In Emmylou's Hands

“Eighteen years ago, me and EmmyLou shared that sacred circle.”

His companion sat up real quick-like and drew a sharp breath between clenched teeth. “You and EmmyLou performed at the Grand Ole Opry?”

“In the circle.” Joe Wayne couldn’t hide the pride even if he wanted to...which he didn’t. “Ever hear of The Fullers?”

He watched recognition dawn in his companion’s eyes. “Hell, yeah. I had some of their CDs.”

“Our CDs.” He tapped his chest with his finger. “Me and EmmyLou’s.”

Sol was all Mr. Interested now. He straddled the chair—maneuvering his artificial leg almost as well as his real one—and cradled his bourbon between his hands. “What happened?”

“Well, ya see, I was good, but EmmyLou was the draw.” Joe Wayne’s jaw was flapping loose as a goose now, his mind running through rationalizations that would justify giving up his sister’s story. “Hell, you saw the pictures of her in there on the wall. Beauty queen with the voice of an angel.” Sol would understand her better if he knew. And besides, EmmyLou... EmmyLou and Mama...had blown everything way out of proportion. What happened wasn’t that big a deal—hardly a deal at all, actually.

He tried to wash away the bitterness on his tongue with another sip. Nope, still there. He gulped, and the bourbon surrounded his anger, making it palatable and much easier to swallow. And it slowed him down. “But this ain’t my story to tell. Ask EmmyLou.” A few strums on the guitar, and the tension released in his arms and neck, his back and his hands. “What was that song I had going a minute ago?”

“Lonely men...lonely women,” his companion sang in a voice that wasn’t half-bad, but not half-good, either.

Joe Wayne’s fingers took off on a different tangent, the first tune lost in the marine fog in his brain. “Not half-bad...not half-good...life’s weird math just don’t add up. Not half-sad...not half-happy... ’less I’m sipping from a cup. Bourbon helps to fill the spaces...helps my mind to wander free. One good slurp and I’m expoundin’...on life’s geometry.”

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_217b11ce-f44a-568a-bb74-4a06ec8f6a54)

THE NINE-HOUR DRIVE back to Taylor’s Grove was as uneventful as Sol’s week had been once Joe Wayne left. No traffic jams. Very little construction. Bright sunshine the entire way. Even the diner he’d stopped at in northern Alabama had food that rivaled the one at home.

Yet, with all the rightness surrounding him, his world was a half bubble off plumb. Because of EmmyLou Creighton Fuller.

He couldn’t get the damn woman out of his mind.

True to his word, Joe Wayne left after the Patsy caper, though not for a couple of days. But when he did, he locked up the family suite and all its secrets therein.

That door—and the woman it had come to symbolize—was sealed off, which frustrated the living hell out of Sol.

So she had secrets. Hell, everybody had secrets. He sported one of the biggest ones around. Over and over—when he was drunk—Joe Wayne had reminded him that he’d lost his leg in an honorable endeavor. “Nuthin’ to be ashamed of.”

He wasn’t ashamed. He simply didn’t want all that hero attention.

But the next time Joe Wayne and his sister got together...if there was any drinking involved—and, of course, with Joe Wayne there would be—the information would undoubtedly be divulged. Probably in the form of a ballad. Oh, yeah, Joe Wayne had sworn that the Patsy fiasco made them blood brothers of a sort, and implied that the status gave Sol an exemption from being discussed. But the saying “Liquor is quicker” seemed to have been invented with Joe Wayne in mind.

And how long would EmmyLou’s mouth be able to hang on to such a juicy bit of news?

Only until the next time it opened...which was never a long wait.

The answer lay in finding a way to keep the woman quiet, and the closer he got to home, the more urgent the need became.

He turned off the radio in his truck, needing the silence to concentrate.

The secret behind the private suite’s door would’ve given him leverage. Each time he passed it, he paused to look over the structure and assess its weakness, fiddling with the real estate agent box, trying every random combination that came into his head. None worked.

The greatest frustration came from the assurance that the harder he tried not to think about the mystery of EmmyLou, the more obsessed he became. She was the human equivalent of the real estate agent box, and all he needed was the right combination.

One entire rainy afternoon even found him searching the term EmmyLou Fuller on his phone. What little information the query turned up was fifteen years old or more. She and Joe Wayne had a couple of big hits on the country music charts. She’d participated in beauty contests from the time she was five until she was seventeen but never went on to any of the big ones like Miss Tennessee.

Her life involved no huge scandal as far as he could tell. She hadn’t been kicked out of pageants for drinking or having sex with the judges.

One day she simply slipped from public view and was forgotten. So why the name change?

He supposed he could hold what little he knew about her over her head—a preemptive strategy to have in place when Joe Wayne put his real sister before his fake blood brother. But letting her know that he had something on her before it even came up seemed like overreaction.

Or maybe he should just level with her. I don’t want people to know about my fake leg just like you don’t want people to know about your fake name. Deal?

And he could watch himself slide from half man to no man at all in her perspective in a matter of seconds. Or worse, she’d start being kind to him and giving him that pitying look.

Oh hell no.

Despite the fact that it aggravated him, the one thing he liked about EmmyLou Creighton was how she didn’t cut him any slack because of his bum leg. Except the day her dog had humped it—she’d seemed sympathetic then. He’d hated that.

The Cadiz exit appeared, and Sol left I-24 to make the rest of the trip on two-lane roads. As he approached the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp, he glanced at the rearview mirror.

What he saw wasn’t so much his own reflection with two bluish-green bruises circling his eyes and a piece of adhesive tape holding his nose in place. Instead, it was the answer he’d been searching for.

He grinned at the painful sight.

* * *

“JOE WAYNE WENT on and on about your friend he met at the beach house. Sol?”

Her mom’s mention of Joey and Sol in the same sentence brought a flush to Emmy’s face. The thought of her brother’s hijinks was bad enough, but adding Sol Beecher to the images made her want to crawl in a hole...or seek a new identity. Again.

“Sol’s not really a friend,” she corrected her mother, sensing the turn this conversation was about to make. “Just a guy from Taylor’s Grove.”

“Well, Joe Wayne told us he’s not married, and he’s around forty.” Yes, indeed. Thar she blows! “I never dreamed that Podunk town you moved to might have an eligible bachelor near your age. You shouldn’t let this opportunity pass you by. Lord knows, you’ve let that happen too often—and I’m not just talking in the marriage department.”

The long-familiar tightness in her gut, which always accompanied a visit or phone call from her mom, twisted into an ache. “This isn’t an opportunity, Mama.”

“Nothing ever is with you. That’s exactly the kind of failure talk that got you where you are. Nowhere.”

EmmyLou bit back the retort on the tip of her tongue. Mama never heard when she talked about her successful salon or how much she loved living in her beautiful home on the outskirts of the friendly village. If it didn’t somehow bring direct attention to Mama, it was considered a failure. Emmy had learned the rules of engagement long ago.

A blessed beep sounded in her ear. “Hey, I’ve got another call, so I’ll have to let you go. Tell Dad I love him. Bye.”

“Think about what I said.” Her mom rushed and got in the last word...as always.

Emmy tapped the button without checking the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Hey, EmmyLou. It’s Sol.”

Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Heat surged through her at the sound of the wolf-like growl. She gritted her teeth. “Hi there. You back? And all in one piece?”

A long pause brought the hairs on the back of her neck to attention. “You talked to your brother.”