“Hardly,” Ruthanna said. “See, Jack and I have been keeping a little secret from you today. You want to know what it is?”
AnnieLee washed down the fries with a gulp of her martini. “Yes, please, and hell yes,” she said.
“ACD and Jack have worked out a deal, and they’re going to send you on a twelve-city tour of your own. Small venues, but really good ones. So congratulations, girl, and Godspeed.”
Ethan gave a gleeful whoop before AnnieLee could even react, and then Jack said, “You’re forgetting something, Ruthanna,” as he put his hand affectionately on top of hers.
Ruthanna smiled and kept her hand where it was. “The other thing you might care to know, Ms. Keyes,” she said, “is that I’ll meet you at your final performance in Las Vegas. And you and me are going to sing a few songs together.”
AnnieLee felt her stomach drop down to her knees. “You’re kidding.”
“I most certainly am not.”
“So you’re coming out of retirement?”
“No, I’m just taking a break from it.” Ruthanna glanced over at Jack. “We thought it sounded like fun.”
Jack nodded. “That we did.”
Ethan said, “I can just imagine the two of you, harmonizing on ‘Blue Bonnet Breeze.’ There won’t be a dry eye in the house.” He grinned. “Maybe I ought to make a few bets on that in Vegas.”
“Who says you’re invited?” AnnieLee challenged him.
He put his arm around her and squeezed. “You better let me come with you this time.”
AnnieLee let her head fall against his shoulder. “I’ll think about it.”
Chapter
61
Merle Haggard had once called his career a thirty-five-year bus ride, and after barely more than a week, Ethan could sympathize with the man. Towns flew by, faces blurred together, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten something that didn’t come out of a paper bag that was handed to him at a drive-through window. Why hadn’t anyone told him that they should’ve asked for fresh fruit, or at least a few carrot sticks, in AnnieLee’s hospitality rider?
ACD wouldn’t spring for a driver—a small tour required small expenditures, after all—so piloting the Sprinter van had become yet another one of Ethan’s jobs.
“At least it means you get to come along,” AnnieLee had teased him.
He definitely didn’t mind the duty. But, unused to sitting still for hours in a row, he’d taken to drinking one kind of caffeinated beverage or another from the moment he woke up until he switched to beer at five. He also kept a bag of sunflower seeds in the door pocket because getting those little bastards out of their shells with his teeth gave him something to do besides hold the steering wheel steady.
“Whoo-ee, turn that Cash up!” AnnieLee shouted from the passenger seat.
“Are your arms broken?” he teased. “You do it. I’m driving.”
Grumbling theatrically, she turned up “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” and then she sang along with it at the top of her lungs, in a thick hillbilly accent, as they drove west along I-40.
Even when she was goofing off, her voice was wonderful, Ethan thought. And despite the boredom of driving and the exhaustion of the late nights, being on tour with AnnieLee could be a hell of a lot of fun.
Two hours later they were pulling up in front of Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Beneath a vintage neon sign advertising long-defunct ballroom dancing classes, they unloaded the guitars and guitar stands, amps, pedals, extension cords, DI box, cables, loopers, and tuners.
“Can you imagine how hard this’d be if we had the whole band?” AnnieLee asked as she lugged a speaker down the hall.
But Ethan knew that she missed them, and that she wished they could have come on the tour. As far as ACD was concerned, though, the musicians who had played on AnnieLee’s singles were an avoidable expense.
Once their gear was loaded in, Ethan went to meet the sound guy. He made a point of treating these men （they were always men） with special respect, since they would control how AnnieLee’s voice and guitar sounded during the show.
Cain’s sound guy, Jerry, was burly and talkative, and after AnnieLee’s sound check, he invited Ethan to the bar for a quick pint. Hank Williams and Willie Nelson had played at Cain’s, Jerry told him proudly, and Johnny Paycheck had gotten in one of his many fights there, and Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys had broadcast a radio show from its stage for eight years.