Hearts on Fire (15 page)

“John,” she said,
and put a hand on her chest in hopes of calming its pounding beat.
John pivoted his big body and regarded her with a puzzled expression.
“I can handle it from here. Will you wait for me at the elevators,
please?”

“Wally said you’re
not to be left alone,” John said in his usual no-nonsense tone.
“It’s for your safety.”

“I understand. But
the room isn’t far and there’s no danger.” She gave him a
reassuring smile. “I—I just need to do this on my own.”

Doubt flickered in his
eyes. “I like this job. I don’t want to lose it. Wally wasn’t
happy that I fell for the candy bar routine yesterday morning.”

Jessie tried not to
smile. “I’m sorry about that. It won’t happen again. There’s
only one bank of elevators and…” She pointed to the stairwell
sign. “And the stairs are right there. I couldn’t get past you if
I tried.” She smoothed her hands over the silky knit fabric of her
dress. “And as you can see, I’m not dressed to make an escape.
Not in this dress and these heels.”

“All right,” he
said, grudgingly. “I’ll stay here.”

“Thank you.” She
touched his arm briefly, then brushed past him and moved quickly down
the carpeted hallway until she found the room she was looking for.
Before she could change her mind, she took a deep breath and knocked
on the door.

Several seconds passed,
and in those seconds, her already frazzled nerves grew taut with a
mixture of fear and dread. For the briefest of moments she considered
turning tail and running. But she didn’t, the stakes were too high.

The sound of the lock
turning caused her heart to plummet to her stomach. Her knees shook
and she took another deep breath, hoping to calm her racing pulse. No
such luck.

When the door opened,
Jessie looked into the eyes of the person she would tell her story
to. If he would listen. “Hey,” she said, in a shaky voice. “Can
I talk to you?”

Drew stared at her for
what seemed like an eternity, then gave her a silent nod and pulled
the door wider before retreating into his room. On trembling legs,
she crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her.

The nerves dancing in
Jessie’s stomach were a dozen times more powerful than the night
she’d met Miranda Lambert and Kenny Chesney. That meeting occurred
in the green room at the CMA awards five years ago, and when she’d
finally gathered the courage to approach two of her favorite singers,
it was all she could do to keep from shaking. Just as she was
trembling now as she stared at Drew’s rigid back. He’d moved to
the large window and seemed to be unusually interested in the
reproduction of the Statue of Liberty across the boulevard at the New
York, New York hotel. Or maybe he couldn’t stand the sight of her.

“Why are you here?”
He turned from the window, his expression anything but hospitable.
And the half packed duffle bag on the bed made it clear that Drew
meant what he said. He was leaving. Wally’s voice played in her
head
. He’s angry because he
cares about you
. She prayed Wally was right. “Don’t
you have an interview to do?”

“Yes, but talking to
you is more important.”

“Is this about the
duet?”

“No.”

Impatience flared in
his eyes. “Then I can’t imagine why you’re here. It’s not
like we have anything to say to each other.”

“Could you please
just listen to me?” She made a pleading gesture with her hands,
pressing them together. Her palms felt hot and clammy. But at least
her knees had stopped knocking.

“Fine.” He scowled
at her and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I’m
listening.”

She took a breath to
control her racing pulse and began. “I grew up in Hattiesburg,
Mississippi, not Jackson like I’ve always claimed. As far back as I
can remember, it was just me and my grandmother. I never knew my
mother or father. When I was a baby, my father robbed a convenience
store, and he shot and killed the store clerk in the process. He was
sent to prison, and was murdered inside when I was about seven. I
heard my grandmother talking about it with one of the neighbors. My
mother took off right after my father went to prison. She never came
back. After I met Wally, I asked him if he would hire a private
investigator to find her; she’d died in Tallahassee, Florida around
the time I left Hattiesburg.

“Until I was
thirteen, I had a pretty decent life. My grandmother loved me, and I
loved her. We didn’t have a lot of money. She supported us on the
social security check and food stamps she got each month.”

“What happened when
you were thirteen?” Drew asked.

“My grandmother got
sick. Actually, it had been coming on for a while, but I didn’t
know what it was. I thought she was just getting forgetful. It got
worse. She started putting things in weird places and sometimes she’d
look at me like she didn’t know who I was. Then she started calling
me Starla. Starla was her sister who’d died when she was fourteen
and my grandmother was fifteen. I guess I looked like her, and Grammy
was confused.

“One day she left the
stove on and almost burned up the kitchen. The neighbors stepped in
and called social services. The day the social worker came to the
house, Grammy was having one of her spells. She was confused and
couldn’t remember her name or what town we lived in. She got upset
and yelled at them.” She shuddered. “It was horrible. That’s
when they took me away from her and stuck me in my first foster
home.”

“Your first?”
Drew’s brows lifted in surprise. “How many did you have?”

“Two.”

“What happened to
your grandmother?”

“They put her in a
state-run nursing home. Turns out she has Alzheimer’s.”

“Has?” He cocked
his head. “She’s still alive?”

Jessie nodded. “She’s
in a real nice place about twenty miles outside of Nashville. As soon
as I had enough money, I anonymously arranged to get her out of the
state home and moved her closer to me.”

“Why did you have two
different foster homes?”

“It’s not unusual.
A lot of foster kids get shuffled around. The first family was pretty
nice, but after ten months Mr. Stiles found a better job in Atlanta.
When they moved, I was sent to another family; The Palmers’.” She
clenched her fists. “They weren’t as nice. The Stiles’ at least
tried to make me feel like I was a part of their family, but the
Palmers’ treated me like I was their maid. And if something wasn’t
cleaned the way Mrs. Palmer thought it should be cleaned, I had to do
it all over again. If I didn’t tuck in the sheet corners just
right, she’d tear them and the blankets off and make me do it over
and over until I got it exactly right. And the whole time she’d be
telling me how lazy and stupid I was.”

“She sounds crazy. Is
that why you ran away?”

“No,” she said,
then hesitated. What she’d just told him wasn’t the worst of it.
What came after was what she was most ashamed of. “I ran away after
their son Bobby convinced me to have sex with him.”

Drew’s mouth
tightened into a grim line.

“I slept with him
willingly. I thought he loved me. He told me he did, and because I
felt so lost and alone, and wanted someone to love me so badly, I
believed him. The week after I was with him, the whole school knew
about it and one of the kids told me that he’d made a bet with his
friends that he’d be able to get me to have sex with him. After
school, I tracked him down and asked him for an explanation. I told
him I loved him, and that I didn’t believe he’d do something like
that to me.” Moisture gathered in her eyes. “He laughed in my
face and told me I was nothing but a sorry piece of white trash. Then
he said he made extra money because it only took him four months to
screw me instead of six. I guess I was an easy mark.”

“You were naïve. You
trusted him,” Drew said, quietly.

“He was the last
person I trusted until I met Wally. And then you.”

“Did you tell the
Palmers’ what he did to you?”

“No. I knew they
wouldn’t believe me over their own son. They thought he walked on
water. About a week after I…it…happened, I ran away. I packed
what little clothes I had in a backpack, grabbed the guitar my
grandmother bought for me at the thrift shop, and got the hell out. I
found an abandoned house across town and stayed there for a while. I
shoplifted food and other necessities from the market. But then I
almost got caught and it scared me so much that I took to waiting
until restaurants closed for the night, and then I’d dig through
their dumpsters looking for something to eat.” A grimace twisted
her mouth. “It was disgusting, but I couldn’t afford to be picky.

“A little over a
month after I ran away I started having horrible cramps, and not long
after, I started bleeding. There was a lot of blood, and I was so
panicked that I rode my bike to the women’s health clinic and asked
them to help me. They examined me, then told me I’d had a
miscarriage.” She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “I
didn’t even know I was pregnant. I didn’t think it could happen
from one time. Anyway, I heard them talking about calling social
services, so I snuck out through a window and hightailed it back to
the house. I got my stuff and rode out of town until the tires on my
bike went flat.”

“Did you have any
idea where you were heading?”

“Nashville. Since I
loved singing and I was good at it, I figured if I could make it
there, I could get a record deal. After I ditched the bike, I
hitch-hiked and made it all the way to Memphis. To make some more
money for the rest of the trip, I started busking at the farmer’s
market. I did that for a couple of months until Wally showed up one
day and heard me singing.”

He lifted his hand and
circled it in the general direction of her face. “Was it Wally’s
idea to change how you look?”

“No. It was mine. I
didn’t want to be Mary Ellen Dickson anymore. I wanted a new life.
I wanted to forget about Bobby and the awful way he treated me. And
when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t want to see the girl who
shoplifted and stole tips off tables in restaurants, or who dug
through dumpsters eating other people’s scraps. I didn’t want to
be the desperate girl who slept in alleys and had to use public
restrooms to wash up in.” Tears blurred her vision. “The only
thing I wanted to remember was my grandmother. She was, and is, the
only good memory I have of my childhood.” The tears spilled over
and trailed down her cheeks. “But she doesn’t know who I am
anymore. I have all these memories of her. Wonderful memories. We
were dirt poor, but she had a way of making me believe we weren’t.”
Jessie swiped at the dampness on her cheeks with her fingers. “She
was…is, a decent, honest woman. She didn’t raise me to lie and
steal, but that’s exactly what I did.”

“It sounds to me like
you did what you had to to survive,” he said, moving toward her.
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“That’s what Wally
said.”

“He’s right.” He
halted in front of her. The familiar scent of him surrounded her and
filled her with deep longing. “And I think everyone who hears your
story will believe the same thing.”

“I wanted to tell
you, Drew.” Her body began to tremble. She rubbed her arms to stave
off the tremors, but it didn’t help much. “I really did. But I
was scared you’d think less of me.”

“I don’t.” He
searched her face and instead of his earlier coldness all she saw was
compassion. “If anything, I understand now why it was so hard for
you to tell me, especially since you’ve been keeping it a secret
for so long.” He heaved a breath. “I’m sorry I blew up at you
this morning. It was a dick move on my part telling Wally I wasn’t
going to finish out the tour after I said I would. I was angry, and I
reacted without thinking it through. I’m not going back to
Nashville until the tour is over.”

She glanced at the
duffle bag. “But…”

“I was unpacking it
when you knocked on the door. No matter how disappointed I was, I
couldn’t leave you and the band in the lurch. I was going to tell
you before the show tonight.”

“Thank you,” she
said with a grateful smile.

“You’re welcome.”
He lifted his hand to her cheek and brushed his finger lightly over
her skin. “Thank you for trusting me. It means more to me than you
know.”

With her heart in her
throat, she leaned into the warmth of his caress and the tremors that
shook her body disappeared. Her worst fear hadn’t materialized. He
didn’t hate her.

Although she had to
tell her story all over again in less than hour, the next time it
wouldn’t be as difficult. The shame she’d felt all these years
had been rooted in fear, not reality. Without even realizing it,
she’d been her own worst enemy.

“I need to tell you
something else,” she whispered. She’d come this far. Maybe it was
time to take another chance and tell Drew why she’d come to his
apartment four months ago. She’d loved him then and she loved him
now and she was tired of hiding it. If he didn’t feel the same it
would hurt like crazy, but she’d survived worse, and knowing for
sure was better than never knowing at all.

“There’s more?”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Should I sit down for this?”

She let out a soft
chuckle. “No. I just want to tell you why I came to—” A loud
knock on the door startled her into silence.

“Jessie!” Wally’s
stern voice penetrated the thickness of the door and filled the room.
“Damn it, girl. I know you’re in there. We were supposed to meet
with Annabeth five minutes ago.”

Her heart hammered
against her chest as she glanced at her watch. “He’s right.”

Drew stepped around
her, strode to the door and pulled it open.

“Are you trying to
put me into an early grave?” Wally asked as he bustled into the
room. His irritated gaze honed in on her. “Whatever you two were
talking about will keep.” He jerked his thumb toward the door.
“Let’s go. We don’t have time to be dilly-dallying around.
Annabeth is waiting.”