From Here to There (21 page)

 Wes's question and repeat of it jarred her away from her daydreaming. "What?" she asked, wanting to be sure she understood the question.

 "You like to dance?"

 "We love it," Phillip answered for her.

 "Are you sure you aren't too tired?" Helene asked. His face looked drawn. She knew how early he'd risen and the kind of day he'd put in. He had to be tired.

 "I'm fine."

 "Then we're on," Wes said grinning broadly.

 After dinner, they walked the short distance to the old dance hall, the band already loud and blaring from the back of the room, three couples gyrating to the music and more milling around. Helene received several appreciative looks from the men standing at the bar as they entered.

 Finding a table, Wes pointed Phillip toward the bar and directed him to round up beers for them. Helene demurred and said she'd prefer a Coke. She then watched Phillip make his way between dancers, his lean-hipped walk as sexy and appealing as any man's she'd ever seen, she found it impossible not to think back to the last time she and he had danced. It seemed years and yet had only been weeks. The atmosphere in Chico was wildly different. Instead of evening gowns, the people were dressed in a wide range of styles with cowboy hats, plaid or gaudily decorated cowboy shirts, boots and jeans being most popular. Would Phillip ask her to dance here? Did she want him to?

 The music from the cowboy band twanged as the lyrics told of the pain of lost love, bar room women, and cowboy lovers. She would have given a lot to read Phillip's thoughts as he walked back, drinks precariously balanced in his hands.

 Before Wes could ask Helene to dance, Phillip had the glasses on the table and had reached out for her hand. "I think you owe me this one," he said huskily in her ear as she found herself out on the dance floor in his strong arms.

 "I do?" she bantered, wondering what it would be like to flirt with Phillip. Their courtship had been so rushed. There had been so little play.

 "More than a dance," he murmured in her ear as he pulled her against his muscular body, the tweed of his jacket against her cheek, the music slow and seductive. When had it changed? "You owe me a wedding night."

 "How do you figure that?"

 "I didn't get one, did I?"

 "No, but I didn't think that disappointed you all that much."

 His arms tightened. "You were wrong. Wrong about so much, Miss Helene."

 "Miss Helene?"

 "Isn't that what your cowboy hero would call you? A nice little schoolmarm like you."

 "And you're the cowboy hero?" she teased.

 "Of course. You don't think dull, old Wes fills the bill do you?"

 "Why not?"

 "Well, for one thing, he's always talking about real estate. You sure he's not a salesman?"

 She laughed, amazed at the lightness of Phillip's tone. He ran his hand down her back, drawing her more firmly against his own hard length. It was as though she could feel every throb of muscle in his body, and it seemed to be turning her body into liquid fire. There was a pulsing deep within her, something that responded to a rhythm in Phillip that had nothing to do with the music.

 "How could you think I didn't want you?" he asked, his voice little more than a whisper. "I want you so bad I can't sleep at night."

 She tried to lift her head to look up at his eyes, to read the truth of his words, but his hand was tangled in her hair.

 "I like your hair like this, shorter, free. It’s meant for a man to stroke it, feel it against his cheek."

 If she'd been a cat, she'd have purred; instead, she tightened her arms around his waist.

 "I didn't say enough of those words, did I?" he murmured against her ear. "Didn't tell you often enough how beautiful you were, how much I wanted to take off your blouse, caress your--"

 "Phillip," she interrupted, embarrassed that he'd say such things on a dance floor where anyone might hear.

 She could feel his smile against her forehead. "Too much?" he whispered, his lips caressing where they had rested.

 "I just find your mood hard to understand," she said, knowing she shouldn't complain. She had wanted such words but never thought to hear them from Phillip.

 Before he could respond, Wes was tapping his shoulder to cut in. Helene knew her eyes must have looked dazed as Wes shifted her into his arms. She felt a coldness and even Wes holding her in his arms couldn't restore the warmth.

 When they came back to the table, Phillip's eyes were on her, their cool blue depths seeming to be drawing her into him.

 Obviously feeling third man out, Wes slumped in his chair. He was sipping on his third beer. His smile brightened. "I ever tell you folks I can sing?"

 Helene looked at him trying to decide from where that had come.

 "Country?" Phillip asked.

 "Whatever the band's playing," Wes bragged.

 "Karaoke?" Helene suggested without much real interest. She couldn't understand why it mattered whether or not Wes sung, but she would humor him with a pretend interest.

 "No ma'am. None of that canned music for me. I play guitar and sing." He grinned broadly at them and added, "You don't believe me."

 "We believe you," Phillip said with a faint smile as he lit a cigarette.

 "Nope, I can see it in your faces. You don't. Well, I'll have to prove it to you." He rose quickly and headed for the band.

 "He wouldn't..." Helene said, eyes widening with disbelief.

 "It looks to me like he would," Phillip responded grinning more broadly.

 The band had just finished up a song as Wes pulled on the arm of their lead guitarist, talked for a moment, then walked to the back of the stage and picked up a guitar from behind the drums. The leader came to the microphone.

 "We got ourselves a little treat here." He put his hand over the microphone, asked Wes a question, then said, "Wes Carlson, one of your own local boys, is going to favor us with a song."

 Wes came to the microphone. He strummed a couple of chords on the guitar, one of which seemed to Helene to be slightly off key. "This is an old Merle Haggard tune,
The Fightin' Side of Me,"
he said. "Hope you remember it."

 Although Helene had never heard the song, she knew almost instantly that it was not being performed well. Merle Haggard would never have become the major country star he had been if he'd sung any song the way Wes was attempting to sing this. Whoever had told him he could sing was clearly no friend. On the other hand, Helene thought with a smile, maybe Wes, with his over abundance of confidence, had needed no one to tell him anything and had decided it for himself. She grinned more broadly.

 When Wes finished the song, his last notes rising dramatically where everything in Helene told her they should have fallen, maybe even sunk, there was a smattering of polite applause from the audience.

 The lead singer for the band came to the microphone. "Hey there folks, this ain't as easy as you think. Any of you want to get up here and give it a go?"

 Wes came forward again to a few groans. "My friend, Phil Drummond, now he can really sing. I bet if you ask him, he'll come on up here and show us all how to do it."

 Phillip grimaced as the crowd broke into a combination of laughter and applause.

 "I mean it. He's near a professional. Come on up, Phil. Show these country boys how a city boy can sing a song."

 Helene leaned toward Phillip. "Don't let him bait you," she ordered sure that Wes had planned the whole thing to embarrass Phillip.

 Phillip glanced at her. "You think I can't do it?" he asked stubbing out his cigarette.

 "It isn't a matter of could you but more why should you?"

 Phillip thought of a country song he did know. It had been a pop hit but might be country enough to satisfy the crowd at Chico. Making up his mind, he stood and smiled down at her. "Maybe to tell you all the things I should have said but didn't."

 "There is no need for you to make a fool out of yourself just because Wes did," Helene hissed but to no avail. He gave her one long look, then made his way to the stage.

 When he got there, Wes was smirking. Phillip looked at the instruments. "I've played electric guitar more than acoustic." One was produced for him. Phillip took a couple of moments adjusting it, listening to the distinctive twange. He walked to the microphone. "Hope you folks'll be patient with me," he drawled. "It's been awhile. I'll be lucky if I can even remember the words. This song's been around awhile too, but I think it's worth one more round." He smiled at Helene. "This is for my wife."

 He strummed a rich mellow C chord, followed by a few licks that told the audience he was not an amateur at the guitar. Opening his mouth for the first verse, Phillip felt almost as much relief as he imagined the audience did, when his voice came out right where he'd wanted it. It had been a lot of years. Now, if he could just keep his fingers where they belonged on the frets of the guitar, he'd be all right.

 "It's knowing that your door is always open and your path is free to walk." The rich chords of
Gentle on My Mind
accented his words, as he brought out the melody in a way that came back to him more fully as he sang. Grinning he thought with satisfaction even Glen Campbell would have been proud of him. The band joined in when they saw where he was going with it as the audience broke into enthusiastic applause recognizing they were being given a treat instead of an endurance test.

 Helene sat enraptured by the music and in shock that it was flowing from the man who'd just publicly declared her to be his wife. Phillip's voice was full and vibrant, the deep notes pure and true, but the most beautiful part of the song was the expression on his face, the meaning he put in the words as he sung of a man who held a woman in a special place in his heart. His eyes never left Helene's as he sang. He was revealing himself, laying himself open in front of all these people.

 When Phillip concluded the song with, "... on the backroads by the rivers flowing gentle on my mind," the people broke into spontaneous applause and foot stomping.

 "Hey man, that was good," a voice called out.  A woman's voice could be heard purring, "You can walk my roads anytime, sweet thang." While another one laughed in agreement. Someone yelled, "How 'bout another song?"

 Phillip shook his head. As he walked back to the table, hands reached out to pat him on the shoulder or back.

 By the time he was sitting down, the band had begun playing a more recent country favorite, and several couples were up and dancing.

 "I didn't know you played and sang," Wes growled.

 "Well now," Phillip said, taking a sip of his beer, "if you didn't, how come you wanted me to get up there to do it?"

 The answer was obvious as Wes grimaced and subsided back in his chair.

 "It's something you never told me either," Helene said.

 Phillip grinned. "Dance with me, and I'll tell you the story." As he held her in his arms moving her around the room, he told her of teen years spent playing with a little garage band, of going from town to town, Elks Lodge to high school gymnasium, of the money that seemed to roll in after performances, of the dream it would be one way to get out of the life into which he had born, that it would lead to the big time. Then came his realization that while his talent was adequate, it wasn't good enough for that big time, and he had no ability to write songs which is where the real money lay. Only a college education was going to give him the tools to get what he needed—control over his life.