendly words. At least Dee Dee had been honest. She had wanted Hoyt to herself, and the sooner the better. “Just think of all the traveling you'll get to do, all the stars you'll be meeting. Why, if I were you, I'd be on that plane in two shakes.”

The situation had settled itself almost perversely a few short days later.

“She's bullheaded, all right. But I think she'll come around eventually.” Hoyt was talking on the telephone with Bo. He sat, feet propped on the windowsill of his paneled study, his back to the door where Cassie stood, unintentionally eavesdropping.

She'd come downstairs to talk with Hoyt. Her heart and her pride were at war— one said stay and one said go. She was hoping against hope that he would ask her to follow her heart.

“Who knows what it will take to motivate her?” Hoyt sighed in exasperation. “Let's give her another week to decide.”

The petite shadow that had spilled across the woven Navajo rug turned to escape before she was caught, but not before the decisive bombshell had been dropped into the conversation.

“I've already spent more money getting her act together than I'll probably ever see again,” Hoyt had said into the receiver. “Who knows? Maybe it is impossible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.”

It felt like someone had plunged a dagger into Cassie's heart. She drew the remnants of her injured pride around her like a protective mantle and signed the contracts that evening. Dee Dee had witnessed the signatures with a flourish of her gold pen and a flash of those brace-perfect teeth. Bo Davis immediately started making plans, issuing orders and dialing Nashville to reserve a block of studio time.

“Have fun,” Dee Dee had enjoined, planting herself next to Hoyt in the airline terminal.

Hoyt had inspected Cassie with a critical eye, searching for a flaw in the polished veneer of the star he'd created. Cassie had maintained her cool composure and returned his gaze with an unwavering determination to put those blue eyes behind her. A sow's ear! She shook off the shame and smiled at Bo Davis, who was flying to Nashville with her.

“The first thing I'm going to buy with my royalties is a silk purse,” she had declared.

Hoyt had looked puzzled. Then his eyes had narrowed and Cassie knew that
he
knew she'd overheard him on the telephone.

“I never realized what a low opinion you had of me,” she'd said in a steely voice. Tears burned her eyes.

“Before you go jumping to those famous conclusions of yours, you might want to hear the whole story.” Hoyt looked at her steadily, his voice vibrant with candor. “I admit I could have made a better choice of words when I was talking with Bo. But I've got business commitments piled a mile high, and your hesitation about the contract was the straw breaking the camel's back. I'm sorry you heard me say that. You know I didn't mean it the way it sounded.”

Cassie had stared at the floor, trying to balance herself on the tightrope of emotions that she always seemed to walk where Hoyt was concerned.

“Let's forget it” Her words had been almost inaudible. She squared her shoulders. “After all, business is business.”

Forget him
was the resolution that had fortified Cassie as she'd boarded the plane without a backward glance.
Forget him
would reverberate through her mind forever, coloring every musical picture that she would paint with her voice.

* * * *

The jet swooped out of the clouds, giving Cassie her first view of the concrete jungle that she was ready to challenge. One of her dreams was shattered, but her spirit wasn't broken. Hard work would speed the healing process, and applause was the soothing balm her aching heart required.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” she murmured, peering out the double-paned window to size up the Nashville skyline.

Chapter 12

“There are a couple of places to clear up here, Cassie, and then we'll lay it down.”

She stood, dwarfed by the overhanging boom mike, reading the typewritten words to her song on the sheet of paper in front of her.

“Anytime, Bo.” Cassie glanced back at the sidemen spread out like a human fan in the studio. Their easygoing banter relieved the tedium of spending hours laying down tracks, repeating the same chord changes and melody until they achieved exactly the right sound.

“Don't strain for that E this time,” Bo advised. He spoke over the intercom from the control booth.

“But it feels good lyrically.” Cassie defended her decision to experiment with the song, to adjust the tempo and phrasing until she was comfortable vocalizing it.

“Let Johnny Cash handle those low notes,” Bo said. “And try not to step all over the bridge.”

She nodded mechanically, engrossed in her own thoughts. When she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass wall between the recording room and the control booth, Cassie thought she looked like a creature from outer space with the huge earphones clamped over her black hair.

“Has anybody heard from Scrappy?” she quizzed the musicians, but she didn't expect an answer. Her hands were ice cold and she rubbed them together. This was the real thing, finally, after weeks of grueling rehearsals and endless rewrites. Cassie was as nervous as a black cat on Halloween.

“He's probably just running late,” Bo soothed, his drawl reverberating through the earphones. “He had a taping session this morning and it's probably running behind schedule.”

“This is the taping of the Country Music Awards, isn't it?” Scrappy kicked the door shut and set several black instrument cases on the floor. “Let's see, you must be the nominee for Entertainer of the Year.” He winked at Cassie and smiled.

“Where have you been?”

“We were dubbing in some rhythm on a new album and it took longer than we had anticipated.” He shook his shaggy blond head and grimaced. “Time flies when you're having fun.”

“That's what you get for being so talented,” she quipped. “If you'd stick to one instrument, you wouldn't be in such demand.”

Scrappy had become a hot property since his arrival in Nashville. He spent almost every day in studios like this one, over-dubbing his special instrumental sounds on major recordings.

“How did it go?” Cassie was always curious about soon-to-be-released material and mentally compared her potential against that of other performers.

“It's gonna go gold. I can feel it in my picking hand.” Scrappy's brown eyes twinkled as he flexed his fingers. He loved the music business and Cassie knew how much he prized his new status among his Music City contemporaries.

“Are you two going to stand there and jaw away the rest of the day, or can we get started?” Bo's stern question boomed over the intercom. “At the rate we're moving, we'll be here till Christmas. Do you know what studio time costs these days?”

“Temple sure hired the right man to produce this thing,” Scrappy mumbled as he unpacked his fiddle, banjo, and guitar. “Bo, you're tighter than the bark on a tree!”

When Scrappy mentioned Hoyt, Cassie couldn't ignore the stinging memories that his name invoked. She'd almost made it through an entire day without letting the feelings rush over her, without thinking those crazy thoughts that had no foothold in reality.

“How long before you're comfortable with the music?” Bo ignored Scrappy's teasing and adjusted the dials, buttons, and meters on the console in front of him.

“Comfortable with the music? Hell, I wrote it!” Scrappy drew his bow over the fiddle strings, deliberately producing an ear-piercing screech.

“The tapes are set. Let's go.” Bo was all business when he issued orders to the sidemen. He reached behind him and punched the Record button, then pointed his finger at Cassie. “Don't miss your cue.”

Cassie weaved her vocal frills through a background of up-tempo western swing, riding the striding bass lines with the confidence born of her natural musical instinct. This was
her
song,
her
personal attempt to exorcise the memory of Hoyt Temple.

“It's too high.” Scrappy waved his arms to stop the session and grabbed a guitar from the man sitting next to him. “Drop it down an octave and try it this way.” The Virginia-ham size of his hands didn't interfere as his supple fingers manipulated the steel strings. “Put some Chester picking in here,” he ordered.

Cassie swallowed the last of the soda that had fizzled flat an hour ago, crumpled the paper cup, and tossed it into the wastebasket.

“Nobody in this room believes one damned thing you've sung so far.” Scrappy shook his finger in front of her startled face. “You wrote these lyrics for a reason, and my music complements that feeling. Where's the magic? You sound like you're reciting a grocery list!”

Cassie was crushed. Normally, Scrappy was as patient as Job. But his personal stake in the success of this arrangement had put him on edge. The sidemen fidgeted in their hard metal chairs.

“You've got one chance to grab the listener,” Scrappy chided. “Now get out of your Sunday throat and belt out some blues.”

Cassie took a few deep breaths, then began to sing:

"Those sparkin’ eyes, those strong warm arms,

That lean brown body, just some of his charms.

* * * *

"He leads me on, then he scares me off

Don't know what to do, his way's so rough.

* * * *

"He's had lots of ladies, they all give in.

Always afraid to ask him where he's been.

* * * *

"Then I feel those eyes looking down at me,

And I feel again that I'll never be free

* * * *

"Of those sparkin’ eyes, those strong warm arms,

That lean brown body, and the other charms."

“It's in the can!” Bo punched a button and the tape whirred in reverse, whining like a power saw. The musicians threw their instruments into the black cases and hustled out of the studio. Drained from all the emotion that she'd poured into the song, Cassie fell into a padded chair in the pentagonal-shaped control booth.

“You did an excellent job, Cassie. We'll over-dub it tomorrow.” Bo pulled a dozen track plugs out of the console.

“Way to go, babe. I'm sorry I had to lean so hard, but someone had to build a fire under you.” Scrappy tugged her to her feet and Cassie leaned against his oak-tree frame. “Let's go eat,” he suggested.

“I don't know what I'd do without you,” she sighed as they left the dusty brick building and walked through the deserted parking lot toward Scrappy's third-hand van.

“We're in this together, you know.” He laid his instruments in the rear, then babied the old motor to life. “When that tape is mixed and distributed, it's gonna soar up the charts like a balloon full of helium.”

They sped out of Music Row, an eight-square-block area of publishing houses and recording studios, and drove past the low-slung gingerbread homes that lined Nashville's residential district.

“How'd you like some chicken-fried steak, gravy, and biscuits?” Scrappy and his hollow leg had homed in on every good restaurant in the city.

“I've got to fill in at the Hitchin’ Post tonight, but I don't start until nine, so we've got time.”