Courting Disaster

The main reason she wanted to avoid thinking about it was that from Mr. Demetri Lucas, car driver extraordinaire, she had heard exactly zero words. Not that she was expecting to. Not that she was sitting by her hotel room phone waiting for his call, or even a bill for the car damages. No sir, Elizabeth wasn’t going to wait for any man, no matter how much he stirred her blood, or no matter how much he affected her songwriting skills.

Pitifully, instead of robbing her of things to sing about, now she had tons of things to sing about. Songs with a brand-new tone. Something sultry, wicked and knee-wobblingly sexy. Of course that had absolutely nothing to do with Demetri, nothing at all.

If she kept telling herself that often enough, eventually she’d start to believe it.

The band, of course, noticed. Her “band” wasn’t really a band in the proper sense of the word. There was Rebecca Townsend, who sang backup. Tobey had found her singing in an old bar in Nashville when she was only seventeen. Calder Jones was the bass guitarist, a big strapping man who was pushing sixty, although he told everyone he was just a more mature-looking twenty-nine. Peter Sanderson was the keyboard magician who had the fastest fingers that Elizabeth had ever seen. The four of them had been playing together for almost five years, and although it was a mostly professional relationship, that didn’t mean that Elizabeth didn’t want to hear about Rebecca’s man troubles, Calder’s grandkids and Peter’s latest man troubles, too.

After rehearsal on Thursday, Rebecca trapped Elizabeth in the tiny ladies’ room, her eyes sly with suspicion. “What’s up with the new song?”

Elizabeth pretended ignorance, because she knew what Rebecca would say if she spilled any of the truth. “Frank gave it to me.”

Rebecca’s mouth curved into a knowing smile. “Tobey said you wrote it.”

Elizabeth swallowed, but bravely climbed deeper into that hole she had now dug. “Are you calling me a liar?” she asked, hands on hips.

“Yes,” answered Rebecca, not even a little ashamed to be casting such aspersions on Elizabeth’s character.

So Elizabeth promptly changed the subject. “Tell me about this new fellow you’ve been seeing.”

Now, Rebecca was born and bred in Virginia, so there wasn’t much that sailed past her. “Only if you’ll tell me about the inspiration for the new song,” she answered, not budging an inch.

Elizabeth didn’t want to talk about the inspiration for the new song. She didn’t want to think about the inspiration for the new song. She didn’t even like being inspired, which was saying a lot since she made most of her money as a songwriter.

There’d been almost a week of sleepless—or nearly sleepless—nights when she imagined she was still dancing with Demetri around the Prestons’ dance floor. She had memorized that blood-thumping gleam in those warm eyes, and every time her brain fired up the memory—which was often—she felt those deviously persistent tendrils of desire that were curling all through her insides, whipping around and, for all intents and purposes, making mush of her brain.

It was a low moment for a woman who secretly prided herself on her good sense, and quietly laughed at all those people who thought she was a dim bulb who fell off the turnip truck at regular intervals. Not about to confess her deepest shortcomings, Elizabeth prudently kept silent.

Rebecca humphed. “Fine. You don’t have to tell me. Me, the person you work with day in, day out. Me, who has toured the last twelve months with you, sharing after-concert French fries, when Calder and Peter refused because it was bad for their hearts. Me, your friend. You don’t have to say a word, you keep those secrets all to yourself, but I’ll be watching….”

“There’s nothing to tell,” answered Elizabeth, wishing the words from her new song weren’t whirling in her head. So easy to fall into the dark pull of desire, to sell my soul for what I see in your eyes…

“‘…innocence lost can never be found,’” sang Rebecca, in a breathy imitation of a woman on the verge. “That’s a woman ready to leap off the bridge, Bethy.”

“I’m not jumping off any bridge,” she said, sounding just like a woman on the verge.

“It’s a metaphorical bridge, Elizabeth.”

“I’m not jumping, metaphorical or otherwise,” snapped Elizabeth.

“I think it’s high time you did,” said Rebecca, “We’ve been playing together for five years, and I’ve watched you go from one useless boyfriend to another, without a backward glance. Three dates and they’re out, just like in baseball. But you never wrote a song about a single one of them. Ever. Now you think you’re going to escape a full-blown interrogation? Oh, no. Honey, when you do, you have to tell me all about it. I want to hear every single, sordid detail.”

Sordid details ran through Elizabeth’s mind like late-night cable television—scintillating, titillating, late-night cable. Desperate to escape, Elizabeth checked her watch. “Peter is going to shoot you for keeping us late tonight, Rebecca. He’s got plans for this evening.”

Rebecca snickered. “He won’t be mad after I tell him what we were talking about.”

“You can’t!” hollered Elizabeth, a lot louder than she intended.

Rebecca wiggled her brows. “See, I knew there was something to tell. You’re getting a break today, but just remember…I’ll be watching.”

Chapter Five

She hadn’t planned on watching the racing trials on Friday. Elizabeth had hair to wash, fingernails to polish, but there she was, sitting in the tippy-top row of the stands, camouflaged in a blue cotton skirt, with a scarf on her head and Hollywood sunglasses over her eyes—so hopefully he wouldn’t notice. And she didn’t think that he did, because the stands were full and the track down below was busier than any beehive she’d ever had the pleasure to study up close.

It was a hair-raising experience watching the low-slung cars and the whole crew of mechanics that did everything but wipe the windshield and buff the tires. She kept telling herself that driving a racing car was not hazardous to anyone’s health, but her eyes were trained on the red car with the hot-looking driver, and every time he went around the track, her nerves followed in those same fast-wheeling curves, dragging her stomach along behind. It wasn’t pretty, and Elizabeth thought it wasn’t healthy—not only for the low-slung cars, but for her, as well.

The whole circuit format was new to her. These weren’t circles, but sharp, winding turns that didn’t seem to scare anybody but Elizabeth. The engine buzzing was loud in her ears. Even from the top of the stands, it was louder than the speakers at one of her concerts, ringing in her head. The first time around, all twenty-one cars raced, but then a few minutes passed and officials came and eliminated some from the track. Both of Sterling’s red cars stayed in. A few minutes later, the officials returned, kicked off more cars, and this time there were only ten cars left, including the two red ones.