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note of panic, understood that she didn’t mean bad just for him.
    “Linda, you’re twenty-six. What are you doing with that old creep?”
    “Don’t you do this. Not here. Not now.”
    “Well, okay, fine. But I’m still Abigail’s father and as such I got some say on her welfare, and it don’t set well with me one bit that she’s living under the roof of a man in cahoots with the General.”
    Linda looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “Really? Are you kidding? I can’t believe you even said that.” She laughed. “Weren’t you the one sitting in county jail a couple months back? And for what? What was it, Jesse? Running drugs I believe. Who exactly were you in cahoots with?”
    Jesse flushed. “That ain’t the same and you know it.”
    She just stared at him.
    “Besides, I didn’t know it was drugs.”
    Linda rolled her eyes and let out a snort. “Jesse, I happen to know you aren’t that stupid. Well, okay, I tell you what. I could move her into that little trailer of yours. That’d be a wonderful place to raise her. Don’t you think?”
    “Doesn’t the fact that Dillard murdered his wife bother you at all?”
    “He did not,” she shot back, a noticeable edge in her voice. “That’s just talk. Dillard told me what really happened. She emptied his bank account, took his car, and run off. That’s all there is to that. He was shattered by what that crazy woman did to him.”
    “That’s one side of it. Too bad Mrs. Deaton ain’t around to give her side. Too bad no one ever found hide not hair of her after all these years.”
    “Jesse, what are you trying to do?”
    “Linda, don’t move in with this guy. Please don’t. Go back to your mama’s. Let’s give this one more chance. Please .”
    “Jesse, I’m done waiting for you to grow up. There’s gotta be more to my life than watching you pick at that damn guitar of yours. I don’t want to be raising a child by myself while you’re off playing at some scuzzy honky-tonk. That ain’t no kind a life.”
    “What happened to you, Linda? You used to believe in me . . . believe in my songs.”
    “How’s that demo coming along, Jess?”
    “It’s coming.”
    “Have you sent off any of your songs? Did you ever follow up with that DJ from Memphis, that Mr. Rand, or Reed, or whatever his name was? As I recall he was real keen on your sound.”
    “I’m still working on it.”
    “Still working on it? Jesse, that was over two years ago. What’s the excuse now?”
    “Ain’t no excuse. Songs just aren’t quite ready yet. That’s all.”
    “How many years have I been hearing that? What you mean to say is you aren’t quite ready yet. Because them songs . . . they’re good songs. But nobody’s ever gonna know it if you don’t let them hear ’em.”
    Jesse stared at his boots.
    “Jesse, we been over this until I’m sick of hearing myself say it. You aren’t going nowhere so long as all you do is keep playing to a bunch of drunks in those two-bit bars. You want it, baby, you’re gonna have to make it happen. Gonna have to put yourself on the line.
    “Look, Jess, some folks is gonna like what you do and some folks aren’t, that’s just the way it is. You can’t go through life worrying about the ones that aren’t.”
    Jesse felt that was easy for Linda to say, she’d never cared a lick for what other folks thought. It was why she was such a good dancer, because she could just lose herself in the beat, just kick up her heels not caring who was watching or what they might be thinking. She’d never been able to understand that it might be different for him, at least while he was performing. He couldn’t get past all those eyes on him, watching his every move, couldn’t get into the zone, into that magic place where the music and him were one and the same. So yes, perhaps she was right, maybe he was afraid to put himself on the line, but maybe he’d learned that it was better to play good to a bunch of drunks instead of