He had another inhaler in the big-a.s.s truck.

No, he didn't have another inhaler in the truck. He'd put it in Sarah's bag at the airport before they flew to New York. Sarah had it.

The kitchen began to close in with his throat. He could get breaths in, but he couldn't get them back out, so he couldn't take more in. He felt in his pocket again, took out the ring box, and held it like a talisman.

A phone would be more helpful. His phone was in the truck. He looked around the kitchen for Martin's, and then somehow he was lying on the cold marble tile.

Owen's silhouette filled the doorway to the patio. He called back over his shoulder, "Q's on the floor."

"The inhaler's in the drawer," Martin yelled from outside.

Quentin heard Owen rummage in the drawer. By now, Erin and Martin were in the doorway. Martin said, "No, he used the last of it the day Sarah went to the hospital."

"Where's another?" Erin asked Quentin over the wheezing.

Quentin made a scribbling motion with one hand. When someone handed him a pad and pen, he wrote Sarah has it and tore off the sheet for them.

"Why does Sarah have it?" Erin shrieked. "You mean to tell me you're a respiratory therapist with asthma and you only have one rescue inhaler to your name and, duh, your girlfriend has it?"

Quentin scribbled Help, dumba.s.s, and tore the paper off for Owen.

Owen read it and said, "No s.h.i.t, Sherlock."

Quentin wrote 911, handed it to Martin, and waited until he actually saw Martin punching b.u.t.tons on the phone before he started scribbling a message to Sarah. He noticed with pa.s.sing interest that his fingernails were turning blue.

16.

Liar, schmiar! Who cares? He's a hot med student country star! And he goes down on you! And he can't breathe and he needs you! I don't see a problem.

Wendy Mann Senior Consultant Stargazer Public Relations The agony Sarah endured while stuck in traffic and e-mailing with a h.o.r.n.y and irate Wendy was a complete waste, because when she finally arrived at the emergency room, the large receptionists wouldn't let her back to see Quentin. "We know who you are," they said, eyeing her hair. "Martin said no."

"But Martin called me!" Sarah exclaimed.

"He told you Quentin had an asthma attack," one of the receptionists said. "He asked you not to get on your plane, because Quentin insisted. But did Martin tell you to come down here?"

"He was getting in the ambulance," Sarah said. "He hung up on me."

As if that should serve as the answer, the receptionists turned back to their computer screens.

Sarah paced close to them in her high heels and shot them dirty looks. They were unfazed. She thought she heard Quentin's voice, hoa.r.s.e, down the hallway. Then Owen's voice, angry. A series of crashes and women's screams.

"You let me back there," Sarah told the receptionists, beating the flat of her hand on the counter.

"Martin said no," one of them repeated.

"I'm going!" Sarah yelled at the woman, who was about a hundred pounds heavier than her. She moved toward the hallway.

The schlop, schlop, schlop of flip-flops sounded double-time ahead of her, and Erin appeared in the waiting room with an armload of crumpled plastic bags.

"Do you realize they won't let me back there?" Sarah asked as she pa.s.sed Erin.

"Stop her," Erin said to a receptionist, who stepped into Sarah's path. When Sarah turned to give Erin a piece of her mind, Erin lasered her with blue eyes. "Shut up for just a minute," she said, dumping her armload on the counter.

She picked up Sarah's bag from a nearby chair, slid it onto the counter, unzipped it, and began stuffing it with the plastic bags: inhalers, adrenaline shots. It was full to bursting and still she was poking in more shots. Finally satisfied, she zipped it, pressing the edges together so it would close. She took the handle in one hand, grabbed Sarah with the other, and led her to a bank of chairs on the far side of the waiting room.

She leaned close to Sarah and said, "Don't ever, ever, ever let him be without an adrenaline shot and an inhaler. He's usually pretty good, but you have to be better." She told the empty air in front of her, "Q, you are the stupidest genius I know!"

Sarah must have been looking at Erin like she'd lost it, because Erin turned back to her and explained, "It's easier to argue with him when he's not here. He's so p.i.s.sed with us for telling you everything this afternoon. A few minutes ago, he tried to punch Owen and knocked over a crash cart and pa.s.sed out again."

Sarah winced. "I heard." She stood up. "Call off your dogs and let me see him."

Erin shook her head and pulled Sarah back down to sit. "Look, Sarah, he breathed a lot of Martin's cigarette smoke, and then he got upset about you, and then he tried to kill Owen. He's getting meds, but his lungs are very twitchy. We need to keep him calm. We can't give him a tranquilizer because those drugs suppress the respiration. We just want you to stay out of there right now. It would be better if y'all worked this out after the concert, so he doesn't have a relapse. He's doing a lot better."

"You mean he's allergic to me?"

"No, it's just-"

Another realization hit Sarah. "You mean you're going to go on?"

"h.e.l.l," Erin said, looking at her watch, "it's only four. The show doesn't start until seven. We had him on in three hours after he had an attack in St. Louis. We're professionals."

They eyed each other uneasily as a shout from Martin and another crash echoed up the hallway.

"I need you to do me a favor," Erin said. "And if you do this for me, you and I can call it even."

Sarah's heart leaped, because she wanted Erin to be her friend. Skeptical Natsuko calculated who had actually committed more offense against whom.

"Q wrote you a note as he was pa.s.sing out at the house," Erin said, "and he gave it to me for safekeeping. He thinks I'm out here giving it to you now. Truth is, I lost it somewhere on the kitchen floor in the confusion." A note of pleading entered her high voice. "I need to you to go back and find it for me. Q is so mad at me already."

"You're just trying to get rid of me," Sarah said.

"That, too." Erin nodded. "But you do want to read this note. And I thought I saw something else on the kitchen floor that might interest you."

"Okay," Sarah relented.

"Thank you so much," Erin gushed. They embraced each other warmly, all awkwardness gone.

Sarah allowed herself a deep sigh with her arms around her friend. After a few moments, she sat back. "Did he really act with Karen like he acts with me?"

Erin stared at Sarah for a second, then remembered what she'd said that day at her guesthouse. "No." She smiled. "I've never seen him act this way. Definitely not with me. That's why Martin and Owen and I tried to collar him. Guess what? You can't collar Q."

They grinned at each other as they stood. But Erin's smile faded as Sarah headed for the reception desk rather than the exit. The receptionists stood at the ready.

"Where are you going?" Erin wailed.

"I'm not leaving until I see him," Sarah said.

Erin ran to insert herself between Sarah and the emergency room. "Girlfriend," she said pointedly, "this is still my band. This is my Nationally Televised Whatever Whatever. At least for five more hours, until nine o'clock, when the show's over and the fireworks start, this is my band, and Q is mine." Her expression softened. "And then you can have him."

Sarah escaped the paparazzi without making a statement except to say that the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event would go on as planned. With a sigh of relief, she slipped into the BMW, exited the parking deck, and accelerated onto Eighth Avenue South, the usually bustling thoroughfare all but deserted for the holiday. After five minutes, she pulled into Quentin's driveway.

The door into the kitchen was ajar, with air-conditioning seeping out and hot humidity flooding the dark room. The usually maid-clean marble floor was littered with the leavings from the paramedics, plastic bags marked STERILE and ripped open. There were also a few small white sheets of paper.

She picked up one sheet. On it was scrawled, Sarah has it.

Sarah went cold, even with warmth from outside swirling around her. Quentin must have written this, and he meant the inhaler. Surely this wasn't what Erin had wanted Sarah to see. If she was trying to make Sarah feel guilty, she'd succeeded.

Frantically Sarah grabbed up the other notes. 911, one said, and the next, Help, dumba.s.s, which didn't make her feel any better.

Her high-heeled sandal kicked something solid under the plastic bags. She stooped to find a jewelry store ring box.

Poised to open it, she saw that her hands shook, and Natsuko slapped Sarah around. There was no telling whether it was meant for her.

Inside was a freaking enormous diamond flanked by hefty emeralds.

It was for her.

She slipped its cool weight onto her finger.

That's when she saw the last note, which had drifted under the cabinets.

SARAH.

I love you Don't leave Sarah sat down on the floor with the note. She read the six words over and over, ran her fingertip over the messy handwriting, touched I love you.

"Found something?" Nine Lives asked behind her.

Tonight would be a first for the Cheatin' Hearts since they became famous. They would tell the truth.

In the emergency room, they'd all agreed-the rest of them talking, Quentin writing on a pad-that they would mention Erin's pregnancy in the act.

Then Owen had suggested they nix the cowboy hats. Everyone heartily seconded this idea. Erin had always complained that the hats messed up her hair, and Quentin found them bothersome and sweaty at an outdoor concert.

Martin had told them that he would check himself into rehab as soon as the concert was over tonight. And when they'd arrived at Vulcan Park, he'd taken his long-sleeved shirt off in the heat, revealing the purplish track marks snaking up both arms. Quentin wondered whether he would keep the shirt off for the concert. He thought Martin might have gone off the deep end. But he hoped this was step one toward recovery: admitting to the world that he had a problem.

It was Martin's turn to get drunk. He didn't bring it up, and the rest of them were reluctant to push him, considering. Quentin didn't volunteer because he planned to have a lot going on with Sarah after the concert. He figured Owen felt the same way about Erin. This would be their first completely sober concert in two years.

Quentin looked forward to the concert. He looked forward to playing it naked, so to speak, revealing their real strengths and flaws. It was nice to be himself again after two years of deceit. Even if, at the moment, being himself meant lying in the payload of Owen's truck, flattened by asthma, staring up at Vulcan's b.u.t.t, pining for Sarah.

They wouldn't let him go look for her. He needed to rest and recover as best he could for the concert. And Owen had taken his cell phone away so he wouldn't be tempted to talk. Which was just as well. He'd left Sarah three voice mail messages before he had the attack, when he was searching for her. If he left her ten more, he might start to look pitiful.

He sat up for the millionth time and scanned the parking lot for Sarah's BMW. s.p.a.ces were filling up fast for the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event, but security had been instructed to look for Sarah's pink hair and let her back here, past the barriers. There wasn't a sign of her. No flash of pink in the crowd. He waved halfheartedly to the Timberlanes and their butler, whom he'd gotten front-row seats.

Surely Sarah would show. If not before the concert, during. But he needed a plan in case she didn't come. Maybe there was a red-eye flight from Birmingham to New York, or-hey, he had a big-a.s.s truck! He could drive to Atlanta to catch a flight. He wondered how much it would cost to charter a flight himself. Usually he didn't waste money on flashy stuff like that, but this was important.

Why didn't she call?

Maybe there was something wrong with her cell phone. He could leave her an e-mail message in case she checked her laptop. He slid out of the truck bed and headed for the large trailer functioning as a dressing room so he could retrieve his phone from Owen.

Inside the trailer, Martin reclined on a sofa with his eyes closed, lost in something he was composing on his acoustic guitar, shirt still off. Erin laughed with the woman piling and spraying her hair on top of her head. Owen sat in a chair across the room from Erin, grinning at her unabashedly.

Quentin pulled up a chair next to Owen and sat down. Without taking his eyes away from Erin, Owen handed over Quentin's cell phone so Quentin could make sure it was set to ring and that Sarah hadn't left a message. Quentin let out a frustrated sigh and started coughing again.

The hairdresser spun Erin around to spray the back of her hair. Now Erin faced Owen. Erin beamed at him. Owen's smiled broadened.

Quentin tried to climb out of his mood to be happy for them. They both were so content, sharing sappy looks with each other across the room. But he only sank deeper into the funk, contemplating how he'd prevented them from being together for five years. Unknowingly, but he should have known.

After a few minutes of silence except for Martin's guitar and Erin's animated laughter, Owen said quietly to Quentin, "Don't be sorry. I should have said something or done something. I was afraid of chasing her off, and I wanted to be near her. Anyway, it doesn't matter now."

Quentin typed a text message on his phone and handed it to Owen: Vonnie Conner.

Owen looked at the screen and handed the phone back to Quentin. "Vonnie Conner," Owen muttered in disgust. "Q, Sarah is nothing like that. Vonnie Conner led you on. Behind that poker face, Sarah feels and sees. She had my number from day one. That's why I avoided her. Every time she looked at me, I felt like she was coming up and punching me in the chest."

Quentin nodded, because he knew what Owen meant.

"I thought all along that it was a shame you couldn't break Rule Three," Owen said. "You're perfect for each other. Surely she sees that, too. You'll have a great life together. She's just held up somewhere."

Quentin sighed and nodded again.

Owen said, "I like it a lot better when you can't talk."

The trailer door opened. Quentin sucked in his breath, knowing it was Sarah at last.

Then coughed, because he'd breathed too deeply. It was only Rachel.

She stopped and put her hand through Martin's hair. Then she came to stand in front of Quentin.

"Did you find her?" he whispered.

She shook her head no. "But I have a confession." She eyed Owen, and then her gaze slid back to Quentin. "I'm the one who called her down here."

"What?" Owen asked sharply.

She turned to make sure Martin hadn't heard, then gave Owen a reproving look. Quietly she told Quentin, "I really did agree with you that we couldn't get Martin in rehab secretly if he didn't want to go. And if we went to Owen and Erin to talk about an intervention, they would kick him out of the band, which would be the end of him."

Owen's mouth twisted in guilt.