"I didn't look like this," Sarah explained. "This isn't my natural hair color."

"Really? I thought you were the love child of Nicki Minaj and Ronald McDonald."

"Hey," Sarah said. "I'd enter a bridge tournament if I wanted my mother's opinion. I'm making myself vulnerable here to take your mind off driving and help you with your disabling codependence, and this is the thanks I get?"

He raked one hand back through his hair, but it got tangled in his curls. He gave up and put his hand on the steering wheel. "I'm really sorry. I'm a little tense. The story helps. Go on."

"About the time Harold moved out, Manhattan Music started getting reports that Nine Lives was self-destructing in Brazil. Before my breakup, I would have hidden in the bathroom until some other fool was a.s.signed to the job. But I didn't want to be that person anymore. I could see myself becoming that childless, and now husbandless, professional forty-five-year-old. My friend Wendy and I had a college professor who wore red socks with her purple Birkenstocks and cooked for her dogs. I didn't want to be that woman. She seemed very bitter. I couldn't do anything about being childless and husbandless just then, but I didn't have to devolve into a shapeless ma.s.s. So I volunteered to tackle Nine Lives.

"I'd been pretty successful looking like I did, which basically was like a marathon runner after a shower. But I'd never gone up against someone like Nine Lives. Wendy kept warning me he would eat me for lunch if I wasn't careful. So I gave myself a makeover. As a result, Wendy tried to make me an appointment with her therapist. And Harold decided that he wanted me back."

"Whoa," Quentin said. She thought he was about to hit the brakes. Then she realized that he was commenting on her story. He asked, "What did you say to Harold?"

Sarah recited for Quentin the stream of epithets she'd offered Harold.

Quentin laughed and laughed, until Sarah laughed, too. He laughed so hard that he had to wipe tears from his eyes. Slowly his laughter subsided. Finally he asked her almost seriously, "Did you love him?"

"I thought I loved him," she answered honestly, "but now I realize I didn't. I loved being married. Or the idea of being married. I liked having someone to do stuff with and plan with. I wanted to have kids. You know? I enjoyed the partnership."

Quentin probably couldn't fathom such a thing. He stared through the windshield and asked the next logical question: "Are you glad you didn't get back with him?"

Sarah sighed. "I'd been with him all through college. I thought marriage would be more exciting, but it got to be kind of a rut. And now . . . Well, I wouldn't say I've been happy, but I'm definitely not in a rut."

Quentin nodded. "And then what happened?" he asked. "What happened in Rio? You said you're going to die at the hands of a crazed rock star. That sounds fairly serious."

Sarah went cold despite the warm sun streaming through the windshield. Reaching down to adjust the air conditioner, she said, "Figure of speech. Enough about me. You tell me a secret. Let's talk about what happened to you in Thailand, and why you fired your manager, and why Erin ran to Owen."

"Let's not," he said.

"Why not?"

He pulled off the highway to park at an overlook, with downtown Birmingham spread out below them, skysc.r.a.pers and warehouses and the complex of university hospitals. He punched the b.u.t.ton to open the convertible top, letting in a rush of fresh, warm air.

Then he turned to Sarah and grinned maniacally. "I can drive."

"You can drive!" She clapped for him.

"I can drive," he said, still smiling, "and I'm having a great time with you, and the last thing I want to do right now is to go back to Thailand. You know where I want to go? You know where I want to drive, I mean?"

"Where do you want to drive?" she asked happily.

"I want to drive back to my house, and I want you to take me for that ride you promised."

"I won't back out on my promise," she said. "But we agreed from the beginning that we weren't going to . . . " Searching for a term, she gestured with her palms out.

He imitated her gesture. "Do it?"

"Right," she said, relieved. "So what kind of ride are we talking about?"

"Let's go upstairs and discuss it."

"Okay." She giggled in an unsophisticated manner as Quentin backed out of the overlook, without stomping the brakes this time, and drove smoothly across Birmingham. She'd acted angry the night before about Quentin asking Erin to flash him, and-well, she had been. But she'd wanted him to touch her anyway. If it hadn't been for the prospect of watching Owen get st.i.tches, she would have gone with him to his room then. Now she got that electric feeling again at the thought that he would drive her to his room and touch her.

And she was genuinely happy that she'd convinced him to drive. It was good for her job security that she'd broken through at least this one obstacle barring the band from healthy human relations. Moreover, it was good for her friend, Quentin. It was a hot and beautiful day.

He sped up the driveway of the mansion and skidded to a stop just shy of Erin's Corvette. Holding Sarah's hand, he led her into the house. She'd forgotten, and she suspected that he'd forgotten, too, that he'd cut out on a recording session for their date. The door downstairs to the studio stood open. As they came in, the band bustled up the stairs like sleepy parents after curfew.

"We had this session planned with the four of us, Q!" Erin squealed. "Where the h.e.l.l have you been?"

He beamed at them. "Sarah got me to drive."

Obviously this news had been a long time coming, because it took a few seconds of silence to sink in. Then, with the first genuine smile Sarah had ever seen on his face, Owen said, "Q, that's great!" at the same time Erin bit out, "Sarah, you have no idea what you're doing to us. Why would you put Quentin through that?"

Everyone watched Quentin, who gave Erin a withering look. "Stay out of it."

Erin seemed unsure, her eyes darting from Quentin to Martin to Owen and back. But only for a moment. "I'm glad you're driving, Q. But can't you see that Sarah's just shooting into trees to see what falls out? All I've done is hint at what happened to your mother, and you've gone stark white. That's why we've never made you drive."

Sarah asked Quentin, "What happened to your mother? Why wouldn't you tell me what was going on?"

He turned on her. "And you've been completely honest with me."

Sarah had just bared some of her biggest secrets to him-things she realized she should never have revealed, because now she seemed weak. She hoped the look she gave him showed him how hurt she was. But gazing into his black-green eyes, she knew he couldn't see her pain. He wasn't even in there.

"This is not about me," she said quietly. "This is about you, and the fact that you left out a pertinent piece of information when I took you for a drive on the busy highway."

"What'd you think I was going to do? Have a flashback, freak out, cross the median, and kill us both?"

"Q," Martin said, putting a hand on Quentin's shoulder.

Quentin shrugged Martin off violently. He turned through the open doorway and stomped down the stairwell, calling back over his shoulder, "I don't want to talk about it, Erin. It was half my life ago." The door to the sound booth squealed open and clicked shut.

The kitchen was silent again. Owen looked troubled, a moody Frankenstein's monster with a row of neat st.i.tches following the curve of his hairline. Martin looked sick. And Erin glared at Sarah, accusing and self-satisfied, defending her territory. She had managed to take a triumph for Quentin and turn it into trash.

Sarah forgot her job. She forgot Natsuko. In a wave of hatred for the chokehold all of them had on each other, and especially for the talons that Erin had in Quentin, a defensive little freshman on the high school track team stepped up and took over.

She yelled in Erin's face, "Don't give me that look, girlfriend. You're the one who cheated on him. Don't act like you give a s.h.i.t about him now."

She escaped into the garage and slammed the kitchen door as hard as she could, without her customary kiss good-bye from Quentin. She was certain she'd never get that kiss again.

Quentin looked forward to Sarah popping back in that day and startling him. She didn't show. He downright pined for her to pop in that night. Still she didn't show. When she didn't pop in the following morning, he finally got the message. She was through with them. With him. Well, he wouldn't let her get away with that. He drove to the Galleria and let himself into her hotel room.

The room was steamy and the shower vent still roared, which made it easier for him to sneak inside unheard. But she wasn't in the bathroom. Wrapped in a bathrobe, she lay on the bed, facing the window, with her back to him.

He walked softly around the bed, aiming to startle her. He still wanted a little revenge for the phone to Owen's nose and the jar of garam masala and, now, the copy of Clinical Immunology and Allergy Today.

She was curled in a ball, asleep. The morning sunlight streaming through the window lit her fair skin and glinted in her wet hair, still dark from her shower so there wasn't much difference among the brown, blond, and pink strands. Fist under her cheek, she looked like a normal, beautiful girl. Except for the red scar under her chin, livid without makeup dabbed over it.

He longed to touch her soft cheek and caress her awake. But three enormous bouquets of flowers in vases on the dresser caught his attention. Several mornings ago he'd watched her run. It seemed strange to him that she'd nap instead at the same hour. The flowers might have something to do with it.

He stepped over to the first bouquet, blooms in vibrant colors. He found an envelope tucked among the stems and read the card, which he supposed was from Sarah's pregnant friend.

You may be 30, but at least you're not knocked up.

Love, Wendy & Daniel Ouch, her thirtieth birthday. That was rough for women. He was already planning to work a weeklong break into the tour on either side of Erin's thirtieth birthday this fall so he wouldn't have to be in the same state with her. No wonder Sarah had curled into the fetal position and given up on the day.

The second bouquet was two dozen red roses. The card for this one read, Birthday wish granted.

Harold Harold. Her ex-husband. Folded inside the card was a form. Glancing once at Sarah, who still breathed evenly, Quentin unfolded it. A copy of a divorce decree from a New York court, dated yesterday. Harold Fawn v. Sarah Seville.

Quentin stood for a full minute, staring at the paper, staring at the sleeping Sarah, going back to the paper. She'd told him yesterday that her husband had cheated on her when she said she wanted a baby. And that this was before she had pink hair and showed her cleavage. But Quentin simply couldn't picture Sarah married to a jacka.s.s, no matter how she was dressed. She wouldn't stand for it.

Would she?

He wondered how Rio fit into this.

Now he studied the third bouquet warily. If the messages got worse as he went down the dresser, he wasn't sure he wanted to open the last one. The bouquet itself didn't instill confidence. There were flowers, but they all seemed to have thorns, and some green stalks thrown in couldn't have been anything but briars. And-was that a Venus flytrap? He reached for the card and withdrew his hand carefully, half expecting to be bitten.

Happy b-day See you soon Nine Lives He detected movement out the corner of his eye and whirled around just in time to see Sarah, a terrified expression on her face, start toward him.

He backed away from her, toward the door. "Sarah," he began in explanation.

He'd almost reached the door when she slapped his cheek with enough force to turn him around sideways. While he was still off balance and stunned, she pulled open the door and shoved him into the hall.

The door slammed. The dead bolt clicked.

He rubbed his stinging cheek, staring dumbfounded at her door. Then he crossed the hall and knocked.

There was a pause. She was breathing hard. "Who is it?" she called sarcastically.

"It's your friendly neighborhood country music legend, Quentin c.o.x." When she didn't respond, he went on, "You may know me for hit songs like 'Slap My Face and Slam the Door.'" Still there was no response but her breathing.

He backed a few paces away and sang a medium-tempo ballad at full volume: Slap my face and slam the door.

You never done that way before.

I feel bad I scared you so But now I don't want to go.

I'm just standing in the hall Singing to you through the wall.

You done shook me to the core.

Slap my face and slam the door.

As he sang, several hotel patrons down the hall peeked out of their rooms. When he finished, there was a smattering of applause. He tipped an imaginary hat. "Thank you very much," he said in his Elvis impression.

The lock clicked open, and Sarah threw herself into his arms and buried her face against his chest. She said into his T-shirt, "I don't recall hearing that song."

"There's always room for one more on your alb.u.m."

Without loosening her hold around him, she looked up into his eyes. "That was really good. I can't believe you made that up standing here."

He shrugged. "It ain't brain surgery." He stroked his hand through her wet locks. "Are you going to let me in?"

"Oh." She seemed to realize only now that she was standing in the hotel hallway in her bathrobe with, he thought with pleasure, nothing on underneath. She pulled him into the room and closed the door.

"Why don't you lock this from now on?" he asked as he turned the dead bolt. "In case the Grand Ole Opry comes calling unannounced."

"Usually I'm careful," she said. "I must have forgotten the last time. People kept knocking on the door this morning, bringing me ominous flowers." She put a hand up to his cheek. "It's really red. I'm so sorry."

"That's okay. I'm used to it." He laughed. "I have that effect on women. Though I have to say, Erin's slap is more like a love pat next to yours. Yours will make a man think twice."

She smiled guiltily. "How did you get a key?"

"You're not the only one with connections," he said mysteriously. "You're always busting into my house unannounced, so I thought I'd return the favor. I didn't mean to scare you that bad." In turn, he put a hand to her chin, not quite touching her scar. "What happened to you in Rio?"

Predictably, she pulled away from him and closed herself in the bathroom. When she came back out, she wore a tank top and running shorts. And she'd regained her composure. d.a.m.n. He wondered what it would take for her to tell him what had spooked her in Rio.

He tried once more to throw her off. Sitting casually on her bed, he said, "So. You're turning thirty, your divorce came through, and Nine Lives wants to see you."

Her smile vanished. "You read the cards."

"I did," he admitted, "but I wouldn't have done it if I'd known our relationship was this antagonistic." Oops. He added, "Antagon-Is that a word?" Still she frowned at him, so he held out his arms for her. "Come here. You've had a bad enough morning."

She collapsed onto the bed, put her head against his chest again, and allowed him to rub her back and to finger her damp hair. She wailed, "It's not just that. Did they tell you what I said to Erin yesterday?"

He chuckled. "Don't worry about that."

"Do they all hate me?"

"No, but they think you went to a rough New York high school." He didn't believe she'd been to high school in New York at all, but he wanted to test her reaction.

"Rough track team," she qualified.

He traced patterns on her smooth shoulder. "Erin gets mad, and sooner or later she gets over it. I've got a lot of experience with this. Anyway, right after you left, Martin told Erin that she'd met her match, and Erin got mad at Martin. Then Owen tried to jump between them, and Erin got mad at Owen. Then they all came downstairs to the studio and yelled at me. So you probably weren't out of the driveway before we'd forgotten about you and were mad at each other, just like normal."

Immediately he wanted to correct this statement. He certainly hadn't forgotten about her. He'd hardly thought of anything else in the five days he'd known her. But he didn't point this out, since he couldn't do her. It was bad enough that he was sitting on her bed, marveling at how beautiful she looked with no makeup and wet hair.

Trying to appear unconcerned, he wove a blond section of her hair into a pink section as he asked her, "Is Nine Lives out of jail?"

Sounding utterly exhausted, she said into his chest, "Would you please go with me to buy a gun?"

"Sarah-" he started.

"I don't want another of your lectures on gun safety. I won't shoot it. Just go with me to pick one."

"Sarah, hear me out, now. You are the poorest shot I've ever seen. Owen is a better shot than you, and Owen once shot his own hound dog."

"Oh no! Was he okay?"