Billy snorted. “Ethan,” he called. “You’ve played here a hundred times. When did I start paying you?”

  “Are you paying me?” Ethan called back. “It’s so little I guess I hadn’t really noticed.”

  Billy snapped his bar towel in Ethan’s direction and turned around, grumbling something about the world being full of ingrates. From opposite ends of the bar, Ethan and AnnieLee laughed together, and the next thing she knew he was standing beside her, and his handsome face was like a light that was too bright to look at.

  “You were great—again,” he said. “Your voice sounds even better when it’s not coming through Billy’s crappy amp.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She kept her tone cool but perfectly polite.

  “I won’t offer to buy you a drink this time,” he said. “But I’ve got these French fries…”

  He shoved a steaming basket toward her. AnnieLee’s mouth watered and her stomach clenched when she smelled the oil and salt. She glanced up and saw him smiling at her.

  But she couldn’t let herself. She shoved her hands with their dirty fingernails deep into her pockets. “I have to go,” she said.

  Then she scooped up her money and stalked toward the door, stubborn and hungry, full of nothing but stupid pride.

  Chapter

  13

  Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” Ruthanna whispered as she stood barefoot in her mammoth closet, flipping through a rack of glittering gowns. Was she in an emerald-green mood, or a scarlet one? Did she want short or long? Fitted, flowing—or perhaps both?

  Maya had carefully painted Ruthanna’s nails a rich red, and Ruthanna herself had bronzed, highlighted, and tinted every inch of her still-lovely face; now came the vexing task of picking out her dress for the annual Book Garden gala and fundraiser.

  Though Ruthanna didn’t miss the army of makeup artists and hairdressers who’d fussed over her for decades, she did slightly mourn the loss of her personal stylist, who’d often seemed to know what Ruthanna felt like wearing before she knew it herself. But retired stars shouldn’t require stylists, Ruthanna felt, or the Secret Service level of security detail she’d once employed. She was trying to keep things simple these days.

  And so, in the spirit of that simplicity—and because the proverbial clock was loudly ticking—she decided to pluck a gown from its hanger and call the job done.

  “Voilà,” she said. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”

  The dress her fingers had selected at random was a snow-white sheath with intricate swirls of sparkling crystals, tiny pearls, and silver beads that cascaded like a shimmering, wintry waterfall from neckline to hem.

  The dress was perfect, she realized: glamorous but not over-the-top, and body-hugging enough to help her stick to that infuriating low-carb diet she’d committed to for a month.

  Carefully she stepped into the dress, feeling its cool satin slide up her skin and settle onto her narrow shoulders. With all the beading, it must have weighed seven pounds at least. Next she slipped her feet into tiny high-heeled shoes, and finally she put on Jack’s gorgeous, outrageous earrings. She gave herself a quick final glance in the mirror—she now sparkled as if she was made of ice—and then she hurried downstairs to wait for her car and driver.

  Her phone buzzed with a text from Ethan as she stepped onto her porch. Her feet hurt already.

  Gotta come 2 Cat’s Paw 2night she’s here

  Ruthanna rolled her eyes and hit Delete. She was busy tonight. Hell, as far as Ethan’s girl singer was concerned, she was busy until the end of time.

  The white limo pulled up, and bald, big-shouldered Lucas got out to open the door for her. He’d been her driver for nearly three decades, and he doubled as her bodyguard when the need arose.

  She was silent as they drove, preparing herself for the only kind of public appearance she made anymore. Though she might have wished herself still at home, curled up in silk pajamas with a glass of wine and a good novel, she believed in giving back, in showing up for good causes. The Book Garden was created to put books in the hands of needy kids, and that was a mission she took very seriously.

  Thirty minutes later, Ruthanna was mentally running through her speech one last time as she minced her way to her table near the front of the ballroom. She hadn’t picked her most comfortable pair of shoes, that was for sure.

  Jack Holm was already sitting down and halfway through his second old-fashioned. He looked up at Ruthanna and smiled.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” she said as she sank into the chair across from him. “You hate these things.”

  “I couldn’t pass up a chance to see you,” her former manager said. “Though this coat and tie is choking me.”

  She immediately recognized the line as one from Waylon’s “Luckenbach, Texas.”

  “You look great,” she said, which was true. Jack had aged in the last couple of years, but he was still handsome. Distinguished-looking, too, with his bespoke suit and hand-tooled boots, his head of silver hair, and his hideously expensive Patek Philippe. And, she couldn’t help but note, with his newly bare ring finger.

  Sometimes she teased him about how far he’d come from where he’d been when they first met. In 1979 he wore a dented Stetson and played slide guitar with a socket from Sears on his pinkie while singing backup in the Tootsie’s house band. But he’d quit performing after only a few years, and he’d never looked back. He preferred a desk to the stage, a phone to a mic.

  He took a sip of his drink. “What’s black and white and red all over?”

  “Any number of things,” Ruthanna said, “as I recall.” Her phone buzzed with another text from Ethan.

  You gotta see her

  really

  Her fingers were poised to write him back: Quit it.

  “Ahem,” Jack said.

  So she hit Delete and looked up at him again. “I hate guessing—you know that. Just tell me the punch line.”

  “A bunch of Nashville bigwigs in too-tight tuxes,” he said. “Doing their best to breathe. Is it hot in here or what? I’m sweating like a sinner in church. Those earrings look dynamite, by the way. I assume my thank-you card’s in the mail.”

  She laughed. “Oh, definitely.”

  “I know you’re lying, but it doesn’t matter,” Jack said. “I don’t need your gratitude. I need your attendance at the Country Music Awards. Don’t say no! Just…think about it.”

  A waiter appeared at her shoulder and before either he or Ruthanna could say anything, Jack said, “Bubbles, if you please. The lady would like bubbles. Preferably a grand cru.”

  As he spoke, Ruthanna noticed that he had missed a spot shaving, and there was a tiny patch of salt-and-pepper beard—mostly salt—near the edge of his jaw. She touched her own cheek wistfully. Whatever time was doing to good old Jack, it was also doing to her. But at least she had dyes and paints to cover it up.

  Quit deleting my texts flashed on her screen.

  Ruthanna almost laughed aloud. How’d Ethan even know? She tucked her phone into her clutch.

  The other table guests arrived right after her champagne, people from Jack’s office plus his well-coiffed niece and nephew. Ruthanna hadn’t wanted to invite anyone, so she smiled and nodded and picked at her dinner, a salad scattered with flower blossoms and a fillet of salmon balanced on a mound of buttery potatoes that she wasn’t supposed to eat.

  She took the stage during the dessert course and gritted her teeth through the laudatory introduction, which went on at great length about her achievements: eight Grammys, a National Medal of Arts, “one of the most successful musicians in the history of humankind,” blah blah blah blah. Then she made her way to the podium, feeling her heart fluttering quickly in her chest.

  She’d been in the spotlight so many times that she shouldn’t have been nervous. But it was different to speak than it was to sing; she felt like a bird forced to walk when its job was to fly.

  But, she reminded herself, retirement had been her idea.

  She gave her speech quickly, from memory, barely glancing at her notes. It was short, sweet, and simple.

  “If time is money, my friends,” she said in conclusion, “just think of all I’ve saved you by not rambling on and on. So be generous tonight, please, and help us give books to kids who need them. Who crave them. And whose lives will be forever changed by them. Because books, my friends, are true magic bound between two covers. Thank you.”

  The audience clapped wildly, and at every table she could see checkbooks pulled from purses and pockets. She was about to make a joke about the number of zeros she wanted to see people writing when a deep-throated yell came from the back of the room—a loud, insistent shout that sent a spike of fear up her spine.

  She looked to the wings where Lucas stood waiting, and she wondered if she needed to call him out for protection.

  And then she realized what the voice was saying. It wasn’t a threat. It was a plea.

  “Sing! Sing! Sing!”

  Within seconds, the entire room was chanting with him, stomping their feet and clapping.

  Ruthanna stood there, stunned. Back when she used to perform, her audience would clap for a quarter of an hour to get her to come back out and sing one four-minute encore. And she’d loved it, she really had, even when she was exhausted, body and soul, from performing night after night to thousands of adoring strangers.

  But now she straightened her shoulders and motioned to Lucas, who came onstage to offer her his arm and lead her away.

  It wasn’t so much for them to ask her for a song.

  At the same time, though, it was far more than she could give.

  Chapter

  14

  Safely ensconced in the back seat of the limo, Ruthanna kicked off her masochistic heels and breathed a sigh of relief. She’d failed to say goodbye to Jack—or anyone else, for that matter—so she pulled her phone from her Swarovski clutch to text him that she was sorry for dashing off. Then she checked her notifications and saw four new texts, two missed calls, and a voicemail, all from Ethan Blake. Wincing a little, she pressed Play.

  “I know you hate it when I beg. So you leave me no choice: I’m going to have to pray,” he said. The sound on the call was terrible, full of bar noise and cell static. “Oh, Ruthanna,” Ethan went on, “Saint of Southern Sopranos, will you take pity upon this poor wretch and get your divine, sublime self to your hole-in-the-wall drinking establishment, such that you may hear the dulcet tones of one AnnieLee Keyes? Please, oh rare, remarkable Ruthanna, hear me in my time of need—”

  She clicked off, smiling in spite of herself. His prayer would’ve sounded a lot more convincing if he hadn’t been choking back laughter the whole way through.

  Ethan was funny, though, and Ruthanna had quickly developed a soft spot for him, partly because he thought he was so tough. One of these days she was going to tell him that a bullet wound and a Purple Heart didn’t make him hard as nails. They made him just like everyone else. Sometimes you could see the scars and sometimes you couldn’t. But everybody had them.

  Her phone vibrated again, and she nearly threw it out the window. He wasn’t ever going to leave her alone, was he? She could be undressed and lying on her Beautyrest Black, listening to the meditation app Maya had downloaded for her, and he’d still be pinging her about that girl, no doubt some fresh-faced, wide-eyed little idiot with a decent voice and the ability to string three chords together.

  Of course she’d be beautiful. But as far as Ruthanna was concerned, all young people were beautiful. They just had all that collagen.

  You should see her, he’d texted.

  Not kidding

  Voice like a celestial being

  Bar sink’s overflowing

  She sighed and tucked her phone back into her bag. Billy could obviously handle the plumbing issue, if there even was one. She wouldn’t put it past Ethan to use any weapon in his persuasive arsenal, including outright invention.

  She was tired, but the champagne she’d drunk still fizzed pleasantly in her head. How awful would going to the bar really be? Billy made a mean martini, and she could treat herself to one.

  She leaned forward. “Actually, Lucas, take me to the Cat’s Paw, please.”

  “You got it, Ms. Ryder,” he said. After so many years, he still insisted on calling her that.

  When Billy saw Ruthanna come in, his eyes went wide, and his mouth fell open like a trapdoor. She held her finger to her lips and quickly slid over to a small empty table that was almost hidden behind the bar. She didn’t want to make a scene if she could help it.

  The smell of the Cat’s Paw—the funk of old beer, fryer grease, and Bar Keepers Friend—worked like a time machine, and for an instant Ruthanna was her younger self again, cocky and scared at the same time, aching to take Nashville by storm. The Cat’s Paw was the first place she’d ever sung. Five years later, when she hit number one with the gut-punching “Don’t Lay the Blame on My Pillow,” she’d bought the place in celebration. She’d kept it exactly the same.

  But she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been here. Like her other properties, the Cat’s Paw seemed to run itself—which meant, in fact, that she had responsible people taking care of it for her. Ruthanna simply signed the checks and deposited whatever meager profits there were. Though she well knew the value of a dollar, money was far from her primary concern. She had more than she could ever spend.

  Billy hurried over to her table, still looking like he thought he might be hallucinating. “Are you gonna sing?” he whispered. “You look like it.”

  She kicked her shoes off for the second time that night, thinking she just might leave them there under the table for good. “They asked me that at the last place. The answer is a most emphatic no.” She paused. “Is the bar sink working okay?”

  “Huh?” Billy said. Then, “Um, yeah. Far as I know.”

  “I figured.”

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

  “Tanqueray martini,” she said. “You can glance at the vermouth if you need to, but don’t bother touching it. Lemon twist. Please.”

  “You got it,” he said, and practically sprinted away.

  The bar was crowded, but the stage was empty and ready for its next act. Maybe it’d be Ethan’s angel, or maybe it’d be some other hopeful—it really didn’t matter to Ruthanna. She wasn’t here for the music; she was here, however reluctantly, for Ethan Blake.

  She couldn’t see him from where she sat, which was just as well. He’d sniff her out eventually, but she wasn’t ready to admit he’d won this round.

  Not yet.

  Chapter

  15

  As Ruthanna waited for her drink, a middle-aged cowboy climbed onstage, tipped his hat, and proceeded to entertain the crowd with a solid Keith Urban imitation. By the time her martini arrived, with its bright slice of lemon floating in ice-cold gin, he’d been replaced by redheaded twins on guitar and mandolin. They played a couple of old-timey numbers that sounded almost but not quite familiar, like the phantom B side to one of the famous Bristol Sessions records.

  It was obviously open-mic night at the Cat’s Paw, which meant that everyone and her in-laws had come out to get their six minutes in the spotlight. And if Ruthanna had known this in advance, she’d have thought twice about showing up.

  “Boo!” said a voice right near her ear.

  Ruthanna socked Ethan in the arm without even looking. “Blake, don’t scare a lady,” she said. “Sit down and have a drink.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Where’s your crush? Don’t tell me she’s immune to your charms.”

  He started to jokingly protest, but suddenly his face got serious. “Shh,” he said. “She’s on.”

  Ruthanna turned and saw a small, slender young woman standing alone in the center of the stage. Her head was bowed, and the lights shone on her dark, tousled hair. Her posture was tense, wary, as if one loud noise would make her bolt like a rabbit.

  Oh, Lordy, Ruthanna thought. This is going to be painful.

  But then the young woman straightened up, and the hair fell away from her face, and Ruthanna saw that she was beautiful, with big eyes and high cheekbones and a rosebud mouth. She looked as perfect and innocent as one of those Madame Alexander dolls Ruthanna’s mother had collected.

  Ruthanna started laughing deep in her throat. “Good Lord, Blake, that girl’s so gorgeous she could sing like a barn cat in heat and folks’ll be calling her the next Maria Callas,” she said.

  “Shh,” Ethan said. “Just you wait.”

  “Don’t shh me, soldier boy,” Ruthanna warned. Half a dozen choice insults were right on the tip of her tongue, but another glance at Ethan told her that they’d be wasted. Ethan Blake had neither eyes nor ears for anyone but that dark-haired woman on the stage.

  “It’s nice to be back here,” she was saying. “I’m AnnieLee Keyes, and I’m kinda new in town.” She tapped on the beat-up instrument she held in her lap. “This here is the Cat’s Paw, um, community guitar. It’s got old strings and slippery pegs, so it doesn’t always like to stay in tune. But the two of us’ll do our best for you tonight.”

  People chuckled, and quite a few of them clapped enthusiastically. Either they knew her already, Ruthanna thought, or she was charming them real quick.

  As AnnieLee began to strum her intro, Ruthanna could hear how dull the strings sounded, and she quickly decided to get a better instrument sent to the bar tomorrow. She was wondering whether she should get a Martin or a Gibson—or maybe a Taylor?—when the girl opened her mouth and started singing. And Ruthanna sat up and started paying attention.

  Dark night, bright future

  Like the phoenix from the ashes, I shall rise again

  The girl’s voice was a honey-colored soprano, clear and luminous. Ruthanna forgot about her tired, aching feet—and even her excellent drink—as she listened, mesmerized. Where did this girl come from? AnnieLee Keyes looked barely older than a teenager, but she sang as though she’d lived for ninety-nine years and seen tragedy in each one of them.