LITMIR.BIZ

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from Mo and a single, shadowy male figure at the other end of the bar, Harry’s was empty tonight. There wasn’t a single retread. So, the only paying customer was the wide-shouldered hunk she’d 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 man’s air of authority.

      Just thinking about Phillip made her remember another bar seven years ago when she’d been a raw kid, singing her heart out, not really caring where she was as long as she could sing. She’d 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 brawl—he’d been wonderful—made 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 they’d roared off in the dark. He’d been so tender and understanding that first night, so concerned about her. What had impressed her the most about him was that he hadn’t tried to seduce her. They’d talked all night in a motel and had only ended up in bed a couple of days later.

      The sex had been so hot, they’d 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 they’d come up for air, she’d said she’d never be able to walk again. And he’d said he’d never get it up again. She’d taken that as a challenge and proved him wrong. Oh, so deliciously wrong. Afterward, he’d asked her to marry him.

      She’d said, “I don’t even know you.”

      And he said, “Just say maybe.”

      “Maybe,” she’d purred.

      Maybe had been good enough for Phillip, at least for a while. He’d been living on his elderly uncle’s 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, she’d 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 hadn’t known what to do with herself. She wasn’t 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. She’d been terrified he was dead—just like her parents. A few weeks later Johnny had driven into town, promising he’d make her a star, saying Larry Martin, the Larry Martin wanted to produce her. He’d 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 wouldn’t go down.

      How could she sing…tonight? 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 Harry’s. There was only one customer. She picked up her guitar and headed for the stage.

      Just when she’d thought she couldn’t sink any lower, she’d lost her job two weeks ago and the only guy Johnny could convince to hire her was Harry, a loser buddy of his.

      “I can’t work at a lowlife place like this,” she’d cried when Johnny had brought her here and a cockroach had skittered across her toe.

      “You gotta take what you can get, baby. That’s life.”

      “I’m Stella Lamour. I’ve done TV. You promised I’d be a star.”

      “You’ve got to deliver. You’re just a one-hit wonder. Wake up and smell the roses, baby.”

      She’d kicked the roach aside. “All I smell is stale beer.”

      “My point exactly, baby. You gotta fake it till you make it.”

      “I’m tired of faking it and not making it. You’re fired, Johnny.”

      “Baby— Stella Lamour, the one-hit wonder.” He’d laughed at her. “All right. Fire me. But take the job, baby—if you wanna eat.”

      She’d 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….

      Don’t think about the past or Phillip. Just sing.

      Why bother? Nobody’s listening.

      “I’ll 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 Harry’s. She was back on the ranch on Phillip’s 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 she’d counted on to make her famous, to make her somebody like her mother had promised. “But I didn’t know.”

      Then she realized she was in Harry’s, and her failures made her voice quiver with regret. “Everywhere I go/There’s 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 she’d walked out on him. Big mistake. Huge.

      She’d wanted to make it big to prove to Phillip she was as good as he was…that she wasn’t just some cheap tart he’d picked up in a bar and brought home and bedded…that she was somebody…a real somebody he could be proud of.

      She frowned when she heard a car zoom up the back alley. Oh, dear. That sounded like Johnny’s 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 wasn’t 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. “I’ve 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,

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