Chapter One

      1927

      Look out, Los Angeles! Shirley Burnette’s rolling into town!

      Shirley giggled at her own thoughts. Could almost hear Pappy saying them.

      He used to say, “Look out, Shirley’s up and at ’em,” every morning without fail.

      Nose glued to the window, she was enthralled, so thrilled her own breath kept fogging up the glass. Swiping the glass clean, she felt her excitement rise higher and higher as she watched the buildings roll by.

      Big ones, little ones and those in between.

      Los Angeles.

      Hollywood.

      The place where dreams came true.

      No more washing dishes. No more shucking corn. No more mucking out stalls. Nebraska was half a nation behind her, and that’s where it was going to stay.

      The train whistle, a screech that could make the hair on your arms stand on end, sounded like bells straight out of heaven to her. She’d waited years to hear that sound.

      Years and years.

      This wasn’t just her dream, it had been her mother’s, and she had to make it come true. No matter what.

      There had been times she’d wondered if that was possible, especially four years ago, when Pappy had died. That’s also when she’d focused on making it come true even harder. She’d tucked away every spare penny she’d made working for Olin Swaggert, and made sure none of the overgrown thugs he called sons didn’t get their grubby hands on it. She made sure they didn’t get their grubby hands on anything else, too.

      Olin kept saying that she was bound to fall in love with one of his boys, get married and live right there on that pig farm forever.

      She’d assured him that would never happen.

      Never.

      Ever.

      A lot of lazy dewdroppers, that’s what the entire clan of Swaggert boys were, and more than once she’d wanted to throw in the towel. The only reason she hadn’t was because Olin had paid her. The Swaggerts were one of the few families who could afford to have a live-in worker.

      Live-in because, thanks to some city slicker lawyer, as soon as Pappy had died, the Swaggerts got the farm. Lock, stock and barrel. The lawyer claimed Pappy had owed Olin money. Lots of it. She’d argued that, but that hadn’t done a wit of good. In the end, she’d been left with no place to live. No place to do much of anything. Olin had offered her a job—out of the goodness of his heart, that’s how he’d put it.

      A heart like his didn’t have any goodness. He’d known how badly it had hurt her to see the house she’d grown up in, lived in her entire life, torn down, but that hadn’t stopped him from tearing it all down and plowing up the land.

      Corn. That was all that was there now. A field of corn.

      That lawyer hadn’t had a heart, either. He’d refused to listen to a word she’d had to say. So had the sheriff, who’d ordered her out of the house. It had been hard to swallow, that there was nothing left of her family. Other than memories and a dream, so with no other options, she’d taken the job with the Swaggerts and turned her focus to saving up the money to get here. To where the only thing she had left was sure to come true.

      Los Angeles. The City of Angels.

      It was fitting. A girl who sang like an angel should live in the City of Angels.

      People had been saying for years that she sang like an angel. Pappy, of course, and other family members before they’d died, but town folks had said it, too.

      Granted, the population of Roca, Nebraska, was little more than two hundred, but a couple of churches in Lincoln had paid her to sing at funerals. Donations. She’d gotten donations. Piddly ones. But money was money and every penny she’d earned had brought her one step closer to this day.

      She was here to become a singer. Sing like she and Pappy used to. Sing like her mother had, years ago, when she’d been young and traveled the country. That’s how her mother and father had met. He’d heard Momma sing at a playhouse in Lincoln. Within two shakes of a cat’s tail, they were married and Momma moved to the farm.

      Pappy had claimed that Momma had never regretted that because she still sang all the time. Just not on a stage. Shirley couldn’t say if that was true or not. She’d been young when her parents had died. Sometimes, late at night when it was dark and quiet, she could hear her momma singing inside her head and her heart. That’s where her singing lived, inside her, where no one could take it away from her.

      Pappy had said that, as a baby, she’d never cried. She’d sung instead. Sung her lungs out from the day she’d been born. He said it was in her genes and that she’d grow up to be just like her momma. A singer. A famous one, like her momma had dreamed of becoming before she’d married her father.

      That’s what she was here to do. Become a singer. A famous one. She would learn how to dance, too. Really cut a rug. Had to. The two, singing and dancing, went hand in hand.

      Oh, yes, she was going to sing and dance, and live and laugh!

      The train jerked and bucked as it rolled into the station, and she swiped away the fog on the window one last time before straightening the collar of her blue paisley dress and picking up her purse, ready to get her first real look at her new world.

      An entire new world that was there for the taking. Her taking. Like apples hanging on a tree ready to be plucked.

      Life is good. When you make it that way.

      Smiling at her own thoughts, Shirley was first in line, standing at the door, when the heavy metal was slid aside. She rushed down the steps, wishing she could twist her head like an owl. There was so much to see.

      Buildings that went so high into the sky a person could dang near touch the clouds if they were to stand on top of one, and cars, more than she’d seen in a month back in Nebraska, and people. Tall ones, short ones, skinny ones, fat ones, old ones, young ones...just all sorts. All sorts!

       We’re here, Momma. The place where our dreams are going to come true!

      In an attempt to quell her enthusiasm long enough to collect her luggage, she gave herself a nod and leaped off the edge of the train station platform.

      A second later she comprehended the baggage compartment was in the other direction, and had to step back up on the wooden platform and follow the crowd heading that way.

      That didn’t faze her.

      She was too happy.

      Too