Sometimes a woman simply had to strut her stuff.

It had been a long time since she'd felt like strutting anything, but she felt attractive tonight. Smart. Stylish. Almost:sexy.

Showing her badge to the guard, she tested her wiles by making eye contact and shooting him a flirtatious smile. She got an appreciative grin in return.Oh, yeah. Striding through the arena's backstage area, she beamed.Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Nell Husner. Tour manager. Songwriter extraordinaire.

Last of the red-hot mamas.

Hey, who cared if the guard was eighty-five if he was a day?

Gigs that ran at the same venue for longer than one night were rare on this tour, but this was day two of one of them. That meant she didn't have to reinvent the wheel, which made her workload lighter than usual. She made her usual rounds and checked to see that everything was running with the same efficiency she'd set in place yesterday. But this evening felt as if it were more about having her ego stroked than doing her job. Because everywhere she went people complimented her on her makeover.

She could hardly wait to hear what Eddie would have to say about it.

He hadn't yet arrived when she strode onto the stage, but that was hardly news. Hank was there, however, and she crossed the stage toward him.

He had his butt perched against a wooden stool, his left leg stretched out and his foot in its scuffed boot planted firmly on the floor to brace himself. His right knee was raised to support his banjo, his boot heel hooked over one of the stool's higher rungs. Head bent over the instrument, he adjusted the second fret, his hat brim concealing all but his lower lip with its little underlying soul patch and the strong angle of his chin. Then almost as if he felt her scrutiny he looked up.

For an instant he merely gave her a blank look, as if she were a stranger who'd wandered onto the stage by mistake. Then slowly he straightened and rose from the stool. Without looking behind him, he reached back to set his banjo on the seat he'd just vacated.

"Holy shit," he breathed. "Nell? Is that you?" He watched her approach with intent eyes then walked a circle around her. Stopping when he came full loop to face her once again, he looked her over from head to toe, then reversed the journey back to her face."Wow." Then he shook his head, dull color climbing his throat. "Sorry. I'm not exactly Mr. Articulate. I must have been standing in the wrong line the day they handed out the silver tongues."

"Could have fooled me," she said as warmth radiated from her heart to her farthermost extremities. "Wowis exactly the way I'm feeling today. That makes you sound pretty darn eloquent to me."

He pursed his lips in a silent whistle. "You look fantastic. Well, you always look great. But now you're even:more so. I didn't realize you were so-" his hands sketched a vague outline of her curves "-uh, so:"

"Plump?" Some of her pleasure dimmed and for the first time she felt uncertain about her decision to give up her comfortable baggy clothing. "Fat?"

"No, are you kidding me? Lush. Man, God, so lush. Did you hang on to your old clothes? Because I think we oughtta cover you back up. You're giving me a heart attack here."

She grinned at him. "I decided I'm shooting for the red-hot-mama look." A zaftig red-hot mama perhaps, but still.

He nodded earnestly. "You hit your target."

"And you say you're not articulate," she scoffed, giving his stomach a poke. The rock-hard surface made her recall the look of him with his shirt off and, heat stealing up her face, she immediately retracted her fingers.

One of the extra musicians came over and asked her to settle a dispute about the seating arrangement in the horn section. When she got back from forging a compromise that pleased both parties, P.J. and Jared had arrived. They looked different than they had a short while ago, more content somehow, less edgy. But Nell barely had time to register the impression before Eddie strolled onto the stage and blew it clean out of her mind. Her heartbeat picked up its pace.

He greeted P.J. first as he always did and complimented her sleekly straight hair.

"I'm enjoying it while it lasts," P.J. said. "Which is pretty much until I have to wash it. I sure don't have the patience to wield a blow-dryer for the time it takes to get it this smooth myself."

Eddie turned to Nell. "And you, sweet thing. You're looking particularly radiant tonight. You lose some weight or something?"

Heart stilling, she simply stared at him for an instant.

"Christ, Brashear," Hank muttered. "Could yoube a bigger idiot?"

Omigawd,was her first clear thought.He doesn't know the first damn thing about me. She'd spent nearly two years mooning over Eddie Brashear, with his dirty-blond hair and his bedroom eyes, and he had obviously never paid her the slightest attention in return. Which really shouldn't catch her by surprise. She was a far cry from his usual barely legal blond bimbo.

"You are an idiot," P.J. agreed and Jared stepped up to Nell, sliding an arm around her shoulders and walking her away.

"What?" Eddie demanded in a baffled voice. "What's everyone so bent out of shape about?"

"Well, don't I feel like a fool," she murmured as Jared escorted her to the wings.

He squeezed her shoulders. "Don't. Hank called it right. The guy's a complete moron."

Stopping in the shadow of the left wing, she stepped back to look at him. "Well, you know, thinking back, it occurs to me that this isn't exactly a new phenomenon. I've simply ignored the fact that every compliment he's ever given me has been a variation of the same theme. So who's the real moron here, Jared?You're glowing andyou're radiant are clearly the currency he expends on the plump, pushing-forty crowd. I'm the one who read into it what I wanted it to mean. Every damn time."

He shrugged. "You can't choose who you fall in love with."

A sharp laugh that was dangerously near hysteria escaped her and she clapped her fingers to her mouth. She quickly got herself under control but her lips retained their crooked slant when she dropped her hand and looked up at him. "Well, here's the thing. Being in love would at least be a decent excuse. What I felt for Eddie suddenly feels more like some crush a none-too-deep thirteen-year-old might have developed for the cute new boy in school." She looked Jared in his pretty green eyes. "Which-and here's how much depth I've gained at thirty-eight-is now stone-cold dead."

"That's actually a good thing," he said without sentiment. "I'd hate to think of you carrying a torch for the guy. Because have you everlooked at the girls he hangs out with? They may be cute and they're certainly built. But if even half of them have graduated from jailbait, I'd be very surprised. And talking about deep, don't you have to wonder if that's because he knows that one conversation between him and a real woman would send her screaming into the night?"

"Come to think of it, I don't believe I ever have had an actual conversation with Eddie." She smiled crookedly. "I was too busy lusting from afar." Feeling much better, she reached out and gave his hand a squeeze. "Thanks, Jared. You're a nice man. I, on the other hand, am not so nice. And I do believe I'm going to spend the night writing a new song. One about a man that a goodhearted woman thought was a diamond, but who turned out to be nothing but a pretty piece of paste." A melody started tickling the back of her mind and she smiled. "I'll have to give it some thought, because I especially want this song to be one of P.J.'s top sellers."

"Whoa." His eyebrows rose. "Let me guess-so Eddie can play it night after night on the next tour and hear it getting airtime on the radio and never have a clue it's about him?"

She smiled at him approvingly. "You're much quicker than he is."

"And you are one diabolical woman. What will you name it?"

"I don't know. Carly Simon already took 'You're So Vain.'" She shrugged. "But I'll come up with something. 'Eddie's a Blind Jerk Jackass' is probably a little obvious. I think I'll shoot for something more along the lines of a little inside joke that only a few of my closest friends will understand."

Jared studied her for a moment then shook his head. "Remind me never to piss you off."

 

THE MAN SLAMMED THEtelephone receiver back in its cradle and stalked a short path from one end of his motel room to the other. This was wrong, just plain wrong! He should have won a ticket and a backstage pass to tonight's Priscilla Jayne concert by now. Instead, even though he'd diligently called every time he'd heard the opening notes to "Crying Myself to Sleep," he had yet to manage getting through to the radio station. It was frustrating, irritating, and the busy signal that assaulted his ear with every attempt was beginning to make him very, very angry.

"Forgive me, Father." Sinking to his knees beside the bed he prayed for patience and the Lord's guidance. He apologized for his lack of faith when he knew perfectly well that his quest was just and his Creator would provide the means to contact Priscilla Jayne in His own way and on His own schedule.

Early evening waned without the man ever reaching KPIX, but by then he had mastered acceptance. Because giving himself over to a higher power had opened a space in his mind that allowed an alternate idea to occur to him. He let himself out of his motel room and headed toward Hollywood Boulevard a half-block over.

He hadn't been pleased about having to stay this close to California's Sodom and Gomorrah and had kept his distance from the famous street. Given a choice, he'd prefer not to rub shoulders with so many sinners. He wasn't made of money, however, and at least his motel was clean, within reasonable proximity to the place he needed to be and relatively inexpensive.