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  "I do this sometimes," she said bashfully.

  "Answer the door stark naked? Wow, I'll have to make a note of that," Chase said lazily, sitting up in the bed and leaning back against the headboard.

  She blushed, which only enhanced the pretty smile further. "No, silly. What I mean is, sometimes I'm all the way out of bed and half way across the room before I actually wake up. I was dreaming..."

  She blinked several times, staring at him. He could feel his body respond, but he didn't bother to pull the covers back over himself. He hoped she liked what she saw. Heaven knew that he enjoyed looking at her.

  "You were dreaming?" he prompted her.

  "Or remembering. Or something."

  Chase nodded gravely. There was a lot to remember. The last time he'd caught a glimpse of the clock, it had been nearly three in the morning and Regina was only beginning to show signs of fatigue, purring like a kitten as she wound her body around his and let her eyelashes flutter against his cheek.

  "Regina! Who are you talking to?" The banging continued as a voice, a male voice, came through the door. "Is that Meredith on the phone?"

  This time Regina really pulled the sheet up around her body quickly and expertly. "Oh, no," she stage whispered. And then she added, in full voice, "Go away, Carl."

  "Tell Meredith I signed her. Stiletta."

  There was a silence while Regina appeared to take in that news. Chase watched her carefully. He knew she'd been counting on signing the girl. A wave of disappointment washed over her face but was quickly gone. "Good for you," she said. "I'll make a congratulatory call later. But I'm indisposed at the moment, so could you go away, please?"

  "Let me in, honey. We have to talk about the deal."

  "What deal? You win. Fair and square. She's your client now."

  "Which means... remember? Now I just have to sign Chase too, and then we talk about getting back together. Tell you what, we'll talk over dinner. That's hours and hours away. How's seven?"

  Regina gripped the sheet tighter against her body. She'd forgotten that part. "Forget it, Carl. That's not happening."

  "Deal's a deal. Come on, Reggie. Let me in. What's the issue? I've seen you without your makeup plenty of times."

  "That's not the problem," Regina said, but she knew he wouldn't give up without a fight. Not unless she gave him something to satisfy him. "Look, okay. I'll have lunch with you. Just leave me in peace now."

  "Can't do lunch. I've got a meeting with my new client."

  Regina rolled her eyes. Even when he was trying to get back together with her, he couldn't keep a hint of smug victory out of his voice. Carl liked winning, even when—maybe especially when—she was the one he beat.

  "All right, fine. Dinner. A short dinner."

  "Oh, I bet I can change your mind about that. See you tonight, Reggie." Carl gave the door a final tap and then there was silence in the room. Regina turned and slumped against the door. She felt like sliding down it until she was a puddle on the carpet.

  "I suppose now you're going to tell me you signed with him too?" she said, sighing.

  "Nope. That would be a conflict of interest, wouldn't it?"

  She glanced up sharply. Was he joking?

  "Of course, if it will get you to stop hounding me about singing for you, I guess I'd consider it," he continued. "Can I get something in writing? A guarantee that you'll stop pestering me? I'll have Carl write me in some sort of exemption, that I'm still allowed to sleep with the competition."

  There was a twitch at the corner of his mouth that let her know he was just messing with her. Of course he was. That was what normal people did, normal people who gave in to mutual attractions and engaged in evenings full of… of what they'd done. She couldn't even think it without blushing.

  "Excuse me," she said and bolted for the bathroom, pulling the flimsy door shut behind her a little harder than necessary. Stupid motel. Stupid little town with no vacancies in any decent lodging. Stupid oil boom that brought all these people to this stupid little town to fill up the motels so that the one time she finally acted on her plan to get out and live a little, she couldn't even have a proper morning after. There should be... well, room service, for starters. Lovely silver coffeepots and pitchers of cream, and sliced strawberries and fluffy bathrobes...

  "You all right in there?"

  "Yes," she said much too quickly. No, her heart insisted. Something was truly wrong. For one thing, the whole strawberries-and-bathrobe thing wasn't really a fantasy, now that she thought about it, but an actual event that had taken place with Carl on a trip to Chicago last summer. It had been very... nice. Of course, he'd spent most of that morning reading the sports page and checking his portfolio on his iPhone, but otherwise, nice enough.

  "Because I could come in there and... help."

  A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. She doubted there was much that Chase would be able to help her with in the tiny room. His hands were too big and rough to help her find an eyelash in her eye; she wasn't wearing anything that needed to be zipped or fastened.

  "I'm good, thanks."

  There was a comfortable silence. "Well, okay," he finally said. "I guess I'll just sit out here on the other side of the door and wait for you to finish up."

  She heard him bumping against the door. So he really was going to sit out there and wait for her, like a… a loyal dog. Or a little sister.

  A little sister who, many years ago, sat outside the door as her big sisters were getting ready for a performance, banished from the coveted space with its makeup and perfume and hot curlers and hairspray, listening to them limber up their voices and gossip about their fellow performers and guest conductors.

  * * *

  The door was cold against Chase's back, but he didn't mind. He'd been getting a little overheated, anyway. Not because that soft-palmed, fancy-boy had interrupted them. Chase liked to think he could sense a threat, and he wasn't sensing much from Carl Cash except a little too much cologne and an expensive education that wasn't getting nearly the workout it deserved, but because the minute he woke up with Regina McCary, he'd had the nagging sensation that she belonged in his bed. Never mind that he had been, technically, in her bed, or, rather, to be precise, in the Wayfarer Motel's bed. But she was the first woman in a very long time who he thought he might like to see again. And by "again" he meant "as soon as possible" and "as often as she could manage."

  After a moment, he heard her settle onto the floor on the other side of the door, and smiled to himself. She was an odd one; that was for sure. But then again, so was he. A strange pair, back-to-back on the floor of a cheap motel, separated only by a cheap, hollow door and a whole lot of unsaid things.

  "So," he said softly. "Regina McCary. What's your middle name, anyway?"

  "I don't want to tell you." She sounded embarrassed.

  "I won't tell anyone else," he promised. "In fact, I'll tell you mine first. Horace. After my dad's best friend in the service."

  Horace Gibbons, Gerald used to say, when he’d had a few drinks in him, now there was a man. As far as Chase knew, all Horace did before he got himself killed in battle was to trade dirty jokes and play endless rounds of cards with Gerald, but the thought of his father's best and only friend still made him melancholy. At the age of eight, Chase had known no dirty jokes and few card games, and he wasn't sure how else to get his father's attention. And that was something that never got better as he got older.

  "Chase?"

  Her voice sounded... lonely, which was dumb, because he was literally two inches away and he had a few good tricks up his sleeve yet that he hadn't had a chance to practice on her yet.

  "Yeah?" he settled for.

  "My middle name is Grace. But the thing is, I live in Nashville."

  "Yes," he said gravely. "I believe you mentioned that. Also, your address is on your business card."

  "Oh." He could practically hear her blush. "And since you've elected, um, other representation—"

  "No r
epresentation," he interrupted her. "Remember? I'm an oil man. Not a singer."

  "Right. And since Sherry has elected other representation, I don't really have a reason... That is to say.... While last night was very nice..."

  "You're already breaking up with me?" The words were out before he had time to consider them. Of course she wasn't breaking up with him—they weren't a thing. There wasn't anything to end. He forced a laugh.

  "Win some, lose some," he managed to get out in a voice that sounded damn near cavalier. The voice he'd cultivated back when he was doing the circuit. Take a look at the gal who brought you that drink, he'd say to the crowd as he finished a set in a honky-tonk or tavern. She's been on her feet all night—how about sparing her a buck or two. He always looked out for the waitress, even on nights when he wasn't sure how he was going to close the gap on his own overdue bills.

  "I was just wondering... why?" Regina's voice was subdued.

  "Why what?" he asked, though he was pretty sure he knew what she was asking.

  "Why, when you sing like you do, and write like you do, would you want to work those crazy hours on a dirty and dangerous job out here in the middle of nowhere?"

  Chase stared at his hands. Even though his hitch had ended a few days ago, he was still healing from a long, raw scratch on his arm where he'd had a head-on collision with a metal ladder. His lower back still ached from where he'd tried to lift a section of drill pipe by himself. He'd learned a lesson from that; next time he'd do as the standards manual dictated and work with a partner, and his boots were still on the back porch, caked with drilling mud and fine gravel, waiting to be cleaned.

  "I love my job," he said softly. And it wasn't a lie.

  "Is it... because of the pay?" she asked, in a smaller voice still.

  "No," he said, stung. Really, he shouldn't blame her for jumping to conclusions. Lots of guys did this work only because it paid well, sometimes several times more than they had earned at whatever their old job was. Chase had met former teachers, stockbrokers, and real estate agents who were making more money on the rigs than they ever had, and all of them were grateful for the paycheck they earned with their sweat and hard work.

  But that wasn't the reason Chase loved the work.

  "You hit a... rhythm," he said. "You clock in at seven, when the light… It's hard to explain, but the light is different up here. You have the plains, the rolling hills, far as the eye can see, and dawn comes up and sort of spills out over everything. Like... maple syrup on pancakes. By the time I drive up to the rig in the morning, the sun's starting to come up in the sky, and it lights up the Christmas tree—that's what we call the tower—like it's on fire. You think a structure like that, all that metal and dirt, that it couldn't be beautiful. But it is. It never stops, you know. The night-shift boys are wrapping up their twelve-hour shift at seven a.m., and they're tired and cranky, but the drill's still spinning and the mud's still coming up, and you feel—"

  He stopped, a lump in his throat suddenly making it hard to talk. You feel like you're a part of something, he was going to say, which for a lonely adolescent who'd never gone to a regular school or had a real best friend until he grew up, was like the holy grail.

  "I just wish my dad could have seen it," he settled for saying, which wasn't exactly what he'd been trying to express, but which wasn't a lie, either. She didn't need to know that he'd wished Gerald could have seen him in the hard hat and work gloves, not because it would have made his father proud, but because Gerald finally would have understood that Chase was his own man and always would be.

  "Oh," Regina said. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be."

  "It's just, I kind of understand. I mean, when I signed my first client, Bethany Pierce, and she had her first gig at the Silver Room. I was in the front row cheering her on, and all I could think of was that I wished my sisters could’ve been there. Priscilla was in Rome that month and she couldn't get back. And Annabel was doing a master class at the University of Washington, but she sent flowers. For me and for Bethany."

  "I think I've heard of her," Chase said.

  Regina laughed. "You're too kind. I doubt you have. But someday!"

  "Regina," Chase said hesitantly, knowing he was about to ask the sort of question that could change the future, "do you... I mean, do you really love your job?"

  * * *

  "Of course I do!" Regina retorted, a little too quickly. "It's... great."

  Why was she lying? Regina twisted a lock of hair that had come unpinned, pulling hard enough to hurt. Except it wasn't really a lie. She did love her job. Maybe not love, love it, but there were.... aspects... plenty of them, that she loved. The thrill of discovery, for instance, never mind that it was followed by the knee-weakening anxiety of worrying about her competition horning in. Working with unseasoned performers to hone their voices, at least, until they tasted a little success and started behaving like divas. Going over the contracts with a fine-tooth comb, okay, that was an outright lie. Nobody enjoyed the contract aspect of the job. Carl relegated as much of it as he could to an assistant, and Meredith drank Red Bull by the six-pack to get through them. But still. The rest of it? She adored it.

  "I see," came Chase's muffled voice. Was it her imagination, or did he sound just a trifle... disappointed? "So you'd never consider doing anything else?"

  "Never," she shot back, before he'd even finished speaking. Because she wasn't a quitter. She wasn't. The voice of her sisters came back through her memory, teasing her, taunting her when she didn't last two weeks with her new voice coach, who deemed her "unreachable" and pitch-challenged. She'd burst into tears and run from the room, and Annabel and Priscilla had called her a quitter for weeks, until something else caught their attention. "I mean, I'm not perfect, by a long shot. I still have a lot to learn." She winced, like she always did, remembering Mason.

  "You're too hard on yourself," Chase's voice came.

  The door was no longer so cold against her skin. She imagined that the wood had been warmed by their two bodies, that the warmth passed between them like a current, linking them. It was stupid, really, that they were sitting here like this when they could be wrapped up with each other in the bed, exploring any parts of each other that they'd missed the night before.

  Except it had all changed, somehow. It was like Chase said, he had no plans to leave the rolling hills of North Dakota. And Regina had a lot to prove. None of which could be proved here.

  She'd had her chance and she'd blown it. If she couldn't convince even one golden-voiced girl with a bad dye job and an albatross of a kid brother to sign with her, then she needed to head back to Nashville and work on her game.

  Still, there was one more thing she needed to know.

  "That song," she said.

  "Mmm."

  "The one you sang for me yesterday."

  "I remember."

  "It wasn't about a woman after all, was it?"

  There was a long silence, long enough that Regina figured she'd pushed too far, asked too much. Until finally he spoke again.

  "No. Not a woman. It was my, uh..." He took a deep breath. "So, my mom died when I was little, and my dad got stuck being my only caregiver. I guess you could say he wasn't really cut out for the job. We were never close. I... wished we were. I wrote that song when he passed away a while back."

  Regina felt hot tears sting her eyes. So that was the story behind the faint melancholy that she'd sensed in Chase from the start. How awful, to have to grow up with a father who didn't—or couldn't—make time for you. His dad had probably struggled to make ends meet. Maybe he'd failed in that too. Which made her appreciate her own parents. No matter their failings, they had always made sure all three of their daughters were fed and clothed and provided for, including extras like music lessons and family vacations and their own bedrooms with ruffled canopies and eyelet curtains.

  She brushed her tears carefully away, afraid that Chase would hear her sniffling. She took a few deep breaths, waiting un
til she was sure her voice wouldn't give her away. She wanted to punch Chase's father in the nose, but that didn't seem entirely decent, considering the man had passed on.

  Finally, when she had herself back under control, she spoke again. "It was a beautiful song anyway," she said softly.

  This time, when there was no answer, she somehow knew it was because he had gone. After a while, when she had worked up the courage to open the door, the only sign of him was the bed, which had been clumsily made, the blankets tugged up and the pillows mounded near the headboard.

  Chase might not be much of a housekeeper, but he was a gentleman until the end.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "What are you doing here?" Sherry demanded when she finally came out the front door of the diner. There was a streak of ketchup on the collar of her uniform, and a faint sheen of perspiration on her brow. The parking lot was full of trucks, guys squeezing in a quick meal before heading out for the night shift on the rigs.

  "Jeez, don't bite my head off. I just thought I'd give you a ride so you'd have time for dinner before you head to Buddy's. Matthew made catfish. And Harry has mastered quadrinomial equations."

  Her eyebrow quirked up skeptically. "I wasn't born yesterday, Chase."

  "Okay...'mastered' may be an exaggeration. But I can promise he'll be caught up by the time he transfers to a new school."

  Sherry sighed and got into Chase's truck.

  "You're mad because I signed with Carl instead of your girlfriend," she said before he'd pulled away from the curb.

  "Not really. And she's not my girlfriend."

  Sherry made a clucking sound.

  "Jeez, you make me glad I never had a kid sister, if they're all a pain in the ass like you." He stole a glance at Sherry in time to see a faint smile flash across her lips.

  "It's just that he can get me into Terry Jasper's backup band. That gig alone will pay me enough to quit both these jobs and move. I couldn't pass it up."