Run Rose Run(5)

He gave the knob a tug, but it was locked. Then, as the seconds ticked by, he started banging on the glass. There was no response. He fired a volley of curses into the ivy creeping up the sides of the Greek Revival mansion that Ruthanna jokingly called the Castle, and then he went around to the front and began stabbing madly at the doorbell. Ruthanna was going to kill him.

Maya finally opened the door. “May I help you?” she asked. She looked him up and down like he was a stranger trying to sell her a set of encyclopedias.

“Maya,” Ethan said, exasperated. “I’m here to record.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said. But she didn’t step aside to let him in.

“I’m late,” he said. “I know, I’m sorry. I couldn’t get Gladys started.”

Maya’s dark eyes widened. “I sure don’t want to hear about that!” she exclaimed.

Ethan blushed right down to his neck. “Gladys is my truck.”

Maya laughed at her joke, and then her face grew serious again. “Well, you know where you’re going, and I guess you’d better get yourself there quick. You-know-who’s waiting.”

He ducked his head in thanks, nerves jangling, and hurried through the marble-floored foyer, passing the magnificent living room on his left. Ruthanna probably called it the parlor or the salon or something fancy like that, because it looked like one of those roped-off period rooms in a museum. There were leaded-glass windows; massive, glittering chandeliers; and walls hand-painted with tumbling English roses. It was ten times bigger than his entire apartment.

He’d never gotten a tour of the mansion, since all Ruthanna cared about was that he knew where the basement recording studio was, but the house had to be nine thousand square feet at least. He’d even gotten lost in the halls once. But now he took a deep breath—he could just feel Ruthanna waiting on him, simmering with impatience—and then he practically ran down the basement stairs.

Though it seemed as though the majority of music these days was recorded and mixed using little but a MacBook and Pro Tools, Ruthanna was old-school. She had an old tube mixing board she’d saved from some legendary Nashville studio or another, and she liked all her musicians playing together rather than overdubbing for days. She said she loved the raw, natural way the songs came out sounding when people actually played their parts at the same time.

Opening the door to the live room, Ethan saw most of the band already assembled: Melissa, with her fiddle tucked under her arm; Elrodd, perched behind the drums; and Donna, tinkering around on the upright bass.

“Hey,” Ethan said. He didn’t see Stan, though, which meant—thank God—that he wasn’t the last one to arrive. Relieved, Ethan was just setting down his instrument when the lead guitarist came out of the isolation booth with his Stratocaster in his hand.

Stan gave Ethan a look that said, Uh-oh, bro.

Ruthanna’s voice came at Ethan over the intercom. “I know you’re the new one in the room, but I did think you’d know enough not to keep your fellow musicians waiting. Didn’t they teach you about punctuality in the army, Captain Blake?”

He turned toward her; she was in the control room with the engineer, on the other side of a gleaming pane of glass. “I’m sorry, Ruthanna. I couldn’t—”

She cut him off with a flip of her hand. “Absolutely not interested in your excuses,” she said. “You think you’re so special that you can roll in whenever you want to? Sure, you’re real cute, you’ve got a nice voice, and on a good day you could be Vince Gill’s pale imitation, but Nashville is lousy with guitar players with tight jeans and a tight butt who can show up on time.”

Stan gave a low whistle under his breath. He was clearly glad not to be on the receiving end of the dress-down. And though Ethan’s cheeks burned, he kept his mouth shut for once. He didn’t want to lose this job. He couldn’t lose this job. His part-time gig bartending at a karaoke dive wouldn’t even cover the rent, let alone get Gladys running the way she should.

“I’ll never—” he began.

“Damn right ‘never,’” Ruthanna said. “Now take your guitar out and get tuning.”

As he did what he was told, he glanced over at Donna. “Are my jeans too tight?” he whispered.

But she just laughed at him.

After he’d tuned, he warmed up by playing the song Ruthanna had written yesterday, a smart-ass send-up of certain music industry types called “Snakes in the Grass.” He picked the bass line with his thumb and the melody with his other fingers, Chet Atkins–style, until he realized that Ruthanna had left the control room and was standing right next to him.

“Mr. Blake, let me remind you that we have a bassist,” she said. “So don’t think you need to do her job.”

He turned to meet her fierce eyes. Ruthanna was twice his age but still beautiful. She had a smile that could light up a whole concert hall and a tongue sharper than a serpent’s tooth. He just about worshipped the ground she walked on, and he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to get to play music with her. But he also couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t release any of her new songs.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said.

She landed a light smack on his shoulder. “The word you’re looking for,” she said, “is boss.”