Celeste?
He was sweating and freezing at the same time.
An eternity later he looked up and saw a chopper coming in hot, kicking up dust and gravel before settling on the ground.
A rock that felt like a piece of hot metal gouged Phillips cheek.
Damn.
Then Ty was back lifting him, upupinto the chopper. They took off in a hurry. They were going home.
Home to Celeste.
He shut his eyes and saw Celesteblond and pretty, her eyes as blue as a Texas sky. She was crying, her cheeks glistening. The image, even if it was false, was better than a funeral.
Phillips hand shook as he lifted the razor. He paused, staring at the gaunt face with the slash across the cheek. It had been seven days since the rescue, and he was still as weak as a baby.
When the infirmary door slammed open, he jumped like a scared girl, panicking at the sound of boots because they reminded him of Xavier. The razor fell into the sink with a clatter.
In the mirror, the dark-haired stranger with the hollowed-out silver eyes was pathetic. By comparison the darkly handsome man who strode up behind him was disgustingly robust.
Mercado?
Ricky flashed his daredevil grin. Good to see you up and about.
Yeah. Westin had to grip the sink with tight fingers so he wouldnt fall. No way was he walking back to the hospital bed. No way would he let Mercado gloat at how wobbly he was.
After this, youd better lay low, amigo. You stirred up a hornets nest.
You think I dont know that.
El Jefes big. And not just down here. Theyre well connected in Texas.
Why the hell do you think I came down
These guys wont give up. Theyll be gunning for you and yours.
There is no yours. She left me, remember. Phillip shut up. He didnt want to talk about her. Still, Mercado was one of the few who knew about Celeste. Most of his buddies believed hed never gotten over his first love, Patricia, the classy girl hed loved in collegethe proper girl. It was better that way, better not to cry on their shoulders about a trashy singer hed picked up in a bar and been stupid enough to fall for.
Yeah, and Celestes the reason youve had a death wish for seven damn years.
Shut up.
Youre forty-one, amigo.
You make that sound old.
Too old for this line of work.
This was personal. You know that. The bastards were moving into Mission Creek. They were using kids to run guns. Kids
Why dont you go back to your ranch? Find a nice, churchgoing girl, get married and hatch some rug rats.
Sounds like fun. What about you? You straight? Or are you gonna run arms for the family? What the hell were you doing down there?
Mercado scowled. Saving your ass.
You had some help.
What does it take? A declaration written in blood. Like I told youIm straight.
Youd better be.
His face and eyes dark with pain, Mercado shut up and stared at the floor. Phillip felt instant remorse. Ty told me you were useful in the Mezcaya rescue, Phillip admitted.
Im surprised he said
He did. Thanks. I owe youfor what you did for Ty. And for me.
Suddenly Westin was no longer in the mood to question the character of a man whod helped save him. The heated exchange had left him so weak, Mercados dark face began to swirl. His fingers couldnt seem to hold on to the sink. No way could he shave.
Oh, God, he muttered as the gray tiles rushed up to meet him.
Mercado lunged, barely catching him before he fell.
Find that nice girl, Mercado muttered. Lean on my arm, old buddy, and well get you back to bed.
Hell. I dont go for nice girls. I like em hotand shameless.
Maybe its time for a change of pacein your old age.
Old age? Stung, Phillip almost howled. The truth was, a ninety-year-old was stronger than he was. Oh, God, why was it such a damn struggle to put one foot in front of the other? When he finally made it to the bed, he was gasping for every breath. He let go of Mercado and fell backward.
His head slammed into the pillow. Even so, they both managed a weak laugh.
Get the hell out of here, Mercado.
Forget shameless. Find that churchgoing girl, old man.
Mercado waved jauntily and saluted. Then the door banged behind him and he was gone.
One
Stella Lamour grabbed her guitar and glided out of the storeroom Harry let her use as a dressing room. After all, a star had to have a dressing room. She tried to ignore the fact that the closet was stacked with cases of beer, cocktail napkins and glassesand that the boxy, airless room gave her claustrophobia when she shut the door.
Some dressing room. Some star.
As Stella approached the corner to make her entrance, she cocked her glossy head at an angle so that her long yellow hair rippled flirtily down her slim, bare back. At thirty-two, she was still beautiful, and she knew it. Just as she knew how to use it.
Fake it till you make it, baby, Johnny, her ex-manager, always said.
Fake it? For how much longer? In this business and this city, beauty was everything, at least for a woman. Every day younger, fresher girls poured into Vegas, girls with big dreams just like hers. Johnny signed them all on, too.
Hips swaying, Stella moved like a feral cat, her lush, curvy, petite body inviting men to watch, not that there were many to do so tonight. There was a broad-shouldered hunk at the bar. He gave her the once-over. Her slanting, thickly-lashed, blue eyes said, You can look, but keep your distance, big boythis is my territory.
Johnny Silvers, her no-good ex-manager, who liked fast cars and faster women, had taught Stella how to move, how to walk, how to hold her head, how to look like a starhow to fake it.
Some star. The closest shed come was to warm the crowd up before the real star came on stage.
Now shed sunk to Harrys.
Harrys was a dead-end bar in downtown Vegas, a hangout for middle-aged retreads, divorcées, widowers, alcoholics, burned-out gamblersa dimly lit refuge for the flotsam and jetsam who couldnt quite cut it in real life and were too broke to make their play in the hectic, brightly lit casinos on the strip. They were searching for new lives and new loves. Not that they could do more in Harrys than drown their sorrows and take a brief time-out before they resumed their panicky quests.
In a few more years, Ill be one of them, Stella thought as she grimly shoved a chair aside on her way to the bar.
Her slinky black dress was so tight across the hips, she had to stand at her end of the bar when she finally reached it. Shed put on a pound, maybe two. Not good, not when the new girls kept getting younger and slimmer.
Mo, the bartender, nodded hello and handed her her Saturday night specialwater with a juicy lime hanging on the edge of her glass. She squeezed the lime, swirled the water in the glass. Wetting her lips first, she took a long, cool sip.
Aside from Mo and a single, shadowy male figure at the other end of the bar, Harrys was empty tonight. There wasnt a single retread. So, the only paying customer was the wide-shouldered hunk shed seen come in earlier. She knew men. He was no retread.
There was a big arms-dealer conference in Vegas. For some reason, she imagined he might be connected to the conference. He was hard-edged. Lean and tall and trim. He had thick brown hair. She judged he was around thirty. Something about him made her think of the way Phillip looked in his uniform. Maybe it was the mans air of authority.
Just thinking about Phillip made her remember another bar seven years ago when shed been a raw kid, singing her heart out, not really caring where she was as long as she could sing. Shed gotten herself in a real jam that night. Lucky for her, or maybe not so lucky as it turned out, Phillip Westin had walked in.
Just the memory of Phillip in that brawlhed been wonderfulmade her pulse quicken again. It had been four drunks against one Marine, but a Marine whose hands were certified weapons. In the end Phillip had carried her out to his motorcycle, and theyd roared off in the dark. Hed been so tender and understanding that first night, so concerned about her. What had impressed her the most about him was that he hadnt tried to seduce her. Theyd talked all night in a motel and had only ended up in bed a couple of days later.
The sex had been so hot, theyd stayed in that motel bed for a week, making wild, passionate love every day and every night, even eating meals in bed, until finally they were so exhausted, they could only lie side by side laughing because they felt like a pair of limp noodles. When theyd come up for air, shed said shed never be able to walk again. And hed said hed never get it up again. Shed taken that as a challenge and proved him wrong. Oh, so deliciously wrong. Afterward, hed asked her to marry him.
Shed said, I dont even know you.
And he said, Just say maybe.
Maybe, shed purred.
Maybe had been good enough for Phillip, at least for a while. Hed been living on his elderly uncles ranch alone and supervising the cattle operation because his uncle, who had been ill, was in a nursing home. Everything had been wonderful between Celeste and Phillip until suddenly Phillip had received a call and had gone off on a mission. Alone on the ranch, shed gotten scared and had felt abandoned and rejected just as she had when her parents had died.
If the days had been long without Phillip, the sleepless nights had seemed even longer. She hadnt known what to do with herself. She wasnt good at waiting or at being alone.
Then a pair of grim-faced Marines had turned up at the door and said Phillip was missing in action. Shed been terrified he was deadjust like her parents. A few weeks later Johnny had driven into town, promising hed make her a star, saying Larry Martin, the Larry Martin wanted to produce her. Hed convinced her to go with him to Vegas. The rest was history.
All of a sudden her throat got scratchier. She knew better than to think about the past. She swallowed, but the dry lump in her throat wouldnt go down.
How could she singtonight? To a man who reminded her of Phillip.
She asked Mo for another glass of water, but the icy drink only made her throat worse.
Did it matter any more how well she sang? This was Harrys. There was only one customer. She picked up her guitar and headed for the stage.
Just when shed thought she couldnt sink any lower, shed lost her job two weeks ago and the only guy Johnny could convince to hire her was Harry, a loser buddy of his.
I cant work at a lowlife place like this, shed cried when Johnny had brought her here and a cockroach had skittered across her toe.
You gotta take what you can get, baby. Thats life.
Im Stella Lamour. Ive done TV. You promised Id be a star.
Youve got to deliver. Youre just a one-hit wonder. Wake up and smell the roses, baby.
Shed kicked the roach aside. All I smell is stale beer.
My point exactly, baby. You gotta fake it till you make it.
Im tired of faking it and not making it. Youre fired, Johnny.
Baby Stella Lamour, the one-hit wonder. Hed laughed at her. All right. Fire me. But take the job, babyif you wanna eat.
Shed taken the job, but every night it was harder to pretend she would ever make it as a singer.
Now, Stella turned on the mike and got a lot of back feed. When she adjusted it, and it squealed again, the broad-shouldered man at the bar jammed his big hands over his ears but edged closer. Again, the way he moved, reminded her so much of Phillip, her knees went a little weak and her pulse knocked against her rib age. Oh, Phillip.
Dont think about the past or Phillip. Just sing.
Why bother? Nobodys listening.
Ill start off with a little number I wrote, she purred to Mo and the man. Back in Texas.
The customer stared at her intently as if he liked what he saw.
I wrote this seven years ago before I came to Vegas. She fiddled with the mike some more, and then she began to sing, Nobody but you/Only you/And yet I had to say goodbye
She forgot she was in Harrys. She was back on the ranch on Phillips front porch where the air was hot and dusty, where the long summer nights smelled of warm grass and mesquite, and the nights buzzed with the music of cicadas.
I thought love cost too much, she purred in the smoky voice shed counted on to make her famous, to make her somebody like her mother had promised. But I didnt know.
Then she realized she was in Harrys, and her failures made her voice quiver with regret. Everywhere I go/Theres nobody but you in my heart/Only you.
Somehow she felt so weak all she could do was whisper the last refrain. And yet I had to say goodbye.
Phillip was the only good man, the only really good thing that had ever happened to her. And shed walked out on him. Big mistake. Huge.
Shed wanted to make it big to prove to Phillip she was as good as he wasthat she wasnt just some cheap tart hed picked up in a bar and brought home and beddedthat she was somebodya real somebody he could be proud of.
She frowned when she heard a car zoom up the back alley. Oh, dear. That sounded like Johnnys Corvette sportscar. The last thing she needed was Johnny on her case. Sure enough, within seconds, the front door banged open and Johnny raced through it on his short legs. His thick, barrel chest was heaving. His eyes bulged out of their deep, pouchy sockets. The poor, little dear looked like a fat, out-of-shape rabbit the hounds were chasing, but his florid face lit up when he saw her.
Baby!
Oh, no. He definitely wanted something!
You and I are through, she mouthed.
Johnny lit a cigarette. Then his short, fat legs went into motion again and carried him across the bar toward her.
He was a heavy smoker, so running wasnt easy. When he reached the stage, he gasped in fits and starts, which made his voice even more hoarse and raspy than usual.
Take a break, baby Pant. Wheeze. Ive got to talk to you. Puff. Puff.
Fanning his smoke out of her face, she turned off the mike and followed him to her end of the bar.
Johnny ordered a drink and belted it down. He ordered a second one and said, Put some booze in this one, you cheap son of a
Johnny, you cant talk to Mo like
Mo slammed the second drink down so hard it sloshed all over Johnnys cigarette. Mo was big. A lot bigger than Johnny. He had a bad temper, too. His face had darkened the way it did when he had an impossible customer and had to play bouncer. Stella was afraid hed pound Johnny.