by Meg Muldoon
But those days were long gone, and The Cupid had been spiraling downwards for many, many, years now, with an ever increasingly steep grade.
“What you heard is right,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe how good The Rusted Spurs were back then neither. Henry Antrim on lead guitar was like something... something… Ah, hell, I can’t even describe how good they were.”
“You saw them play?”
I shrugged.
“Well, almost,” I said. “I spent the night standing outside the bar when the owner caught me with a fake ID and kicked me out halfway through their first song.”
I smiled, remembering how angry I was at Lawrence Halliday, The Cupid’s owner back then. He pulled me out of here kicking and screaming like a toddler in mid-tantrum.
“Still, it was enough just standing outside on the sidewalk, listening to that music drift outside. That night… their music…” I sighed. “It changed my life.”
People always talked about things like that. About something changing their lives. But sometimes, having your life changed like that wasn’t always a good thing, even if it felt like it at the time.
Because that night was the reason I was where I was and who I was now:
Which was a bartender, living in a small house by the railroad tracks.Single, and with exactly $120 in my bank account.
That night changed my life. But not for the better. I’m not saying I would have gone on to be a lawyer or a scientist. But I probably wouldn’t have hit the road bump that I did with the speed that I did if I hadn’t fallen in love so young.
I wouldn’t have met Jacob, if not for that night.
“Sounds like something, all right,” the stranger said, meeting my eyes. “Wished I could have seen it myself.”
Just then, I heard Beth Lynn vying for my attention from the other side of the bar.
“Bitters, hon, my friend and I have emptied the watering hole, as it were.”
She tapped her long, red nails against her empty glass. I broke the stranger’s stare, and turned my back to him as I fixed Beth Lynn and her new friend a couple more Cupid’s Slingshots.
Just as I slid them their refreshers, the front door swung open, and then loud voices filled the dim bar as a large group crowded in and took a seat at one of the booths in the back. I took their orders, and whipped up some margaritas and grabbed a couple of Bud Lights from the fridge for a few heavy-set, burly-looking types.
Just as I finished serving that group, another large one came through the door. Someone pushed a few quarters into the jukebox, and Waylon Jennings came blaring over the speakers.
Saturday night was starting, and there wouldn’t be time for a moment’s rest from here to 2 a.m.
Let alone, time to talk with the stranger about the old days, no matter how I might want to reminisce about simpler times.
I pushed my long blonde hair back into a ponytail, took my station at the bar, and went to work.
Chapter 3
I guess I’ve gotten a little ahead of myself here, not even telling you who I am.
My name’s Loretta Loveless. And even though I’m a bartender in a saloon, I’m not your barroom girl, contrary to what the Townes Van Zandt song says. I don’t wear sevens on my sleeve. I don’t dance, and my age is most certainly not 22. Hasn’t been for a long time.
Loretta’s my name, but it’s always seemed a little fancy for me. Hell, my name sounds like a bad country song. I prefer to go by Bitters, a nickname I picked up a few ago when I first started tending bar again back home in Broken Hearts Junction. I guess I’ve always been a little heavy handed when it comes to adding that ingredient to my cocktails.
I’m in my mid-thirties, and like any single gal in her mid-thirties, the future scares me. You see, up until three years ago, I wasn’t scared at all. My life was all planned out. I had someone I cared about, and someone who cared about me. He was… I mean, he is… my soulmate. I knew it from the moment I’d set eyes on him. Because I’d seen him in one of my visions.
That’s the other thing about me. I’m not your average bartender. You see, I get these visions. I know that sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, but it’s the truth. I don’t always control the visions. Most the time, they come out of nowhere, and without warning. Sometimes they’re garbled, like they’re coming through a broken TV set. A lot of times I hear other people’s thoughts. And in most of them, I can see a person’s soulmate. Over the years, I’ve gotten a little better at controlling them. In a few cases, I’ve even been able to will a vision for somebody. But for the most part, those are rare cases.
I don’t know where they come from, and I don’t know why I get them. If it’s hereditary, then I’m the only one who’s got it in my immediate family. My mom doesn’t have them and neither does my sister. If my dad did, he never said anything before he died.
All I know is that the first match I ever made was when I was 10 years old. I got a vision of my fourth grade teacher and the school’s mailman. A month later, I’d figured out a way for the two of them to meet by luring her down to the main office just as he arrived for his daily mail drop-off. A year later, they were married, expecting their first child.
Since that time, I’ve helped dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people find true love.
I used to be good at it. And I loved doing it, too. I liked making people happy. I liked the rush of finally finding the person I saw in my vision. I loved figuring out clever ways to get them to meet.
I loved watching them fall in love.
But these days, I just can’t find it within me to match anymore. I still get the visions, but I no longer have any enthusiasm to see them through.
I guess my nickname is fitting in that regard.
Maybe I am bitter.
It’s hard not to be when your soulmate leaves you behind in the dust of Broken Hearts Junction.
But dwelling on that doesn’t do me any good. Especially not in the middle of a Saturday night when all of the town seemed to have squeezed themselves into The Stupid Cupid Saloon like sardines in a can to see some less-than mediocre country band called Cattle Carnage.
“Five Cherry Cosmos for me and the girls,” shouted a community college blond who was wearing something more akin to a bandana than an actual top.
I’d seen her in the bar before with these friends of hers. Most of the time, they just sat there looking steely, waiting for guys to hit on them, pouting at the end of the night if they didn’t get their way. But they usually did. Broken Hearts was a small town with more men than women, which gave them an advantage.
It didn’t bug me that these girls came here every weekend acting like they were queens of the saloon.
What bugged me was that they under-tipped.
Every single time.
But like I said, I didn’t have much time to think about things like that. The Cherry Cosmos were just the tail end of a long list of drinks that customers were waiting on. I got to work. I started shaking up Cupid’s Slingshots, High Desert Sunrises, Hibiscus Margaritas and Cherry Cosmos like my life depended on it. The aggressive and sloppy beat of Cattle Carnage droned on obnoxiously from the small stage.
I really wished Dale would put a little more effort into the acts he booked. Granted, it was March, and this was a small town in Oregon. But still. There had to be something better than these guys. We were two sets in, and my ears were already begging for mercy. I swear, I didn’t know if I could take much more of—
“You git your hands off of her.”
A raised voice boomed over the music.
A moment later, a beer bottle shattered against the wood floor, and then there were a few surprised screams.
Chapter 4
I squinted into the crowd. Even though their backs were to me, it only took a couple of seconds to realize who was making the ruckus.
And why.
Kirby Carruthers, a big, Paul Bunyan-looking gas attendant who Beth Lynn had dated for three months, was standing face-to-face with her new youn
g friend. I swear, I could see steam coming out of the big man’s nostrils.
This was going to get ugly. And get ugly fast.
I scanned the crowd, looking for Dale and his big muscles. But typically, he was nowhere to be found.
I came around the bar, knowing with each step that I was making a boneheaded decision.
But there was no one else around, and I’d be damned if these two fools were going to make a mess of my bar.
Even though I didn’t own The Stupid Cupid Saloon, I sometimes acted like I did.
Beth Lynn’s young friend shouted something inflammatory back in Kirby’s face, and the big man’s cheeks grew a bright, rage-filled shade of cherry red and the veins in his neck started bulging. He stepped closer to the kid in that weird kind of way guys did when they were fighting. Where you thought the two would either start throwing punches, or start kissing.
The music died down as the boys in Cattle Carnage caught wind of what was playing out on the floor.
“Now, boys,” I shouted in my loudest and strongest voice. “I don’t care what y’all do, but you’re not doing it here in my bar, got it?”
They both acted like they hadn’t heard me, staring deep into each other’s eyes. I glanced at Beth Lynn, who shook her head sheepishly.
I don’t know why I had ever tried helping her find true love. Beth Lynn was a lost cause if I ever saw one.
Everyone’s eyes were now on the pair. The music had stopped altogether, and anticipation of the oncoming fight hung thickly in the air like cigarette smoke.
“Mark my words if you start something in here, you’ll never see the inside of this bar aga—” I started saying.
But I was too late.
Kirby took the first swing. It landed on the kid’s face, and he went flying backwards.
Flying back into me.
Boneheaded move.
His elbow came crashing into my face. He regained his footing, but I lost mine. I hit the cold, wood floor of the saloon hard. There was the sound of more blows, and more scuffling, but I couldn’t really see much from where I was on the floor.
The side of my face was completely numb.
“You got no right!” Kirby yelled from somewhere above me. “You got no right taking my woman!”
Kirby let out a grunt as Beth Lynn’s young friend landed a blow. The two scuffled some more.
The entire bar shook under their violent movements, and for a moment, I feared that Old Velma, the huge, mounted ox head that hung over the bar, might just come crashing down with all the commotion.
It appeared that no one was going to stop it. Some bar patrons appeared to be transfixed. Others seemed to be giving into their lesser urges to see two guys rip into each other.
But just when I thought the whole place was going to be destroyed, another voice joined the fray.
“Either of you take another swing, you’ll have me to answer to.”
The voice wasn’t loud. In fact, it was hardly above a whisper.
But there was fire in his words, and everyone could hear it.
Fire, and something else. Something that made you shudder to think of what might happen if you disregarded his warning.
Everyone hushed, and Beth Lynn’s two boyfriends stopped swinging at each other.
I started getting to my feet, but a wave of dizziness hit me, making my vision black out for a second. Kind of like the way it felt when one of my visions was about to come on.
I sat back down, still unable to see who was behind the voice that brought a stop to the fight.
Beth Lynn came over and knelt over me, a worried expression on her face as she surveyed the damage. Her mouth dropped open a little, and I knew it must have been bad.
“Yeah?” Kirby said in a bear-like growl. “And who the hell are you?”
“I don’t think you want to find out the answer to that,” the man said. “But you’re welcome to it. More than welcome.”
Kirby let go of the kid’s collar and his big boots thudded against the wood floor as he approached the man.
“I don’t know what your game is, but you can’t come in here and—” Kirby started saying.
“C’mon, baby,” Beth Lynn said, getting up and getting in front of Kirby.
She grabbed a hold of his thick arm.
“You made your point. Don’t get busted up any more than you already have because of me.”
Her young guy’s face fell a little bit, watching her caress Kirby’s arm like that.
“Tell this rug rat here that you’re done with him, and I might consider it,” Kirby said, nodding to the kid.
Beth Lynn sighed.
“I told you, Kirby, you can’t act this way. We broke up, and that’s that.”
Kirby started chuckling, his big beer belly jiggling with the effort.
“Sure, but you were singing a different tune last night, baby,” he said. “A tune all the neighbors could hear, if you know what I mean.”
Beth Lynn gasped a little bit and then placed a hand up to her face in embarrassment.
Her young friend’s face fell completely now into a broke-up expression.
“But, Beth Lynn, I thought…” her cougar catch started saying.
His voice was all thick and you couldn’t help but feel bad for him. Those big puppy dog eyes of his couldn’t hide the hurt.
It must have been a big blow. His cougar had been stepping out on him.
Guilt spread across Beth Lynn’s face like a wet blanket, and she let out a short wail before turning around, pushing her way through the crowd, and running through the front door.
Like I said. My best friend Beth Lynn was a hopeless case if I ever saw one. And I might have felt more sorry for her if she hadn’t just gotten my face busted-up.
“Sorry to break it to you like this, young fella,” Kirby said, smiling smugly at the kid. “But that’s my woman you were pawing.”
“You son of a—” the kid responded, lifting up a curled fist.
“You two get the hell outta here,” the man who’d stopped the fight said. “And don’t come back.”
Beth Lynn’s young friend stopped mid-punch and pulled back. He stomped out of the bar angrily, doing as the man said.
He had more sense than Kirby, who just stood there laughing. A deep, throaty laugh that reverberated throughout the bar.
“Poor fool,” he said, shaking his head. “All right. I’m calling this one a night. Close out my tab, Bitters.”
Here I was, still on the floor, dazed and confused because of him, and he wanted me to close out his bar tab.
I was about to start another fight with him myself.
“Leave it,” the other man said in a steely tone.
The voice suddenly sounded familiar, and though I still couldn’t see him from my position on the floor, I knew who the mystery man was.
The southern drawl came through loud and clear.
“I don’t think so,” Kirby said.
“You’ll leave it,” the stranger said, the tone even steelier.
He was no man to mess with. Even someone as dumb as Kirby Carruthers could figure that much.
The fool paused for a long moment, then finally scoffed.
“Fine,” Kirby said. “I’ll be back tomorrow for my credit card, Bitters.”
“Get a new one,” the stranger said. “Don’t come around here again.”
Kirby scoffed again.
“We’ll see,” he said, backing away. “We’ll see.”
Vague threats were a trademark of Kirby’s. I knew that much from Beth Lynn’s stories.
Kirby walked out in a huff. Loud voices started up again, the gossip mills already running. I stayed on the floor, placing a hand up to my throbbing cheek.
“Jeez, look at you,” Courtney said gruffly, coming over from where she’d been hiding behind the bar.
“Where in the hell is Dale?” I asked.
“That good for nothing husband of mine walked out half an hour ago.”
“Typical,” I said. “Just goddamn typic—”
A shadow passed over us. Courtney stood back.
I looked up.
He reached out a hand to me. I stared at it a moment before taking it.
The stranger, the one who ordered the orange soda, the one who had just stopped the fight, pulled me to my feet.
Chapter 5
My cheek was beginning to puff out like a microwaved marshmallow.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I think so.”
It was starting to throb now. The numbness was beginning to wear off, and small waves of pain rolled in to take its place.
Courtney left and went for the broom in the back. She came back and started scraping together the shattered glass on the floor. It was the first time I’d ever seen her holding a broom. Most the time, she hardly worked around her.
The lead guitarist of Cattle Carnage started playing again, and the band followed, filling the bar with their terrible racket. The drummer started pounding even harder against the set than he had before.
It was almost enough to make my head explode.
“C’mon,” the stranger said, nodding back toward the bar. “That eye of yours is going to be worthless tomorrow ‘less we get some ice on it.”
“We’re shorthanded tonight,” I said. “And I’ve got a drink order longer than—”
“Take a look around you,” he said. “It ain’t like anyone here’s going thirsty.”
Bob Browning, a heavy-set real estate agent whose face was plastered on signs all over this town, drunkenly shouted something to the band about playing The Eagles’ Life in the Fast Lane, and I realized the stranger was right.