I looked back at Carlucci and found him watching me, his smoky eyes dark and impossible to read. When he reached for the pepper I found myself watching the muscles in his arms. I wondered what it would feel like to have them wrapped around me. Just as quickly, I shook the image off and swallowed. What in the world was I doing thinking like that?
As if he read my mind, Carlucci smiled.
"You should wear that robe to dinner more often," he said. "And let your hair go like that, so it just goes all curly. You ever think about not fixing it up, just leaving it be?"
"You know," I said, laying my fork down on my plate, "you and my ex-husband would get along."
"And how's that?" he asked.
I stared right back at him. "Whenever Vernell doesn't want to deal with something, he starts complimenting me. Here you are, in my house again, without my permission, making yourself at home, and I'm supposed to just take it and go on."
Carlucci licked his lips. "Exactly."
"Why?"
"Because you'll get yourself killed if I don't stick around. Besides," he added, "I think we've got some unfinished business."
I could feel my face flame up under his gaze, the heat spreading down my neck and into my chest. What did he mean, unfinished business? Who was I kidding? I knew exactly what unfinished business he meant.
I tossed my hair back over my shoulders and looked at him. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Carlucci laughed. "You most certainly do. I can see it in the way you squirm when I look at you."
I jumped up, pushing my chair back behind me. I didn't want him to see it in my face, to read what we both knew I felt. I didn't want to deal with him. I couldn't face what I felt. Not now, maybe not even later. "I'm late. I've got to get ready."
Carlucci just stared at me, his eyes roving down the V of my robe, taking his time. "You do that, Maggie Reid, you get ready."
I turned away from him and stalked off to my room, closing the door and locking it behind me. Who did he think he was?
Chapter Eighteen
I left Tony Carlucci and a pile of dirty dishes, headed for the Golden Stallion. If there was one cure for trouble, it was music. It didn't matter how bad things got, or how screwed up my love life was, music was the cure. All I had to do was hear Sparks slide into the intro with his silky pedal steel guitar, and I was transported away from every worry I'd ever known.
The Golden Stallion club is my home away from home. It sits in a pitted gravel parking lot looking like a derelict, A-framed warehouse just back off busy High Point Road. It isn't a thing to look at, inside or out, but it's where I feel the most like myself of anywhere next to my house or Mama's.
Of course, just stepping through the doorway makes me sick. The stage fright overwhelms me, right up until the band starts playing my song and I run up the steps, out onto the stage and take the mike in my hands. It was no different tonight than it is any other night. I stepped into the front door, hugged Cletus, the bull-necked bouncer, and ran for the ladies' room.
But as soon as Sparks launched into "Your Cheatin' Heart," I was out the door and walking up on stage, my heart pounding, my palms sweating, and a huge smile on my face.
Sparks looked up from the pedal steel, his huge white cowboy hat sparkling under the lights. His mustache takes up half of his face, and when he smiles, he'll melt your heart, but Sparks doesn't give himself away easy. He holds on to that smile and only lets it out when he's assured that he's in charge and things are going his way. I figure it's on account of him being short. He has to set the tone with you, let you know his bite is just as strong as his bark. Tonight he wasn't smiling. I'd missed early rehearsal. I hadn't even remembered it, until I saw the scowl. Oh well, this was just not the day for perfection.
Harmonica Jack saw me and danced across the stage, the harmonica up to his lips and his eyebrows wiggling with the exertion of playing the melody line.
I strolled up to him, rubbed up against his shoulder and began to sing. Behind me, Sugar Bear, the rhythm guitar player, stood like a massive dark-haired, bearded mountain man.
Chris, the lead guitar player, picked out a harmony lead and laid it right down under my vocals.
We were good, my boys and me, and there ain't nothing like a tune well done to draw a crowd out onto the dance floor.
"When tears fall down, like falling rain," I sang, and looked out at the dancers. For a moment my mind replayed the image of Bess King, standing outside her barn door, watching Weathers lead Vernell away. And in that same instant I realized who Tony Carlucci worked for. It was as plain as the nose on my face. Bess had hired Tony to find Vernell before her husband or anyone else could.
I was startled to hear Sugar Bear's strong baritone come in behind me, and realized that I'd stopped singing. Sparks was giving me the evil eye and Jack looked plain worried. I shrugged my shoulders and grinned, like maybe I'd suddenly forgotten the words, but nobody seemed fooled. I sang that song every single night, and I'd never messed up, not once.
"You all right?" Jack murmured, dancing right up to my shoulder.
"Yeah, fine, just a little distracted." Behind us, Sparks was playing his solo.
"You staying with me tonight or what?"
I held the mike down at my side and looked at him. "It might get dangerous, Jack. I don't want to jeopardize your safety. I could never forgive…"
"Maggie," he interrupted, "I'm younger than you, but I'm not a child. I know what's going on, and I think we can handle it. Now sing, you're up."
The words came automatically this time, and all the while I was looking at my friend. When everything else went to hell in a handcart, there he was. He didn't try and sweet-talk me or manipulate me or leave me in the dark. No, he was just himself, calm and steady. Just what I needed when my entire world was up in the air.
Bess King was at the top of my list for tomorrow, along with Vernell Spivey. Between the two of them, I knew I'd find the key to whatever was going on. I all of a sudden had a business to run. If Vernell was arrested or otherwise incapacitated, I had a 49 percent share of a mobile home lot that was going to one day send Sheila to college. I had to find the money Vernell had run off with and square things with the employees before the Mobile Home Kingdom folded. And if anyone was going to prove to Weathers that Sheila's father was not a murderer, it would have to be me. As for Marshall Weathers, well, it was best not to dwell on him. For a second I felt what it was like to let go of him, to know that he wasn't the one, and that was enough for me. All I needed was my music, and to forget.
I sang and sang. It wasn't until the third set, the last set of the night, that I noticed Tony Carlucci had come in and somehow gotten himself backstage to stand in the wings, watching.
He made the band nervous. They kept looking over at him, and he made it worse by staring right back, no smile, no give to his expression. He stood with his muscular arms crossed, wearing a black motorcycle jacket, black jeans, and a very black attitude. When I made eye contact, his facial expression remained unchanged. His eyes flickered from me, to the band, to the house. This wasn't a social call. Carlucci was working, or whatever it was that he did.
Harmonica Jack edged closer. "You see that guy?"
I frowned at Carlucci. "Don't worry about him. He's an idiot."
Jack looked at Carlucci and ran the harmonica along his lips, then pulled it away and started talking. "Well, he sure seemed friendly with Cletus. Two of them were just a-laughin' and slappin' each other on the back awhile ago. Maybe he's a new hire."