“He missed.”
He wrapped one arm firmly about her shoulders and the next thing she knew they were back out on the street, winding their way in and out of the growing crowd on the sidewalk. Candace couldn’t help looking over her shoulder, certain those two men had not been the only ones the Manager would have sent out to look for her, but they seemed to have gotten away.
She glanced up at the stranger who now had her firmly under his control and tried to think positively about her change in circumstances, but she failed miserably.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire?
23
“First thing we gotta do is get you warm,” the man said. “I saw a coffee shop just up here.”
“No!” Candace stopped, or at least she tried to, but the man had a good hold on her.
“What is it, darlin’?” he asked, turning to look down at her.
She glanced nervously back the way they had come.
“Is there gonna be somebody else out lookin’ for you?” he asked, sounding concerned.
She nodded, afraid to look at him.
He took a deep breath.
“Okay,” he said, almost to himself. “I gotta get somethin’ then I’ll take you to the studio with me.”
His eyes skimmed over the shops along the street then he headed for one, pulling her with him. “You can at least get warmed up in here.”
The soft tinkling of bells welcomed them as they entered the shop. It was a music store, Candace saw at once. Guitars, both acoustic and electric, hung on the walls alongside a menagerie of banjos, basses, and mandolins. The floor was stacked with a variety of equipment—drums, amplifiers, mixers, and stands of all shapes and sizes. Her eyes were wide as she looked around the space. She’d never seen such an inventory in person.
“Can I help you?” a man asked as he came in from the back of the store.
“I need some new brushes,” her rescuer said, giving her arm a squeeze and moving toward the back.
“What do you have in mind?”
“Well, I prefer a fixed head and a hickory handle,” he said.
Candace put herself behind a tall window display, so no one outside the store would see her, and turned to watch the two men intermix. She had no idea what her rescuer was talking about, but he seemed to know just what he wanted. She liked listening to him, though. She had been locked inside all of her life. The only men she had ever seen were brutes working for the Manager or that other kind of man who had sat in the audience while she entertained them, singing and dancing. None had been allowed to touch her, thank God, and when the bad men had grabbed her this morning, the feel of their hands on her had terrified her. She hadn’t felt the same at all with her rescuer’s arm around her. It was odd, but for some reason she trusted him.
“You can try them out, if you’d like,” the store owner was saying, gesturing to a drum set he had set up toward the front of the store.
“Thanks.”
Her rescuer sat down at the drums, adjusted the placement of a couple of them, placed his feet on two pedals, and began to play.
It was amazing. There was no music, except for what was apparently in his head, but the smooth sound of the steel brushing along the drum heads and lightly touching the cymbals was mesmerizing. It wasn’t just her opinion, either, because the store owner was standing by, his arms folded across his chest and a look of pure enjoyment on his face.
She turned her eyes back to her rescuer and found herself as taken with his appearance as she was with his performance. He was tall—well over six feet—with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He wore an insulated red flannel shirt over what looked like long underwear. His jeans were clean but worn; his dark brown boots the same. He held the drum sticks lightly in his huge hands, as though they were made of glass instead of wood. His hair was a dark brown and shaggy, with streaks of auburn that showed under the bright store lights. His face was chiseled but not polished, and when he looked up to meet her eyes, she was hit once more by their deep golden color.
He smiled then, and barely touching the brushes to the largest cymbal, he ended his play in a soft thump of the bass drum.
“That was sure nice,” the store owner said. “What band do you play with?”
Her rescuer did a quick lick on the drums then stood to hold out his hand to the other man.
“I’m Luke Saint of The Four Saints,” he said.
“Well, I am glad to meet you,” the man said. “I’m Chad Burton—the son half of Burton and Son Music. Thought you looked familiar. My wife and I caught your band over at the Full Moon the other night.”
“That was fun,” Luke said, handing Burton the brushes.
“I’ll wrap these up for you, if you like.”
“I do. They have a great sound. Much lighter than the ones I’m using now.”
“Going to be doing some nice ballads, then?”