After waking up to Arianne crawling into my bed in the wee hours of this morning, I’m a bit wary. “Okay. Thanks. I—I guess I like you all right too. Say, you aren’t getting ready to go all cray cray and shit on me, are you?”
She plasters on a big grin. “No crazy. I’ll save that for the really rich guys.”
“You’re fucking hilarious.”
“I’ve been thinking about your predicament.”
“My predicament? Which would that be? The Marine who wants to sue my ass for jumping into a fight between me and his buddy? The crazy stalker who says she’s pregnant with my baby, but I can’t have arrested for fear of losing my big break? Or the fact that the money I’ve given Lou is under scrutiny?”
Granted, there is some truth to the last problem, but that’s because I thought it was the only way to keep her off-stage and get her into my arms so I could change her mind about us.
Backfired doesn’t even cover it.
Trudi tilts her head this way and that, as though sizing me up. “Neither.”
“Shit. You mean there’s another fucking problem I don’t even know about?”
TWENTY-FOUR
A third Thug has taken up residence at Aunt Delores’s gate. A fourth at the end of the Buckners’ drive. Thugs One and Two alternate guarding their door and checking the perimeter.
It’s been two days since I sent Buck home after I so stupidly told him about my miscarriage. Since then, he’s been over here five times, carrying a bigger more elaborate bouquet with each visit. Every time I’ve been able to get Sadie or Aunt Delores to answer the door and send him packing.
Aunt Delores and Sadie were going stir crazy, so they went to town to buy a bucket of chicken and take a break from the drama zone. At least, that’s how Aunt Delores put it right before she went out the door.
And she left just seconds before I looked out the window to see Buck trotting across the backyard, more flowers in hand, and a case of some sort on his back.
A cameraman follows a few yards behind him.
I’m gonna get that woman. I bet she did that on purpose. She left me here to deal with Buck—and his crew. Crap.
Fine. I’ll just pretend I’m not home. I drop the blinds and dash to my room. He can just knock until his fool head comes off. I’m not answering. Nothing says I have to answer. If he thinks a few lilies and long-stemmed roses are going to erase the past, he needs to think again.
The knock at the front door jars me, even though I’m expecting it. I steel myself to ignore it, but he just keeps knocking. I twist my hands, pacing the length of my room.
Finally, he ceases. I drop to sit on the edge of the bed, in the same spot Buck sat the last time we talked. I lean forward, in the same position, elbows on knees, head in hands.
A knock on the exterior door to my room makes me jump to my feet.
Shit. Now what?
I start into the hall to get further from the door he’s now banging on, but the knocking ceases. Then the strumming of a banjo halts my steps.
What the fuck?
My mind is immediately carried back to the last time I heard that instrument.
Buck must’ve been about twelve and I was probably almost eleven. Bucks’ Pops had gotten a new guitar and Buck wanted so badly to play it. But, being the smart man he was, instead of giving Buck the guitar to play with, he dug out an old banjo from the closet and gifted it to Buck, who grinned like he’d been given a brand new Fender or Gibson.
He tried for the longest to learn to play. Never was very good, bless his heart, though he did try. He only managed to learn one song.
I shake my head. It was the song he plays now. Old Suzanna.
My hand covers my mouth, when his voice comes through the closed door.
Oh, my freaking lord.
He sings off-key, “Oh, I come from California with my banjo on my knee,
I'm going to Louisiana, my true love for to see.
Oh! Loula Mae, Oh don't you cry for me,
For I come from California with my banjo on my knee.
For I left my pride upon a shelf; I hope she sees that I
Try to change her mind about our love. Loula Mae now don’t you—”
I wrench the door open. “Oh, for the love of sanity. If I let you in, will you shut the fuck up?”
Buck tosses the banjo to the deck and turns, giving the camera guy a thumbs-up over the railing.
I let him in and shut the door, and then I double check that the curtains are closed.
I turn to him. “You are seriously disturbed.”
“No, I’m desperate.”
His blue-green gaze won’t leave me. I look away, but when my eyes flick back to him, he’s still watching me.
“Well, you’re in. Say whatever it is you need to say, so you can leave.”
He grabs my hands. “Lou, I know what happened. I didn’t see it before, but I think I get it now.”