“Maybe he’s a nicer guy than Ruthanna thinks he is.” Ethan had his doubts, but he’d be happy to be proven wrong.
“I hope so,” AnnieLee said. “Lord knows I’ve known more than enough mean ones.”
Ethan didn’t press her for any more information. He wouldn’t get it, and anyway, it wasn’t as if AnnieLee was the only one who had secrets. He had to remind himself of that sometimes.
She dug through a takeout bag to pull out the coleslaw. “I wish you guys were coming with me.”
Kip Hart’s management had made it clear that the singer was playing a stripped-down tour, in smaller venues, and that he wanted a solo opening act. Donna, Melissa, and Stan had been disappointed, but neither Elrodd nor Ethan had much wanted to be up on that stage. Let Kip Hart take a vacation back to his humbler roots; they could stay in Nashville and play in Ruthanna’s basement—and at the Cat’s Paw, if and when they felt like it.
“How many songs you got now?” Ethan asked.
“Eight that are rock-solid,” AnnieLee said. “Two more that are so-so. I’m getting there.” And then, with a half-mad gleam in her eye: “Unless I scrap everything and start all over again.”
“Don’t you dare,” Ethan said. “And no more caffeine for you tonight, okay?”
AnnieLee nodded, slathering butter on a biscuit and grumbling about bossy know-it-alls.
When they were done eating, she walked over to the battered spinet piano that the previous renters had left behind. “Check this out,” she said, and played a handful of high, tinkling notes that reminded Ethan of the opening bars to Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.”
She stopped and turned around. “See? Isn’t that nice? I don’t know what to do with it yet, but one of these days we’ll have to get back down to the studio. We can put Stan on keyboards.”
Ethan wanted to sing with AnnieLee again almost as much as he wanted to pull her into his arms. But neither of those things seemed likely to happen any time soon.
“I like it,” he said, “but seeing as how you won’t have a piano with Kip Hart, let’s work on that other lick you were talking about.”
They parked themselves on her couch and worked through songs until 2 a.m., when Ethan stood up and announced that he was going to the bathroom and then straight home. When he came back into the living room less than five minutes later, he found AnnieLee asleep against the couch’s armrest, surrounded by lyrics, crumpled papers, and crumbs from Arnold’s Country Kitchen biscuits.
He stopped and looked at her for a while. He’d never seen her so still, so peaceful. The chorus of his song came to him in the silence.
Lost and found, I’m safe and sound
No more drifting aimlessly, I’ve settled down
Then he carefully picked her up and carried her into her bedroom, where he took off her boots and covered her with a blanket. Without opening her eyes, she burrowed into her pillow, breathing slowly and calmly, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
He wished that could be true for her. But he knew that it wasn’t.
He bent down to kiss her smooth, untroubled forehead, and then he quietly let himself out, making sure the door was locked behind him.
Chapter
57
On the day of the Kip Hart show, AnnieLee woke before dawn. A light, misty rain was falling. She poured herself a glass of orange juice and paced her cottage as she drank it, feeling nerved up and jangly, like an animal about to be freed from its cage. Though Ethan had come to visit every day for the past month, she’d been working so hard that she’d barely left her living room.
Even if everything else goes wrong tonight, she told herself, at least you’ll be out of the damn house.
She was making her fiftieth circuit of the room when she heard the doorbell chime. She opened the door. Ethan Blake stood on her stoop, his car keys dangling from one hand and a tray with two giant take-out coffees in the other.
“The way Gladys runs, it’s about three hours away without traffic,” he said.
“Ruthanna loaned me a car, remember?” AnnieLee said. “I’m good.”
Ethan scuffed his toe against the doormat that said WELCOME Y’ALL. “You ever been to Knoxville before? The coliseum’s in a weird part of town, and parking might be confusing.”
“If you’re suggesting that I’m liable to get lost, Ethan Blake, let me remind you that I’ve been on this earth for two and a half decades and I’m not an idiot.”
“Believe me, I know you’re not an idiot, AnnieLee,” he said. “I guess I just thought you might like a little company.”