One-4
926 Words
“Who was on the phone?”
Mert Mentel, lead singer in Cattle Call, slung the pay phone’s receiver back on its cradle and turned to find Phoebe leaning against the office doorjamb. She leaned real good. Had the best rack in town and a waist he could span with one hand even falling down drunk. Which was the only time to make a run at the girl. Something in her brown eyes stopped him in his sober tracks. Her eyes had always been sad, like grief had a permanent home there. And her smile was usually wry, as if life were a joke only she understood.
“Dunno. They hung up.”
He strolled closer because, sad or wry, she didn’t seem to mind displaying her bounty. Her brief denim shorts and briefer white lace top were the perfect frame for her breasts and curving hips. Even better, the shorts left her long legs bare until all the way to her boots. Her hair was a straight fall of dark silk that curled under a stubborn chin on either side, her skin was tanned satin.
Her mouth—well, a guy could take half a day thinking of ways to kiss her mouth. Maybe longer if his big brother didn’t come along and kick his ass back into the real world.
Mert sighed and reached out to smooth some of the hair back from the chin, wishing he could smooth the sad from her eyes with some hot s*x. “Some asshole break his promise to call you, girl?”
Phoebe grinned up at Mert, aware of, but unaffected by, his signature Mentel charm. “Like I’d believe any man’s promises. Last time I checked, sucker wasn’t listed on my resume.”
“Think I’ll go kick Jesse’s butt for ruining you. Or you could let me heal your broken heart.” He gave her a hopeful smile.
Like those of all the Mentel boys, Mert’s mouth had been made to smile and placed in a face too pretty for anyone’s good. Even worse, his body was long and taut, with a vaguely designer air despite his country leanings. Blond hair tumbled halfway down his back; wicked green eyes and too much charm were given dangerous fuel by his honest worship at the shrine of the female body. A religion made easy to practice, since women loved to worship him back. The lacing of Texas in his deep smooth voice completed a formidable arsenal.
Luck Phoebe had received an early inoculation against the Mentel charm at the hands of his big brother, Jesse.
“I don’t have a heart,” Phoebe said. She didn’t glory in knowing this. She even missed it, but before becoming “Phoebe,” before this life Phagan had helped her create, she’d placed that heart in her sister’s dead hands. Now it was buried with her six feet under the Georgia soil. And there would be no resurrection until the man now known as Peter Harding paid for his crimes.
What she’d learned as Phoebe, what she’d learned from working with Phagan, made it possible for her to smile at Mert even though her nerves were stretched as tight as the strings on her guitar. Just like her ears told her when her guitar was out of tune, her senses were telling her the game was out of sync.
Where was Phagan? He sometimes dropped off her cyber-map, but never when a game was running. Ollie and Dewey were MIA, too, though that wasn’t so unusual. A lot depended on where Phagan had them deployed.
Too bad her senses hadn’t been online when she placed that phone call. Hadn’t made a mistake like that since she first started playing Phagan’s games. Might as well put a neon arrow in the sky, pointing to the bar. To her.
Mert’s grin turned wry. The change didn’t lessen its impact. “Then why not just use me for s*x?”
“Because I respect you.” Phoebe patted his cheek and in doing so caught sight of her watch. She cussed. “Look at the time.”
“Don’t need to with you around. Could take a whiz, though.” He headed toward the john.
Phoebe, heartless but not blind, watched him walk away. He had a great butt, and a girl had to get her pleasure where she could, while she could. He disappeared into the john, leaving her to turn her attention to the upcoming set. She fingered the buttons of her Daisy Mae shirt. It had only four, so she’d done up all of them. Now she wasn’t so sure. The trick was to show just enough cleavage to keep attention off her face. She’d changed what she could, short of plastic surgery, but she knew the wrong people could recognize her if they got a close enough look.
Leg, youngest Mentel and boy behind the keyboards, poked his head in the door that separated the hallway from the bar. From under his mustache he gave her a toothpaste-ad grin.
“Your groupie’s back.”
Phoebe made a face. “Not Earl?”
“The one and only duke of.”
“Great.” She sighed. “Thanks for the heads up, even if you are enjoying it.”
Leg laughed and disappeared. Smart boy.
It was a public bar. Couldn’t kick out her most ardent fan. Maybe if she kept her buttons closed, he’d only drool tonight. She frowned. Who was Earl? He looked harmless, but she couldn’t afford to assume he was harmless. Not when she was a shining example of the hide-in-plain-sight school of thought.
She studied her cleavage. If the doughy and disgusting Earl was other than what he appeared to be, maybe she ought to make sure his blood flow headed south. She undid two buttons. The push-up bra did the rest.
Mert came back from the john still zipping his jeans. His eyebrows shot up when he saw her. “Taking show time to a new low, aren’t you, girl?”
“Earl’s here.”
Mert grinned. “And you’re gonna kill him with kindness.” He studied her “kindness” with a connoisseur’s eye. “What about collateral damage?”
“You’ll heal,” she said.
- Writer
