"Loretta Lynn did it."
"Nobody's Loretta Lynn. She's one of a kind."
Dance had to agree.
And yet despite Kayleigh Towne's protests, she suddenly dug into her pocket and pulled out a pen and small pad of lined paper and jotted words and musical notes.
"A song?"
"'Just can't stop.'"
"You have to write your songs, you mean?"
Kayleigh laughed. "Well, that's true. But what I mean is, that's a line that just occurred to me. 'Just can't stop ... spending hours ... with you.' First it was 'spending time with you,' but it needed the other syllable in 'hours.' I'll write it up tonight."
"The whole song?"
"Hank Williams said any song that takes more than twenty minutes to write isn't going to be any good. Sometimes it takes me a day or two but for that one, it's pretty much done."
She hummed a very hummable few bars.
"You record it, I'll buy it," Dance said. "You ..." Her voice faded as lights appeared through the trees. A car was approaching slowly.
Kayleigh stiffened. She whispered, "It can't be him. I mean, it can't. We weren't followed. I'm sure not. And when we left, Edwin wasn't at my place. He doesn't even know I'm not there."
Though Dance wasn't so sure about that. It made sense for her to come here largely so she wouldn't be alone--Bishop always had plenty of his crew around. And they could hope Edwin wouldn't figure it out but he'd proved persistent, to say the least, when it came to finding Kayleigh's whereabouts.
The lights seemed to stop, then continue on as if the driver wasn't sure of the route.
Or didn't want to be seen.
"Should we get Darthur?" Kayleigh asked.
Not a bad idea, Dance decided.
But before she rose to summon the guard, twin lights crested a hump in the drive and the car they were attached to stopped.
Kayleigh froze--literally in the headlights.
Dance eyed the vehicle carefully but it was impossible to see anything specific.
What was the driver doing?
Was it Edwin? Was he going to jam the accelerator to the floor and crash into the house, in a bid to kill Kayleigh and then take his own life?
Dance stood up and pulled Kayleigh to her feet.
Just as the car bucked and started forward.
Chapter 43
BUT THE VEHICLE turned out to be a very unthreatening--and slow moving--powder blue Ford Taurus.
And one did not need to be a kinesics expert to note the sea change in Kayleigh's body language when she saw the driver.
"Oh, it's Barry!" she cried, offering a smile.
A very tall man, lanky and long-faced handsome, was climbing out. He had a shock of black curly hair and round glasses. Kayleigh ran down the stairs and embraced him hard.