by Cara McKenna
“It’s a Sunday. All the churchgoers’re gonna need something to take the edge off their salvation.”
True, Sunday afternoons were typically busy. But it was really hard to care just now.
“So somebody has to wait until three fifteen for a beer,” she said. “Big fucking deal. Come upstairs.” She was nearly pleading, her body desperate to take his where things made sense, to a place they could navigate without thought, to the immediacy and oblivion of sex.
“I’ll come out tonight,” he said, catching and stilling her hands. “I don’t want to rush it, whatever comes next. Not after all this.”
Frustration bloomed like a rash, and it had to show on her face. He laughed. “I promise—tonight. I’ll steal some sleep after dinner, come by before last call. We’ll celebrate once we’ve got the chance to do it right.”
“You’re a tease,” she said, twisting her hands free. She traced his collar, studying his dark stubble, nearly a beard now. “Showing up all sweaty and unshaven in your ripped jeans . . .”
“You ought to be relieved I’m not ravishing you, then.”
“You know nothing about women.”
He laughed, then kissed her—slow, deeper, finishing playful and sweet, their foreheads pressed together. She could sense his smile in her periphery. “I’ll come by tonight,” he whispered.
“You better.”
“I love you. It’s a promise.”
She swallowed. “I love you, too.” Much as those words frightened her, they were true. And he deserved them.
The quickest, fiercest kiss, and he was grinning as he stepped away. “Bye.”
That smile just about did her in. She could only muster a meek wave and a smirk as he turned, she felt so woozy and bashful and mixed up and drunk. “Bye,” she told the door as she flipped the lock.
“Fuck me.” She sighed to herself, glanced around the hall. It felt odd to be standing in such a mundane space—not even a room. Yet this was the spot where the most handsome, hard-working, desirable man in the whole goddamn county had stood as he told her he loved her. She nearly didn’t want to move.
The edgy feelings didn’t back off as the bar came to life. She greeted the old-timers who arrived first, still dressed in their Sunday best and eager to bitch and moan—about the economy, about the young people, about Mayor Dooley and this trumped-up slot parlor he was talking about bringing to town.
In time, they settled with their drinks at the table nearest the jukebox, leaving Raina with her feelings, elation and misgiving alike. The casino issue couldn’t even touch her this afternoon; it would have to get in line behind whatever this new uncertainty was, crowding her head and fraying her nerves.
I should be on cloud nine. A wonderful man is in love with me, and I love him back. It seemed like every guy she’d ever dated had wanted to change her in some way—change how she looked, how she dressed, how she talked, how she made her money. Miah knew her. Miah loved her, exactly as she was. She ought to be dancing on the bar.
But since when did Raina react as women were expected to, faced with soft, romantic things like love proclamations?
Best to shake it off. After all, later tonight she’d see Miah, and God only knew how ferocious the sex would be, with those words exchanged . . . There was plenty of time in the coming days to remind him where they stood—on opposite sides of the insurmountable divide known as marriage and children. And there was plenty of time for him to still find those things for himself, wasn’t there? Plenty of time once this affair reached its natural conclusion—
Behind her came the pointed clearing of a deep voice. Instantly annoyed, she turned, only to find Vince at the bar.
“Oh, it’s just you.”
“Just me?” he echoed, faking offense. “Your favorite customer and cherished childhood friend?”
“Beer and a shot?”
“You know it.” He glanced around. “Busy in here.”
“It is. You’d think the Broncos were in season.” She uncapped his bottle and poured his shot. “Seven twenty-five,” she added, like he didn’t already know. She made his change while he downed his whiskey.
“How’s the quarry treating you?” she asked. He was over a month into the job and hadn’t been fired yet, so it couldn’t be going terribly.
He shrugged. “Pays the bills. Speaking of bills, how’s it going around here? You get your dad’s old tabs paid off yet?”
She shook her head. “Close, though. Dying for the day when I do. Then maybe I can hire a bartender a couple nights a week and get back into tattooing.” She eyed the black crow’s wing inked up Vince’s neck—her work. She itched to feel the buzz of a machine in her hand again, that drone in her ears. “Still, probably won’t happen for the better half of a year.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I half hope this stupid casino plan goes through—maybe somebody would want to buy the bar. Or at least the building.”
“Fortuity with no Benji’s? That’s fucked up.”
“That’s how it was for decades.”
“Yeah, but some of us don’t have any memories of this town without it. It’d be like the ranch disappearing.”
“Not at all,” she countered, and poured herself a ginger ale. “If the ranch disappeared, Fortuity would collapse. There’s been a Three C since the mines were first opened, I think. Since the railroad got laid. Or nearly.”
“Well, it would leave a hole in my heart, anyhow.” He put his hand to the spot, expression all misty and overdone.
Raina rolled her eyes and turned away to fill a couple orders.
When she came back around to Vince’s end of the bar, she asked, “You think you’d ever move away? Like after your mom passes on or something?”
“Me? Never. I love this shithole.”
“Why?”
Vince made a puzzled face, thinking. “I dunno. Why not? Good a place as any. No stupid big-box stores, hard-working people. Half-assed law enforcement. Nice sunrises.”
“It’ll look different if Dooley gets his way.”
“He won’t. This town’s too full of stubborn old jackasses and Jesus-huggers to ever vote a casino referendum through.”
“Stubborn old jackasses, but unemployed folks, too,” she said. “If the casino’s as big as it sounds, it could create a ton of jobs.”
“Even if we made a bid, they won’t pick Fortuity, whoever’s scouting for locations.”
“Why not? We’re poor, cheap to buy out. Highway’s right there, and we’d draw the gamblers out of Idaho and Utah. Plus we could use the tax incentives, frankly.”
“Don’t tell me you’d vote for it,” Vince said.
“No, of course not. It sounds horrible. But I’m just saying, don’t get too confident. You could easily be in the minority, thinking Fortuity’s rich in rustic charm or whatever. Some people just want jobs—for themselves, or to keep their kids from moving away.”
“Whatever. Like it’s even going to get as far as a vote.”
She let the topic drop, circling the counter to collect empties and fill a couple pitchers.
“Another?” she asked Vince, snatching his empty longneck.
“Sure.” As she uncapped it, he asked, “How’s it all going with Miah?”
“Good. Really good. Two seventy-five,” she added, setting the bottle before him.
“Good. Glad to hear it.” He spun the thing around by its neck, gaze locked on the task. A strangely evasive look for Fortuity’s least tactful man.
“But?” she prompted.
“But what?” He handed her a five.
“You want to say something about it. Go ahead.”
He frowned, then spoke. “He told me the other night he was falling for you. Hard.”
She nodded. “He told me so this morning. And I can’t say I was all that surprised.” She’d felt it coming for weeks. “I told him the same. What of it?”
“You remember what I said to you, when this all started?”
“He know that’s all it is to you? Temporary?”
“He’s not blind, and I’ve told him before, I’m not in the market for a family. He knows we’re not burning an eternal flame here.” If anything, they were a fuse, a crackling, sparking countdown creeping toward The End. “We’re just enjoying what this is, for however long it’s going to last.”
Or at least she’d assumed they both viewed it that way, before this morning. But those three treacherous little words did change things, didn’t they? There was no step between I love you and a proposal, was there?
“What would you do,” Vince asked, “if you got knocked up tomorrow? You know what he’d want? Does he know what you’d want?”
“It’s questions like this that’ve kept you a bachelor for thirty-two years.”
“Just get your shit straight, the two of you, that’s all I’m saying. Because the way he’s started to talk about you, I don’t think it’s all as casual as you’d like to assume.”
“I’ll remind him.” Tonight, even as they celebrated what had happened this morning. Vince was right, and she knew it. Miah did deserve to know exactly what it was he’d gotten himself into.
Vince took a long drink. “Glad to hear it.”
“Now butt out of my love life, Grossier.”
“My best friend, my business. It’s me who gets stuck with a drunk rancher weeping all over my shoulder if this goes to hell.”
“I very much doubt I have the power to do that to a grown-ass man.”
Vince smiled. “Then you don’t know shit about grown-ass men, girl.”
Chapter Ten
Raina eyed the clock. Nearly eight. Business had quieted down by dinnertime, and she hoped Miah would call. She wanted his breathing in her ear, and that panting refrain. “What else?” But he’d probably save all that energy up for later. For her.
And what else, indeed? They’d done just about everything a woman and man could with their bodies—everything but find themselves in a bed, anyhow. She’d long since quit trying to talk him indoors. She’d grown too fond of the sun on her back or the stars and moon watching from above, and the smell of the air and the hot springs, the distant smoke of wild fires, sage, sweat, earth.
Fortuity was quiet, a place where nothing much ever happened. In Raina’s first weeks in Vegas, she’d looked back on it with scorn, thinking her hometown was a stuffy coffin compared to the vibrating force of a big city—all those people and cars and lights and sounds threatening to rattle the flesh right off your bones.
But in the end, Vegas had soured, and she’d succumbed to homesickness. Or if not homesickness, a tidal wave of relief when she finally returned. Of belonging. The ability to breathe deeply once more. Her time away had changed her, and not for the better. The man she’d met there had changed her—gotten her to stray farther from who she was than any other guy ever had, and after it ended, she’d vowed to never let that happen again.
At least in Fortuity, people accepted you as you were, even your ugly parts. Raina had no plans to grow old in this town, but there was no denying that it was a place where she fit. A place where she felt like someone after being just another female body in a tight tee shirt during her time slinging drinks on the Strip. At least here, she owned the bar that ran her into the ground. And even if not every one of her customers respected her, she still got to yell at them without repercussion.
Raina had a deal going with a short-order cook who worked just up the block at the diner—on weekend evenings he’d bring her supper when his shift ended in exchange for a free round. Tonight it was pastrami on grilled rye, chips, and a pickle. Sure beat whatever she might have dashed upstairs and grabbed, well worth the pint and shot. She’d saved her pickle for last, finishing it just as her phone buzzed in her butt pocket. She dabbed her fingers on her bar towel and checked the screen.
Oh ho. Miah. Perhaps he couldn’t wait until last call after all.
“Hello, you.”
“Hey yourself. Listen, I’m calling to say I lied to you, for the first and last time ever.”
“Pardon?”
“I can’t come out tonight,” he said. “I need to drive my dad to the hospital in Elko.”
She frowned, sinking back against the counter. “Is he okay?”
“Probably, but he’s running a slight fever. We need to make sure he doesn’t have an infection from the follow-up surgery. Awful timing, huh?”
“It’s fine. I hope he’s all right.”
“I think so. He’s only at a hundred and one. We’re just being cautious.”
She sighed. “And here I’d been hoping you were calling for a little inspiration to knock you out cold for a nap.”
“I wish. But actually, I’m calling not just to apologize about tonight.”
“Oh?”
“I’m also calling with some bad news.”
“More of it?” She wrapped her free arm around her middle, bracing herself. “What?”
“You’re going to have a plumbing emergency tomorrow.”
She smiled, confused. “Excuse me?”
“Tomorrow you’re going to come downstairs before Benji’s opens, and discover there’s been some problem with the pipes, and that there’s no running water for the sinks or the washer or the bathrooms, and you’ll have to close the bar for the whole day. And at three o’clock I’m finishing my work, come hell or high water, and we’re going to spend an actual, full afternoon and evening together.”
She felt her eyebrows rise and a grin spread across her face. “That’s awfully tempting . . . But I don’t think I can afford to close up. Not even for a night.”
“How many cases of whiskey do I need to buy off you to make up for a night’s lost earnings?”
She considered it. “Top shelf, with an outrageous markup? One should do it, for a Monday.”
“Done. I can write it off as entertainment supplies.”
She laughed. “I dunno.”
“I do. This is happening. Hope you feel like a ride, because we’re going way out on the range and camping under the stars.”
“One bike or two?” She’d be happy with either option—a ride on her new baby or one spent with her arms wrapped around Miah.
“Not bikes—horses.”
“Oh Lord. It’s been a hundred years. I’m not sure I even remember how.”
“Bullshit. And I wasn’t calling to hear you say yes. I was calling to let you know I’m picking you up at four tomorrow, and this is going down.”
“This is all very forceful of you, Mr. Church.”
“Just wear your boots and dress warm. I’ll see you then.”
“Okay, I guess.”
“You guess right. Sorry about your plumbing.”
She smirked when the line went blank, and rolled her eyes. But she had to admit, she was awfully charmed. This was a Miah she’d not seen for ten years or more, sounding so much more like his twentysomething self—cocksure and confident, eager to put fun before duty.
No matter what he’d told her at the springs about not always feeling like the boss, he’d grown into his manhood quicker than any of their friends. Alex had been the most serious among them in high school, but it had become clear lately that he didn’t have it all together. Not remotely. Vince was a grown man in body only, and proud of that fact. As for Casey, who the fuck could even guess? But Miah . . .
Miah’s evolution had been steady and natural, and at thirty-two he was the picture of hard work and reliability. More a man than Raina’s father had ever been. More a man than
most could claim, and humble enough that he probably didn’t even realize it.
She stared at her phone until the screen went dark and his name disappeared. You could have any woman in this county. For keeps.
Why was he wasting his time with the only fool apt to run from him the second he asked for more than she wanted to give?
Don’t question it. Just be glad he is. And to hell with all those damn worries planted in her head by Vince and her own skittish self-preservation. To hell with the future, when the present sounded so damn close to heaven.
***
Miah moved to a quieter corner of the Elko emergency room, leaning against the wall beside a vending machine. He checked his phone’s clock—last call was in ten minutes. Better catch Raina now, before all the final orders flooded in.
She picked up after a ring. “Hey, you. How’s your dad?”
“Hi. Pretty good. We’re just finishing at the hospital. About to head back home.”
“So nothing to worry about?”
He eyed his old man, signing some form at the front desk, crutches under his arms. Goddamn, but Miah couldn’t wait until he was back to his usual self. Recognizing your parents’ mortality was a uniquely chilling fear.
“He’s fine. No infections, they don’t think. Could be a side effect of the painkillers, but they need to get his blood test results to know—could be one more excuse for him to not take his pills, which he’s probably happy about. They basically said relax, unless the fever gets any higher.”
“Glad to hear it.”
He paused, feeling shy, smiling like an ass. “Miss you. Wish I was with you now.”
“I wish that, too. But we’ve got tomorrow. All day, practically.”
“Can’t fucking wait.” Can just about taste you now, and feel those hands all over my body. He’d happily have told her so out loud if there weren’t so many witnesses. “See you by four at the latest.”
“You better. Drive safe.”
“I will. Love you.”
A pause, and he pictured her biting her lip, looking as bashful as he felt.
“Love you, too,” she whispered. “Bye.”
“Night.”
His dad limped over, his discharge papers tucked between the butt of his crutch and his armpit.