Diamond, page 2
Jesse grunted. He hadn’t expected her beauty to match her build. “Sweet Jesus,” he muttered, and leaned against the tree trunk as they came off the hill toward him.
No tears. No emotion whatsoever showed on their faces. They neither touched nor looked at each other or at him as they walked by. But he saw their eyes, all vividly green and bright with unshed tears. He shuddered and knew that what he’d considered moments ago was suddenly foolish and useless as hell.
He watched until they turned a street corner and disappeared. Feeling strangely bereft that he’d been unable to touch what had touched him so deeply, he cursed beneath his breath and stomped back to his car.
“Twenty-two fifty,” the man said, and then added, “Don’t take no checks or plastic.”
Jesse fanned the bills in his wallet, pulled out a twenty and three ones, slapped them in the man’s hand and then slammed his backside into the driver’s seat, suddenly eager to get away.
“Thanks, mister,” the man said. “Say…you know what? You look awful familiar.”
Jesse frowned. He’d wondered how long it would take for this to happen.
The man persisted. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a dead ringer for that country singer fella…what’s his name…Hawk?…or some bird name like that.”
“Eagle.”
“Yeah! That’s it! You look just like Jesse Eagle. Did anyone ever tell you that?”
“No,” Jesse said shortly, and shot out onto the road, leaving Cradle Creek and that voice behind him where they belonged.
“Well, hell!” the man said, turning away from the rising dust. “He wadn’t none too friendly.” And then he felt in his pocket for the money and hustled into the station. It was his opinion that when a man had money, he had no need of friends.
“What are we going to do now?” Diamond asked. “I don’t want to stay here.” She closed the door to her father’s room, unwilling to look at that empty bed against the wall. “I can’t stay here.” The words burned in her throat.
Queen nodded in agreement. There was no longer anything—or anyone—to stay for. “I don’t want to either,” she said, “but where would we go? And more important, with what? We can hardly take our inheritance and jet off to see the world.” As always, bitterness hovered just below the surface of her voice.
She, more than the others, had resented the hell out of her father and his lackadaisical life. He’d cheated her out of her childhood by leaving her to raise her two younger sisters. Even when they were old enough to take care of themselves, she’d still been unable to break the ties of responsibility that life had ingrained into her personality.
Lucky sighed and sank down onto the couch, avoiding the cracked leather in the middle cushion. “Morton Whitelaw repeated his offer to buy this house,” she said softly.
They turned and stared at her, shocked by the announcement.
“When?” Queen asked.
“Yesterday, before you got home from cleaning the Abercrombie house.”
Diamond frowned. In a small way she felt betrayed. There was no love lost between Morton Whitelaw and herself, but she did work for the man.
The first time she’d crossed the alley and walked into the bar to ask for a job, tall and well developed beyond her eighteen years, she’d known he would hire her. Even though he was older than her father, she’d seen that look of wanting in his eyes. She’d asked if he wanted a singer, and he’d hired her as a waitress. On busy nights he let her sing for tips.
He’d never crossed the line she’d drawn, and in return she’d given him seven years of hard work for little pay. Anger flared in her now. So this was how he repaid her loyalty.
She leaned against the window and stared at the fading daylight. Night came swiftly in the mountains, even in summer.
“It’s okay, Queenie,” Lucky said. “It’s not like it was the first time he’d asked.”
Queen frowned. First at the childish usage of her name that she hated and only allowed her baby sister to use, and second at the fact that Whitelaw hadn’t had the decency to wait until their father had been buried.
She sighed, dropped down on the other end of the couch, and stared at the buckled and peeling wallpaper, the faded linoleum, and the limp curtains hanging at the windows. What did it matter when he asked? She should be thankful that he still wanted the place. They didn’t.
Cradle Creek had little to offer in the way of employment for women. Lucky didn’t work, and never had. She’d simply hovered at her father’s side all of her life. Her sisters knew of her skill with cards and of the fascination they held for her. Wagering was no secret either. Her slim, nimble fingers could shuffle and deal with the best of players. But she didn’t have the fever. Just a secret desire to go to one of the shiny places, maybe Vegas or Reno, and display her skill and expertise. Thanks to Johnny Houston, it was all she knew.
Lucky frowned, remembering Whitelaw’s knowing stare and the way his hands had twitched as he watched her breasts instead of her face when he’d made the offer. If Johnny’d been alive, Whitelaw wouldn’t have dared behave in such a manner. But he wasn’t. Her lip trembled. She had a horrible suspicion that their bad luck had taken an unbelievable turn for the worse.
To sell or not to sell had been a bone of contention between the Houstons and the owner of the bar next door for over ten years. Whitelaw had wanted to expand. Johnny had laughingly refused.
Oddly, it was the one and only thing that Johnny Houston had refused to wager. Every time Whitelaw had asked, Johnny had responded with a cryptic “I lost my luck, but I’ll be damned if I lose my home.” It had infuriated Whitelaw, but he’d had no choice but to accept.
The news Lucky had just given them made Queen livid. Obviously Whitelaw had been unable to contain his greed until Johnny was decently buried.
“What did he offer?” Queen asked, expecting to hear the usual amount quoted.
“Five thousand,” Lucky whispered, knowing the eruption that would ensue.
She was right. Queen came off the couch in a flash of red hair and anger. Diamond turned away from the window and grabbed her older sister just as she started through the door.
“Don’t,” she begged her. “It’ll only make things worse. He doesn’t have to give us a thing. If he wanted, all he has to do is wait until it’s time to pay taxes and then buy it for nothing, and you know it.”
Queen slumped. It was one of the few times in her life that truth had stopped her fury. That and the fact that today they’d buried Johnny. Memories overwhelmed her. Di was nearly twenty-six, and Lucky, twenty-four. It didn’t seem possible. Where did the time go?
Tears began to form in her eyes, a rare event. She’d done all she could to hold this family together, and now they were going to lose what little they had.
“It’s half what he offered last month,” Lucky muttered, refusing to give in to panic. She waited. Queenie would have an answer. She always did. But the answer to their dilemma came from an unexpected source.
“I’ll deal with him,” Diamond said. The fierce glint in her eyes was a warning of how deeply this had affected her.
“I don’t know…” Queen began.
“No!” Diamond interrupted her. “Leave it to me. I said I’ll handle it—and him, okay?”
Silence was their agreement.
Jesse tossed his hat on a table and set his suitcase down beside the bureau. He dropped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was nearly midnight, and he was still a couple of hours out of Nashville. Too weary to attempt the drive in the dark, he’d opted for the next Motel 6 he’d seen. He’d registered and then made a quick getaway from the desk before he was recognized. He was beginning to appreciate what his manager usually did for him.
His stomach grumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He’d been going to get a bottle of pop and some chips at that gas station back in…what was that town? Cradle something. Creek! Cradle Creek. But that was before he’d heard her. And seen her. And then run like the scared dog that he was.
He flung an arm across his eyes, trying to block out her image. It was no use. He’d driven the last hundred miles with her face staring back at him through his windshield as plainly as if she’d been a hood ornament.
“Godammit to hell,” Jesse muttered, rolling to a sitting position and grabbing for the phone. It didn’t take long to punch a series of buttons, nor for the raspy voice at the other end of the line to berate him once he’d identified himself.
“Hell yes, I’m alive,” he said, as his manager shrieked in his ear. “No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired and decided to spend the night in a motel.”
Another set of shrieks erupted, and for the first time that day, Jesse began to smile. “Yes, Mother, I’m alone,” he teased, knowing that nothing panicked his manager more than the thought of groupies and paternity suits. “Calm down, Tommy. I’m tired but fine. The visit home was worth it.” A sense of peace enveloped him as he lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, remembering the voice…and the song. “Everything was worth it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Sleep tight, buddy,” he said quietly, and disconnected.
For one long moment, silence reigned. Then he leaned down and pulled off his boots. In a few minutes the only sounds in the room were running water and Jesse singing a wet rendition of “All Shook Up.”
2
Diamond hefted the tray of drinks and started across the floor, competently weaving her way through the tightly packed tables in the smoke-filled room. Most of the normal banter she would receive on a night like this was absent, as was the man who always sat in the corner chair at the last table. She’d known that coming back to work would be hard, but she’d had no idea how empty that spindle-back chair would look without her father in it. Nor how much she would miss the occasional wink he used to give her as she passed his way.
“Hey, blondie,” a regular yelled. “Bring another round. It’s thirsty work in the hole.” His reference to the mines was as well used as the bills he slapped on the table to punctuate his order.
She nodded and headed back toward the bar.
Grit crunched beneath her scuffed ropers as she scooted to a halt. “Five more at Murph’s table,” she said shortly, knowing that Morton Whitelaw kept a mental running tab on every table in the place.
He filled the mugs and slid them toward her. The overflowing brews left a wet trail along the counter as she quickly refilled her tray.
“Real sorry about Johnny,” Morton finally muttered.
It had taken him three hours to get up the nerve to say it. The comment had been on the tip of his tongue when she came to work, but the look on her face had put him off. If he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn she’d glared. He’d expected sadness from her, even depression, but not anger.
Diamond watched his mottled complexion turn a deeper shade of red as she ignored his condolence and silently walked away with the order.
Morton frowned. She was obviously angry, and he would bet a month’s receipts he knew why. But what the hell did they expect? A man had to make a dollar when the opportunity arose, even if someone else suffered in the process. Besides, he told himself, if those three sisters weren’t so damned uppity, they’d do what any self-respecting woman in these parts did, and that was get themselves married. They needed to let someone else take care of them. Maybe then they wouldn’t be so high and mighty.
“Hey, shiny girl,” Crockett Tolly yelled, “sing us a song.”
She smiled. Crockett was her favorite customer. And his teasing nickname was old business between them. He’d always told Johnny that giving her the name Diamond was probably smart because no one would ever have the money to give her real ones. She decided she might feel better if she fell into a routine, as if nothing had changed. She turned to Morton for the okay.
He nodded. It wouldn’t hurt to give her some leeway tonight. It wasn’t Saturday, but what the hell, if they wanted her to sing, she could sing. He didn’t care as long as they kept drinking.
Diamond retrieved the old guitar from a closet in the hall. One of the men relinquished his stool at the bar and dragged it into the small, empty space in the center of the room. She sat down and wound her long legs around the rungs of the stool, absently locking herself in place as she strummed keys and chords while tightening the strings to the proper pitch.
“Sing us your favorite,” one of the men called out.
The murmurs of agreement swept through Whitelaw’s Bar as the men settled down. They knew well the depth of emotion that Johnny Houston’s middle daughter could wring from a song, and having her sing her “favorite” was the only way they knew how to express regret for her loss without voicing the sentiment.
Diamond smiled as she bent over the instrument. Her thick, honey-colored hair fell forward, half hiding her face from the men’s knowing eyes. Her fingers strummed across the strings, touching tentative chords as she relaxed. And then as always, she took them unaware.
The song burst forth in the middle of a chord, her fingers catching up with the melody as the words filled the smoky room. And one by one the men fell silent and listened—until she reached the chorus.
“Did you ever know that you’re my hero….”
At that moment, every man in the room, including Morton Whitelaw, would have given a year of his life to have been the man in her song.
“…and everything I’d like to be…”
Her voice rang out—one clear, pure note after another, without any struggle for breath or timing, without pause for effect. Diamond Houston had forgotten everything but the song filling her heart and her soul.
Guided by the flashing red Christmas lights strung across the porch, Jesse pulled into the parking lot and leaned his forehead on the steering wheel. Only a dive like this would use Christmas lights in the middle of July.
He still couldn’t believe he was here. He’d awakened a little after noon, eaten, filled up the car with gas, and backtracked to Cradle Creek without conscious thought.
She’d haunted him the night before. He’d tossed and turned, dreaming of green eyes and tall women and a voice that kept calling him home. When he’d finally slept, it had been out of exhaustion. And when he’d awoke, he’d known what he needed to do.
“Well, dumb ass,” he told himself, “you’re here. Now get out of the car and go find her. What you do after that is your own damn worry.”
He didn’t have far to go. It had been his intention to go into the bar and casually ask the locals for an address. But the moment he emerged from his car, he knew his search was over before it had really begun. That voice filled the night air…and his heart. His legs began to shake. It took all his strength to walk onto the porch and push his way inside. His sense of survival told him this might be the stupidest thing he’d ever done, but instinct told him he’d be sorry the rest of his life if he didn’t.
As Jesse entered, he dreaded the impact his appearance might make. He could have spared himself the worry. The place was packed, yet not a man turned at his entrance. They were locked in place by a woman and a song—and dreams of something better than, what life had dealt them.
Jesse Eagle leaned against the back wall and let himself be drawn into her world and her music. And when her voice soared, he felt unexpected tears beneath his lashes. He swallowed and stared as the sound vibrated through the air.
“…fly higher than an eagle…”
His stomach tilted. With a voice like that, she very well could fly higher than eagles, even one called Jesse. And yet he stayed, his gaze pinned to the curtain of hair hiding her features, anxiously awaiting the moment when she’d straighten. Then he could see her face, and those eyes, and know whether or not he was a fool.
Diamond sighed as the last note faded. It was habit that made her stand and turn toward the chair at the back of the room. The shock on her face was apparent. A soft gasp swept through the bar as the men realized what she’d done.
It had been Johnny’s practice to pass his hat after her song, collecting her tips as he coerced the younger men to pitch in extra, teasing them with promises Diamond had no intention of keeping.
But no one stood and started the applause that normally followed. Shock froze the assembly in place.
Jesse sensed the drama but was unaware of its cause.
“Hell!” one of the men muttered, then shoved back his chair and bolted toward the door. He’d rather face a cave-in at the mine than let these men see him cry.
“What’s going on?” Jesse asked quietly as the man walked past him.
The man looked back at Diamond. “Her old man always used to pass the hat after she sang. I guess she forgot he ain’t here.” He shook his head and walked away, unable to continue his explanation.
But Jesse needed no further explanation. Yesterday they’d buried the man who passed the hat.
He never knew what made him do it. Possibly it was the look of pain that came over her face as she turned and walked from the room. That and the fact that she never looked back.
He pushed himself away from the wall, yanked off his trademark black Stetson with the gold eagle emblem on the band, and started weaving his way through the tables.
“Come on now, boys,” he chided. “Cough it up for the lady.”
At first they were stunned. Some even scooted back in their seats, half expecting to see Johnny Houston’s ghost. But it wasn’t a ghost—it was a shooting star.
“Hey!” Morton Whitelaw shouted. “Aren’t you Jesse Eagle?”
Jesse put on what Tommy called his “famous face” and started working the crowd like a pro.
“Hell yes, I’m Jesse Eagle,” he said, and laughed aloud. “And I’ve just heard an angel sing. Come on boys, ante up. She deserves everything in your pockets, but I’ll settle for half.”
The room erupted. Everyone crowded around, trying to outdo his neighbor and stuff the most money into Jesse’s hat. They’d forgotten that the money was only going to one of the Houston girls. They were in the presence of fame, and for just a moment they felt the glory as if it were their own.
