Opening the door to the live room, Ethan saw most of the band already assembled: Melissa, with her fiddle tucked under her arm; Elrodd, perched behind the drums; and Donna, tinkering around on the upright bass.
“Hey,” Ethan said. He didn’t see Stan, though, which meant—thank God—that he wasn’t the last one to arrive. Relieved, Ethan was just setting down his instrument when the lead guitarist came out of the isolation booth with his Stratocaster in his hand.
Stan gave Ethan a look that said, Uh-oh, bro.
Ruthanna’s voice came at Ethan over the intercom. “I know you’re the new one in the room, but I did think you’d know enough not to keep your fellow musicians waiting. Didn’t they teach you about punctuality in the army, Captain Blake?”
He turned toward her; she was in the control room with the engineer, on the other side of a gleaming pane of glass. “I’m sorry, Ruthanna. I couldn’t—”
She cut him off with a flip of her hand. “Absolutely not interested in your excuses,” she said. “You think you’re so special that you can roll in whenever you want to? Sure, you’re real cute, you’ve got a nice voice, and on a good day you could be Vince Gill’s pale imitation, but Nashville is lousy with guitar players with tight jeans and a tight butt who can show up on time.”
Stan gave a low whistle under his breath. He was clearly glad not to be on the receiving end of the dress-down. And though Ethan’s cheeks burned, he kept his mouth shut for once. He didn’t want to lose this job. He couldn’t lose this job. His part-time gig bartending at a karaoke dive wouldn’t even cover the rent, let alone get Gladys running the way she should.
“I’ll never—” he began.
“Damn right ‘never,’” Ruthanna said. “Now take your guitar out and get tuning.”
As he did what he was told, he glanced over at Donna. “Are my jeans too tight?” he whispered.
But she just laughed at him.
After he’d tuned, he warmed up by playing the song Ruthanna had written yesterday, a smart-ass send-up of certain music industry types called “Snakes in the Grass.” He picked the bass line with his thumb and the melody with his other fingers, Chet Atkins–style, until he realized that Ruthanna had left the control room and was standing right next to him.
“Mr. Blake, let me remind you that we have a bassist,” she said. “So don’t think you need to do her job.”
He turned to meet her fierce eyes. Ruthanna was twice his age but still beautiful. She had a smile that could light up a whole concert hall and a tongue sharper than a serpent’s tooth. He just about worshipped the ground she walked on, and he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to get to play music with her. But he also couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t release any of her new songs.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said.
She landed a light smack on his shoulder. “The word you’re looking for,” she said, “is boss.”
Then she turned on her heel and walked over to the microphone.
“All right, then,” she said. “Let’s play some damn music.”
Chapter
5
Underneath a buzzing neon sign that read CAT’S PAW SALOON, AnnieLee smoothed her hair and took a deep breath.
“You can do this,” she whispered. “This is what you came here for.”
It wasn’t much of a pep talk, but AnnieLee figured she shouldn’t stand around on a city sidewalk muttering to herself like a crazy person, so short and sweet would have to do. She took another deep breath, yanked the door open, and strode inside.
The bar was cool and softly lit by Christmas lights draped in multicolored strands along the ceiling and walls. On a stage at the back of the room stood a man in a big black cowboy hat, playing a battered guitar and singing a Willie Nelson tune in a low, mournful voice. To her right was a long wooden bar, and to her left, a woman in a DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS shirt was racking balls on a red-felted pool table. AnnieLee scanned the crowd, such as it was, and decided everyone looked reasonably friendly. The air smelled like beer and French fries.
In other words, it was a perfect dive bar, and it would do just fine for her Nashville debut. AnnieLee walked over to the bar and climbed up onto a stool, ignoring the admiring eyes that followed her progress.
The bartender, a middle-aged man with a handlebar mustache, slid a cardboard coaster toward her. “What can I do for ya, miss?” he asked.
AnnieLee swallowed down her fear and smiled her klieg light smile at him. “You can put me up on that stage after that guy’s done,” she said.