Shameless

She’d said, “I don’t even know you.”

And he said, “Just say maybe.”

“Maybe,” she’d purred.

Maybe had been good enough for Phillip, at least for a while. He’d been living on his elderly uncle’s ranch alone and supervising the cattle operation because his uncle, who had been ill, was in a nursing home. Everything had been wonderful between Celeste and Phillip until suddenly Phillip had received a call and had gone off on a mission. Alone on the ranch, she’d gotten scared and had felt abandoned and rejected just as she had when her parents had died.

If the days had been long without Phillip, the sleepless nights had seemed even longer. She hadn’t known what to do with herself. She wasn’t good at waiting or at being alone.

Then a pair of grim-faced Marines had turned up at the door and said Phillip was missing in action. She’d been terrified he was dead—just like her parents. A few weeks later Johnny had driven into town, promising he’d make her a star, saying Larry Martin, the Larry Martin wanted to produce her. He’d convinced her to go with him to Vegas. The rest was history.

All of a sudden her throat got scratchier. She knew better than to think about the past. She swallowed, but the dry lump in her throat wouldn’t go down.

How could she sing…tonight? To a man who reminded her of Phillip.

She asked Mo for another glass of water, but the icy drink only made her throat worse.

Did it matter any more how well she sang? This was Harry’s. There was only one customer. She picked up her guitar and headed for the stage.

Just when she’d thought she couldn’t sink any lower, she’d lost her job two weeks ago and the only guy Johnny could convince to hire her was Harry, a loser buddy of his.

“I can’t work at a lowlife place like this,” she’d cried when Johnny had brought her here and a cockroach had skittered across her toe.

“You gotta take what you can get, baby. That’s life.”

“I’m Stella Lamour. I’ve done TV. You promised I’d be a star.”

“You’ve got to deliver. You’re just a one-hit wonder. Wake up and smell the roses, baby.”

She’d kicked the roach aside. “All I smell is stale beer.”

“My point exactly, baby. You gotta fake it till you make it.”

“I’m tired of faking it and not making it. You’re fired, Johnny.”

“Baby— Stella Lamour, the one-hit wonder.” He’d laughed at her. “All right. Fire me. But take the job, baby—if you wanna eat.”

She’d taken the job, but every night it was harder to pretend she would ever make it as a singer.

Now, Stella turned on the mike and got a lot of back feed. When she adjusted it, and it squealed again, the broad-shouldered man at the bar jammed his big hands over his ears but edged closer. Again, the way he moved, reminded her so much of Phillip, her knees went a little weak and her pulse knocked against her rib age. Oh, Phillip….

Don’t think about the past or Phillip. Just sing.

Why bother? Nobody’s listening.

“I’ll start off with a little number I wrote,” she purred to Mo and the man. “Back in Texas.”

The customer stared at her intently as if he liked what he saw.

“I wrote this seven years ago before I came to Vegas.” She fiddled with the mike some more, and then she began to sing, “Nobody but you/Only you/And yet I had to say goodbye…”

She forgot she was in Harry’s. She was back on the ranch on Phillip’s front porch where the air was hot and dusty, where the long summer nights smelled of warm grass and mesquite, and the nights buzzed with the music of cicadas.

“I thought love cost too much,” she purred in the smoky voice she’d counted on to make her famous, to make her somebody like her mother had promised. “But I didn’t know.”

Then she realized she was in Harry’s, and her failures made her voice quiver with regret. “Everywhere I go/There’s nobody but you in my heart/Only you.”

Somehow she felt so weak all she could do was whisper the last refrain. “And yet I had to say goodbye.”

Phillip was the only good man, the only really good thing that had ever happened to her. And she’d walked out on him. Big mistake. Huge.

She’d wanted to make it big to prove to Phillip she was as good as he was…that she wasn’t just some cheap tart he’d picked up in a bar and brought home and bedded…that she was somebody…a real somebody he could be proud of.

She frowned when she heard a car zoom up the back alley. Oh, dear. That sounded like Johnny’s Corvette sportscar. The last thing she needed was Johnny on her case. Sure enough, within seconds, the front door banged open and Johnny raced through it on his short legs. His thick, barrel chest was heaving. His eyes bulged out of their deep, pouchy sockets. The poor, little dear looked like a fat, out-of-shape rabbit the hounds were chasing, but his florid face lit up when he saw her.

“Baby!”

Oh, no. He definitely wanted something!

“You and I are through,” she mouthed.

Johnny lit a cigarette. Then his short, fat legs went into motion again and carried him across the bar toward her.

He was a heavy smoker, so running wasn’t easy. When he reached the stage, he gasped in fits and starts, which made his voice even more hoarse and raspy than usual.

“Take a break, baby…” Pant. Wheeze. “I’ve got to talk to you.” Puff. Puff.

Fanning his smoke out of her face, she turned off the mike and followed him to her end of the bar.

Johnny ordered a drink and belted it down. He ordered a second one and said, “Put some booze in this one, you cheap son of a—”

“Johnny, you can’t talk to Mo like—”

Mo slammed the second drink down so hard it sloshed all over Johnny’s cigarette. Mo was big. A lot bigger than Johnny. He had a bad temper, too. His face had darkened the way it did when he had an impossible customer and had to play bouncer. Stella was afraid he’d pound Johnny.

“Easy, Mo,” she whispered, wondering why she was bothering to defend Johnny, who’d brought her so much bad luck.

Mo whirled and went to tend to his other customer.

Johnny lit another cigarette. “Thanks, babe.” Wheeze. Gulp. “I need money fast.”

“I don’t get paid till Monday.” She clamped a hand over her mouth. “It’s none of your business when I get paid.”

“I got you this great new gig. Your ship’s about to come in. You gotta help me, baby.”

“That’s what you said when you stole my royalties to buy those stolen tires and to pay your—”

“How was I— No-o-o. Baby!” Puff. Wheeze. “I borrowed a little cash to pay a few gambling debts. That’s all! Honest! Now a couple of unreasonable guys are making insane demands on a poor guy trying to make his top girl a star—”

“I’m not your girl anymore!”

“Are you going to help me or not?” He was so charged with fear, his eyes stuck out on stems.

When would she ever learn? She hated herself for being such a softie.

“How much?”

“You’ve gotta big heart. You can’t say that about many girls in Vegas.”

Just as she slid her fingers into her bra and pulled out what little money she had, the front door banged open and two men in black, who instantly made her think of snakes—and she hated snakes—oozed inside.

“You’d better pay me back this time,” she said.

“Sure, baby.”

When the snakes yelled Johnny’s name, he grabbed the money and ran out the back way, screaming, “She has it.”

The two men raced past her after him. There was some sort of scuffle. Bodies thudded against a wall. The men shouted. Johnny squealed in pain. Then his super-charged, fancy black Corvette drove away fast, tires spinning gravel.

She was asking Mo for more water when the two snakes slithered quietly up behind her, grabbed her arms and shoved her against the bar.

“Hey, take your hands off me!”

Both of them had black, beady eyes. When their gazes drifted up and down her body, her heart raced.

“Johnny says you and he…. He says you’ve got our money.” The man who held her had olive skin, a big nose and lots of pimples.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She began to shake. Everybody in Vegas knew guys like this didn’t play around.

“Nero has methods to freshen a girl’s memory,” the taller snake said. “We’re in the collection business. We specialize in gambling debts. Our customers lose. They borrow. If they don’t want to pay, we motivate them. End of story.”

The taller man was potato-pale. Gold-rimmed glasses pinched his nose as he stared at her breasts. “Name’s The Pope. You’re cute. You could work some of Johnny’s debt off…if you get my drift.”

“How much money does he owe you?” she whispered. Her heart was really knocking now.

The Pope named a preposterous sum that made her gasp.

“Johnny says you rolled the dice for him,” The Pope said. “He says he gave you our money. Pay us, and we’re out of here.”

“I don’t have it.”

“Then get it. If you don’t, we hurt you. Understand, sexy girl?” Nero said, pinching her arms.

She shivered. Oh, dear. They weren’t kidding. Her eyes flew to the front door and to the back. She had to run. But before she took even one step, they read her mind.

“Oh, no you don’t—” Nero grabbed her by the hair, intending to haul her out the door with him, when she bit his hand and then screamed for help.

On a howl of pain, he let her go. Since The Pope was blocking the exit, she ran toward the ladies’ room. Nero would have chased her, but the wide-shouldered customer who reminded her of Phillip had sprung from the bar, stuck out a booted foot and tripped him.

“The lady said to let her go,” said a hard voice as the short, dark thug went sprawling into chairs and tables that toppled on top of him.

“Stay out of this. The witch owes us money.”

It was an exciting conversation. She would have loved to have stayed and listened, but it didn’t seem smart to stick around. There was a window in the ladies’ room just big enough for her to squeeze out of.

Once she made it to the ladies’ room, the shouts from the bar got louder. Mo must have tackled the other guy.

“You a cop?” The Pope yelled.

“He’s got cops’ eyes. He moves like a cop, too—”

“We gotta blow this joint.”

“What about her?”

“Later—”

As Stella stood on the toilet and opened the window, she heard gunshots pop in the bar. In a panic, she shoved her guitar through the window. Then she scrambled out of it herself, only to lose her hold on the window frame and fall so hard, she nearly broke her ankle.

She got to her feet, straightened her ripped gown and then fluffed her hair. When she reached down to get her guitar, it wasn’t there.

A large hand curved out of the darkness, and she jumped about a mile and then moaned in pain because she’d landed with all her weight on her bad ankle.

“Easy. I won’t hurt you.”

The big, handsome guy from the other end of the bar, the one who’d tripped Nero, held out her guitar.

She grabbed it and hugged it to her chest.

“Need a ride?” he asked in a hard, precise voice.

“As a matter of fact—” She blurted out her address.

“You can’t go home. Can’t stay in Vegas, either. Not with those guys after you. They’ll kill you…or worse.”

She gulped in a breath and then followed him to a sedan that was parked in the shadows. “But—”

“Do you think those guys are going to quit if you can’t give them what they want?”

She swallowed.

“Honey, they know where you live.”

“You’re scaring me.”

After he helped her into the front seat of the vehicle, he said, “Didn’t your mama ever teach you never to ride with strangers?”

“I didn’t have a mama.”

He shut her door. “Everybody has a mama.”

When he slid behind the wheel, she said, “I was five when she died.”

“Too bad.” He started the engine and revved it.

“You don’t know the half of it. Foster homes. Cinderella. The whole bit. Only without the prince. But when I was little, I used to sing with my mama on stage. She told me I was going to be a star. And…and I believed her. But she died….” Her voice shook. “On a cheerier note, if you’re a bad stranger, I can always beat you up with my guitar.”

He didn’t laugh as they sped away. “That’d be a waste of a good guitar.”

“Thanks for saving me.”

“So, where to?”

“The bus station.”

“And then?” he persisted.

“Texas.” She was surprised by her answer. Texas?

“Is that home?”

“Not exactly. But I have an old boyfriend with a hero complex.” Phillip—he was the only man she knew tough enough to save her if those guys ever caught up with her. Oh, dear. Phillip—

“The poor sucker your song’s about. You left him, didn’t you?”

“He’ll still help me.” He would. She knew he would.

“What if he’s married?”

“He’s not.”

“And you know this how?”

She stared out her window at the bright glitter of Vegas. She wasn’t about to admit she’d kept tabs by reading the Mission Creek newspaper online, so she bit her lip and said nothing.

When they got to the bus station, he got out with her and carried her guitar to the ticket window for her. Pulling out his wallet, he said, “You gave your sleazy manager all your money, didn’t you—”

“No, but I left my purse in my, er, dressing room.”

He counted out five one-hundred-dollar bills.

“I don’t need nearly that much.”

“It’s a loan.” He handed her his card.

“I’ll pay it back. All of it. I really will….”

His face was grim as she read his card. “A.T.F. You’re A.T.F.” Her voice softened when she read his name. “Cole Yardley.”

“Good luck,” was all he said before he strode away.

“Thank you, Mr. Yardley,” she whispered after him. “Thank you.” Although he’d refused to open up, something about him made her long for Phillip.

She broke the first hundred and bought a one-way ticket to Mission Creek, Texas, where Phillip now lived. Phillip’s uncle had died, and he’d inherited the ranch and made it his home.

Oh, Phillip—

Two

Mission Creek, Texas

It was 10:00 a.m. when the bus driver roared to a stop in front of the café in a swirl of dust under wide, hot, Texas skies. Not that the slim little girl behind him in what looked to be her mama’s sophisticated black evening dress noticed. She was curled into a tight ball, her pretty face squashed against the back of her seat cushion.

Stella jumped when the driver shook her gently and said, “Mission Creek.”

Not Stella anymore, she reminded herself drowsily. Not in Mission Creek. Here, she was Celeste Cavanaugh, a nobody.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” the driver said as she rubbed her eyes and blinked into the white glare.

“Thanks. Give me a minute, okay?”

“Take your time. It’s hot out there,” he warned.

July. In Texas. Of course it was hot.

“No hotter than Vegas,” she replied.

From the frying pan into the fire, she thought as she got up, gathered her guitar and stumbled out of the bus in her low-cut black dress and strappy high heels. For a long moment she just stood there in the dust and the baking heat. Then lifting her torn skirt up so it wouldn’t drag in the dirt, she slung her guitar over her bare shoulder. Cocking her head at a saucy angle, she fought to pretend she was a star even though all she was doing was limping across an empty parking lot toward the café that was Mission Creek’s answer for a bus station.

The historic square with its southwestern flair hadn’t changed much. With a single glance she saw the quaint courthouse, the bank, the post office and the library. She was back in Mission Creek, the town she’d almost chosen to be her home. She was back—not that anybody knew or cared.

Inside the café, she hobbled to the ladies’ room before she selected a table. It was a bad feeling to look in the mirror and hate the person she saw. The harsh fluorescent lighting combined with the white glare from the bathroom window revealed the thirty-hour bus ride’s damage and way more reality than Celeste could face this early. Shutting her eyes, she splashed cold water on her cheeks and throat.

What would Phillip think when he saw her? Her eye-liner was smudged. What was left of her glossy red lipstick had caked and dried in the middle of her bottom lip. Her long yellow hair was greasy and stringy. She didn’t have a comb, but she licked off her lipstick.

When she was done, she had a bad taste in her mouth, so she gargled and rinsed with lukewarm tap water. Oh, how she longed for a shower and a change of underwear and clothes.

Just when she’d thought she couldn’t sink lower than Harry’s, here she was at the Mission Creek Café in a ripped evening gown with a sprained ankle. Mission Creek Café. Phillip had brought her to lunch here once. The café was noted for its down-home country cooking. Oh, how Phillip had adored the biscuits.

Carbs. Celeste hadn’t approved of him eating so many carbs.

She glanced at her reflection again. She was thirty-two. There were faint lines beneath her eyes. Faint.

Seven years later, and she was right back where she started. Still… Someday…

“I’m going to be big! A star! I am!”

A girl could dream, couldn’t she?

The smell of biscuits wafted in the air.

Biscuits! In between dreaming, a girl had to eat. She was starving suddenly, and she had nearly four hundred dollars tucked snugly against her heart—more than enough for breakfast. After all, this wasn’t the Ritz in Paris. This was Texas where carbs, and lots of them, the greasier the better, came cheap.

Celeste found a table in the back and ordered. When her plump waitress with the mop of curly brown hair returned with platters of eggs and mountains of hash browns and biscuits slathered in butter, Celeste decided to work up her nerve to ask about Phillip.

“More coffee, please,” Celeste began.

“Sure, honey.”

As the waitress poured, Celeste bit her lip and stared out the window. Not that there was much of a view other than the highway and a mesquite bush and a prickly pear or two.

Celeste could feel the woman’s eyes on her. Still, she managed to get out her question in a small, shy voice.

“Does Phillip Westin still hang out at the Lazy W?”

The coffee pouring stopped instantly. “Who’s asking?” The friendly, motherly voice had sharpened. The woman’s black eyes seared her like lasers.

Celeste cringed a little deeper into her booth. “Can’t a girl ask a simple question?”

“Not in this town, honey. Everybody’s business is everybody’s business.”

“And I had such high hopes the town would mature.”

“So—who’s asking about Phillip?”

“Just an old friend.”

“Westin has lots of lady friends.”

“He does?” Celeste squeaked, and then covered her mouth.

“He meets them out at those fancy dances at the club.”

“The Lone Star Country Club?”

“You been there?”

“A time or two.”

“What’s your name, honey?”

“Forget it.”

“You’re mighty secretive all of a sudden.”

“Last I heard that wasn’t a crime,” Celeste said.

The waitress’s smile died and she scurried off to the kitchen in a huff. Watching the doors slam, Celeste felt morose with guilt. She was running from killers, deliberately putting Phillip in danger. He’d moved on, made friends with real ladies at that fancy club he’d joined as soon as he’d moved here permanently.

He was wealthy. She was the last thing from a lady, the last thing he needed in his orderly life.

Her appetite gone, she set her fork down with a clatter. What was the matter with her? Why had she argued with the waitress like that? It was just that she felt so lonely and scared and desperate, and so self-conscious about how cheap she looked. And then the woman had told her Phillip had lots of classy girlfriends.

Oh, why had she come here? Why had she ever thought— If she was smart, she’d catch the next bus to San Antonio. Then she’d lose herself in the big city.

Celeste should have known that wouldn’t be the end of her exchange with the waitress. Not in a nosy little town like Mission Creek. Before her eggs had time to congeal, the plump woman was back with a cordless telephone and a great big gottcha smile.

“He’s home,” the waitress said.

“You didn’t call him—”

The waitress winked at her and grinned slyly as she listened to Phillip.

“Oh, no…. You didn’t. Hang up.”

“She’s got long yellow hair. It’s sort of dirty. And a low-cut black dress with a rip up the left thigh. Nice legs, though. Sensational figure. And a great big shiny guitar that has a booth seat all to itself.” She hesitated. “Yes, a guitar! And…and she’s hurt… Her ankle….” Another pause. “What?” Again there was a long silence.

Celeste stared out at the prickly pear and chewed her quivering bottom lip. Then she buried her face in her hands.

“He wants to talk to you.”

With a shaky hand, Celeste lifted the phone to her ear. “H-hello…?”

“Celeste?” Phillip’s deep Marine Corps-issue voice sliced out her name with a vengeance.

“Phillip?”

“Mabel said you’re limping.”

“I’m fine. Never better.”

“You’re in some kind of trouble—”

She bit her lip and coiled a greasy strand of gold around a fingertip with chipped pearly nail polish. What was the use of lying to him? “I—I wish I could deny it.”

“And you want me to rescue you….”

She swallowed as she thought of The Pope and Nero. If they followed her and killed Phillip, it would be all her fault.

Her throat burned and her eyes got hot. She squeezed them shut because the waitress was watching.

“How do you intend to play this? Sexy? Repentant? Do you see me riding into town on a white horse and carrying you out of the café in my arms?”

“Don’t make this harder.”

“What do you want from me then?”

Not to end up in some back alley with my skirt tossed over my head, my panties shredded and my throat slit.

“Just to see you,” she said softly.

He laughed, but the brittle sound wasn’t that deep chuckle she’d once loved. “You want way more than that and we both know it.”

He knew how she hated that military, big man, know-it-all tone. She couldn’t bear it any more than she could bear to answer him when he was feeling all self-righteous and judgmental.

“I wasn’t born rich…like you…. Maybe if you’d gone through even half of what…” She stopped. That was a low blow. “I—I’m sorry.”

For an instant—just for an instant—she saw her mother’s white, lifeless face in her coffin and remembered how little and helpless she’d felt.

“Stay at the café. I’ll send Juan to get you as soon as he gets back with the truck.”

“Juan? I’d… I’d rather you came….”

But he didn’t hear her heartfelt plea. He’d already hung up.

Thirty minutes later Phillip’s ranch hand arrived in a whirl of dust. When Celeste saw him, she grabbed her guitar.

The waitress stared at the blowing dust and said to no one in particular, “It’s awful dry out there. We could do with some rain.”

Juan was short and dark, and dressed in a red shirt and baggy jeans coated with a week’s supply of dirt. He didn’t speak much English, and she didn’t speak any Spanish. So she spent the ten-minute drive singing to the radio and watching the scenery go by. If you could call it scenery.

Unlike Vegas, south Texas was flat and covered with thorny brush. When they flew through the gate, Juan braked in front of a tall white house with a wraparound porch. Dust swirled around the truck and the wide front porch as he lit a cigarette.

She coughed. “Where’s Mr. Westin?”

“Señor Westin?” Juan clomped up the stairs and pointed inside the house. Then he opened the screen door like a gentleman and beckoned for her to go inside. She nodded. Picking up her long skirt, she hesitantly stepped across the threshold into the living room.