It took one to know one.
Chapter
16
When AnnieLee finished her set and went to the bar for her celebratory club soda, Billy waved her off. “Not here,” he said, and his voice sounded almost strangled.
Her stomach lurched—had she done something wrong?
Well, you insulted the guitar he was nice enough to let you use, for one thing, she thought.
Then a thousand other possible slights began tumbling through her mind. Maybe she hadn’t thanked him enthusiastically enough from the stage for letting her sing, or she’d failed to say how honored she was to share the stage with all the other songwriters. And had her pitch been off in that last number? That high E string kept going flat, and she had flubbed the bridge a little…
She felt herself shrinking down into something small and uncertain. “What’d I do?”
“You can have your drink at the back table,” he said. “Somebody wants to meet you.”
AnnieLee straightened up instantly. “Oh!” she said. “They do, do they? Well, for your information, I’m not going to just go sit down with some random stranger just ’cause he wants me to. Shoot, Billy, I thought I was in trouble.”
“It’s not ‘some random stranger,’” said Billy. “It’s Ruthanna Ryder.”
AnnieLee blinked at him. Surely she hadn’t heard him right. There was truly no way—it was like saying Patsy Cline had floated down from heaven on a pair of gilded wings so she could buy AnnieLee a drink. “Come on,” she said. “Can I have my club soda, please? My throat hurts. I don’t even need the lime slice if it’s too much trouble.”
Billy’s eyes flicked toward the back of the bar. “Ruthanna Ryder,” he said again, still sounding a little choked. “She’s here, AnnieLee, and she wants to meet you.”
AnnieLee still scoffed at him. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to lie?”
But then Billy walked out from behind the bar, and he came right over and put his big, calloused hand on AnnieLee’s elbow. “The Cat’s Paw is her place,” he said. “Now why don’t you put your pretty smile on and come meet her?”
“Oh, my God,” AnnieLee said as he gave her arm a little tug. “You’re not kidding.”
She slipped off her stool, and Billy began to steer her through the crowd. “She’s a hell of a lot ornerier than your average fairy godmother, but that woman can work all kinds of miracles.”
AnnieLee still couldn’t believe what he was telling her. “Is this really happening? What am I going to say? Am I really about to meet the queen of country music?”
“Now, honey, that’s what they call Loretta Lynn. But get all that gee-whiz crap out of you now,” Billy said through clenched teeth. “Ruthanna doesn’t suffer fools.”
Billy gave her a gentle shove and then they broke through a knot of people to find themselves standing in front of a small battered table, in the very back corner of the bar, where the biggest star in Nashville was sitting, clicking her nails on the rim of a martini glass.
Perfumed and painted, with smoky eyes and candy-red lips and her spectacular hair coiffed in studiously messy curls, Ruthanna Ryder was so dazzling that AnnieLee gasped.
As Ruthanna extended a slender arm, gesturing for AnnieLee to sit, her beaded dress reflected the colored lights dripping down from the ceiling. “Damned if I don’t look like a disco ball in here,” she said, almost to herself. Then she looked up at AnnieLee. “Have a seat.”
Tongue-tied, AnnieLee did as she was told. Only then did she notice Ethan Blake sitting in the shadows to Ruthanna’s left. Wait, she thought, they know each other?
“Ruthanna,” Ethan said to the glittering queen beside him, “I’d like you to meet AnnieLee Keyes. AnnieLee, this is Ruthanna Ryder.”
At first AnnieLee could only nod, but a moment later, a torrent of words came rushing out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I pinched myself already, but I still think I might be dreaming. It is such an honor to meet you, Ms. Ryder. I’ve looked up to you since I was old enough to know anything.” She felt her cheeks growing hot, but she kept on going. “We had a poster of you in the kitchen, right next to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and I thought you were one of the saints! I figured you had to be, to sing like that. I even prayed to you. I was about seven years old when my mom finally had to tell me that while your talents were divine, you weren’t actually holy.”