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  He gestured to a short stairway leading down into a room Regina hadn't noticed before. An addition that took advantage of the slope of the land to the east, another large room full of comfortable old couches and easy chairs circling a huge television console that was at least twenty years old. A poker table was stacked with a chip caddy and old games. A 1970s faux Tiffany lamp sparkled gold and orange. None of it was attractive, but all of it was clean and orderly, and the effect was surprisingly cozy.

  The men looked at each other. There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of Matthew's spatula on china as he stacked the rolls onto a serving plate. Jayne set a stack of plates on the table and the men helped themselves to folded cloth napkins.

  "Okay, we'll clear out," Zane said, helping himself to a roll. "Just let us know, okay? We'd all like things to go right for Sherry and Harry. They've had a tough go."

  There were murmurs of assent as the men—and Jayne—helped themselves to cinnamon rolls and pushed back their chairs. They filed into the family room, and someone turned on the old set. The sound of a football game was followed by loud cheering.

  And Regina was alone with Chase.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "I'm confused," Regina said carefully, sipping from her mug. The coffee, at least, was delicious.

  Chase sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "Yeah, I can only imagine. At least have something to eat, and I'll try to lay it all out for you." He lifted a roll with a tarnished silver server and set it on a plate, then handed it to her with a fork and a napkin. He served himself, too, but didn't touch his own roll while Regina took a small bite.

  "That's amazing," she exclaimed with her mouth full. It was the best cinnamon roll of her life, tender and spicy and not too sweet, the icing melting on her tongue. She took a sip of coffee to wash it down, and decided that for coffee like this, she might be tempted to move into this crazy dormitory too.

  "You get used to it," Chase muttered. "I mean, yeah, Matthew's an amazing cook, but we've all put on weight." He patted his stomach, and Regina's eyes were drawn to the way his T-shirt stretched taught against his abs. She'd wager there wasn't a single extra ounce on him.

  "So he's your... cook?"

  "Yes, and he does the maintenance and shopping and keeps the chore chart. Plus fixing up the place. It's a full time job, believe me."

  "How did you all, um, end up living here together?" Regina asked, ignoring the fact that the words "chore chart" made it sound like they were preschoolers, not fully-grown adults.

  Chase stared at her. "Are you kidding? We were lucky to get this place. There's not a room to be had in a two-hour drive. Oil boom's seen to that. Matthew got this place for six thousand a month."

  A thousand dollars each in rent... which would be an outrage anywhere else, but here in the boom town it was probably a good deal. "So you're not from here?"

  "Hell no," Chase said, looking surprised. "Hardly anybody's from here. We all went to high school together in Red Fork, Arkansas. Ran into each other at our tenth reunion and—well, it's kind of a long story, but we all decided to come up here together. Matthew was working as a trucker back then, and he could make more up here than he could down there. The rest of us were all going to work on the rigs—well, all but Cal. All he ever wanted was to be a cop."

  "So you all came up here looking for work? Even Jayne?"

  "Yeah, though she was a sort of a special case. That's another long story. Matthew lined up this place, and we made the trip in three days, and somehow on the trip up here Jayne figured out that she'd rather drive a truck than work on the rigs, and Matthew figured he'd rather make Jayne happy, so she ended up with his truck and Matthew ended up taking care of everything else. Mimi, she's our landlady. She sort of exaggerated when she said the bunkhouse was in move-in condition. But we didn't have a lot of time to fix it up because we all got work the first week."

  "I read about the shortage of workers," Regina said, not bothering to add that she'd spent a long day and part of an evening before her "vacation" learning about North Dakota's boom towns so she'd know what she was trying to lure Stiletta away from. She'd learned that waitresses in Conway could make a few hundred dollars a night. Strippers could easily earn a thousand. It was up to her to discover what Stiletta was earning, though her priorities were a little fuzzy at the moment. "The money is, um, pretty good, right?"

  "Yeah, can't complain about that. But we weren't here a week before we realized we needed someone to kind of keep us from turning into savages. I mean, a hitch is twenty days straight, twelve hours a day, sometimes another couple hours to get out to the rig and back, so we were all too exhausted to do anything but fall into bed."

  "So you drew straws, and Matthew got the short one? And he had to become the den mother?"

  "Not exactly." Chase laughed. "He volunteered. I think it might have something to do with the fact that Jayne drives locally, which means she can come home for lunch sometimes. Which means... Well, see, those bedrooms are kind of small and the walls aren't exactly all that thick, and with the rest of us gone during the day—"

  "I get it," Regina said, blushing.

  "And he's a damn good cook, besides. Not great with laundry, but he's learning. We're all happy to chip in, and the lady who owns this place is paying him to fix it up. So he does okay."

  "And that truck out there, that's what Jayne drives?" Regina asked, impressed.

  "Yep, that's her cab, anyway. She hauls hydraulic for a bunch of the rigs in town. It's a tough job and she's on it six days a week. Today's her day off."

  "So that trailer just sits there?"

  "Trailer... Oh, you must mean the Tar Barn."

  "The, um, long thing that looks like it's used for hauling? I could have sworn it was a trailer..."

  "Yeah, no, we just call it the Tar Barn," Chase said, shrugging. "On account of it got to smelling a lot like road tar in there when we were road tripping up here."

  "Wait. When you said you all came up together..."

  "Yes. In one vehicle. And let me tell you, it's a testament to how badly we all needed a change of scenery that we spent three long days sitting on lawn chairs back there while Matthew drove, hoping he would avoid potholes and falling out of our chairs whenever he took a turn too sharp."

  "That sounds terrible," Regina said, wondering how long she'd last without a seat belt and frequent stops for Diet Coke and bathroom breaks. "Is that even legal?"

  Chase gave her a lopsided grin. For the first time she noticed that when he smiled, a dimple appeared to the left of his mouth. "Not sure. Seemed like one of those occasions where it was better not to know."

  "No one else had a car?"

  "Not one that could make it through the winters up here. I don't guess you've ever been down to Red Fork...?"

  "Arkansas? Can't say that I have."

  "Well, average temperatures are hot as blazes in the summer, and barely ever gets below freezing in the winter. Most years we only get a flake or two of snow and it never sticks to the roads. So we didn't have a single pair of chains between us, much less snow tires or four-wheel drives. Not to mention... uh, well, not to tell tales out of school, but a couple of the guys were stretching to make their payments. So they sold off their cars to pay expenses on the way up." He didn't look at her; his face tinged a faint pink on his cheeks.

  Regina felt the telltale tug in her heart and looked away, resisting the urge to ask any more questions. No. She wasn't going to let some hard luck tale affect another working relationship. She'd learned the hard way not to let her clients' hardships get under her skin. Besides, she was all about the bottom line now—the only clients she planned to sign from here on out were those who would make piles of money for her and for themselves. She wasn't in it for any humanitarian awards—she wasn't in it for any awards at all any more, just for cold, hard cash and the respect of her colleagues and her family.

  She'd started out well enough, having watched her sisters rise to fame on the national op
era scene, where politics and connections mattered every bit as much as talent. She thought she knew how to be as cutthroat as necessary to succeed.

  But that had been before Mason Crenshaw. Before she'd made promises she couldn't keep and killed an old man and crushed the dreams of one of the finest talents she’d ever met.

  And there was no way in hell she was going to make that mistake twice. Her heart couldn't take it again.

  "Well," she said primly, refusing to look in his Chase's eyes and focusing, instead, on his chin. More specifically, the faint cleft that traced his chin, leading to a jaw that looked like it was chiseled from rock.

  A jaw that would look great on the headshots she'd commission. She chastised herself. Her interest in Chase was professional and nothing more. Never mind the rule about not dating clients—after Carl, she'd sworn off men entirely, at least for a while.

  Though her rationale was becoming increasingly difficult to remember.

  "Well," she tried again, a little more forcefully than she intended. "At least you all survived the trip and managed not to get arrested, and you're all here now."

  "Uh, right."

  "So about this, er, Tar Barn..." Something clicked. "Didn't that young man tell me that he was living there? The one who helped me find you?"

  "Harry? Yep. Him and Sherry, they've been there since a week or two after we got here. They lost their lease and, well, we had room so..."

  "In a trailer? Without, um, facilities?"

  "Oh, there's facilities," Chase chuckled. "This was a working ranch for three generations. There's an outhouse back there dates back to 1890."

  He must have seen her blanch because he added, "Aw, I'm just giving you a hard time. There's a bathroom back behind the barn that was added on in the seventies. It's not fancy but it's got a shower and a toilet."

  "Why don't they just live in the barn, then?" Regina asked.

  "Hell no, nobody goes into the barn or the house until Matthew and Zane make sure they're structurally sound. They could collapse any day, from fire damage and too many years with no one keeping up the place."

  "What a shame," Regina said wistfully. "I'm sure they were beautiful once."

  "You're telling me. That house went up in 1928 on the site of the original shack where the family that owned the land settled, and it was supposedly quite a show place back in the day. The family lived in it right up through 2002, and then the rancher's wife died, and he started drinking. Married Mimi soon after that, but I guess she didn't put much effort into keeping the ranch running. The house burned not long after he died a few years back, and Mimi moved into town. Now she's got a hell of a liability issue on her hands—not sure why she doesn't just bulldoze those buildings."

  "How does your landlady feel about a minor and his mother living in a vehicle on her property?" Regina asked, even as she mentally kicked herself. Back off, she chided herself—not your business.

  "Oh, Sherry's not Harry's mother. She's his sister. They're a couple of orphans, lost their parents in an accident last winter. Sherry's doing a good job with him though—gets him to school, works the lunch shift, then goes to gigs at night after she makes sure he does his homework and fixes him dinner."

  "Wait a minute." The pieces fell into place. "Sherry... aka Stiletta?"

  That grin again. "Yup. One and the same."

  "Just how old is she?" Regina demanded, her head spinning from all of the issues that came with working with child artists. The Jester Group used to have half a dozen young performers on its roster, but after years of temper tantrums and boundary issues and financial fiascos—as often as not stemming from the parents as much as the young stars—Meredith had sworn that they wouldn't take on any more.

  "Nineteen—but a very mature nineteen," Chase added quickly. "You go through something like she has, you grow up fast. Now. How about we head over there so you can have a private audition? I let her know you were coming so she's expecting us."

  He wasn't going to let up. Regina wondered what his angle was. He couldn't possibly be sleeping with the young woman, could he? She'd known a few industry sharks who wouldn't let a decade's age difference stop them. And Sherry had a certain fresh-faced appeal, if you looked past the mascara dripping down her cheeks at the end of her set. A tinge of something that felt a lot like jealousy coursed through her. Regina hadn't felt fresh-faced since... well, ever. By the time she was five, her mother had bought Regina her first black floor-length, orchestra-suitable dress so she could play dress-up when she attended her sisters' recitals... and by the time she was ten, Priscilla, the older one, had learned how to do makeup that could withstand stage lights by practicing on Regina.

  "All right, look," she said. Another skill she had learned from her sisters, of necessity, was bargaining. Usually it involved doing their chores in exchange for them swearing she'd done her practice for the day instead of whiling away long hours reading gossip magazines and biographies of famous singers. "I'll go and listen to Sherry if you promise to sing for me too, and hear me out on what our agency can do for you."

  Chase was already shaking his head. "That's a deal I can't in good conscience take," he said. "You can talk until you're blue in the face, and I'm still going to turn you down faster than if you were trying to sell me time shares in a hog farm."

  "All I'm asking for is a chance," Regina said, holding her breath and crossing her fingers behind her back.

  "Well, I don't guess I could deny you that," he said, turning away from her.

  Regina smiled to herself. She didn't grow up as the younger sister of two prima donnas without learning how to get her way.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It wasn't just good manners that made Chase insist that Regina precede him down the well-worn path between the porch and the Tar Barn; it was a perfect opportunity to watch the way her ass swayed as she walked. The skirt she was wearing today only underscored the bewitching effect. The tweedy, pink fabric clung to her curves and, though the prim hemline reached nearly to her knees, it couldn't obscure her full hips and narrow waist underneath. The skirt and matching jacket looked like they had come from a vintage clothing shop, but Chase couldn't imagine any pinup girl from a bygone era could have worn it any better than Regina did.

  Today she'd put her hair up in some sort of complicated twist, but a few blond curls had come loose and cascaded around her creamy, white neck. As she hobbled along the uneven path in high-heeled leather shoes that gave a tantalizing peek of red-painted toenails, she waved at a mosquito that was trailing her. When it landed on her neck, Chase automatically reached to brush it away, and when his fingertips grazed her skin, she jumped.

  She whirled around and stared at him, eyebrows raised. He could feel himself blush. "Sorry. Swamp skeeter."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Big old mosquito. I'd hate to see it raise up a lump.... uh." His face felt like it had heated up to five hundred degrees as he became acutely aware of another kind of lump that was threatening to rise. "It's just… we got some pretty fierce bugs around here."

  "Is that right?" she said skeptically.

  To cover his burgeoning discomfort, Chase cleared his throat and strode past her through the weeds around the path. As he approached the side of the trailer, he recited the Act of Contrition, a trick that had served him well when he was a teenager trying to focus on the sermon rather than the voluptuous choir director, who had been the focus of his earliest fantasies. "I detest all my sins," he muttered to himself, pretty sure that some of the things he'd been imagining doing with Regina counted as sins in at least half the counties in North Dakota.

  By the time he pounded on the door of the trailer, he had himself a little more under control. The door swung open immediately. It was hard to recognize the girl standing there as the same one who'd taken the stage the night before, but Chase had seen the transformation many times, since Sherry had been working both jobs ever since he'd met her. She had her hair up in a ponytail, and her pink waitress uniform made her lo
ok even skinnier—and younger—than the cutoff shorts and cowboy boots had.

  "Hey, Chase," the girl said. "Thanks for sending Harry back to Buddy’s to finish cleaning up. I don't want him cutting any corners. He needs to keep that job."

  "It's no problem," Chase assured her. He knew that Sherry worried that unless her little brother stayed busy, he'd end up picking up bad habits and falling in with the wrong crowd and jeopardizing his future. "I promise to tan his hide if I catch him slacking off."

  "Thanks." Sherry grinned. Then she noticed Regina standing several paces behind Chase and her face screwed up in what appeared to be equal parts terror and hope. "That her?" she whispered.

  "Yep. Now, don't worry, she ain't bit me yet," he whispered back. Then he reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze, before turning around and beckoning Regina over. "Ms. McCary, please meet Sherry Dawkins. She'll be your ticket to fame and fortune if you've got the sense to take her on."

  "I enjoyed your performance last night," Regina said, handing Sherry one of her business cards. "I'd like to talk to you about coming down to Nashville and seeing if we can get you signed with one of the big labels."

  "I can't leave Harry," Sherry blurted, her hands tightening on the card and nearly crushing it. Chase winced. He knew how important this chance was to Sherry—and how terrified she was for her little brother's future.

  "She means to say that she'd love to," Chase said quickly. "Harry will be just fine here with me. My next hitch doesn't start for a week—you can get Sherry down to Nashville before then, can't you?"

  Regina's wide blue eyes flicked from Sherry back to him. Her full lips were parted uncertainly, and she ran the tip of her tongue nervously over the bottom lip, causing a small, molten earthquake to detonate somewhere in his chest.