“Must’ve skipped a generation,” he said as he fired up the grill and started making burgers.
She hip bumped him as she turned the knob to start the deep fryer. “Does that mean my son will be a preacher?”
“If he grows up in the back room of the Honky Tonk, I kind of doubt that,” Cameron answered.
“Would you raise a child in the back room?” she asked.
“Nice room back there, so I don’t see why not, but I’d rather raise him on a ranch where he’d have plenty of runnin’ room.” He turned at the same time she did, and suddenly, their noses were just inches apart. Seemed like the only thing to do was lean in for a kiss. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, and his mouth had barely touched hers when her phone rang. She jumped backward like a little girl who’d gotten caught messing around with her mother’s makeup. She jerked the thing out of her pocket and said, “Hello, Abigail. Am I forgiven yet?”
Cameron could hear her sister’s shrill voice even though he was two feet away.
“I will be there this weekend for an intervention so get ready for it, and I’m bringing you home with me. I will not take no for an answer, so have your things packed and ready to leave.”
“Today Cameron killed two snakes.” Ice hung on every word Jorja spoke. “I’ve faced off with the devil and lived through it, so I’m not afraid of you or your intervention bullshit. I’m not going anywhere with you or with anyone else, so bring an army or come by yourself. You are welcome to come see me, but you need to make reservations at a hotel, or else you’ll be sleeping on the floor of the bar. Now I’ve got stuff to do, so goodbye.”
She turned around, looped her arms around Cameron’s neck and tiptoed to kiss him. When their lips met, he felt a jolt of electricity like nothing he’d ever felt before. When the kiss ended, she took a step back and said, “Thank you for killing those vicious critters.”
“I’ll gladly kill another one for a kiss like that,” he teased.
“I might bring one in the bar so you can shoot it,” she shot back at him.
Jorja did not need an intervention, he thought. That redheaded ball of fire could take care of herself in any situation, and no one, not even the devil himself could scare her—unless he brought a snake with him, and Cameron would take care of that for her.
Chapter 6
Chigger and Frankie assured them that it would be useless to open the bar on Christmas Eve. According to Chigger, the previous owners used to come back to Mingus on that night for a little homecoming celebration, but not anymore. Managers had come and gone so fast that they had almost worn out the hinges on the doors for the past five years. That’s why Merle decided to give the bar away. According to what she’d told Chigger, she wanted to see the Honky Tonk loved and cherished, and not just from six in the evening until two in the morning by someone who got bored with it after a few months and moved on.
“That explains the office,” Jorja said over breakfast on Christmas Eve morning.
“What does?” Cameron asked.
“Chigger said that lots of managers had come and gone through here. The place didn’t belong to them, so they didn’t care if the office was taken care of or not. I’m surprised the bar itself hasn’t suffered from as much neglect.” Jorja toyed with her empty coffee cup.
“You aren’t thinking about the bar right now,” Cameron said.
“You can’t read my mind,” she told him.
“No, but I know what’s in my thoughts this morning, and I’d be willing to bet that yours aren’t too different. You’re thinking about your family and what you’d be doing if you were home, right?” he asked.
“I guess you are a mind reader.” She managed a weak smile, but it wasn’t heartfelt. If she was home, she and Abigail would be helping her mother make pecan pies for dinner the next day. Like they did every year, they would argue whether it was better to chop nuts or to leave them as halves, and they would wind up making one of each.
“Talk to me. What’s your favorite part of Christmas Eve when you can go home?” Cameron got up from the table and refilled their coffee cups.
“Cookin’ with Mama, and if we have snow, Abigail and I going to the church parking lot and building a snowman like we did when we were kids,” she said. “We make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning and get all the pies ready for Christmas dinner. We always open our presents on Christmas Eve—three presents for each of us because baby Jesus had three gifts, and Daddy reads the story of Jesus’s birth from the Bible. Then the next morning, there will be one present under the tree for the grandkids from Santa, because he always stops at Granny and Poppa’s house on his way back to the North Pole.”
“You have nieces and nephews?” he asked.
“Just nieces. Two”—she hesitated and thought again of all the pairs or twos that kept sneaking into her life—“of them. They’re ten and twelve now, but Mama says that when they say they don’t believe in Santa, then he won’t come around anymore. They’re not stupid, so they’ll never say that they don’t believe.” She laughed. “Abigail is six years older than me, and she married right out of college.”
“So”—he chuckled—“Abigail has bossed you around forever, right?”
“You got it.” She nodded. “What about you? What would you be doing?”
His expression changed from happy to sad in a split second. “I’d start off the day by going to the cemetery to tell my cousin Merry Christmas, and maybe I’d pour a can of Coors out at his tombstone. Jesse James Walsh. We called him JJ and he was my best friend. We were born three days apart and grew up together. He died in a motorcycle accident on Christmas Eve when we were nineteen. That would be twelve years ago now.”
“I’m so sorry. As much as we disagree much of the time, I can’t imagine losing Abigail. We argue and bicker, but to lose her, especially at Christmas…” Jorja shivered at the thought.
“This will be the first year I haven’t gone to see him, and I miss that,” Cameron said.
“Guess we’ve both given up family for this job. So, what do we do to get through Christmas Eve without letting it get us down?” She sighed.
“We don’t have a churchyard, but we’ve got the Honky Tonk, and it has a parking lot, and about four inches of fresh snow fell last night, so we can make a snowman,” he suggested.
“There’s already one out there, and besides we need to bake something for dinner tomorrow. We should have something special to eat at least since it’s Christmas,” she told him.
“Our Honky Tonk snowman is lonely, so we should build him a girlfriend,” Cameron insisted. “When we get done with that, we’ll go to the grocery store and buy stuff to make a pie and whatever else we want. Then maybe we’ll watch a Christmas movie before we go to sleep. We can’t sit around and mope all day. JJ wouldn’t like that, and neither would your folks.” He finished off his coffee and put the cup in the sink.
“What kind of television reception do you think we get out here? I bet the cable has been turned off for years, and in this weather, we might not get much of anything without it.” She pushed back her chair, crossed the room, and went to the closet. “I should probably wear my snow boots.”
“Leave it to a woman to dress up to build a snowman, and honey, it doesn’t matter about the reception. I brought a DVD player and movies with me. JJ and I always watched National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I can do that this year even if I can’t go visit him,” he said.
“My sister and her girls always watch A Smoky Mountain Christmas with me.” Jorja sat down on the edge of her bed and pulled on a pair of hot-pink rubber boots.
“I’ve got that one too. We’re not used to getting to sleep before three in the morning, so we’ll watch both of them.” Cameron got his coat and cowboy hat from the closet.
Jorja stopped what she was doing and frowned. What in the hell would he be doing with a Dolly Pa
rton chick flick? “You’ve got A Smoky Mountain Christmas with you?”
“Of course.” He buttoned his fleece-lined denim jacket. “I’ve got nieces too.”
“How many?” she asked.
“I have four brothers, all older than me and married, and six nephews and two nieces. The oldest niece and I always watch Miss Dolly sometime during the holidays,” he told her.
“How does your family feel about you having a bar?” she asked.
“Happy for me now, but when I left college with only one year away from getting my degree, they were all pretty pissed at me. They’ve mellowed a little, though, in the past ten years,” he answered. “Let’s go build a snowman.”
She beat him to the door to the parking lot, rolled up a good, tight snowball and pelted him in the chest with it the minute he walked out the back door. He ran across the parking lot, tackled her, and brought her down flat on her back in the snow. For a moment he lay on top of her, and her heart raced with a full head of steam. Her gaze went to his lips and then back up to sink into the depths of his dark-brown eyes. She was sure he was about to kiss her again, and she was disappointed when he rolled to the side to lie on his back and point to the gray skies.
“We’d better get busy if we’re going to give old Frosty a drinkin’ buddy. Looks like it could start snowing again or maybe sleeting,” he said.
“I don’t mind working in snow, but sleet’s another matter.” She popped up on her knees, patted a good-sized snowball together, and then began to roll it. That there would soon be two snowmen in the parking lot wasn’t any surprise at all. She started humming “Let It Snow” as she worked, just like she had done the last time when she and her sister and her nieces had made a snowman in Hurricane Mills. She hadn’t figured on missing them all so damn much this year. She thought she’d go to Mingus and be so busy she wouldn’t have time to even think about the holiday season.
Thoughts get you in trouble. You thought Cameron was a girl. Her grandmother’s voice giggled inside her head.
You didn’t tell me he was a damn fine sexy cowboy, Jorja argued. She stole a sideways look at him halfway across the parking lot. Tight jeans, cowboy boots, and a black hat all caked with snow—her type or not, he looked pretty damn fine.
“You make the middle, and I’ll work on the bottom,” Cameron said and then began to sing the song she was humming.
His deep voice rang out across the area and was right on key.
“Have you ever done any professional singing?” she asked.
“Only if the shower is considered professional,” he answered. “When me and JJ were little guys, we each got a guitar for Christmas and fancied ourselves country singers. We entertained the cows out in Grandpa’s pasture, but they usually ran the other way when we hit the first chords.”
Jorja heard what he was saying, but her mind strayed from his singing to something deeper. She’d known this cowboy for only a few days, and she already felt more comfortable with him than she ever had with Eli—even after she’d dated him for a year. That seemed crazy, but it was the truth.
“No comment?” Cameron asked.
“About what?” Jorja stopped and sat down beside the middle part of the snowman.
“About what I just said,” he answered.
“Oh, that.” She smiled up at him. “That’s just plain, old unadulterated bullshit. You could put most country artists to shame.”
He tipped his hat toward her. “Well, thank you, ma’am. I’m sure if JJ heard that, he’d tell you that he was even better than me.”
“I’d have to hear him sing before I’d believe him,” she argued. “Right now, I guess we’d better lift this big belly up on that bottom you’ve got made and then make a head for this old boy.”
“Boy,” Cameron said and wiggled his eyebrows. “So, it’s a drinkin’ buddy and not a girlfriend?”
“Yep, Frosty doesn’t need a girlfriend. He needs a buddy to have a beer with for Christmas. He’s lonely.”
Cameron lifted the huge ball of snow up onto the bottom layer without even huffing or groaning, proving that he had been picking up more than bottles of beer and double shots of whiskey for a while now. Then she watched as he quickly rolled up a head and set it in place, making the whole creation even taller than himself.
“Wait right here,” Cameron said and jogged through the snow back to the bar. When he returned, he brought a fistful of beer bottle caps and used them for the eyes and the mouth.
“Got a carrot for his nose?” she asked.
“This is a Honky Tonk snowman,” he grinned as he took the top of a Coors bottle out of his pocket. “I found this in the trash can. It’s about the size of a carrot nose.” He set the bottle top in place, then stepped back, folded his arms over his chest and frowned.
“Never thought we’d have a use for the neck of a busted beer bottle,” Jorja said. She had tossed one toward the trash the night before and the top had broken off smooth.
“Me, neither, but it works for our drinkin’ buddy here,” Cameron insisted, “but he still needs something.”
“Use the rest of those beer caps for buttons on his chest. He does need something.” Jorja stood back and studied their creation. “A scarf. That’s what he needs.”
She raced into the house and grabbed the red-and-green-plaid scarf that Abigail had given her for Christmas a few years back. When she returned, Cameron had found branches for the new fellow’s arms and he had a can of Coors in his hand.
“I really don’t think Frank James can drink that,” she joked as she tiptoed and whipped the scarf around the snowman’s neck.
“Who?” Cameron asked as he opened the can of beer and poured it on the ground. “This is for you, JJ. Remembering all the good times, the bad times, and all the ones in between.” His voice was just a raspy whisper.
Jorja slipped an arm around his waist, and together they stood there in silence for several moments. She couldn’t fathom building a snowman like this one with her sister, and yet the thing looked just right sitting there in the parking lot of the Honky Tonk.
“Cowboys don’t cry.” He wiped away a single tear from his cheek.
“Good men do when they remember a lost best friend,” she said past the lump in her own throat.
“Thank you for that.” He managed a weak smile. “Why did you name him Frank James?”
“He’s named for Jesse’s real brother. I thought it would be confusing to call him Cameron since some folks might think he was a girl.” She bumped him with her hip and then stepped back to eye their snowman with the beer puddling around his base.
“Great name for our snowman.” Cameron removed a knife from his pocket and poked a hole in the beer can and stuck it on the left tree branch that served as an arm.
“Why’d you put it on the left side? Was Frank a leftie?” she asked.
“Have no idea, but JJ was,” he grinned. “Now, let’s go to the grocery store before it closes, and we get all depressed again. This is supposed to be a cheerful day, not a sad one. We’ve been given a bar to run, and we’ve each made a brand-new friend because of it.”
“So, you think I’m your friend?” Jorja flirted.
“I damn sure hope so since we’re going to be working together for a long, long time…”—he wiggled his eyebrows—“unless you’re so homesick that you want to sell me your half of this place and go home. You could be there in time for Santa Claus presents tomorrow morning if you leave right now.”
“Not in your wildest dreams, cowboy.” She gathered up a fistful of snow, threw it at him, and then ran as fast as she could back toward the bar.
She would have made it if she had been wearing anything but rubber boots.
Cameron tackled her for the second time and brought them both down to the ground with her on top of him this time. She started to roll to the side, but he held her on to her
, and suddenly, everything around them ceased to exist. She felt as if she was drowning in his dark-brown eyes. One of his hands went to the back of her head to gently pull her lips toward his, and then her heart began to race.
When their lips met, the temperature seemed to jack up at least twenty degrees, and her whole body melted into his as each kiss deepened. He sat up, keeping her in his lap and moved his hands to her waist. If they didn’t stop soon, they would be undressing each other right out there in the open and having wild sex in the snow.
She pushed away from him and shifted her weight to the side so that she was sitting beside him instead of in his lap. “That certainly made me forget all about homesickness,” she said, panting.
“Me too.” He grinned as he stood to his feet and extended a hand to help her up. “We should lock the door and go to the store.”
“In rubber boots?” She took his hand and let him help her to her feet. “Shouldn’t we change into something more appropriate?”
“After those scaldin’-hot kisses, I’m not sure we would be safe being that close to the beds in our apartment,” he said. “I’ll start the truck if you’ll lock the door.”
“I’ll grab my purse while I’m in there,” she said, “and I’ll also change my boots.”
“Women!” He chuckled.
“Aren’t we amazing?” She let go of his hand and dashed in the back door. She took time to change her boots and peek into the mirror above her chest of drawers. Her cheeks were bright red. Her lips were bee-stung and her eyes were still glazed over. Sweet Jesus! She’d only known the man a few days, and she’d almost been ready to drag him into the apartment and spend the rest of the day with him on a twin bed.
“Merry Christmas to me if I had.” She touched her lips to see if they were as hot as they felt, but surprisingly enough, they were cool.
A Slow Dance Holiday Page 6