Run Rose Run(17)

“It’s nice to be back here,” she was saying. “I’m AnnieLee Keyes, and I’m kinda new in town.” She tapped on the beat-up instrument she held in her lap. “This here is the Cat’s Paw, um, community guitar. It’s got old strings and slippery pegs, so it doesn’t always like to stay in tune. But the two of us’ll do our best for you tonight.”

People chuckled, and quite a few of them clapped enthusiastically. Either they knew her already, Ruthanna thought, or she was charming them real quick.

As AnnieLee began to strum her intro, Ruthanna could hear how dull the strings sounded, and she quickly decided to get a better instrument sent to the bar tomorrow. She was wondering whether she should get a Martin or a Gibson—or maybe a Taylor?—when the girl opened her mouth and started singing. And Ruthanna sat up and started paying attention.

Dark night, bright future

Like the phoenix from the ashes, I shall rise again

The girl’s voice was a honey-colored soprano, clear and luminous. Ruthanna forgot about her tired, aching feet—and even her excellent drink—as she listened, mesmerized. Where did this girl come from? AnnieLee Keyes looked barely older than a teenager, but she sang as though she’d lived for ninety-nine years and seen tragedy in each one of them.

And yet that voice of hers wasn’t sad. It was strong, and it was wise.

In any other instance, Ruthanna would’ve expected Ethan to nudge her in the ribs and whisper I told you so. But she didn’t have to look at him again to know that he was entranced. The whole room was under AnnieLee’s spell.

When she started a new song with a quicker tempo, her voice became a roar rather than a trill. Ruthanna tapped her bare foot on the sticky bar floor. Ethan was right. She did sing like an angel—and like a devil, too. Underneath that sweet, doll-faced exterior, there was something fierce and furious about AnnieLee Keyes. Some dark pain powered those pipes; Ruthanna was sure of it.

It wasn’t just the girl’s voice, either; it was the stories her songs told. Words and melody alike pulled the listener in, so that everyone in the room, no matter who they were, felt exactly what AnnieLee Keyes was feeling.

Ruthanna took a deep breath and beckoned to Billy for another martini. She’d seen more than a lifetime’s worth of brilliant, accomplished professional musicians, but this girl was a natural.

It took one to know one.





Chapter

16



When AnnieLee finished her set and went to the bar for her celebratory club soda, Billy waved her off. “Not here,” he said, and his voice sounded almost strangled.

Her stomach lurched—had she done something wrong?

Well, you insulted the guitar he was nice enough to let you use, for one thing, she thought.

Then a thousand other possible slights began tumbling through her mind. Maybe she hadn’t thanked him enthusiastically enough from the stage for letting her sing, or she’d failed to say how honored she was to share the stage with all the other songwriters. And had her pitch been off in that last number? That high E string kept going flat, and she had flubbed the bridge a little…

She felt herself shrinking down into something small and uncertain. “What’d I do?”

“You can have your drink at the back table,” he said. “Somebody wants to meet you.”

AnnieLee straightened up instantly. “Oh!” she said. “They do, do they? Well, for your information, I’m not going to just go sit down with some random stranger just ’cause he wants me to. Shoot, Billy, I thought I was in trouble.”

“It’s not ‘some random stranger,’” said Billy. “It’s Ruthanna Ryder.”

AnnieLee blinked at him. Surely she hadn’t heard him right. There was truly no way—it was like saying Patsy Cline had floated down from heaven on a pair of gilded wings so she could buy AnnieLee a drink. “Come on,” she said. “Can I have my club soda, please? My throat hurts. I don’t even need the lime slice if it’s too much trouble.”

Billy’s eyes flicked toward the back of the bar. “Ruthanna Ryder,” he said again, still sounding a little choked. “She’s here, AnnieLee, and she wants to meet you.”

AnnieLee still scoffed at him. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to lie?”

But then Billy walked out from behind the bar, and he came right over and put his big, calloused hand on AnnieLee’s elbow. “The Cat’s Paw is her place,” he said. “Now why don’t you put your pretty smile on and come meet her?”

“Oh, my God,” AnnieLee said as he gave her arm a little tug. “You’re not kidding.”

She slipped off her stool, and Billy began to steer her through the crowd. “She’s a hell of a lot ornerier than your average fairy godmother, but that woman can work all kinds of miracles.”

AnnieLee still couldn’t believe what he was telling her. “Is this really happening? What am I going to say? Am I really about to meet the queen of country music?”

“Now, honey, that’s what they call Loretta Lynn. But get all that gee-whiz crap out of you now,” Billy said through clenched teeth. “Ruthanna doesn’t suffer fools.”

Billy gave her a gentle shove and then they broke through a knot of people to find themselves standing in front of a small battered table, in the very back corner of the bar, where the biggest star in Nashville was sitting, clicking her nails on the rim of a martini glass.