“Once upon a time you did.”
“You know how that ended, Ruthanna.”
She resisted the urge to put her hand over his. “And there’s been nobody since?” She found it hard to imagine he’d been alone so long. But then again, so had she. She wouldn’t have imagined that, either.
Ethan said, “Nobody.”
“You can’t stay solitary and wounded forever,” she said gently.
“Says who?”
Ruthanna opened a cabinet and pulled out two cut crystal glasses. “You know what? You’re about as ornery as AnnieLee Keyes is.”
“And as you are,” Ethan pointed out.
“Yes,” Ruthanna said, pouring them each a nice, smoky Scotch. “We’re a regular ol’ bunch of barnyard mules, I guess. Ice?”
“I have to go to work, remember?”
“It’ll make your job easier. You’ll feel ever so much more kindly toward those bridesmaids belting out ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun.’”
He caved, as she’d known he would. “Sure, ice.”
She looked pointedly at his biceps as she set the drink in front of him. “I bet you’ve got a mean right hook.”
“I could hold my own in a fight, supposing I got into one.” He gave the Scotch an appreciative sniff. “What makes you think AnnieLee needs protection? I mean, she had an unlucky walk home, but…”
“I don’t know,” Ruthanna said. “Maybe I’m crazy. I’m just not sure that mugging was random.”
“Well, you are crazy,” Ethan said. “But that might not have any bearing on the matter at hand.”
“Very funny, cowboy. I could be wrong, and I hope I am. But does it even matter? A girl doesn’t have to be in mortal danger to be worth protecting, does she?” She pulled out her phone and clicked on a video Maya had shown her. Someone had taken it during one of AnnieLee’s performances at the Cat’s Paw and posted it online. “Here,” she said, giving Ethan the phone.
She looked over his shoulder as he watched. The camera was shaky and the sound was terrible, but even in a tiny iPhone video, AnnieLee’s talent was outsized. Her mix of power and vulnerability commanded the stage; Ruthanna could practically sense the crowd holding its breath so as not to miss a single sweet note.
“Take the wheel and just believe,” AnnieLee sang, “that you can change your life…”
When it was over, Ethan handed back the phone. “So you really think she’s got what it takes,” he said.
“I know she does. But she has to know she does, or it doesn’t mean a thing. Sustaining that kind of belief in yourself—that’s the hard part.”
“Tell me about it,” he said.
“That’s why AnnieLee needs us,” Ruthanna said. “So tell me, Ethan Blake. Are you in?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I’m in,” he said.
Chapter
32
AnnieLee closed her eyes, breathing in the rich scent of good, fertile soil. It was still early, but she’d been working for two hours already, tucking lettuce and cucumber starts into neat rows and hilling up soil around the potato plants. This was on top of the week she’d already spent clearing out the space for the garden itself.
It was part of the deal she’d worked out with Ruthanna: in exchange for the singer’s musical guidance, AnnieLee would plant a big four-square kitchen garden in what had been just another patch of emerald-green lawn. It’d been years since she’d tilled a vegetable bed, but she hadn’t forgotten how.
Just like riding a bike, she thought. Or playing a G chord.
Of course, Ruthanna had protested vehemently at first. For one thing, she could pay a professional to do it a thousand times over; for another, she “didn’t need some scrawny hillbilly digging a giant hole in the yard.” But AnnieLee had insisted. She wanted to feel as though she was taking care of her debts, even if she could never truly repay Ruthanna for taking her under her wing, not if she died trying.
Anyway, she liked the work. It distracted her from life—unlike songwriting, which demanded that she face everything head-on, no matter how painful it was. And though it was the writing that’d gotten her through the worst times, every once in a while she needed to take a tiny break from it.
AnnieLee shoved the spade into the dirt and wiped her sweaty face. Any minute now, she hoped, Ruthanna would swan outside in designer sunglasses and an enormous sun hat and regale AnnieLee with tales of her rise to fame.