running?” Jared asked, interrupting her thoughts.
“When I was sixteen. One of the schools I attended had a track team and Mama and I actually stayed in town long enough for me to join it.” Only to be told to pack up again two days after their first meet.
“You do it to maintain that great ass?”
“No. I do it for my singing.”
He gave her a blank look and she explained, “The lungs are a bellows, Hamilton. Running improves my wind, which improves my ability to sustain a note.” She studied him from beneath her lashes. “So you think I have a great ass?”
To her surprise, dull color climbed his neck to flush his jaw and cheeks. “Hey, I’m a red-blooded man. I’ve noticed your butt in a, you know, general sort of way.”
“Boys will be boys,” she agreed dryly. And just like that, she found herself no longer pissed at him. The not quite disguised discomfort in a man she would have sworn didn’t have a self-conscious bone in his body reminded her of the boy she’d once adored.
Besides, what had started out feeling like one big slap in the face—Jared’s determination to keep tabs on her and his vow to deliver her to her concerts—was actually turning into something of a godsend. This game of cat-and-mouse they played kept her from trying to rewrite her history with Mama over and over again.
Who woulda thunk it? Truth was, though, she couldn’t remember the last occasion spent offstage when she’d had this good a time. He was kind of stimulating company and it amused her to keep him on his toes.
Maybe that was why, when he asked out of the blue what her mother had done to make P.J. fire her, she didn’t blow him off the way she had that day in the Texas panhandle.
“She cooked the books.”
He stared at her. “She embezzled from you?”
Raw pain swamped her and she really wished she had blown him off. But she shrugged as if it were no big deal and dipped her chin in assent.
“That bitch. ”
She’d always hated it when he’d bad-mouthed Jodeen. It was one thing for her to do so but something else entirely for anyone else to take a shot, and her jaw automatically shot up. But she resisted getting in his face about it. Because he was right. Much as she hated to admit it, he was one hundred percent correct.
Mama was a bitch. She likely always had been, but P.J. had refused to let herself see it.
Still, she hoped like hell her sorrow over acknowledging it now didn’t show. Climbing to her feet, she gathered her CamelBak. “Well, gee,” she said as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “This’s been swell. But our little whatchamacallit—our truce thingie—”
“Détente?”
“Yeah, that. Is over. Don’t go thinking this changes anything. And you really don’t want to start expecting I’ll make things painless for you between now and the start of my tour. Because I won’t. I’m still unhappy about having a guard dog. I’m not about to roll over and make your job easier.” And if she had to stifle a silly little pang of regret, that would be her secret.
He yawned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
His boredom shot her moment of remorse to hell, and she almost smiled in gratitude. “Just as long as you know.” She started back toward the hotel entrance. “I don’t want to hear no whining that you weren’t warned.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Headline, Modern Twang Weekly :
Priscilla Jayne Sighted Playing Small-Town Bars
Across the West
W HEN THE MAN OPENED his mailbox to discover a manila envelope from the clipping service he’d recently subscribed to, he came the closest to smiling that he had in a long time. “Praise the Lord,” he murmured and marched back up the path to his house with a brisker stride than usual. Pleasure suffused him at the prospect of reading about Priscilla Jayne. He admired everything he knew of her.
Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. He didn’t approve of her song about drinking and partying that was getting so much airplay these days. But
“When I was sixteen. One of the schools I attended had a track team and Mama and I actually stayed in town long enough for me to join it.” Only to be told to pack up again two days after their first meet.
“You do it to maintain that great ass?”
“No. I do it for my singing.”
He gave her a blank look and she explained, “The lungs are a bellows, Hamilton. Running improves my wind, which improves my ability to sustain a note.” She studied him from beneath her lashes. “So you think I have a great ass?”
To her surprise, dull color climbed his neck to flush his jaw and cheeks. “Hey, I’m a red-blooded man. I’ve noticed your butt in a, you know, general sort of way.”
“Boys will be boys,” she agreed dryly. And just like that, she found herself no longer pissed at him. The not quite disguised discomfort in a man she would have sworn didn’t have a self-conscious bone in his body reminded her of the boy she’d once adored.
Besides, what had started out feeling like one big slap in the face—Jared’s determination to keep tabs on her and his vow to deliver her to her concerts—was actually turning into something of a godsend. This game of cat-and-mouse they played kept her from trying to rewrite her history with Mama over and over again.
Who woulda thunk it? Truth was, though, she couldn’t remember the last occasion spent offstage when she’d had this good a time. He was kind of stimulating company and it amused her to keep him on his toes.
Maybe that was why, when he asked out of the blue what her mother had done to make P.J. fire her, she didn’t blow him off the way she had that day in the Texas panhandle.
“She cooked the books.”
He stared at her. “She embezzled from you?”
Raw pain swamped her and she really wished she had blown him off. But she shrugged as if it were no big deal and dipped her chin in assent.
“That bitch. ”
She’d always hated it when he’d bad-mouthed Jodeen. It was one thing for her to do so but something else entirely for anyone else to take a shot, and her jaw automatically shot up. But she resisted getting in his face about it. Because he was right. Much as she hated to admit it, he was one hundred percent correct.
Mama was a bitch. She likely always had been, but P.J. had refused to let herself see it.
Still, she hoped like hell her sorrow over acknowledging it now didn’t show. Climbing to her feet, she gathered her CamelBak. “Well, gee,” she said as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “This’s been swell. But our little whatchamacallit—our truce thingie—”
“Détente?”
“Yeah, that. Is over. Don’t go thinking this changes anything. And you really don’t want to start expecting I’ll make things painless for you between now and the start of my tour. Because I won’t. I’m still unhappy about having a guard dog. I’m not about to roll over and make your job easier.” And if she had to stifle a silly little pang of regret, that would be her secret.
He yawned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
His boredom shot her moment of remorse to hell, and she almost smiled in gratitude. “Just as long as you know.” She started back toward the hotel entrance. “I don’t want to hear no whining that you weren’t warned.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Headline, Modern Twang Weekly :
Priscilla Jayne Sighted Playing Small-Town Bars
Across the West
W HEN THE MAN OPENED his mailbox to discover a manila envelope from the clipping service he’d recently subscribed to, he came the closest to smiling that he had in a long time. “Praise the Lord,” he murmured and marched back up the path to his house with a brisker stride than usual. Pleasure suffused him at the prospect of reading about Priscilla Jayne. He admired everything he knew of her.
Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. He didn’t approve of her song about drinking and partying that was getting so much airplay these days. But
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