Dry Creek Sweethearts. Janet Tronstad

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Phil was short and pudgy so he looked as if he could be any age. He was completely bald so he didn’t even have any hair to turn gray. Not that the man’s age mattered, in Duane’s opinion, unless it affected how he acted behind the wheel.

      For most of the trip, Duane had been too sick to pay any attention to what was happening outside the bus. But he had stopped dozing in Idaho when Phil ran a stop sign and, once they hit Miles City, Duane asked to take over the driving. There weren’t enough road signs to clearly mark the way to Dry Creek so Phil reluctantly agreed Duane could drive.

      That didn’t stop Phil from scooting forward on the seat behind the driver’s seat and giving Duane his constant opinions on everything, especially the other cars on the road.

      Duane hunched over the steering wheel and coughed. “Not—”

      His voice cracked.

      Phil held out a cup of the coffee they’d bought an hour ago at a gas station in Miles City. “I keep saying you need to be resting your voice. I know the doctor said it was not a virus, but he meant for you to rest your voice.”

      “I can talk.” Duane did his best, but the words came out thin as he reached out with one hand and took the cup.

      The other man didn’t even answer. The windshield wipers were on full speed and the rain beat on the roof of the bus. Duane took two gulps of the lukewarm coffee and handed the cup back to Phil.

      “I thought when you said you wanted to go home that there would at least be a clinic around here. You know, for emergencies. Like pneumonia,” Phil said.

      “Don’t have pneumonia,” Duane whispered, almost sure that he was right. He’d had a low-grade fever that seemed to come and go, but that was probably nothing.

      “I don’t even see a sign for a veterinarian. Those cows we passed must get sick sometimes.”

      “Doc Norris. Edge of town.”

      Phil grunted. “At least we could have radioed ahead for a people doctor to meet us in Ensenada if you’d followed the plan and gone on that yacht like you were supposed to. That yacht had everything.”

      Phil was big on plans and yachts.

      “Reporters—” Duane’s voice went to a high squeak, but he thought he made his point. Just to be sure, he added in a whisper, “With me coughing and sneezing like some typhoid case.”

      Phil put his hand on Duane’s shoulder. “Let’s take it easy. I know the doctor in Los Angeles said it was probably just vocal strain and a sinus infection. But what if he’s wrong?”

      “Not wrong.” Duane hoped he was right. “Specialist.”

      Two days ago, Duane and Phil had been parked at the San Pedro pier south of Los Angeles, all set to join the rest of the band members on a private yacht heading down the Mexican Riviera to Puerto Vallarta. The yacht was supposed to get them some attention in the emerging markets south of the border. No one had seen the sales reports from their last CD yet, but they were likely to be discouraging and Phil’s plan was to get the band solidly in front of the Latin market before the U.S. market started to shrink. The band members were supposed to look like the carefree successful young musicians everyone thought they were as they said “Hola” to their new fans in various ports.

      After six straight weeks on the road in this bus, it was going to be hard for any of the guys to look carefree. But for Duane it would have been impossible. The doctor had given him some prescription lozenges for his throat, but he looked too sick to party anywhere except in an isolation ward. He’d taken one look at his face in the mirror on the bus and decided he couldn’t get on that yacht, not if he didn’t want people to start asking why he looked so bad. No one was going to pay any attention to a note from his doctor. The press would have him dead and buried at sea before he knew what happened. Or, worse, just too old to be in the teenage market.

      The truth was Duane felt bad, too. He ached all over. He didn’t want to worry about sales figures and what the band should do next. He didn’t even know what the band should do next. All he wanted to do was to go home and crawl into his bed and stay there for a month.

      The problem was he didn’t want to go home to his bed in Hollywood. His house there was all starkly modern with red adobe walls and black marble floors. He’d never felt that he belonged there. There wasn’t even any food in the house.

      No, when Duane had thought of home, there rose up in his mind the comforting picture of his old bedroom in his great-aunt’s house in Dry Creek. He had come to that house kicking and screaming, but it had been the first home he’d ever really known. His mother, when she had been sober, had rented hotel rooms by the week. When she wasn’t sober, which was most of the time, they lived in her old car.

      His great-aunt Cornelia had changed all that. Even though it had been only herself and Duane, she’d insisted on regular meals together, church on Sundays and hair that was combed for school. Even with his great-aunt gone, his old bedroom in that house drew Duane with its memories until he told everyone he was going to drive the tour bus up to Montana so he could spend some time in his old home.

      He must have been delusional from the fever when he said that. He’d completely forgotten all of the reasons why it would be a very bad idea to go back to Dry Creek. The house in Dry Creek would be cold and empty. Great-Aunt Cornelia wouldn’t be there to greet him with her stiff little smile. The cupboards wouldn’t have any food, either. The people of Dry Creek still wouldn’t know what to do with him.

      And then there was Linda Morgan. Even a cold, empty house would still give him a warmer welcome than Linda would. She was the only woman who had ever rejected him—actually, she was the only woman who’d had the chance to reject him. But a man had to be a fool to go wandering into her territory when any number of other women would be happy to marry him. Assuming, of course, that he had any time to get to know them, which he unfortunately didn’t.

      No one had told him that being a rock star would ruin any life he’d planned to have. Although, the thought had been coming to him lately, that maybe he didn’t really want a life after all. That maybe the idea of having a real life scared him to death. That when he asked Linda to marry him someday, he’d never really expected someday to come. A man like him had no business getting married anyway. He’d never even seen a marriage up close. He wouldn’t even know how to fake being a good husband.

      All of which made him wonder why he was back here in Dry Creek.

      “Yeah, it was the fever,” Duane muttered to himself, which only set Phil off again.

      Phil had refused to let Duane go off alone when he was sick and Duane didn’t have the energy to fight him on it. Phil had his career invested in Duane’s voice and Duane respected that. The rest of the band had started muttering about needing a new manager, but Duane held fast to Phil. The man had been with the band longer than the people who were now in the band. Phil had been the one constant when old band members left and new ones came in. He’d helped build their sales with his crazy promotional schemes; he deserved to be there more than any of the current band members. It was only fair.

      “Forget about maybe having a medical clinic to preserve people’s lives,” Phil muttered quietly. “There’s nothing else in this place, either. It’s spooky. I thought when you said you were going home, there’d at least be—things.”

      Duane took a moment to swallow. If he went slowly, he СКАЧАТЬ