Part 8 (1/2)
Mel stroked his hands down Emily Anne's arms. ”Lean back against me, precious. Let's get you clean.”
”And then, woman, we all three of us will go to the kitchen, work together to get that dinner of ours started, and have a long, overdue chat.”
Chapter 9.
”Hey, there, Billy J!”
Billy J. Cooper recognized the female voice that called to him in broad daylight in the middle of West Grand Street in Comanche, Texas. He mentally smirked when he noticed he was standing right there in front of the newspaper office. He snickered. Maybe I'll take out a personal ad in The Comanche Chief for everyone to read on Thursday mornin'. Society b.i.t.c.h Comes On To Lowly Ranch Hand.
Although he wouldn't be a ranch hand for very much longer if he had anything to say about it!
Linda Sue Powers hadn't given him the time of day, not once through all the years of their shared education from first grade through to high school graduation. Or at any time since.
Ain't it funny how a man's prospects start lookin' up and everything begins to open wide for him? He wondered if he could get Linda Sue to open wide for him. Mouth or legs, it didn't make a bit of difference to him.
All cats really were gray in the dark.
So Billy J put on his bored face, left his shades in place and turned, waiting for Linda Sue to catch up with him.
”How're you doing there, Billy J?” Linda Sue tried not to show how ”fast walking” that half a block had winded her. ”And how's you ma and pa doing?”
He knew what she wanted, and why, and he decided he'd make her work for it just a little bit, first. ”We're all just fine, Miss Powers, thank you, ma'am. And you?”
”Oh, go on. Listen to you! You're just so cute.” She patted his arm and then left her hand there and smiled up at him. ”Calling me Miss Powers, when we went to school together every day, and everything.”
There never was an ”everything” as far as Billy J ever knew. h.e.l.l, the only girl who ever looked at him all through school and later was Emily Anne Bancroft. Just thinking about Emily Anne and the way she ran off just when he needed her most was enough to get his blood to boiling. He told that little inner voice that insisted it wasn't her that'd run off so much as it had been him that had run her off to shut the f.u.c.k up.
He turned his attention back to Linda Sue. One good thing about his wearing his sungla.s.ses was that she couldn't actually see him ogling her t.i.ts. ”Yes, ma'am, we did go to school at the same time.” Though his folks were renters, not land owners, so Miss Linda Sue Powers and her crowd had never even looked cross-ways at him.
”So, I've heard some exciting news about you, Billy J. Mary Beth told me that a Nashville record producer saw you and your band over there at The Waterin' Hole, and he has offered you a recording contract! Why, they say you're on your way to the Grand Ol' Opry!”
”That's what I hear, too.” He gave the woman his patented panty-remover smile to let her know he was looking at her and that he liked what he saw.
If she wanted to spread 'em for him, who was he to deny her the privilege?
Billy J had done nothing to perpetuate those rumors that were swirling around, though he'd done nothing to stop them, either. The way he figured it, those rumors would be more than rumors before long.
All he needed to do was to find Emily Anne Bancroft.
Lovell Howard had been at The Waterin' Hole one of the Sat.u.r.day nights he and the guys had been performing, a few months back. h.e.l.l, he hadn't even known the man was there at the time. Emily Anne had sung a couple of numbers with them that night as she did most Sat.u.r.day nights. The crowd was good which had made Norman, the man who owned the joint, happy.
At the end of their last set Howard had approached and introduced himself. He'd told Billy J that he really liked their music, and gave him his card, and invited him to send him a couple of demo songs so he could share them with his boss. He said that they had a fresh new sound, just what M & V Records was looking for. He'd said that he had a sixth sense about these kinds of things, and he had no doubt that with work and coaching, Billy J and his band would top the country charts.
Billy J would never forget that night. That had been the moment he'd been waiting for, dreaming of, since he and the guys started playing together in tenth grade.
Finally he had great things in his future. Finally he'd have the kind of money and the kind of p.u.s.s.y he knew, deep down inside, that he deserved.
Didn't Linda Sue's interest in him now just prove that his fortunes had already changed?
There had been, as far as Billy J could see, just one tiny problem. Only one thing stood between him, and having his greatest dreams come true.
That problem was named Emily Anne Bancroft.
He'd dumped her a.s.s the very same night that Mr. Howard had handed him his future in the form of that business card. Who could blame him? The last thing he wanted was for those Nashville people-sophisticated, beautiful people-to see him with fat and frumpy ol' Emily Anne. He couldn't have been happier when she lit out of Comanche like her pants were on fire. Sure as h.e.l.l beat her turning into a weepy, whiny clinging vine of an ex-girlfriend.
He and the boys had cut their CD and sent it along, and Billy J had gotten himself ready, mentally and h.e.l.l, spiritually, to receive the blessings he'd always known were his due.
Yeah, he'd been happier than a pig in s.h.i.+t until he'd gotten that phone call from Lovell Howard telling him that he needed to send a tape that featured that ”sweet little armful of woman” who'd been on the stage with him that Sat.u.r.day night.
Well f.u.c.k me seven ways from Sunday! Who would ever guess that ol' fat and frumpy would end up holding the key to my future?
He figured that it would be a simple matter of finding the b.i.t.c.h and telling her he was sorry. He might have to grovel and beg and that sure as h.e.l.l didn't sit well. Christ, the woman was so d.a.m.ned pathetic-most times she took whatever he wanted to dish out and then would just come crawlin' back for more.
Well, except this time, when he needed her to do just that.
Billy J had already decided that for the good of his future, he'd apologize, tell her he missed her, and then get her to sing with them, work a rehearsal that they'd tape and then send out to Howard. h.e.l.l, he'd even spring for a handful of posies. They had them down at the grocery for five bucks a dozen.
Billy J guessed that as a singer, she didn't sound half-bad. She could at least hit all the notes and had good timing. Anyone listening to her singing on that tape wouldn't know how fat she was. And well, Lovell Howard had already seen her, and still wanted her in the band. There's just no figuring some men.
After that, if that offer of a recording contract was extended to him, he guessed he could manage to keep Emily Anne around-and h.e.l.l, Nashville? Likely he'd find all sorts of hot little groupies willing to f.u.c.k on the side, despite Emily Anne being there.
It might even work out to my advantage, in a way. If one of those pieces starts acting like she wants a ring, I can use Emily Anne as an excuse to keep things light.
Billy J had talked himself into being okay with this second turn of events, but he hadn't been able to find Emily Anne. None of their friends-well, his friends, really-had any idea where she'd gone. When he settled down to really look for her, he realized with a bit of a shock that she'd been gone for months.
Billy J had even gone to see Miz Bancroft, beggin' her to tell him where her daughter had gone-lyin' through his teeth and pleading that he'd made a horrible mistake in a moment of weakness and that he-G.o.d help him-loved her. He'd even arranged for Miz Bancroft to hear the ”rumors” about him and his impending fame and fortune.
So far, the old bat had refused to budge and tell him where her daughter was, though she had promised to plead his case to her.
Billy J tilted his head and considered Linda Sue Powers. Her daddy was a big man in these parts, a businessman who had his fingers in d.a.m.n near every pie on the menu.
Mr. Powers was a lot of things to a lot of people-and he was boss to a lot of 'em in the county, too.
Including, he suddenly remembered, Emily Anne's daddy.
Billy J reached up slowly and took off his shades in a maneuver he'd been told the ladies found s.e.xy as h.e.l.l. ”Linda Sue, would you allow me buy you a cup of coffee over at the restaurant, there?”
h.e.l.l, he might even score twice. He might be able to get into Linda Sue's panties-and he might get her to find out, through Emily Anne's daddy, where the h.e.l.l that b.i.t.c.h had gone.
”Why Billy J!” She gave him a big smile and slipped her arm through his. ”I thought you'd never ask.”
Emily Anne sat in the kitchen, bundled in Connor's bathrobe, a gla.s.s of sangria beside her, watching the men work together to prepare dinner.
”We're setting up a home office here,” Mel said. ”If I'd lived in a house in Waco, I likely would have had one there. But I was living in the same apartment I moved into when I originally opened the business. The idea of a house, and a home office, seemed a little arrogant back then.”