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When Alec turned back to the bar he saw that another margarita was waiting for him next to the

half-full one he had just ordered. He reached for his wallet and Buddy stayed him with his hand.

"Nope. Those are on me."

"That's very kind of you. But no more. I have to drive up a mountain, remember?"

Marge gave Buddy an expression composed of seventy percent admonishment, thirty percent

smirk. Her subliminal communication reminded Alec of Demarco.

"Bah," said Buddy. "No one's going to pull you over on that thing."

Alec laughed. The lights grew dim again. The impromptu emcee was at the microphone again.

"Thank you, Connie. Isn't she something, folks? Let's give her another round of applause!"

Alec turned back to the bar and finished off the first margarita. Buddy leaned into him. "That's Al Jarnigan playing announcer up there. He and his wife Misty own—"

"—the garage," Alec finished.

Buddy smiled. "Am I talking too much?"

"Not at all."

"I wasn't sure. Sometimes Marge lets me know if I am." He looked a little vulnerable, and for a brief moment, Alec saw the deeper, sincere kindness beneath the friendly facade.

"You're a good guy, Buddy. I appreciate everything you and Marge did for me today. If it weren't for you two I'd probably still be up there, starving."

"Oh…you'd of figured something out. You seem like a resourceful guy."

"I don't know about that."

"I do," said Buddy, with a twinkle in his eyes. He looked at Marge who returned the smile…

and again there was that strangeTwilight Zoneintuitiveness he had sensed from them at the store.

Alec was growing accustomed to it—though, at first, it made him uneasy. Demarco would have

referenced a hundred thriller titles by now, spewing them like Linda Blair inThe Exorcist.

While they had been speaking, Alec had missed Al's announcement of the final talent show

participant. He pushed his empty margarita glass away and heard the soft single strums of a well-

tuned acoustic guitar. It was a country song, one of the few categories of music he didn't know well…

had avoided, mainly because it reminded him of the small Georgia town he'd left behind. There was

just something about the combined twang of instruments and accents that didn't appeal to him, seemed foreign… almost alien.

But he recognized these smooth chords minus the orchestration. It was old—from the 1980s at

least, but he couldn't identify the source… like when a thought or memory is so close, refusing to surface… you know it will, but you just can't recall.

Then came the first line, a man's rich baritone hovering in the tavern's still air.

Crazy for You. There it was—a hit, but not from one of her albums, from a soundtrack—some