Diamond (19 page)

Henley didn’t know whether to be glad that Jesse was actually coming out of his shell of indifference, or to be worried about the violence Jesse had just threatened.

He was under no misapprehensions as to which skunk was about to be parted from his skin. It was obvious to him that if there was one in their midst, its name was Tommy.

The door to Tommy’s office flew back with a bang. The look of pleased surprise on his face disappeared as he absorbed the expression on Jesse’s. He sighed, shoved away the papers on his desk, and tossed his pen on top. This was going to take all the finesse he could muster.

“Start talking,” Jesse said.

“About what?”

Jesse inhaled slowly. He counted to three, which did no good, and started over.

“Don’t, Tommy. You’ve spread enough bullshit to cover a football field. Just once, just goddamned once, talk straight.”

Tommy stood. “I don’t know what in hell you’re getting at,” he said, “but I know I don’t like what you’re implying.”

Jesse’s smile was not friendly. “I don’t expect you to like it,” he said. “I sure as hell don’t like what you did.”

Here it comes,
Tommy thought. “What am I supposed to have done now?” he asked.

Jesse walked forward, and when he got too close and showed no signs of stopping, Tommy began to back up. When the wall was at his back and Jesse only a breath away, he began to get nervous.

“You son of a bitch,” Jesse said, jabbing his forefinger against Tommy’s shoulder. “You left her name off that album after I specifically asked you—more than once—to make sure that she got credit for singing the duo.”

Tommy began to bluster. “Now you know I did no such thing. It must have been a printer’s error. It’s not the first time we’ve had a—”

“Shut up,” Jesse said. He turned away, knowing he had to put space between himself and Tommy or else he’d hurt him. He’d never been so furious in his entire life. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear anymore lies. I just want you to fix it.”

“Well hell, yes,” Tommy drawled. “I guess I could do that. I guess I could have every album on the shelves recalled. It shouldn’t amount to more than several million dollars in losses, but I guess I can do that. Oh! And while I’m at it, do you want me to just kiss your ass and—”

Jesse glared. His fingers curled into fists as his voice shook with fury. “And while you’re at it,” Jesse continued, as if Tommy hadn’t even spoken, “I suppose the contract between you two had all the normal fees and royalties?”

That was when Tommy looked away. His body language was unmistakable. Jesse took a step forward, afraid of what was coming next, afraid of what he’d do to Tommy when he heard it.

“Well, now,” Tommy blustered. “That’s not my fault at all,” he said, hating himself for the whine he heard in his own voice. “I kept meaning to pick that contract up from the lawyer’s and get it signed, but I kept forgetting, what with one thing and then another. You know, we went on tour and then there was that—”

Jesse exploded. “You mean to tell me that you never even put her under contract? Are you telling me that you let a cut go on an album without the singer’s signed permission? That you just stiffed her and then ignored her?”

“It wasn’t intentional.”

“Like hell,” Jesse said quietly. “You have twenty-four hours to start channeling Diamond Houston’s fair share from the sale of this album into a bank account in her name, or you and I are through.”

“You can’t fire me!” Tommy yelled.

“I know that. But I can refuse to honor the rest of my commitments for the year. And you can spend the rest of our contract tied up in the courts getting sued along with me for failure to honor—”

Tommy blanched. “You wouldn’t!”

“Try me,” Jesse said.

It was the lack of emotion in his voice that convinced Tommy he’d crossed the limit of Jesse’s patience.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll set up the account and make sure that she gets her money. I was going to do that anyway. Goddammit, Jesse. I’m not a thief.”

Jesse’s look didn’t waver. Tommy continued. “And I know you won’t believe me, but I swear I had no knowledge of all this. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, Jesse. Hell! You’re like my brother. We’re a team, remember?”

“But you hurt her, Tommy. And her leaving almost killed me. Don’t you understand, even yet? Damn you to hell, Tommy. I loved her. And for all the good it does me, I still do.”

Tommy couldn’t watch Jesse leave his office. He knew that it would take a miracle to fix what had happened. The only thing that might work was if he, Tommy Thomas, did the noble thing and found Diamond Houston himself. If he convinced her that everything that happened to her had been inadvertent and then handed her to Jesse on a silver platter. It was the only thing that came to mind…and it made him sick.

“Look, honey,” the club owner growled, “I’ve got thirty-three girls just like you already lined up for auditions. I haven’t got enough time in the day to listen to half. I’m sorry, but for now there’s just no spot for you here.” He shrugged at the look of disappointment on the tall blonde’s face and added, “But try me again later. You never know.”

Diamond pasted a smile on her face, shook his hand, and left, trying not to think about her dwindling savings. Even living in a less than advisable part of town had cost more than she’d imagined, especially since nothing was coming in to replenish her funds.

Winter was here. In less than a month it would be Christmas. She blinked away tears, trying not to think of how lonely she was…lonely for Queen and Lucky, afraid that she’d never see them again. How could they contact her when she no longer lived with Jesse? He was their only link with each other, and reconnecting with him was out of the question.

The hole in her life that leaving Jesse had caused was, at times, unbearable. The only way she was able to function at all was simply not to think about him, and that was fast becoming an impossibility. Their single on his new album was into its second week at number one on the country chart. Her bitterness at its success overwhelmed her.

She turned the street corner, intent on heading back to her apartment. The weather was turning ugly and so was her mood. The only thing she could do was get inside and into a better frame of mind. The street on which she normally walked was blockaded. From what she could see, it looked as if someone had driven a car down half a block of storefronts last night.

Muttering beneath her breath at having to go two blocks out of her way to get home, she took a street she’d never walked before. She hadn’t gone far when it became all too apparent that she’d definitely walked onto the wild side of Nashville. She stopped and looked behind her, half expecting to see someone step out of a doorway and pull a gun. Shivering, partly from cold and partly from nerves, she increased her stride.

She passed two vacant buildings and was just about to walk past an empty lot when she stopped and stared at a bar of sorts, set off to the far side of the lot. Its back door faced the street in what one could only call a mistake in construction. The marketing strategy of such a blunder was laughable, and it was probably the only establishment in Nashville where she hadn’t applied for work. She cursed herself softly as she realized she was even considering the possibility.

She would have to be pretty desperate to walk in there. Then a gust of wind caught her coat and billowed beneath it, sending a chill up her legs and through her backbone. She was just about there.

Before she could talk herself out of the impulse, Diamond found herself hurrying around the building in search of an entrance. She found it!

Dooley’s had wasted no money on advertising. The owner had simply painted his name on the door front and eliminated the need for a separate sign altogether. The lettering did nothing for the door or for Dooley’s name. The
D
was too large, and someone had not planned well, for there was no room for the s at the end of the name. It had been scribbled on the side of the wall as an afterthought.

Diamond had to grin, and then she realized it was the first time in weeks that she’d genuinely felt like smiling. She grabbed the doorknob and turned. Maybe it was a sign, she thought as she entered, and then instantly rejected the notion. If this place was meant to be a sign, it had to be a sign on the road leading to hell. It was a mess.

Weeks-old smoke hovered in the dusky interior. The place was a carbon copy of Whitelaw’s Bar in Cradle Creek. Perfect, she thought.
I’m right back to square one.

A long, empty bar framed the far end of the room. No more than a dozen tables and mismatched chairs sat between it and the front door. Two customers argued quietly at a table in the corner while a man polished glasses behind the bar. He looked up in surprise at her entrance and then stopped what he was doing and watched in shock as Diamond walked toward him.

Even beneath the long denim duster she was wearing he could see her shape. Her boots were scuffed and her jeans were faded, but they were clean, and he caught a glimpse of a soft blue sweater beneath her coat.

Dooley Hopper stared. He’d seen plenty of beautiful women in his sixty-three years, but none like her had ever made their way into his place. He rubbed absently at a spot on a glass, and then set it down just to have something to do with his hands. He waited for her to speak, fully expecting her to ask for directions or for change to make a phone call.

Dooley was a hard man and in no mood for nonsense. It had been three years since he’d been able to make ends meet, and if something didn’t change for the better soon, he’d meet his end in bankruptcy court.

“My name is Diamond Houston,” she said. “I was wondering if you were hiring right now. I need a job.”

Dooley swept his hands into the air and looked around at the near-empty bar, fully intending to laugh. He dropped his towel on the counter and leaned forward to tell her to get lost, but the look on her face stopped him cold. He’d wonder later whether it had been her look of expectation or the way she braced herself for the blow to fall, because Dooley Hopper heard himself asking if she had any experience. And when she told him seven years slinging drinks in a place just like this, he heard himself asking her when she could start.

Diamond took a long, shuddering breath. For a moment, she was afraid to relax for fear her legs would give out. But years of hiding her feelings won out. Instead she handed him her coat and asked for a broom.

Dooley took the coat, pointed to a closet, and then watched in fascinated shock as Diamond Houston entered his life.

Before the week was out, word had gotten around that Dooley Hopper had gone and hired himself a waitress. When the locals stopped laughing at what they were calling “Dooley’s folly,” they had to satisfy their curiosity and come see for themselves.

It only took one look at the tall, leggy blonde and the braided rope of hair hanging down her back to see why Dooley had lost his mind. And when they saw her generous curves beneath the tight blue jeans and the soft flannel shirt she wore, they began to wonder why Dooley hadn’t thought of this years ago. If they were lucky enough to see her smile and watch the lights come on behind those wide green eyes, they went away talking about the woman in Dooley Hopper’s bar.

Dooley’s recriminations against himself had lasted less than a week. After that, he’d begun to believe that it had been foresight on his part and not fortune that had brought Diamond to him. For the first time in three years, his receipts totaled more than his overhead. For the first time in three years, Dooley had a reason to hope.

And for the first time in the long weeks since Diamond had left Jesse, so did she.

“Now, Diamond,” Dooley growled as he tried to weasel out of the corner into which she had backed him. “You’re a damned good waitress. Why do you want to go and spoil things? What makes you think you can sing? Had any experience?”

She smiled. And he remembered asking her that same question the day she’d walked into his bar.

“You just let me sing tonight, and I’ll prove it,” she said.

“But honey, it’s Saturday,” Dooley argued. “If you bomb, it might turn away the first good run of customers I’ve had in years.” And then he flushed as he realized what he’d just admitted.

“I know it’s Saturday. That’s why I want to sing. You don’t think I’m going to waste myself on Walt and Deever, do you?”

Her gesture toward the two drunks who always occupied the corner table in Dooley’s made him smile. He shrugged, knowing when he was licked. Hell, he told himself, she had been calling the shots ever since her arrival. Why stop now?

“Okay,” he said. “But don’t come crying on my shoulder if they laugh you out of the place.”

“I won’t,” she promised. “But if I start to draw in bigger crowds, I get a raise, okay?”

Dooley stared. And then he laughed and wrapped her in a bear hug. “Girl! You’re one for the books, and that’s a fact. You make Dooley’s famous, and you can name your price.”

Diamond clapped her hands and smiled. “I need to takeoff early.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, hell. I give you an inch, you take a mile.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Diamond said. “I need to go make the rounds of some pawnshops and find myself a good used guitar.”

“If that’s what you need, go dig in that closet inside my office.”

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I had a band in here once. Damned bunch got into a fight and broke up the place. They couldn’t pay damages so I took their instruments instead. Kept meaning to sell them, just never got around to it. I think there’s a guitar or two in there, along with a set of drums. Help yourself.”

She grinned. “You never cease to amaze me, Dooley.”

“I amaze myself sometimes,” he said. “Now get. I’ve got to order extra supplies if I’m gonna have a
live performance
here tonight.”

Diamond left him dialing the phone as she headed for his office. She opened the closet with trepidation and then gasped in delight as she pulled a guitar from a dusty case. A Gibson. And from the looks of it, one that had been well loved until the owner had been forced to give it up. She slipped the strap over her shoulder and strummed the strings, then winced. It badly needed tuning. And from the looks of it, restringing too. But that was something that could be fixed.