Flossie’s drink sloshed as she slapped the bar with her bare hand. “Well, crap, I didn’t think of that. If I find out that she’s out drinkin’ and screwin’ around, I may not speak to her for a month.”
“Aww, if she’s doin’ that, then she’ll go to more than one service on Sunday and pray for a crop failure,” Dotty laughed.
“Crop failure?” Jolene asked.
“Honey, you go sow wild oats on Friday and Saturday nights, then you go to church to ask God for a crop failure so them wild oats don’t sprout up and grow.” Dotty giggled.
“Hey, sweet thang, could I get a pitcher of Bud Light?” A man waved a ten-dollar bill over the top of Flossie’s head.
Jolene grabbed it, drew up a pitcher full of beer, and passed it between Flossie and the guy next to her. “Change?”
“Naw, dawlin’, you keep that.” He winked.
“Thank you.” Jolene put the price of the pitcher in the register, shoved what was left of the bill into her apron pocket, and used a bar rag to clean up the spilled drink. “So do you see this guy that’s about to push Lucy off the amen bus?”
Flossie spun around on the stool and scanned the bar. “Nope, but I sure wish I did. I’m going to finish this drink and go home. Next weekend I’ll check out the Southern Comfort if she mentions going out with him again.”
Flossie found a table with some folks she knew near the back of the bar. Jolene didn’t even notice that she was still there until a few minutes after midnight, when Dotty handed her another vanilla root beer. “Thank God you’re here. I swear this is the busiest we’ve been in five years. You must be a magnet.”
“Don’t know about that, but I’m sure glad I wasn’t workin’ the bar alone tonight,” Jolene said.
“That’s just another reason why you should quit this place and come to work for me.” Flossie parked herself on an empty barstool. “I won’t work you nearly as hard, and I’ll pay you a better salary.”
Dotty snapped a towel at her. “That’s enough out of you, or I’ll tell Lucy you was checkin’ up on her.”
Flossie ignored Dotty and focused her attention on Jolene. “Make me one of these things to go.” Flossie held up her empty glass. “If I’ve got to sit through Mass on Sunday, I should at least have something to ask forgiveness for.”
“You okay to drive?” Jolene asked.
“Honey, I come from a long line of moonshine runners. My grandma and grandpa moved over here from Kentucky after Grandpa made a fortune in ’shine. I can hold my liquor and sell a dead man a new coffin, and Lucy ain’t the only one who can please a man in more than fifty ways. I’ll see you Sunday after church.”
“That ought to be fun.” Dotty grinned. “Lucy will have you and Tucker both saved, sanctified, and dehorned before we finish eating. Dammit! I wish she’d showed up here tonight so I didn’t have to go to early-morning Mass on Sunday.”
“Why don’t you just tell her you aren’t goin’?” Jolene asked.
“Only way she’ll come to the inn is if we go to church first, so she can ward off that devil Tucker Malone. She thinks he might seduce her.” Flossie laughed so hard that black mascara streaks rolled down her cheeks.
Jolene laughed with her as she handed her a fistful of napkins to wipe her tears away. “I can’t believe you said that.”
“Well, it’s the truth.” Flossie dabbed at her cheeks. “I’m leaving on that note. They say to always leave the crowd laughin’.”
“Well, you drive careful, and I’ll have the table set when you arrive,” Jolene said.
Flossie put on her coat and waved. “It’s been fun. See y’all Sunday.”
A lady staggered up to the bar. Her jet-black hair was styled even higher than Dotty’s, and what was left of her lipstick had settled into the wrinkles around her mouth. “Give me two Jack and Cokes, and would you please bring them to the table? See that stud over there? He’s goin’ to dance with me and take me home.” She slurred every word. “And then the real party starts.”
Jolene poured a couple of drinks and whispered to Dotty, “Should we take her keys and call someone to take her home?”
“No, she didn’t drive here. She came with a friend and she’ll leave with that man.” Dotty nodded toward the gray-haired cowboy at the table with the woman. “This happens about once a month. Same friend, but a different guy takes her home every time.”
“I wonder if she’s got a daughter at home waiting for her,” Jolene whispered.
“Reminding you of your mother?” Dotty asked.
Jolene nodded and headed down the bar to wait on another customer. She’d never followed her mother to a bar, because she had to work every night. And her mother had never dyed her hair black or worn it styled like that, but the story was the same. There had been a few times that she’d brought the same man home, but not often. When she did get involved for more than one night, it was because the man promised her the moon.
Staring between two men at the bar, she kept an eye on the woman. Jolene had been working a bar not so very different from the Gator for ten years, and she’d seen lots of women make complete fools out of themselves. So why did the memories of her mother surface that night? Maybe it was being back in the area where her mama was born. Or perhaps it was because Jolene needed to get closure.
Dotty touched her on the shoulder. “You okay, kiddo?”
“Fine, just old memories came haunting me,” Jolene admitted.
“It happens.” Dotty gave her another pat and went back to her end of the bar.
Tucker brought the picture of Melanie in from the trailer and set it on his bedside table. The antique lamp didn’t throw enough light to use for reading, but it lit the framed photograph up very well. He stared at it, remembering the day that it had been taken. They’d met at a Fourth of July party given by mutual friends, and the picture had been taken the next year when he proposed to her in that same spot. His eyes grew heavy, and finally he fell asleep, but she didn’t sneak into his dreams.
At three o’clock he sat straight up in bed, every nerve on high alert. Someone was in the trailer—no, the house. He was in his bedroom at the Magnolia Inn, not in the trailer. He eased off the bed, slipped into his jeans, and removed his pistol from the drawer of the nightstand. Holding it to his side, he opened his bedroom door just enough to peek out. A shadow moved toward the center of the foyer. He brought the gun up, and a flash of light almost blinded him.
“What the hell?” he said.
Jolene whipped around. “Sorry I woke you. I tried to be quiet.”
He slung the door all the way open. “I can’t make the same promise when I come home late, but I’ll do my best. How’d the first night at work go?”
“Busy. Made two hundred in tips. That’ll pay the electric bill and put some food in the pantry.” She sat down on a chair at the end of the foyer table and pulled off her boots. “I’m hungry. You want some cereal? There’s the chocolate kind and the fruity one.”
“Sure,” he said. “Give me a minute.”
“To put the gun away or get a shirt on?” she asked.
“I can go as I am,” he offered.
“I might spill the milk.” She headed toward the kitchen in mismatched socks.
“Why?” he asked.
She turned around and shrugged. “I don’t pour too hot with a gun pointed at me or if I get distracted by a man’s sexy chest, so you’d do well to put on a shirt and get rid of the gun.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
The gun went back in the drawer, and he jerked his shirt over his head. She was setting out boxes of cereal on the table when he made it to the kitchen. A memory of Melanie in the kitchen flashed through his mind. He’d loved that woman with all his heart, but the kitchen had looked like a war zone after she cooked. And the high-pitched squeal of the smoke alarm always meant that dinner must be close to ready.
He got the milk from the refrigerator. “Don’t suppose you want coffee just before bed, do you?”
They ate in silence for the most part. She frowned a lot and cocked her head from one side to the other several times before she shook it in disagreement with whatever voices were in her head. It kind of reminded him of when Sassy needed to be treated for ear mites.
“Are you about to have a seizure or something?” he asked.
“No, there was a woman at the bar who . . .” She paused.
“Who what?” he asked.
“Mama,” she said. “She reminded me of my mother. Not in looks, but in actions. I tried to close that chapter in my life a long time ago, but it keeps risin’ to the surface.”
“Want to talk about it?” Tucker understood exactly what she was talking about.
Jolene was quiet for so long that he figured she didn’t want to say anything, but then she began to talk. “She was on a guilt trip from the time my daddy died. He probably had the heart attack because he was stressed out, working two jobs to keep her in her fancy jeans and a new car every year. And even that wasn’t enough. His insurance policy paid off the credit cards, but she lost the car and the house. We moved into a trailer and she went to work at a grocery store there in town. Her guilt sent her into a vicious merry-go-round of drugs, alcohol, and men.”
She refilled her glass and went on, “I love milk. We didn’t always have it in the house those last couple of years, but Mama had her pills. When the doctor quit giving them to her, then she got them from the street. Every Saturday night she’d go out. Before she left, she’d get all dressed up and take two or three pills. That woman tonight reminded me of all that. I hated to see her like that. She’d always been . . .”
Just thinking that he’d been looking forward to hitting the bar the next night filled Tucker with his own share of guilt. He shouldn’t put her through all that again—not even if they were just partners. She was a good woman, and she damn sure deserved better.
“How long was it until you lost her?”
“Four years after Daddy died. But truth is I lost her when the doctor gave her that first bottle of pills to help her get through the funeral. She’d always liked her liquor and usually started on cocktails long before five o’clock. Mix those with enough pain pills and—” Jolene’s shoulder rose. “I thought when I got a job as a waitress after school every day that things would be better.”
Something pinched his heart and tightened his chest. On Saturday nights when he often drank too much, he was looking for a way to make things better, to forget. And yet he hung on to every memory that he and Melanie had shared.
She went on, “The only thing that changed when I went to work was that Mama said she’d pay the bills with her paycheck, and I was responsible for bringing home the food.”
Jolene should have been enjoying her senior year of school, Tucker thought. Pep rallies. Time with her friends and a boyfriend who’d be her first love. Not working for grocery money. Jolene deserved a good life just to pay for what all she’d been through.
“Did you hold up your end of the deal?” He wanted to move closer to her, wrap her up in his arms and hug her, but he couldn’t make himself do that. It led to other things, and he’d vowed to love Melanie to death—that meant his as well as hers.
She picked up the dirty bowls and carried them to the dishwasher. “Didn’t have much choice. Pretty soon I was doing double shifts on Friday and Saturday nights and paying the utility bills, too. Her paycheck was going for pills, booze, and lottery tickets.”
“Why’d you stay?” Tucker asked.
“She was my mama, and I had a roof over my head even if I didn’t have friends or any time to call my own. I got homework done in the kitchen at the café between customers. I don’t know why it’s all coming back so strong now. But I hated for her to go out, because it meant there’d probably be a strange man in the house the next morning. And he’d be eating up the groceries I’d brought in for us.” Jolene rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “I’m sorry, Tucker. You didn’t need to hear all that in the middle of the night.”
“What’s said in the Magnolia Inn stays in the Magnolia Inn, just like what they say about Vegas.” He laid a hand on her arm and wished he could do more to take away some of the pain.
“Thank you. You’d never guess who showed up at the bar and stayed until midnight.” She dropped her hands to her lap.
He removed his hand and took a guess. “Lucy with her new boyfriend, and they ordered some weird drink that you had to look up in the book to even know how to make?”
She refilled her milk glass. “Nope, Flossie, but she was there hoping that Lucy would show up. And you’ll never guess why.” She didn’t give him time to answer. “Because if Lucy arrived at the bar, that would mean she was through with her religious phase.”
“And then they wouldn’t have to go to church with her, right?” Tucker asked.
“Exactly.” Jolene yawned. “And now I’m going to bed. I can’t get to sleep if I stay up until dawn. See you about noon, and we’ll get in a few hours of work before I go back to the bar.”
“Oh, no.” Tucker shook his head. “I quit at noon on Saturday. Five and a half days a week is my limit. So sleep as long as you want. I plan on drawing up plans for the other bedrooms, and then Monday morning we’ll get back after it.”
“Whatever you say, partner.” She started for the door but turned before she got there. “Thanks for listening. The song is out of my head now.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I charge more for therapy. You’ll get the bill next week.”
“I’ll pay it by cookin’.”
“Sassy, ain’t you?”
She laughed out loud. “No, sir! That’s the cat.”
Chapter Eight
Jolene parked near the door of the bar on Saturday night and dug around in her purse until she found her phone. She’d programmed in Dotty’s number the night before so all she had to do was hit a button, and it started ringing.
“Please don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind or you’re not coming in tonight,” Dotty answered.
“Not at all,” Jolene said. “I’m parked right outside. Would you open the door for me?”
“I’m on my way,” she said.
Jolene slid out of the truck, tucked the phone into the hip pocket of her jeans, and slung her purse over her shoulder. Dotty was waving from the door before Jolene rounded the end of her vehicle.
“Get on in here before that wind blows you right over the bayou into Louisiana, and we know what that means.” Dotty laughed.
“It’d be tough to leave, right?”
“You got it, darlin’. My daddy loved his home state almost as much as my mama did.” Dotty followed her across the floor.
“Like my dad. He talked about Louisiana a lot,” Jolene said.
“Where’re they buried?” Dotty asked.
“Aunt Sugar, Uncle Jasper, and I scattered their ashes in the Gulf of Mexico near Panama City Beach. They’d honeymooned there, and I wanted to take them where they’d both been happy,” she answered. “Know what you do when life gives you lemons?”
“You add tequila.” Dotty snapped her fingers and did a three-second rendition of a salsa dance.
“Or throw them in the trash and make a chocolate cake,” Jolene giggled.
“Now you’re talkin’ my language. I love chocolate.” Dotty started across the floor. “From that full parking lot, it looks like we’re in for another busy night. Guess word got out that I’ve got a hot new bartender.”
“Oh, come on now.” Jolene smiled.
“It’s the truth, chère. They’re coming to try to see if you’ll go home with them.” Dotty opened the door, and the first rush began. Within five minutes all the barstools were full and the jukebox was going full blast. Jolene drew up pitchers of beer to Blake Shelton singing “Kiss My Country Ass.” Every time he sang the song title, everyone in the bar raised their glass and sang
along.
“Got us a rowdy bunch tonight,” Dotty said.
“Looks like it. Where’s Bubba?” Jolene looked around the place for the bouncer from the night before.
“He called in this afternoon and quit. See that big old boy over there in the shadows by the door? That’s Mickey, and he’s promised me that he’ll stick around awhile,” Dotty answered.
Jolene glanced that way. Even though Mickey wasn’t a tall man, he threw off an aura that said he could take down one of those muscled-up television wrestlers.
“Not what you expected?” Dotty asked.
“He looks like he can do the job,” Jolene answered.
“Yep, he can.” She smiled.
“And you know this because?” Jolene wiped the bar.
“He’s got a reputation with several bars in this area for bein’ a good bouncer. Trouble is he don’t like to stay in one place very long. But I think he’s shacked up with a woman,” Dotty told her.
Jolene made a Jack and Coke for a customer. “That’s his business. Long as he keeps a little peace in here, that’s all you’re interested in, right?”
“Amen to that!” Dotty gave her a thumbs-up. “I was thinkin’ maybe Mickey might ask you out when I hired him.”
“Ha! He does kind of remind me of my first boyfriend, though. I was thirteen and he was fourteen. He gave me my first kiss. His grandma brought him with her to the inn that summer for a whole week.”
“Did Sugar know?” Dotty asked.
“Nope, I didn’t tell her,” Jolene answered.
“How old were you when you had a serious boyfriend?”
“Sixteen. Right after Daddy died, but we broke up after two months. He wanted me to drink, and even then I wouldn’t touch the stuff,” Jolene answered. “What about your first boyfriend?”
“That’s a story for later,” Dotty answered.
Another bunch of customers pushed into the bar, pausing in their conversation with the new noise. Jolene turned around to see Lucy and Flossie claiming two empty stools as soon as their occupants left and headed out the door. Lucy’s hair had been freshly done, and they both wore jeans, boots, and western shirts with pearl snaps.
The Magnolia Inn Page 9