Chapter Four
The bouncer didn’t have a lot to do to keep him busy, Sophia thought. At least not at first. Things picked up as the bosses said they did most weekend nights. It didn’t take her long to get a read on the clientele. Mostly, they were people on vacation, looking for a good time. They tended to drink too much and talk too loud. Then there were always a handful of locals who liked to mix it up a bit instead of spending yet another evening at the local hangout, the OK Corral, owned by Aunt Vidalia herself. They were generally well behaved and decent tippers. Then there were the homegrown players, on the prowl for single ladies on vacation who might want a roll in the hay with an authentic Oklahoma cowboy. The players were easy to spot, because they busted out their biggest, shiniest belt buckles and ten-gallon hats and wore western shirts with way too much embroidery on the shoulders. Their jeans were too new and their boots too shiny. They played up the stereotype. It worked, though. There were a lot of hookups happening around closing time at the Long Branch.
It got crowded from 9 p.m. on. And even then, Sophia didn’t think she lost sight of Darryl more than once.
She’d sneaked a peek at his job application to find his last name. Champlain. And in between slinging drinks, she’d Googled him, because she was insatiably curious. Not usually about men, but she was pretty strongly attracted to this one. And while she didn’t intend to do anything about it, she couldn’t seem to help herself. After all, true love was one of the things in her letter to Santa. She’d already crossed one item off her wish list. And above it, she’d written THANK YOU in all caps. Vindication. That was a load off her mind.
According to the Goog, Darryl Champlain was the one-hit-wonder of country songwriters. He’d written a song she knew. Christmas Blues had been recorded by both Garth and Reba. He’d won a CMA for it seventeen years ago. There was a photo of some bolo tie-wearing elder statesman accepting it on his behalf. And since then, zip. Nada.
“Hey.”
She jumped, shoved her phone into her apron, and looked up with what she hoped wasn’t a guilty expression.
Darryl was leaning on the bar smiling at her. “Are we allowed to change up the music? I think I’ve heard Randy sing Rudolf six times tonight.”
“You uh…you got something against holiday music, Darryl?”
He frowned at her a little too closely. She shrugged and said, “It’s customers’ choice. I can’t control what they pick on the jukebox.”
He rolled his eyes and slid up onto a barstool.
“Beer?” she asked.
“Sweet tea?” he asked back.
She nodded, turned away and filled a glass. When she slid it across to him, she said, “You don’t drink, do you Darryl?”
“Not on the job I don’t.” He sipped his tea.
She watched his Adam’s apple move when he swallowed. “Tomorrow night we’ve got a band. You’ll like that better. We can put in a special request that they do a few non-holiday numbers.”
“Thank God.”
“So what have you got against Christmas?”
He frowned at her. “You know, you have a habit of asking a lot of questions and not answering any.” He was looking at her closely as he said that.
She was saved by an oversized local shouting, “Barkeep! Need a refill over here.”
She glanced his way and gave him a nod, noted the empties in front of him, three so far, but he’d been well on the way to happy before his first one. Still, she grabbed another long neck and used the opener mounted underneath the bar on her side to pry off the top as she said, “I’m an open book, Darryl. Ask me anything.”
“Where you from?” Darryl asked.
“Be right back.” She took the beer to the far end of the bar. Oh, she could’ve slid it there but Pete Darnell might not have caught it, as tipsy as he was. Besides, she didn’t intend to tell the handsome stranger anything, even if he was a hotshot cop-on-hiatus.
She set the bottle in front of the big guy. He was 6’4” and built like a barrel. He had a pug nose, beady eyes, and a blond brush cut rapidly going gray. “You having a good time tonight, Pete?” He was a wanna-be player. For most of the local boys, showing up in their rhinestone cowboy best was an effective way to pick up traveling honeys out for a good time. For Pete, it usually ended in disappointment, according to her cousins.
“Ah, it’s dead in here,” he said. “And this Christmas music—who can dance to this shit?”
“I haven’t seen you dance yet, Pete, no matter what music is playing.”
“You haven’t been here long enough. How ‘bout you come out from behind that bar and dance with me.”
“Ah, now I’m sure you’ve had too much to drink. Consider this your last call.” She turned to go, and he reached out so fast she never saw it coming, grabbed hold of her wrist and pulled her back around to face him.
“Hey!”
He pulled her partway over the bar toward him and then a hand fell firmly onto his shoulder, and Darryl Champlain, his voice a whole octave deeper than she’d heard it so far, said, “Let the lady go, friend.”
Pete did so right away, but the look he sent Darryl wasn’t friendly. “Why don’t you mind your business, friend?”
“This is my business. And it’s time for you to leave.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere.” Pete slid off his barstool, rising up to his full height. He had several inches and eighty pounds on Darryl. Maybe a hundred.
Sophia didn’t want to see Darryl’s pretty face get all busted up. “Hey, hey, boys, this is nothing to get all upset about. Pete, you know you’ve had a few too many tonight. Just sit back down and–”
“You stay outta this, babe. I’ll handle this fella.”
She blinked. “Did you just call me babe?” Then she looked at Darryl. “Did he just call me babe?”
“Yes, ma’am, I believe he did.” There was a little sparkle of mischief in those dark blue eyes.
“Toss his ass out.” She was kind of curious to see whether he could, to be honest. And not too terribly worried. Pete was big, but he was also drunk, and there were three McIntyre men on hand to back their new bouncer up, should he need it. She could see that Jason’s eyes were already on the situation from across the room.
“This should be fun,” Pete said, clenching his fists and swaying a little.
“Not really.” Darryl took hold of Pete’s forearm with one hand, turned him around with the other, and then marched him toward the door. The arm was bent behind him and up high enough that it must’ve hurt a little. Before Pete could react, the batwing doors were swinging closed behind them.
Sophia wanted to run outside to see what happened, but she had customers. She was relieved to see Jason had the same idea and was grabbing a jacket and heading for the exit. Good. Darryl would have backup. Though she had a feeling he wouldn’t need it.
When he came back inside, the handsome new bouncer had a baseball bat in his hand.
Sophia blinked in shock when he brought it right up to her and laid it across the bar. “Jeeze, Darryl,” she whispered, looking around to see that hardly any patrons were paying a bit of attention. “What did you do?” She grabbed the bat and looked it over for signs of Pete’s blood or parts of his skull. It seemed clean.
“Uh, not what you’re thinking. I escorted Pete to his car and suggested he take a nap in the backseat.” He pulled a set of keys from a pocket and dropped them onto the bar. “He was out cold before I closed the door. We’ll give him these when he wakes up, if he’s sober.”
“Oh.” She felt a little silly for jumping to conclusions. “So then, what’s with the bat?”
He shrugged. “Thought you could use it. Tuck it behind the bar. Try to keep it within reach.”
She frowned at him, tipping her head a little sideways.
“What? You’re looking at me like you just spotted a unicorn.”
Maybe she had, she thought. But no…she’d thought good old Skyler had been a rare find, too. A good, decent man. And
then he’d damn near cost her everything. “You’re no unicorn,” she said.
He blinked at her. “Never claimed to be.”
She took the bat, pulled it behind the counter, leaned it nearby.
“You never answered my question. Where you from?”
She thought about lying, decided a little of the truth wouldn’t hurt. She wasn’t in hiding. She just didn’t want to broadcast her whereabouts. “Back east.”
“You’re being cagey. You’re from New York.”
She frowned. “How the heck do you know that?”
Three laughing cowgirls crowded up to the bar, ogling Darryl and wiggling their brows at each other.
“Can I get you ladies something?” she asked to get their hungry eyes off him and onto her and then wondered why she cared.
“Rum and diet,” the leader of the pack said. “Three.”
“Coming right up.” Sophia turned and took down three glasses, added a scoop of ice to each, then reached for the house rum and poured it over. The diet cola came last, and she was a pro at keeping the foam down. It was a matter of taking it slow and tipping the glass at just the right angle. While she mixed the drinks, she listened intently to the giggling gaggle over the din of the other patrons. One of them was telling Darryl that they were best friends, and that one was getting married. So the other two had taken her on a pre-wedding road trip, and they intended to have as much fun as they could pack into their week-long party.
Sophia was filling the third glass and tried to rush it, winding up with too much foam. Then she had to wait for it to fizz down before she could add more.
Another bimbo was now inviting Darryl to party with them.
Finally, the foam dissipated. Sophia added more cola, popped in three stir sticks shaped like cacti, and turned to set the glasses on the bar.
“That’s a real flattering offer, ladies,” Darryl said, “but I’m not much for parties.”
“Then what are you doing at a saloon?” Number Three asked.
“Having a conversation with Sophie, here. Or trying to.”
The girls huffed, made angry faces, took their drinks and headed back to their table, thoroughly offended.
“That was rude,” Sophia said.
“They were rude. Hitting on me right in front of you like that. For all they knew, we might’ve been together.”
Sophia blinked. “We’re not.”
“So back to the question.”
She shook her head. “We’ll just keep getting interrupted.”
“Only an hour till closing time. How about we finish up then?”
“Sure. We can chat it up while I close shop. But first, tell me this. How do you know I’m from New York?”
He wiggled his eyebrows and didn’t answer.
Huh. Well, crap. She guessed a woman who wanted to keep things to herself ought not be talking to a law enforcement type, should she?
“One hour till closing!” Joey McIntyre shouted over the sudden silence. Everyone looked his way to see him standing by the juke box with the power cord in one hand. “And you know what that means.”
Darryl had started to walk away from the bar, but he turned back, looking almost nervous, and asked, “What does that mean?”
She smiled, pointed toward the giant pine tree in the corner, twelve feet tall and barely a needle undecked. The waitresses gathered around the tree. The cook, a live-action version of Popeye named Ned, emerged from the kitchen and made a beeline for the tree, and as he went, he began to sing the opening words of Silent Night in deep and raspy tones.
“Carols,” Sophia said. “Last hour before closing, every night during the week before Christmas. You can’t beat ‘em, Darryl. May as well join ‘em.” She headed around the bar, took hold of his forearm, and tugged him along beside her to join the crowd around the tree. A few people stayed at their tables, but most joined in.
She joined, singing softly, and glancing up at Darryl.
He was staring at the tree but not really singing. It looked to her as if his thoughts were very far away.
Oklahoma Christmas Blues Page 6