* * * * *
Saturday nights were the busiest nights of the week at the Long Branch. The tourists who were the lifeblood of the business came all week long. When you’re on vacation, every day is Saturday, or you’re not doing it right. But on true Saturday nights, a lot of the locals were looking for a good time, too. The local dive-bar, the OK Corral, was owned by Vidalia herself, giving the recently formed Brand-McIntyre clan kind of an unfair corner on the market, if you asked Sophia, but no one was asking. And they were good people, all of them. You didn’t have to know them very long to know that. No one in town seemed to be complaining about the Brand-McIntyre saloon monopoly.
Despite their loyalty to their local hangout though, peopled liked to mix it up once in a while, and Saturday nights were the time they loved doing it best. For that reason, the boys had decided to skip the dinner theater bit they had going—re-enactments of scenes from the old TV series Gunsmoke mostly. That was for tourists. Starting last summer, Saturday nights at the Long Branch included live music by country bands, locals and now and then some real up-and-comers. The band setting up equipment now, were one of the most popular in the area, according to Joey.
“Hey,” Darryl said.
She’d known he was there before he'd said a word. It was early yet. The customers were only just beginning to wander in. She looked at him, but didn’t say anything. She couldn’t believe she’d kissed him like that—and would’ve done more than kissed him—even though he was probably working for Skyler.
“Who’s the band?” he asked, sliding onto a barstool in front of her.
She’d been pouring nearly empty bottles together to make room for more full ones on the rack. Bourbon, right now. The good stuff. She set the bottle down so she wouldn’t get distracted by his eyes and spill it.
“Rising Outlaw,” Sophia said. “I wonder if they really meant Rising Outlaws and just ran out of room on the drum.” She looked at him, saw him frowning at her like he was trying to figure her out and shrugged. “What? I think about things like that.”
“You have a curious mind.” He leaned his elbows on the bar so he could pull himself closer, and whispered, “That why you were going through my wallet?”
“I was going through your wallet to find out why you had a photo of me on your nightstand.”
“So then why were you in my room in the first place?”
She looked at him, closed her eyes and looked away, angry at the heat that spread through her cheeks.
“Hell, hell, hell,” he muttered. Then he took a deep breath and said, “Screw professional ethics. I’m here because your cousins hired me to keep an eye on you. They didn’t tell me anything except that you had an ex who wasn’t taking the break up well and had tried to kick your door in before you left town to come back here.”
“My cousins?” Her jaw wouldn’t close for a second to form another word. Then it did, and she clenched it and tried really hard to be angry instead of relieved. “Those overbearing, overprotective, meddling jerks!”
“They care about you.”
“I guess.” Sighing heavily, she finished pouring one bourbon into the other, capped the full one, and wiped both bottles down.
“I didn’t know you were a doctor until you told me,” Darryl said. “A doctor. Damn, Sophie, I’m not sure I’m good enough for you.”
He leaned over the bar, giving a quick look behind them before stroking the back of her hand. It sent a warm feeling up her arm. “So how is it you know your way around the backside of a bar so darn well?”
“I bartended my way through med-school, usually at one of the places Uncle Bobby Joe had his hands in. He made his fortune finding failing bars and clubs, fixing them up and flipping them. Till he came here and decided to stay.”
“I’m impressed.”
“He’s an impressive man.”
“I’m impressed by you. Bartending your way through school. That’s something.”
She shrugged. “It’s not as impressive as the Secret Service,” she said. “Was that true?”
He nodded. “I never lied to you.”
Why was she starting to feel a little bit giddy that he wasn’t working for her ex after all? It took a minute for the anger to drain, but once it did, the relief was almost buoyant. He was working for her cousins. Watching out for her. It offended her feminist sensibilities, and yet reassured her about the magic currently unfolding in her life. With him.
That Santa Claus might’ve been onto something after all. Then again, Darryl was planning to leave here and head back to his old life pretty soon. So there was still that.
“I’m sorry I started us off by lying to you,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting this….whatever it is between us. I wasn’t ready for it. I didn’t handle it right. But I promise, I’m never gonna be less than honest with you again.”
“Wow.” She just blinked at him, almost wondering if he could truly be real.
“And I’m sorry you went through all that crap with Skyler, and the police and losing your job.”
She was quiet for a moment. “All things considered, everything worked out in my favor. But Skyler seems to be having a hard time letting go.”
“Of you?” he asked.
Wow, his eyes were intense right then. “Yeah. And he’s walking around free until his sentencing.”
“Are you afraid of him?”
“Not in the least,” she said, looking him right in the eye again. “I could kick his ass one-handed, especially when he’s falling down drunk, which he’s been most of the time since this all came out.” She shook her head. “That’s what the boys don’t get. At heart, Skyler’s a marshmallow. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. I just needed to get someplace where I could sleep at night and…and…” She sighed. “And try to figure things out. You know, why all this happened, what it means.”
“Does it have to mean something?” he asked, frowning a little, like he really wanted to know.
At some point she had leaned her elbows on the bar, too, and her face had made its way awfully close to his. She backed away, straightened up. “I didn’t used to think so. But since I’ve been here…I’m not sure. Maybe everything means something,” she said. Then she shrugged and turned to put the full bourbon bottle onto the rack behind her. “Another couple of months, and my prescription pad would’ve been obsolete. We were in the process of switching over to an entirely computerized system. Ironic, right?”
“That stinks, Sophie. I’m sorry it happened.” He straightened up as well, set himself back on his stool.
“I’m not sorry it happened. Now that I really think about it, I’m not sorry at all.” She reached for a tall glass, poured him a sweet tea and set it on a coaster in front of him. “I was at first, but I gotta tell you, this ‘everything-happens-for-a-reason thing’ is starting to make sense to me. I’m starting to feel excited to see what the reason was for this. This whole thing woke me up, Darryl. It showed me I was in the wrong relationship with the wrong guy, and apparently in the wrong city, in the wrong state, working in the wrong job.” She bit her lower lip, then said, “I knew it, too. I knew it way down deep. I’d been feeling restless and grouchy and tense. I just couldn’t put my finger on why. But that was why. I ignored my feelings until the problem got so big I had no choice but to make a change.”
He was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. “That’s… a little too deep for me.”
She shrugged. “Yeah. Was for me too, when I first heard it.”
“Who’d you hear it from?” he asked.
She smiled and recalled that twinkle in Santa’s eye. “Santa Claus.” Then she noticed Rising Outlaw’s lead singer, Ben Armstrong, waving at her from the stage. The band was ready. She gave him a nod. “Got a surprise for you, Darryl.”
Frowning, Darryl spun his barstool slowly around as the band played the opening chords of “Christmas Blues,” his one and only hit song, and Sophia prepared to see a smile on his face.
He slid
off his stool to stand up on his feet. She was still speaking to his back and couldn’t see his reaction. “I thought I’d have Jason introduce you after they play it. You can take a little bow. You okay with that?”
“No,” he said.
Sophia stiffened. The word was clipped and kind of gravelly.
“No, I’m not okay with that.” He walked away, across the floor and through the batwing doors. They flapped three times after he’d passed.
Oh, hell. She’d really messed up, then, hadn’t she?
She couldn’t help but wonder how and why.
Oklahoma Christmas Blues Page 18