The Cowboy

by Molly O'Keefe

  “I don’t want any.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “This can’t be right,” I said, looking at the monthly amount I’d be paying. It was barely enough to cover food for her, much less the stall and the no doubt top-notch care she’d be getting.

  “Friends and family discount.”

  “I didn’t ask for that.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I’m able to give it to you. And…it’s nice. It…feels good to be on this end of things for once in my life.”

  “You’re going to take care of transporting her, too?”

  “Do you have a horse trailer?”

  I laughed.

  “That’s what I thought. My guys will pick her up later today.” She smiled at me and I smiled back. And then I just kept smiling at her. “You have to sign it, dummy,” she said.

  After scrawling my signature on the bottom of the contract I returned it to her and she tucked it back in her purse behind the bar and I did not—did not—stare at that skin revealed by those shorts.

  “All right,” she said. “That’s taken care of. You here to help?”

  “Depends on what you’re doing.”

  “We have a pizza oven back there and it’s literally never worked.”

  “And you’re fixing it?”

  “Moving it.”

  “By yourself?”

  “No. You’re here to help.” She beamed at me and in that minute I would have done anything she asked. Anything.

  BEA

  Over the sound of the shower I heard my phone ringing, and I had high hopes that it would be my sister so I jumped out of the shower, slid hard on the tiles, and banged my hip on the towel rack.

  I yanked on the towel, wrapping it around my body as I ran into the TV room where my phone was plugged in.

  “Ronnie?” I cried.

  “No. Sorry. Bea, it’s Oscar.”

  “Oscar! What’s going on?” I sat down on the edge of my couch and Thelma approached to lick the water drops off my knee.

  “They won’t let us leave with the horse.”

  “Bonnie? Why?”

  “Because the owner has to sign off.”

  “Cody didn’t sign off?”

  “He’s not listed as the owner. A guy named Charlie Hoynes is the owner.”

  Charlie… I remembered Cody mentioning a Charlie. But not that he owned Bonnie. This didn’t make sense.

  “Do they have his number?”

  “Yeah. They gave it to me. I left a message… but—”

  “Oscar. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize there would be a hiccup like this. Text me the number and go on home. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Okay. No problem. I’ll send the number once we hang up.”

  We hung up and I rubbed Thelma between her eyes in that place she liked and waited for my phone to buzz with the text from Oscar.

  And then I looked down at the phone number in my texts and wondered what was the right thing to do. Call Cody. Call this Charlie guy.

  I didn’t have Cody’s phone number so the solution was simple. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt very complicated.

  As Cody’s friend I imagined he’d want me to call Charlie. Because he didn’t want to deal with the horse he’d hurt. But as Cody’s friend that felt like a betrayal.

  But as Bea King—I was really, really curious. And I didn’t have a choice.

  I pressed the button and called this Charlie guy.

  “Yello?” he answered on the third ring.

  “Charlie Hoynes?” I asked and stood up, tucking the towel a little tighter around my chest. Like he could see me.

  “Speaking. Who’s this?”

  “My name is Bea King—”

  “King? You related to Hank?”

  “He was my father.”

  “Well, girl, you have my condolences.”

  “I take it you knew my father?” I said with a laugh.

  “Did a few deals with him until I learned my lesson,” he said. “What can I do for you, Bea?”

  “Well, I’m friends with Cody McBride.“

  “Again. You have my condolences.”

  “That’s not funny,” I said, fast and angry.

  “If you’re not laughing now, trust me you will. That boy got broke and no one bothered to fix him.”

  I can.

  The thought burbled up from that part of my brain I tried to ignore. The part of my brain where all my worst ideas came from. The part of my brain that gave me black eyes and broken hearts more times than not.

  That part of my brain was ready to suit up and try to fix Cody. When I knew, knew in every other part of my body, that it was a bad idea.

  “Well, I’m calling because the farm where Cody put Bonnie after the accident has you down as the owner.”

  “Yep,” he said.

  “And I’m transferring Bonnie to my farm—”

  “King’s Land? That’s rich.”

  “Literally,” I said a little stiffly. “But without your consent, I can’t move Bonnie.”

  “Does Cody know you’re doing this?”

  “He signed a contract with me.”

  Charlie sighed, heavy and long. Like he was just so damn tired.

  “No,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’m not signing the paperwork.”

  “Charlie, whatever beef you had with my dad, let me assure you—”

  “Bea. It’s not your father. It’s not Bonnie going to King’s Land. It’s entirely about Cody getting other people to do the hard work, just like he always has.”

  “Nothing about this is hard,” I said. “I just need to be able to move Bonnie—”

  “It’s not hard for you. And frankly, sweetheart, it’s not hard for me. It’s hard for him. It’s hard for him to look at that horse. And to talk to me. And my guess is he hasn’t told you much about his mother.”

  “Charlie!” I snapped. “That’s not—”

  “Has he? Talked about his mother? His grandmother?”

  “Yes. He has.”

  “That she liked fancy drinks and smoked menthol Virginia Slims and maybe that she was a stewardess?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He told me that.”

  “He hasn’t told you shit.”

  I bristled right up and I imagined if I was face-to-face with this guy I’d have my hand in a fist and I’d be thinking about a well-placed throat punch.

  “The horse needs to be dealt with,” I said. “The doctors say she’s better.”

  “And I’ve dealt with it. She’s paid up for another month. When he wants to move Bonnie, he’s got to call me. He’s got to talk to me.”

  “Just to be clear, you’re holding that horse hostage.”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “I don’t know if I like you, Charlie.”

  “Cody always said the same thing. But when things went to shit I was the only friend he had left standing. So he owes me.”

  I hung up the phone and pulled off my towel, dropping it on Thelma’s head. She barked and ran around until it fell off. I got dressed and went downstairs, hoping Jack would be down there. And would be willing to give me Cody’s number.

  14

  I pushed open the door to the bar only to find Jack sitting poring over the designs for the expansion. He had a tumbler full of booze with about seven cherries in the bottom of it. My watch said it was three in the afternoon. A little early for all those cherries.

  None of that boded well.

  “Jack,” I said. The bar was dim but clean and it smelled better than it had in days, thanks to all my hard work and the clean, fresh smell of sawdust. The plastic sheeting between the bar and the relatively open space next door billowed in the breeze.

  There were a few customers around and Kimmy at the bar had things in hand.

  “Bea,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I need you to break some employee/employer confidentiality.”

  “Grea
t. I was in the mood for that.”

  “I need Cody’s number.”

  He looked up at me through the dark hair that flopped over his eyes. “Don’t, Bea.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Do…what you do.”

  That stung. I looked away so he wouldn’t see the pain I wasn’t sure I could hide.

  “Bea,” he whispered. “It’s not like that.”

  “It’s not like what? Not like you’re worried I’ll hurt your friend? Fuck him and leave him? Break his heart?”

  “I’m worried he’ll break yours just as much as you’ll break his,” he said quietly. “You’re the two most self-destructive people I know and I’m worried you’ll go running right into that mess.”

  Because I liked messes. Messes were my happy place. And if it wasn’t messy, I’d make shit messy, just so I felt comfortable. This thing I was doing, stripping for him in the morning and being friends with him in the afternoon—it was a mess. Because I was making it that way. Another kind of woman, another kind of friend, wouldn’t do that.

  “I don’t think he’s a mess,” I said.

  “You don’t know him.”

  “I know him plenty!” I cried, wondering why all of a sudden there was a hierarchy to friendship with this guy. Everyone out to prove they knew more than me. I doubt Jack ever spread his legs for Cody.

  “How am I friends with him?” Jack asked, swiveling on his stool.

  “You like lost causes?”

  “I’m assuming that’s some kind of crack about me trusting you and wanting you to manage the bar.”

  I shrugged, hummed in my throat, and he laughed at me. “We were talking about you. And Cody.”

  “Summer camp,” he said.

  “You’re joking.”

  He shook his head, smiling as if the memories were just so sweet. “Well, that’s what they called it. But it was kind of a rehab program for kids in trouble.”

  “Drugs trouble?”

  “All kinds,” he said. “Cody showed up with a black eye and a broken hand. Took a swing at me, like, five minutes after we met.”

  That kind of anger made sense. It was there in Cody, behind his shyness. Behind his rules and distance. There was a sense of something burning there, just behind his blue eyes. Under his freckled skin.

  That’s what Jack was telling me. That’s why I needed to be careful. But I had my own anger just under my skin.

  “Why were you there?” I asked.

  Jack sighed heavily out his nose and picked up his glass, only to find it empty except for cherries. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want.”

  “I was seventeen, my girlfriend was sixteen and her father caught us having sex. Had me arrested.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Could have been worse.”

  “How?”

  “Well, I could have gotten out of that camp and turned right around and married her.”

  I laughed. “Yeah. That would make things worse.”

  If we had that kind of relationship, I’d hug him. But he was still my boss. And Jack was not a hugger.

  “I appreciate the information, about Cody,” I said. “And the insight. But I need Cody’s number so we can deal with his horse. I’m taking his horse to our stables. And there’s a hiccup in the paperwork.”

  He fished out his phone and soon mine buzzed. “There,” he said. “But I’m telling you it won’t do you any good. He never has it on him. You’re better off just going out to his house.”

  A seedy thrill raced through me. The idea of seeing Cody in his natural state was an exciting one. Risky. What might happen if we weren’t at the bar, surrounded by my lies and his obligations?

  “I don’t know where he lives.”

  “You remember Edna McBride’s house on Elm?” I nodded. Edna’s house was a local legend. “If you go out there, take the guy some food. He’s half feral.” Jack sat back down, looked at the blueprint, and picked up his glass, swearing when he found it empty again.

  “Can I make you a drink?”

  “Please, god,” he said, and I stepped behind the bar over the plastic sheeting. Since the place was open, some of the bottles and glasses had been restocked on the bar.

  He’d made what looked like Bourbon Sours without the sour mix and only bourbon and cherry juice. The ice machine was working because I’d cleaned out the lines and I scooped some into my shaker, which I’d polished up to a high shine.

  “What’s got you so worked up?” I asked him. “About those plans.”

  “What am I doing?” he breathed. “Like…what do I actually think I’m doing?”

  “Making a very successful bar more successful.”

  “It feels like I’m just taking a dive bar and making it bigger.”

  “Jack—”

  “I don’t have the money for all the things you’re about to say. The guy who can cook. The kitchen he can cook in. A fucking pizza oven. That bar thing you and Cody talked about—”

  “I can loan you the money.”

  He blinked at me and I blinked back.

  Did I say that out loud?

  “You want to loan me money?”

  I guess I did. I’d said it and now it was out there.

  “Bea,” he said, shaking his head into my silence. “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to.” It was true. I could feel it in my body. That strange sensation of being right. And doing the right thing. It was the same as when I offered a stall to Bonnie. The same as when I took my sister out of that room when Clayton was shredding her heart to pieces. I didn’t know this feeling that well, that sharp burst of it in my chest.

  Pride and a kind of glee.

  A deep, warm happiness.

  Yeah, I could get used to this.

  “I do.”

  “Bea, there’s a good chance I’m a bad bet.”

  “Nah. I know bad bets. You are not a bad bet.”

  “Do you come with the loan?”

  I scowled at him. “All this time and you never hit on me and you’re hitting on me now?”

  “You as a manager.”

  “Oh.” I gave myself what was left of the drink I’d poured him in a small tumbler. For courage.

  “I’d bet on you. Every day of the week.” His quiet voice sent shivers down my spine. What was I doing with so many friends? I wondered. How did this happen? My sister leaves for New York and I just branch off on my own. She was going to come back and I wasn’t going to be a mess for her to solve. Or a problem.

  What would we talk about?

  Oh, right, going back to school.

  “That’s nice,” I said, which was such an understatement I couldn’t stand it. “But the loan comes with some paperwork and I’ll keep cleaning the place out. But I’m no one’s boss. How much do you think you’ll need?”

  “Ten grand?”

  “Are you just trying to be cheap, or do you really not know?”

  “If I buy used equipment and just tell the cook to watch a few more episodes of Iron Chef?” He was only joking about part of that.

  “You’re not buying used equipment. Not with my money. Let me see those plans.”

  We decided on twenty-five grand and I talked him down from seven percent interest to five.

  I lifted my glass. “To making the biggest and best dive bar in Texas.”

  “Let’s do it,” he said. And we shot back our drinks.

  “I gotta go deal with this Cody thing,” I said.

  “Yeah, good luck.”

  “I’ll talk to the bank and we can meet tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  I grabbed my purse and headed back outside onto the quiet main street of Dusty Creek. There wasn’t a lot of stuff going on in this town. Patsy’s Pies across the street had been there since the dawn of time. The auto-parts store kept changing owners, but never seemed to go under. Bishops. The Hexagon Hotel. The Farm and Fleet up the way was a new build and a popular one. The Piggly Wiggly. The jewelry store
that mostly just replaced watch batteries, and the florist where the boys bought girls corsages for homecoming. There was a Casey’s out by the highway. But that was pretty much it for businesses along the main drag.

  Except…right across the street was Sabrina’s new bakery.

  She’d been open two months and I hadn’t gone in except for the grand opening.

  She’d managed to rope Ronnie and me into walking around with trays of her cupcakes and tarts. Those little meringues that were—I could safely say because she wasn’t here to hear me say it—the best things I’d ever eaten in my life.

  Except for that Saturday afternoon two months ago, I hadn’t even looked in the window. Every time I’d seen her, she was bringing me coffee beside the ravine.

  The bakery had a pink-and-white awning with Sweet Things printed in a classy script. Without a doubt it was the most elegant thing in Dusty Creek. By a mile. And it was lined up out the door most mornings, which I felt said the people of Dusty Creek were ready for something different.

  Jack could be a little different. There was room there for him to try.

  And Sabrina could help me figure some business stuff out.

  Though I knew how that conversation would go.

  She’d make fun of me for giving my money to Jack. She would talk me out of it; my sister had always had that knack. To talk me back down to size.

  Shove me back in the box of my mistakes.

  Of course, she only did it to me because I did it to her first.

  Tomorrow, maybe. I’d make an effort to go over and see her. Be nice. See how the shop was doing. Maybe Jack could serve her desserts in the bar.

  The idea was an excellent one and would be great for everyone. Tomorrow, I decided, and pulled out my phone and entered Cody’s number.

  It rang about seven hundred times and finally went to voice mail. A robotic voice told me to leave a message, which I didn’t bother to do. Instead, I walked back to my Jeep and headed out to Elm Avenue with a quick stop at Buddy’s on the south side for brisket and mac and cheese. And then I grabbed a six of Shiner at Casey’s because brisket without Shiner was un-American.

  And…I won’t lie. I figured a couple of drinks between us might…I don’t know. Loosen things up. Change the dynamic. Make him forget his rules.

  Make me forget what a mistake touching him might be.