Chapter 3

Amanda looked across the table at Rodney.

“So, is everything taken care of?” she asked.

“No problems,” said Rodney firmly. “We got her a room at the Prairie Star Bed and Breakfast.”

“Why not the hotel?” asked Amanda.

“It was booked up,” said Rodney. “Everything is booked up. I had to call in a favor from Mattie, at the Prairie Star. I told her we’d work in some commercials for her.”

“Is it a nice place?”

“For a hundred year old stone house, it’s gorgeous,” said Rodney. “Plus it has lots of history, and it’s right near the fairgrounds.”

“We want this girl to be happy, Rodney,” warned Amanda.

“Quit worrying. I looked at her bio. She’s from back in the mountains, in North Carolina, for pity’s sake. She’s only hit it big in the last three or four months. She probably hasn’t even broken in her new shoes yet. She’ll be happy.”

Misty Compton was not happy.

The airline had lost her suitcase. Every stitch of clothing she had for the trip, except what she was wearing, was in that suitcase. Her three performance outfits, two pairs of jeans, and three T shirts were in that suitcase, along with her toothbrush and all her fancy new underwear.

They claimed that it accidentally went to Cleveland, Ohio, and she just couldn’t understand how anybody could think that her suitcase should be sent to Cleveland, Ohio.

The man who had picked her up didn’t make things any better. Instead of yelling at the airport people, he just grinned and said everything would be okay. He’d been insolent about it too.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he’d said, looking her up and down. “You’re about the same size as my twin sisters. You can borrow some of their clothes.”

Now, as she hurried along behind the long-legged insufferable cowboy, she was fuming. She was Misty Compton! She didn’t wear other girl’s clothes! Not any more. She’d thrown out all her hand-me-downs when she got her first royalty check, and bought all new things.

She’d tried to argue with him ... put him in his place. But he wouldn’t listen. He just grinned that stupid grin, and looked at her with those impossibly blue eyes, and told her to come along ... that he’d get her all fixed up.

And now she was stuck. She had no idea where she was going, or how to get there. He was her only source of information, and he wasn’t talking. He was just speeding ahead of her, like they were in some kind of race!

“Slow down!” she yelled, suddenly.

Then she ran into his back as he suddenly stopped. She bounced off, her thoughts going immediately to her precious guitar.

“I didn’t say stop!” she yelled.

“Sorry,” he said, with that insolent grin.

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry!” she snapped. “You’re not sorry. You don’t look one bit sorry!”

“Look,” he said, the smile fading, finally. “I know this probably isn’t what you’re used to, what with you being a famous singer and all that. But this is the best we can do right now. Let’s just get you out of here, and get you to Hutchinson, and everything will work out. I promise.”

“Get me to Hutchinson!?” She gave him a blank stare. “We’re already in Hutchinson, you idiot!”

She hated the look of pity he laid on her then.

“This is Wichita,” he said, the corners of his mouth curling up just a fraction. “Hutch is forty miles away.”

It got even worse as he led her to a rusty old pickup truck, an early sixties Chevy, just like the one her Uncle Zeke had, right down to the same rusty holes above the rear fenders, and behind the cab.

“Where is my limo?” she asked tersely.

“This is your limo,” he said, that maddening smile back.

“You came to get me in a pickup?” Her voice rose higher with every word.

“I didn’t know how much luggage you’d have,” he said calmly. “If I’d have known how light you traveled, I’d have used something else.”

Misty Compton, for whom crowds roared and stamped, wanted to cry.

“I’m not putting my guitar in the back of this truck!” she snapped, using her anger to keep from crying.

“There’s room in the front for it,” he said.

“I want a limo!” she screamed. “I want my suitcase and i want a limo!”

People were staring at them. That didn’t really bother Bobby too much. When Amanda had called him, and asked him to go get the star performer for the Harvest Festival, he’d agreed to do it because it was Amanda asking him to. He didn’t listen to the radio much, and the twins didn’t play music at the house as much as they had in the past. Part of that was because they were at work during the days, and some evenings, and part of it was because, as they grew up, they weren’t as fixated on celebrities as they had been in their younger days.

From Bobby’s perspective, the only reason for worrying about Misty Compton at all was because Amanda was expecting him to bring her back.

“Look,” he said. “I’m sorry your luggage got sent to Ohio. I can’t do anything about that right now. I was sent to pick you up, and that’s what I’m here for. If you don’t want to ride with me, that’s fine. You’re a big recording star, from what little I know about you, so I’m sure that if you call somebody, they’ll find a limo and send it to get you. I’ll just wait until I’m sure somebody else is going to take care of you, and then I’ll go on home.”

“You don’t even know who I am?!” squealed Misty, outraged that her burgeoning success was being ignored by this ... this ... this cowboy!

“Amanda told me,” he said, looking a little uncomfortable. “I ... um ... don’t listen to the radio much. I’m usually working. I’m sure you’re very good. They wouldn’t have asked you to come to the Harvest Festival if you weren’t.”

Misty quivered with indignation. This was the last straw. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.

That impression was disabused almost immediately as a big raindrop splatted onto her cheek. She looked up to see thunderheads above her. Where had those come from? The sky had been as clear and blue as could be when the plane was landing. Three more raindrops hit her. The insufferable man started to walk around the front of the stupid truck.

“I’ll just wait in the truck while you take care of things,” he said.

It was her guitar that made her get in the truck with him. She told herself that, as she jerked open the door and pushed the case, with its precious cargo, to the middle of the bench seat, and scrambled in behind it. She was just in time, as the sky opened up and the windows of the truck suddenly became wavering peeks at a surreal world outside.

“Want me to drop you off at the terminal?” asked the man, as he got in the driver’s seat.

“Just get me the fuck out of here!” she snarled.

“Okie dokie,” he said, his voice light, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He almost sounded like one of her cousins, back home.

Twenty minutes later, just as the constant squeak from one of the truck’s old windshield wipers was about to make her scream, the rain vanished as quickly as it had appeared. All that was left were a few torn clouds, staining a blue sky and the road went from having puddles on it, to bone dry within a mile. Misty glanced over at the driver. He hadn’t said a word since he’d started the truck, and seemed to be paying attention only to the road ahead.

She felt irritated that he looked handsome. In another time and place, she’d have been intrigued by that strong jaw line, and that little lock of hair that fell on his forehead. His eyes were as blue as the sky, and that faded checkered shirt bulged with the muscles it tried to hide from view. She suddenly imagined this man wrestling with cattle, in a rodeo.

“So,” she said, more to break the silence, than anything else, “are you in the rodeo a lot?”

“Nope.”

He stared straight ahead. He was ignoring her. That made her mad too. Nobody ignored her. She was famous! She decided to remind him of that.

“Which of my songs do you like the most?” she asked.

He looked over at her, but just for a second. She remembered that he had said he only knew what that woman from the radio station had told him, and felt stupid for asking. That made her mad too.

“I don’t know that I’ve heard any of them.”

She was beginning to wish she’d just stayed in the rain.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“They got you a room at a Bed and Breakfast place, in Hutch,” he said. “I’m supposed to take you to the station first, to meet Amanda and the rest of them. Then I’ll take you to the bed and breakfast, or anywhere you want to go.”

“I don’t have anything!” she wailed. “I need clothes ... I don’t even have a toothbrush!”

“There’s plenty of stores in Hutch,” said Bobby. “You can get whatever you need.”

“They won’t have the kind of clothes I perform in, you idiot!” she snarled. “Not in Bumfuck Kansas!”

She was startled as the truck started slowing down, and he pulled to the side of the road.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why are you stopping?”

He turned to her. She stared into those awful blue eyes.

“You don’t like me,” he said, his voice level. “That’s not surprising, because I don’t much like you either. Maybe it’s just a personality difference. That doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I was hired to take care of you, and when I take on a job, I take it seriously. You don’t have to yell, or curse. All you have to do is tell me what you need, and I’ll try my best to arrange it. That’s what I’m being paid to do. Now, if that isn’t suitable to you, that’s fine too. I’m taking you to see Amanda right now. You can tell her you don’t like me, and that you want another driver, or whatever they call this, and I’ll go on about my business. You don’t have to put up with me much longer. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t foul the air like a drunken sailor.”