He folded his arms. "And you think that before the Cheatin' Hearts took off, I just worked at some s.h.i.t job at the hospital, and never saved any money or did anything so I could support a family. The fact that I have money now doesn't count for anything."

"Of course it counts," she said. "Of course your success with the band counts. But you live the band lifestyle. You tour, and you start fights, and you have a girl in every port-"

"I don't have a girl in every port. We travel by bus or airplane."

"-and that's not what I want," she said more loudly. "You see, even now, you're not taking this seriously."

"I am!" he exclaimed. "I'm taking this very seriously! But the person you're describing is not me."

"How the h.e.l.l would I know that?" Sarah asked.

Quentin didn't have an answer.

"This has been fun," she said. "I mean, fun. This has been the most fun I've ever had. But, long-term . . . "

"You're not really a pink-haired girl," he finished for her.

"I guess not." She reached behind her neck to unclasp the emerald necklace.

"Don't do that," he said in alarm.

She paused with her hands behind her head, watching him.

"Just give me until tomorrow," he said. "There's something I need to do."

Sarah shook her head. "It's not what you can do. It's what you are." She put her graceful hand on his knee. "You need to go back to Erin." Dragging the shopping bag after her, she jumped out of the big-a.s.s truck and slammed the door.

He got out and followed her at a distance as the sharp crack of her shoes echoed across the parking lot. His crazy comic book villainess in high heels, abbreviated green dress, and brown ponytail striped with pink. Leaving him.

Think, Q. Think, Quentin. His mind was a blank. Just when he needed it most.

As she started the engine, he reached the BMW. He knocked once on the window and she lowered it.

He knelt on the asphalt so he was on her level. He asked her, "Are you bluffing?"

Her poker face remained motionless, but her dark brown eyes filled with tears.

"You're not bluffing," he breathed.

As she raised the window, her face was replaced with a reflection of Vulcan's a.s.s. Quentin stepped back and she sped away.

He stood alone on the black asphalt in the black night for some moments, willing the black mood to lift so he could think again.

Finally he spun around and looked up to the spotlit iron man for inspiration. Vulcan mooned him, mocking him.

"Come on, big guy!" Quentin shouted. "Turn around and look at me when I'm talking to you!"

The cool mountain breeze swayed the trees, and the frogs chirped in answer.

With a dejected sigh, Quentin turned for his truck. And that's when it hit him. He had a big-a.s.s truck! He was mobile. He could drive home to talk to his dad, the expert on falling headlong in love with the world's most inconvenient woman.

15.

Yes, you're going to h.e.l.l for knowingly having s.e.x with the father of a pregnant woman's baby. No, you can't a.s.sign a numerical value to the great s.e.x and insert it into an algorithm to figure out exactly how d.a.m.ned you are. It's no use. You're toast. If you get there first, save me a good seat.

Wendy Mann Senior Consultant Stargazer Public Relations Sarah drove to the Galleria and packed her bags, because Nine Lives might be after her and she had no protector now. She moved to the hotel downtown where she'd played bridge with her mother and Quentin, but of course she couldn't sleep. She found the gym and went for a long run.

In the morning, she returned to the office at the Galleria and tied up loose ends. Hugged Amber and Beige and the men in the office good-bye. Gave Rachel some last-minute advice about life as a PR diva. Called the holiday skeleton crew at the Manhattan Music office to arrange for a replacement drummer to be put on standby in case Owen found out about Quentin and Erin's baby, freaked, and quit the band right before the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event. Then Sarah booked her own late afternoon flight back to New York.

Now she needed only to swing by the mansion and drop off Quentin's asthma inhaler and adrenaline shot, which he'd transferred from his truck to her bag before they left for New York. And the necklace, she thought to herself, fingering the heavy emeralds.

His truck wasn't in the driveway. The other two trucks and Erin's Corvette were home. Sarah balked at the idea of bursting in on them when Quentin wasn't there. But they were all her responsibility, not just Quentin. And if she didn't return his things now, what would she do? Sit around in lovelorn agony, awaiting his return? Mail the emerald necklace back to him? She compromised by knocking twice on the door from the garage before walking in.

Erin, standing barefoot in the kitchen, looked up from arranging ham on a slice of bread. She said in her sweet chipmunk voice, "Speak of the devil."

"I wanted to return a few things to Quentin," Sarah said. She hoped Erin would offer to take the inhaler, the shot, and the emerald necklace. That would rub in to Erin how close Quentin and Sarah had been. And shock Quentin when he received these items from girlfriend number two via girlfriend number one. All that was left of Sarah was a bitter sh.e.l.l.

Erin didn't offer to play courier. "He's not here. Can't you tell?" She gestured to the bread. "We can hardly boil water without him. He called last night to say he was going to see his dad. I don't know where he is now. He was a lot easier to keep track of before he could drive." She walked over to the open door of the studio and called down the stairs, "Sarah's here."

Owen climbed the stairs to the kitchen and put his hand on Sarah's shoulder. "We need to talk to you," he said pleasantly. "Can I get you a beer?"

Sarah glanced at her watch. It was two o'clock. She asked, "Do I need a beer?"

"You might," Martin said from the stairs. "Let's sit outside." He was pounding loudly on a pack of cigarettes. Sarah hadn't known he smoked.

This did not look good.

She'd thought PR for the Cheatin' Hearts was Rachel's problem from here on out, but now she wasn't so sure. She fished in her bag and turned off her cell phone, which had been ringing constantly all morning.

Owen pa.s.sed out bottles, and Sarah refrained from pointing out that Erin's was a waste of a perfectly good beer. They filed outside and sat at the table in the palpable heat of mid-afternoon, despite the shade of a crepe myrtle. Hundreds of bees buzzed in the tree, and Sarah almost shied away. But she didn't fear anaphylactic shock-at least, not while the bees minded their own business, and she still had Quentin's rescue shot in her bag in the kitchen, and a nurse sat next to her. Albeit one wasted on heroin.

Owen leaned forward across the table. "Sarah, we're coming clean with you. We want to make you an offer, but we have to extract a promise from you first that this is in strictest confidence, and you won't tell the record company what we tell you."

"Okay." Sarah wasn't sure she could keep such a promise. It depended on what the secret was. She had a job to do, after all. But whether she could keep the secret didn't matter. She got the feeling that it had to do with Quentin's conspicuous absence. She needed to know.

Erin gripped her diamond cross pendant between her thumb and forefinger and slid it back and forth on its chain. "Two years ago, before we got the contract with Manhattan Music, we thought we were finally about to sign a different contract in Nashville. A record company executive had come to a show to recruit us." She put a hand on Owen's back. "And then Owen, in his infinite wisdom, slept with her. Somewhere between the first kiss and the b.l.o.w. .j.o.b-"

Owen shrugged away from Erin's hand on his back. "Just the facts, ma'am," he said angrily.

"-he told her that Q has asthma. Well, there were other acts she could sign, with lead singers who never had a problem breathing. She couldn't get out of there fast enough. Needless to say, we didn't get our contract. In fact, to have any chance at all of signing with another company, we had to pay her to keep quiet about Q's asthma. We pooled our savings and sc.r.a.ped together twenty thousand dollars."

"Thus Owen earned the moniker dumba.s.s," Martin said.

"We all had pretty good jobs at the hospital," Erin said, "but Q gave up more. He had a promising career, and he was about to quit the band to pursue it. We didn't think the Cheatin' Hearts could make it without him. For that, we were really p.i.s.sed at him and . . . " She looked guiltily at Owen. "Behaved badly."

"Pitched fits," Owen confirmed. "Made him feel like he was betraying his three best friends."

Erin nodded. "We convinced him to stay and make one last push for a contract. And he wanted to make sure it was worth the risk of giving up his career."

Sarah tried to envision Quentin's promising career as head lactation consultant.

"So Q made three rules," Erin said. "If any of us broke them, we'd get kicked out of the band. Rule Three"-she touched her middle finger-"no s.e.x with the record company, so there wouldn't be a repeat of a band member giving our secrets away. Since Manhattan Music sent you, you fall in that category, too. We've known all along that you and Q weren't doing it, and that y'all pretended to be together to get me back with Q."

Calmly, very calmly, controlling her hand to keep it from shaking, Sarah took a sip of her beer. "Really? That was a lot of good making out, all for nothing. Why didn't he just tell me about your rules?"

Owen said, "I a.s.sure you his intentions were completely dishonorable."

"Yeah," Erin said, "he's made it painfully clear to us the entire time that he thinks you're hot. In fact, I was afraid that y'all had really fallen for each other. Martin was sure you had. Yesterday I acted like I was getting back with Q in the airport to chase you off. But now we can see that you-that it was all business."

Sarah nodded knowingly.

"And he couldn't tell you about Rule Three because he didn't want you to find out about Rule Two"-Erin touched her index finger-"no s.e.x between band members. Our relationship with the record company has been so difficult, and our bada.s.s image is so important to our success, that we didn't want to let on to you what straightlaced nerds we are. In reality, Owen and I have never done it, and Q and I never did it."

"Yes you did," Owen protested angrily, as if this were an old and rehashed argument.

"Okay, we did," Erin said to Owen, "two years ago. But not since we made the rules and got the contract. Do you mind ?" She turned back to Sarah. "That's why Q made the rule. Q and I fought like cats and dogs when we dated, and he didn't think the band could survive another relationship like that.

"And Rule One"-she touched her thumb-"no drugs. That's because Martin had a problem a long time ago." She glanced at Martin, who smoked his cigarette, seemingly oblivious, clearly high.

Sarah asked levelly, "Why tell me about your rules now?"

Erin said, "Because we want you to be our new manager."

Sarah's heart leaped, and her mind raced through the possibilities. A chance to be with Quentin almost constantly, to tour with Quentin. Who wasn't with Erin. Who was free after all.

He'd told her so many lies in the past ten days.

But he'd told his friends he thought she was hot.

She had to pull herself together. There was more to life than this man, such as the job the band was offering. Surely they planned to top her Stargazer salary. She wondered whether they understood what a gargantuan sum Stargazer paid her to put up with s.h.i.t exactly like this. She should hint to Quentin privately.

And then she saw how uneasily Erin and Owen looked at her. And when she asked, "Why didn't you wait for Quentin to come back before you presented this to me?" Martin lit another cigarette.

Owen said, "We're kicking Q out of the band."

Sarah looked around at them. Owen and Erin were immeasurably sad. Martin toyed with a third cigarette on the ready.

"I can't believe you'd do that to him," Sarah said, unable to quash defensiveness for him. "You're such good friends."

"We're doing it for him," Owen said. At Sarah's raised eyebrow, he added, "You don't understand. Q's been so driven since his mother died. He was valedictorian in high school and summa c.u.m laude in the respiratory therapy program in college. He aced the entrance exam and got into medical school. That's why we made the big push to get a contract when we did. He was about to leave the band so he could start medical school, research allergy and asthma, save the world, save himself, and go back and save his mother.

"I knew him before she died. He was sick a lot, but he didn't let it get him down. He was the cla.s.s clown. He compensated. After she died, he was still the cla.s.s clown, but there was always this drive working underneath.

"Five years ago, we formed the band, and I saw that kid again. I don't know if you've ever seen him in front of a live audience, Sarah, but he's different. Happy. He-" Owen stopped for loss of words.

"Lights up," Martin suggested, exhaling smoke.

"Yeah," Owen pointed at Martin, then waved smoke away. "I think Q felt that with the band, he could forget about dying for the first time in a long time. But we knew-or at least I knew-that the drive would come back. And then, after Thailand . . . "

Owen's voice trailed off, and Erin took up the story. "We really thought he was going to die in Thailand."

"I was trying to work out what I was going to say to his father," Owen confirmed.

Erin looked at Owen in horror, as if she hadn't heard this particular detail before. Then she went on, "Q thought he was going to die, too. We think he decided then that he needed to go to medical school after all. Only he won't admit it. It's like he wants both, he can't have both, and the two halves of him are driving each other crazy. I mean, he's always made us do nutty stuff. Did he tell you Owen didn't really get shot in Crete?"

Sarah shook her head and Owen said, "You don't have to offer that story, Erin."

"On our tour stop in Greece," Erin said anyway, "we went to the beach, and Owen fell on a rock-"

"A javelin rock," Owen corrected her.

Erin gave a little laugh. "It was a very sharp rock, and went deep in his shoulder. We knew it would leave a big scar like a gunshot wound, and that he wouldn't be able to play drums for days. Q decided we should use it. We bribed some locals to swear to the press that they'd seen Owen get shot in a bar fight. Then we turned around and systematically denied it. That I could handle, just barely.

"But since Thailand, it's out of control. He fired Karen without so much as consulting the rest of us. He made us put off recording the alb.u.m. He decided that he and I should stop fake-dating, and I should pretend to be with Owen."

Watching Erin with concern, Owen added, "And he was really mean to Erin about her concert."

"He was so mean about my concert with the orchestra," Erin agreed. "It was something I'd wanted to do since I was a little girl, and he boycotted it. He said it was bad publicity for us. He said bada.s.s country music stars don't play with an orchestra until they're ready for their greatest hits alb.u.m and liposuction. He only let me do it because it was a benefit for the foundation."

Sarah saw Quentin's point, but she also saw how much the concert had meant to Erin. Erin's eyes went cold as she talked about it, clearly recalling the argument she and Quentin had.

"Q basically left the band in Thailand," Erin said. "We think the best thing to do now is to kick him out and free him to do what he needs to do. Otherwise, he'll get crazier and crazier, and he'll bring the band down with him."

Martin lit his fourth cigarette.

Sarah sipped her beer to buy a few seconds while she tried and failed to reconcile this information. She couldn't do it. The ignorant, fun-loving lover who had lied to her was simply a different person from the would-be med student who had lied to her twice as much. Did the new Quentin love her like the old Quentin seemed to, or was that an act, too?

It didn't matter, she decided. She couldn't solve the Quentin conundrum right now, and she had to take care of herself. She needed to protect her job by keeping the band together.

"I appreciate the offer," she said, "and I'm flattered that you think I could handle this mess. But I can't be your manager, for a couple of reasons. First, you say you're coming clean with me, but you're lying to me even now. I'm not Karen. I can't work this way."

"What do you-" Erin began innocently.

"Oh, come off it, Erin," Sarah interrupted. "I would love to believe that kicking Quentin out of the band is purely altruistic on your part. But you and Owen"-she waved her fingers between the two of them-"are having s.e.x with each other, and you both want to kick Quentin out before he kicks you out." She turned to Martin. "And you're so far gone on heroin that you're backstabbing your best friend. You're kicking him out of the band so you can do drugs without him hounding you."

Erin gaped at Martin, her eyes filling with tears. Owen slumped over with his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. Martin flicked ash, too high to be particularly concerned.