.

give you.”

      “You’re my friend,” she said. “And besides, I’ve already got everything I need.”

      “You give it all away,” he uttered darkly. “How will you heat your place with winter coming on?”

      “I’ll burn the furniture,” she said in a stage whisper, and was rewarded with a faint smile from the pugnacious, proud old man who never smiled for any of the other tenants. He was disliked by everyone, except Sabina, who saw through the gruff exterior to the frightened, lonely man underneath. “See you!” Laughing, she bounded upstairs in her jeans and tank top, and Mr. Rafferty clutched his precious pralines and ambled back into his room.

      Billy and Bess, the blond twins who lived next door, laughed when they saw her coming. “Miss Dean said you’d be back today!” they chattered, naming the landlady. “Did you have a big crowd?”

      “Just right,” she told them, extracting two of the huge lollipops she’d bought along with the pralines. “Here. Don’t eat them before your dinner or your mama’ll skin me!”

      “Thanks!” they said in unison, eyeing the candy with adoration.

      “Now I really have to get some sleep,” she told them. “We’ve got a gig downtown!”

      “Really?” Billy asked, wide-eyed. He and his sister were ten, and Sabina’s profession awed them. Imagine, a rock star in their own building! The other kids down the block were green with envy.

      “Really. So keep the noise down, huh?” she added in a conspiratorial whisper.

      “You bet! We’ll be your lookouts,” Bess seconded.

      She blew them a kiss and went inside. The twins’ only parent was an alcoholic mother who loved them, but was hardly reliable. Sabina tried to look out for them at night, taking them into her apartment to sleep if Matilda stayed out, as she often did. Social workers came and went, but they couldn’t produce any antidote for the hopeless poverty Matilda lived in, and threats to take the children away only produced tears and promises of immediate sobriety. Unfortunately, Matilda’s promise lasted about an hour or two, or until the social worker left, whichever came first.

      Sabina knew that kind of hopelessness firsthand. Until her mother died and she was put in the orphanage, she’d often gone hungry and cold herself. Losing her mother in the brutal way she did hadn’t helped. But the struggle had given her a fixation about rich men and hard living. She hated both. With the voice that God had given her, she was determined to claw her way out of poverty and make something of her life. She was doing it, too. If only it had been in time to save her mother…

      She lay down on the bed with a sigh and closed her eyes. She was so tired. She put everything she had, everything she was, into her performances. When they were over, she collapsed. Dead tired. Sometimes she felt alive only in front of an audience, feeding on their adrenaline, the loud clapping and the cheers as she belted out the songs in her clear, haunting voice. Her own feet would echo the rhythms, and her body would sway. Her long, dark hair would fly and her silver-blue eyes would snap and sparkle with the electricity of her performances. She withheld nothing, but it was telling on her. All the long nights were wearing her down, and she was losing weight. But she had to keep going. She couldn’t afford to slow down now, when she and the band were so close to the golden ring. They were drawing bigger crowds all the time wherever they appeared, and getting great coverage in the local press. Someday they’d get a recording contract, and then, look out!

      Smiling as she daydreamed about that, she closed her eyes and felt the lumpy mattress under her with a wistful sigh. Just a few minutes’ rest would do it. Just a few minutes…

      * * *

      The loud pounding on the door woke her up. Drowsily, she got to her feet and opened it, to find Al on the other side.

      “I fell asleep,” Sabina explained. “What time is it?”

      “Six o’clock. Hurry and throw something on. You’ll feel better when you’ve eaten.”

      “What are you feeding me?” she asked on a yawn, preceding him into the apartment.

      “Chicken Kiev,” he told her. “Pommes de terre, and broccoli in hollandaise sauce—with cherries jubilee for dessert.”

      “You must have kept Susi in the kitchen all day!” she exclaimed with a laugh, picturing Al’s cook, a stooped little Cajun woman cursing a blue streak as she prepared that luscious repast.

      “I did,” he said, green eyes gleaming. “I had to promise her a bonus, too.”

      “Well, she certainly deserves it. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be out in a jiffy.” She took a quick shower and pulled on an elegant electric-blue satin dress with spaghetti straps, a square neckline, and a drop waist with a semifull skirt. It suited her slenderness and gave her gray eyes a blue look. Normally she’d never have been able to afford it on her budget, but she’d found it at an elegant used dress shop and paid only a fraction of its original price. Bargain hunting was one of her specialties. It had to be, on her erratic salary. She wore black sling pumps with it, and carried a dainty little black evening bag, and put on a long cashmere coat, because nights were getting cold in late autumn. She left her hair long instead of putting it into a high French twist, as she usually did in the evening. When she went back out into the living room, Al got to his feet and sighed.

      “You dish,” he murmured. “What an eye-catcher!”

      “Why does that make you look so smug?” she asked suspiciously.

      “I told you I had a project in mind,” he said after a minute. “You remember hearing me talk about the children’s hospital I’m trying to get funds to build?”

      “Yes,” she said, waiting.

      “I’m trying to put together a benefit for it. On local television. If I had a couple of sponsors, and you for a drawing card, I could get some local talent and present it to the local stations.” He grinned. “I guarantee we’d raise more than enough.”

      “You know I’d do it for you, without pay,” she said. “But we’re not big enough….”

      “Yes, you are,” he said stubbornly. “A television appearance here would give you some great publicity. Look, I’m not asking you to do it for that reason and you know it, so don’t ruffle up at me. The kids will benefit most, and I’ve got some other talent lined up, as well,” he told her. “But I can’t sell the idea to the television stations until I’ve got the sponsors. I want to wheedle Thorn into being one of them.”

      “Will he?”

      “If he’s persuaded,” he said with a sly glance at her.

      “Now, wait a minute,” she said curtly. “I am not playing up to your poisonous brother, for any reason.”

      “You don’t have to play up to him. Just be friendly. Be yourself.”

      She frowned. “You aren’t going to paint me into a corner, are you?”

      “Scout’s honor,” he promised with a flash of white teeth. “Trust me.”

      “I don’t trust anybody, even you,” she said with a smile.

      “I’m working on that. Let’s go.”

      He led her down the long flight of stairs.

      “Couldn’t you ask him yourself?” she murmured. “After all, blood is thicker…”

      “Thorn’s kind of miffed with me.”

      “Why?”

      Al stuck his hands in his pockets with a sigh and glanced at her ruefully. “He brought a girl home for me last night.”

      Her eyes widened. “He what?”

      “Brought a girl home for me. A very nice girl, with excellent connections, whose father owns an oil refinery.