“You saw Elva give him money?” Her grandma into drugs or other illicit dealings? Elva wasn’t perfect, but she was a God-fearing woman. It made no sense.
“Yep, though Ernest denied it when I asked. The next time she come by, I hid around the corner of the house and watched them.”
“What did he give her back?”
She shrugged and grabbed hold of Martha Lee’s hands, which were bunching her skirt tight around her legs. “Never saw what she got for her money. They were right sneaky about it. I better get going. Gotta get dinner ready. Daddy’s bringing home fish tonight, ain’t he, honey?” she asked her daughter.
“Big fish!” the girl said.
Kim forced a smile. “It was good seeing you, Grace, and good to meet you, Martha Lee. I’ll head over tomorrow and see Ernest. Tell Tommy I said hey.”
Kim sat in her truck for a few minutes before heading back to the bar. What was Elva up to? How did her visits to Ernest fit into it? She was damn well going to find out.
CHAPTER 14
“Tuesday nights was buy-one-get-two-free night, I swear it,” Dennis Purdy was telling Kim when Zell walked up to the bar.
“And you’re full of it,” Zell said, leaning against the bar next to Dennis. He’d showered and changed since helping her with the window. He wore another of his sunset shirts, black jeans, and alligator boots. Not that he was dressing up for Kim, of course.
“Damn it, Zell, you spoiled it for everyone. She was that close to believing me.”
Zell said, “No, she wasn’t.” He’d been watching the exchange and could see skepticism in her eyes. “You’re a two-bit lying cheat and that’s the truth.”
Dennis’s eyes narrowed. “You Macgregors hold a grudge like it was a thorn in your asses. I was gonna help you all paint, I really was.” He turned to include Kim and maybe get her on his side. “See, Winn and Zell and Owen helped me paint my place, what was it, eight years ago? A couple of years later, Winn asked me to help them out when it came time to paint their place. I was gonna help, but I threw my back out.” He rubbed the small of his back as though it were still bothering him.
“Then why were you seen tearing up the mudflats on your ATV that same day?”
Dennis’s face reddened. “It got better?” he offered weakly.
“Yeah, right.”
“Hell, Zell, how long are you gonna hold that against me?” He turned to Kim. “He won’t even give me advice, and with Misty, heaven knows I need it.” His face brightened. “Hell, Zell. I like that. Hell Zell.” When he saw Zell’s un-amused expression, he paid for his beer and went back to his table.
Kim placed a drink in front of him. “It’s on the house for helping me today.”
His match. He’d never once heard Tullie say something like that. If anything, Kim was his complete opposite. Hated gators, probably hated his family as much as they hated her. He had to admit she intrigued him, though. Her sass was something to behold, as was her body. And I’d like to be holding that body. The inane phrase floated through his mind. She wore a white tank top and jean overalls that gaped just enough to show a swath of her side. Her blond hair was shiny clean and flipped up at the ends. It looked all kinds of soft, and was just long enough for a man to curl his fingers into as he was driving into her…
He blinked and pushed away that particular image. He was already getting hell for helping her out, and it was getting harder to sell his self-serving reasons. What he needed to do was go sit at his table and not talk to her anymore. The only reason he’d even stopped by was seeing Clem and Billy Bob’s hunk of junk out in the lot. They giggled at their handiwork, but he gave them a look that cut those giggles to silence. Calling the cops for assault wasn’t done in Cypress. It was tantamount to tattling. He’d show them that he wasn’t afraid of them, and that he wouldn’t be caught unawares again.
Amy sidled up to the bar. “Hey there, sweet cousin, how’s it hanging?”
“It is, and that’s always a good thing. How’s business?”
She glanced at the half-full bar. “I’m keeping busy. Heck, this is more fun than selling real estate, and I had to get a license for that. Kim, see that guy over there, the one that’s waving at you?”
They all looked. Zell didn’t recognize him, which meant he was probably a guest at the hunting lodge.
Amy said, “He wants to buy you a drink. He knows it’s your bar and all, but he still wants to do it.”
“Tell him thanks, but I don’t drink.”
Amy shrugged and headed back over. “All rightee.”
Though he knew he should mosey on, he couldn’t resist. “A bartender—a gal who owns a bar—who doesn’t drink?”
“That’s right.”
“You allergic to alcohol? Religious zealot? A recovering alcoholic?”
She’d shaken her head at each question.
“Well, what then?”
“I’ll tell you when you tell me the second reason you want me to leave town.”
He raised his hand in surrender, took his drink, and headed to his table. There were more than a couple of other reasons he wanted her to leave. Liking her was one of them.
The man who’d wanted to buy Kim a drink intercepted him. “Hey, what’s up with the chick who owns the bar? She a lesbo or something?”
Zell couldn’t help but look at Kim reaching up to replace stock from a bottle high up on the shelf. “She likes men well enough, I suspect.” Well-dressed boring men, at least. Is that what Kim wanted? That and a home. No wonder she was fighting to make a go of it. Being born here, she was apt to be out of place in Tallahassee. He sure would be.
“Pardon?” Zell asked when he realized the guy had said something.
“I’m going to go tell her I could eat her all night long.”
Surely Kim was used to guys coming on to her if she worked in bars. “You think she’ll go for that? Does that line work?”
The guy, a middle-aged businessman taking a week off to play redneck, grinned. “Once in a while. I think it’ll work on her. She looks just hot and gutsy enough to take it for what it is. A supreme compliment,” he added at Zell’s questioning look. Before he could tell the guy to think better of it, he’d marched up to the bar. Zell stood back and watched the show.
She gave away nothing in her expression after he’d obviously delivered his romantic line, but she did survey the bar to see if someone had put him up to it. Her eyes lighted on him and narrowed slightly. She’d probably seen them talking. Then she turned back to the man and said something that wilted his shoulders and probably something else, too.
He walked back to Zell. “Probably a lesbo.”
Zell bet this bozo ran into a lot of lesbos, as he put it: every woman who turned him down was probably one. “What’d she say?”
He seemed to consider telling him, but gave in. “She said, ‘You might could eat me all night, but I got a big appetite myself, and your little cocktail weenie would hardly even whet it.”
Zell let out a hoot of laughter. “Damn, but she is something else.” He headed to his table.
His cousin Dougal was standing at the jukebox with a puzzled look on his face. A lot of folks thought they were brothers if they didn’t know better. He turned to Zell. “What the heck is Mandoza? Never heard of ’em.”
Zell tried to keep a smile from his face. “Maybe it’s a new country group. Give ’em a try.”
Dougal put his dollar bill into the machine and made his selections. Then he dropped into the seat opposite Zell’s. “Cause, I got to tell you about my woman troubles. You’re the only one who can make sense of the lovely creatures.” He was halfway into the story about Sue-Ellen and how she kept changing her mind on whether she loved him or hated him when he stopped. The South African artist started singing words that no one could understand. “What the heck kind of music is this?”
Everyone in the bar had stopped talking and was looking at the jukebox like it had turned into an alien. Zell couldn’t answer; he was too busy lau
ghing.
After a night of mostly old country music, Kim was enjoying the silence as she, Smitty, and Amy cleaned up for the night.
Amy was laughing as she wiped down the tabletops. “And the look on Dougal’s face, I’ll never forget it! What did he say to you, anyway?”
Kim grinned, remembering the Zell look-a-like stalking up to the bar. “He said, ‘What kind of weird foreign music are you desecrating that jukebox with?’ I suspect Zell had something to do with his selecting it. I’m also pretty sure he had something to do with that creepoid coming up saying he wanted to eat me all night.”
Both Amy and Smitty laughed. Kim had already told them the story.
Smitty said, “Zell wouldn’t tell anyone to say something like that to a gal. Likely the guy told Zell what he was going to say and when Zell couldn’t talk him out of it, he just enjoyed the show.”
“Humph,” Kim said as she ran the numbers for the night, but she couldn’t help smiling. She was doing that a lot where Zell was concerned, and that wasn’t a good thing at all.
She’d been surprised to see Sam Wharton step through the door earlier that evening, his expression sour as he scanned the bar. Kim wasn’t sure if he was looking for someone or seeing who was going to be crossed off his Christmas list. After laying a cold look on her, he’d left.
“It was a busy night,” Amy said as she threw her washrag in the bin and grabbed up her purse.
“Not busy enough. We’re down by forty percent from a normal Tuesday night. Between a downturn in business and repairs, the reserve is going down fast.” At Amy’s worried look, she added, “We’ll see how we stand next week. Maybe folks will start coming back when they see that I’m serious about staying.”
“I hope so. I’m liking working here. Goodnight, Kim, Smitty.” She leaned down and scratched Oscar’s head. “Night, sweetie-pig.”
“I’ll walk you out.” Smitty walked her to her car and returned a few minutes later. “You ready?”
Kim closed up the ledger books and turned off the calculator. “Almost.” She was about to tell him he didn’t have to stay around but remembered Zell’s words about doing just that and stopped. “Thanks for sticking around.”
She grabbed up her bag, readied her tear gas, and turned off the rear lights. Smitty hit the front lights, though they were leaving the outside lights on from now on. The two jerks had come and gone without any trouble. She was hoping that was a good sign.
“Oscar, come over here!” she called when he wandered to the hedge.
“Nice truck you got,” Smitty said as they approached it.
“Thanks, I—”
Everything happened so fast it was a blur. She saw someone come up behind Smitty, wrap an arm around his neck, and jerk him backward. At the same time, she felt an arm doing the same to her. She tried to twist around and aim her tear gas at whoever was behind her. Before she could get it into position, the can was wrenched out of her grip and thrown to the ground. She smelled sweat and stale smoke on the man behind her. It was definitely a man. Not only was he strong, but the fact became evident as he repositioned her against the front of him.
When the man who’d grabbed Smitty came back from around the back of her truck, she recognized him as the skinny of the two jerks. She couldn’t remember his name, but she did remember Billy Bob was the big guy—the one who had a grip on her.
“Clem, give me a hand here,” Billy Bob said.
Clem rubbed his hands together and walked forward with his gaze on her breasts. “Sure, I’ll give you a hand. You can’t have all the fun.”
She couldn’t see Smitty but didn’t have time to worry about him at the moment. She jammed her heel into Billy Bob’s shin, doubled over and shoved him with her butt. Clem was already on her, grabbing at her arms. She cupped her palms and clapped his ears, something she’d learned in self-defense class.
“Dammit, I can’t hear anything,” he said, giving his head a shake. Unfortunately, he recovered quickly.
Still, it gave her the chance to yell for help before Billy Bob slapped his hand hard over her mouth. It covered most of her face. “Grab her legs ’fore the bi—dammit!”
She’d jabbed at him again and shoved backward, catching him off-balance and sending them both crashing to the ground. Clem jumped on both of them, pinning her down. From her position down on the ground, she saw Smitty lying on the gravel behind her truck. He was moving, but not much. She tasted blood where her front teeth had been smashed into her lip. Billy Bob climbed out from beneath her and shoved Clem aside. He was pushing her into the gravel with his knee, and his hand was still covering her mouth. “We got a fighter here, don’t we? Well, let’s see what kind of fight you put up when we’re giving you the best ride you ever had.”
Clem giggled. “You’ll be screaming then, yes, you will.”
She tried not to betray her raging heartbeat or the fear pulsing through her veins. The anger she had no trouble letting them see. Rocks were digging into the back of her head. “Clem, get her keys. Find which one opens the bar door. Get the old man inside.”
“Free drinks and free woman, this is gonna be fun!” He grabbed her keys. “We’ll even get the jukebox going to cover the noises she’s gonna make.” He made sounds of ecstasy as he walked to the door.
As soon as Clem left, she tried to pull her leg up, but his more than two hundred fifty pounds of bulk had her pinned down hard. She tried to get a tooth hold on his hand, but the palm was too smooth. Sensing what she was trying to do, he pressed down even harder, jamming her teeth into her cut lip again. That made the rocks dig even deeper into her scalp.
“Got the door open!” Clem called, excitement in his voice. He started dragging Smitty into the bar.
“Maybe this’ll get the message across that you aren’t welcome here,” Billy Bob growled. “Nobody’s gonna fault us for the way we’re handling this, ’cause they all want you out of here, too. We’re gonna have fun, you and me and Clem. If’n you say a word to anybody, we’ll come back and kill you. Got that?” Using his hand, he forced her head to nod yes. “You’re going to sell the bar and house and leave, aren’t you?” Again, he made her nod.
If she’d gone with Simon, some distant part of her mind said…They’re not going to chase me out of my home. When he jerked her to her feet, she thought, Oh, God, they’re going to rape me in my own bar. Not without a fight. I can take Clem. I’ll knock his balls clear up to his throat.
Tough thoughts for someone getting shoved toward one of the worst fates a woman could experience. She could hardly breathe for the fear coursing through her. At least Oscar wasn’t around. They would make a ham roast out of him probably.
The sound of tires on gravel made Billy Bob turn around, forcing her to turn with him. The sight of Zell’s truck nearly made her melt in relief. Except he wasn’t much of a fighter, and unless he’d brought a gun or backup, these boys weren’t going to give up the prize.
Billy Bob let out a curse as Zell stepped from the truck still wearing his tropical shirt and alligator boots. He took in the situation as he approached—a rifle hanging casually from his hand. “What’s going on here, boys?”
Billy Bob had her hands gripped behind her. He’d pulled her close to him when Zell had arrived. “Go on home, Zell. This ain’t your concern.”
“If you’re putting a hurting on that woman, then you’re wrong about that. Let her go.”
Kim thought she heard faint footsteps, but her heart was racing too loud to figure out if they were real or in her head. As Billy Bob started to answer Zell, she stomped down on his foot and shoved him backward. This time she pushed away so he wouldn’t take her with him. In the rush, she thought she saw Clem, who had sneaked up behind Zell, push him forward.
As she started to scramble away, Billy Bob grabbed her ankle. Clem and Zell were going at it. Clem had jumped on top of Zell, taking advantage of his surprise. Zell was trying to buck him off with his hips, all the while moving closer to the rifle lying on the ground.
She was trying to reach it, too, but Billy Bob now had a hold on both ankles.
She heard the sound of broken glass somewhere, but didn’t have time to focus on that. She kicked at Billy Bob, smashing his hand. Footsteps sounded on the gravel nearby, and before she had a chance to see who it was, Smitty was holding a broken bottle against Billy Bob’s neck. “Let her go.”
Smitty had a bloody bump on his forehead, but he was obviously all right. She jumped to her feet and turned to Zell, who had knocked Clem off and grabbed the rifle. He swung it in a perfect arc at Clem’s head as he got to his feet. The sound of a siren finished the excitement as a sheriff’s vehicle skidded into the parking lot.
Deputy Dave DeBarro jumped out of the car with his gun in hand. “What the hell is going on here?”
Smitty dropped the bottle and took a step forward, the only one who had enough breath to talk. “These two creepoids tried to rape us,” he managed before collapsing to his knees.
Billy Bob and Clem were loaded into the back of the car in cuffs once everyone had had their say.
“You sure you all don’t want to see a doctor?” Dave asked before he got into his vehicle.
They all nodded and watched him drive off. Each of them turned to the others and asked simultaneously, “You all right?” They laughed, and Kim never knew how good it felt to laugh until then. She knelt down to scratch Oscar’s back. “I’d pull out the first-aid kit, but it doesn’t have much in it. I haven’t had a chance to refill it.”
Zell said, “You’re both coming back to my place. I have a complete kit at home.”
She was too tired and achy to think better of going to Zell’s place. Besides, Smitty would be there, too.
As they gathered up their things, Smitty said, “I’m gonna go on home.”
“No, you’re not,” Zell said. “You got quite a knock on the head. You’re coming with us. You can ride with me or drive behind me.” That he said to both of them.
“I’ll drive,” they both said, though she really wanted to sit back and let him drive. Then Zell would have to drive her back here to get her truck.
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