Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Letter to Reader
About the Author
From Hell Yeah
Copyright © 2010 by Carolyn Brown
Cover and internal design © 2010 by Sourcebooks, Inc. Cover design by Randee Ladden
Cover images © Neville Elder/Corbis; Sophielouise/Dreamstime.com Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
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To my fabulous editor, Deb Werksman
Chapter 1
All the air escaped Daisy's lungs in a whoosh when the cowboy collapsed on top of her body. She sucked in air and pushed at the weight, but her arms were pinned. She opened her eyes to see a head full of dark hair and felt the sharp bone of his nose pressing into her left breast.
He raised his head and looked over at her, his face only inches from hers, his eyes zeroing in on her lips.
Hot damn! That's one sexy face, they both thought at the same time.
She shut her eyes and started to lean in for the kiss, then reality hit. She had fallen flat on her back on the floor of the Honky Tonk beer joint and taken the nearest cowboy down with her. She popped her eyes wide open and wriggled back away from the sexiest gray eyes she'd ever seen.
Oh, shit, who saw us? Daisy looked up to find everyone staring down at them, the cowboy's body still touching her from breast to toe, even though he had rolled to one side. The blush that filled her cheeks had nothing to do with afterglow.
The joint was as quiet as a tomb. It was a hell of a time for the jukebox to go silent.
"You all right?" Tinker, the bouncer, asked. He was hovering over the two of them, worry etched in his face as he bent to touch her shoulder.
"I'm fine. Make sure he is too," she panted.
Tinker held out a hand and in one swift movement the cowboy was on his feet.
Tinker picked up Daisy carefully and set her on a barstool. "You sure you're all right?"
"My dignity is in tatters and I might have a bruise or two, but I'll live," she said.
"I'd better get back to the door. Motion if you need me," Tinker said.
She nodded and raised her voice to the customers, who were still watching the whole scenario as if it were an X-rated movie. "I'm fine, everyone. I promise. Get on back to having a good time."
Someone plugged coins into the jukebox and George Strait's song "River of Love" filled the place. Several people started a line dance and by the time the song ended everything was back to normal.
All except Daisy's heart. It still raced.
She looked at the cowboy. He was just as sexy sitting on the barstool as he'd been lying on top of her. "Sorry about that. I hope you don't have anything broken."
The cowboy barely nodded. "Just a little stunned. Stupid things like that happen so fast it's like it happened to someone else. Might have a bruise—but you broke my fall."
Daisy forced a smile.
"Guess we stepped in that beer at the same time. Where's the bartender? We both ought to sue the hell out of him." Jarod was amazed that he could utter a single word the way his pulse was racing. That was one dazzling lady he'd taken a fall with. One minute he'd been walking toward the bar; the next he was grabbing for anything to break the fall. Then as if in slow motion he'd seen the girl slip in the same slick puddle of spilled beer and grab for him.
Daisy knew every rancher, cattle rustler, and hotblooded male and female in five counties, but she'd never seen that damn fine looking cowboy before. Snug fitting jeans covered one sexy tight butt hitched up on the stool. Bulging biceps underneath his snowy white T-shirt stretched the knit. His black hair and high cheekbones said that he had some Native American blood somewhere, but his eyes were the color of heavy fog. He could have played the resident bad boy in an old movie: maybe James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. She remembered watching the movie with her grandmother back before Granny died. From that day forward, Daisy O'Dell had been attracted to bad boys, and that had been her downfall.
For the first time she seriously considered breaking the rules and taking a man through the door into her apartment at the back of the Honky Tonk. She shook her head to remove the crazy notion. The man could be a serial killer or a drug pusher. Hell, he could be worse than either of those two things—he could be married.
She blushed scarlet. She'd been ogling the stranger rudely.
His straw hat had somehow found its way to the bar in front of him and she wished she could pick it up to fan her scorching face. Not that it would have helped a whole hell of a lot. The way her hormones were overreacting, she could have melted ice on the North Pole in December.
Why did that dark-haired, broad-chested cowboy give her hot flashes? Maybe it was because when she felt him collapse on her for a microsecond she'd felt as if they'd just finished a hot bout of sex. She reached up and rubbed the back of her head to see if there were bumps or indentations. Something had to have knocked every bit of sense out of her brain. She couldn't find a bump or a sore spot, so maybe he'd rattled her hormones instead of her brain cells.
"Is this a help-yourself bar or is there a bartender somewhere out there?" He motioned toward the dance floor. He thought about asking her for a dance, maybe as an apology for knocking her down. Anything to touch her again and see if the jolt that shot through him was something other than a free fall to the dance floor.
She hopped off the barstool. "Guess that would be me. I was on my way back to the bar when we collided." Her heart kept up a steady beat in her ears like the drums in Garth Brooks's band.
Jarod drew his heavy dark brows down in disbelief. Surely she was teasing. That exquisite woman couldn't be the bartender. She looked as though she might be the newest up-and-coming country singer taking a break from the stage. He glanced around the room and saw only two jukeboxes—no stage in sight.
As she made her way behind the bar located the whole length of the back wall of the Honky Tonk, she shook her head hard enough to send her dark brown ponytail swinging. It didn't work. She was still picturing him naked except for scuffed up cowboy boots and maybe the hat.
Good grief, she had to get control of her thoughts. She had a bar to run and he was most likely one of those rare strangers who was just passing by and stopped for a cold beer on a scalding hot night.
The jukebox rattled the walls with Toby Keith's booming voice singing "I Love This Bar." It was Daisy's theme song. She had loved the Honky Tonk since the day she'd walked into the joint. Twenty-one years old, broken-down car in the par
king lot of the Smokestack restaurant, not even a mile from the Honky Tonk and barely enough gas money to get back to Mena, Arkansas, she'd been looking for a phone and some help. What she found was Ruby Lee, a salty old girl full of spit and vinegar who'd given her a job and a place to live and taken her under her wing. Since then not a single one of the drinkers, smokers, lookers, or even hustlers had taken her eye until that cowboy collided with her and drove her mind straight into the gutter.
He's married and has six kids and a chain smoking mother who lives with him in a double-wide trailer.
Chigger, the Honky Tonk's equivalent of a hooker, caught her eye and winked. Daisy picked up her step and barely beat Chigger to the tall cowboy.
"What'll it be?" Daisy asked.
Chigger leaned forward on the bar, shoving four inches of cleavage and a big smile so close to his face that his eyes crossed. "Name it, darlin', and I'll provide it."
"Coors," he said. He didn't want the hooker to provide anything. Now, if that bartender offered? Well, his heart skipped a beat just thinking about what he'd name in that case.
"Tap or bottle?" Daisy asked.
"Tap is fine. Is it good and cold?"
Daisy nodded. His voice was so deep it gave her shivers. As if that wasn't enough, he had a dimple in his chin that begged her to lean forward and brush a kiss across. She felt like shutting the place down for a week and spending every moment of it in bed with him. Maybe she'd been standing too damn close to Chigger and her loose-legged morality had rubbed off on her. The woman's heels were so round that all a fellow had to do was push her and she fell backwards, dragging him down on top of her as she fell. Daisy wondered if "slut" was contagious.
He raised his voice and said, "Hey, none of that light stuff either. Real beer with all the calories and taste."
Chigger inched a little closer and laid her hand on his knee. "Now, what else would you be needin' this night? I betcha I can provide it and, honey, it won't be none of that light stuff. I've got a full menu with whatever you want."
"Reckon beer is all I'll need for right now," he said. A hooker coming on to him and a barmaid throwing his heart into double-time. What in the hell was going on?
Most of the time Daisy didn't mind Chigger hustling a good time, but that night it annoyed her like a pesky fly buzzing around her ears. Chigger was one of those women who had no morals. If she saw something wearing jeans and boots and wanted it, she set about getting it. These days she went home with Jim Bob Walker on Friday and Saturday nights, but Daisy remembered times when it was a different cowboy every weekend. And the way she was flirting with the new cowboy, Jim Bob might be sleeping alone that night.
Chiggers in the real sense are little red bugs that burrow down into the skin and itch terribly. Chigger got her nickname because she said she was just like one of those little bugs. She could make a man itch so bad he had to let her scratch the itch for him. Most men fell all over themselves when Chigger took notice of them. Evidently the newcomer had put on bug repellent because she wasn't having much effect on him.
Daisy filled a Mason jar, the standard beer glass at the Honky Tonk, from the tap and carried it to the cowboy. "That one's on the house if you don't sue me. I'm the bartender that should have seen that puddle of beer."
"Deal," he said curtly. What he'd like to make a deal for didn't have a damn thing to do with a puddle of beer and a lot to do with finding himself back on top of the bartender. And without an audience. He touched his head—must've hit it harder than he realized to be entertaining such crazy notions.
Jarod McElroy hadn't come into the bar for conversation and he'd have run a country mile if he'd known his first walk across the dance floor was going to net him a fall on top of the bartender. God knew he listened to plenty of talk from his eighty-six-year-old uncle, Emmett McElroy, who provided enough words in a day to make Jarod's ears hurt. And most of his words would fry the hair off a billy goat's ass.
The family had known that Uncle Emmett was failing the past year, but a couple of months ago Jarod's mother had made a trip from Oklahoma to Texas to see him. When she found out that he'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in addition to a multitude of other ailments, she'd come home with the suggestion that Jarod move down there and help him run his ranch. He'd been more than willing, since he remembered Uncle Emmett and Aunt Mavis fondly and figured living on the ranch would be just as great as when he was a kid.
He'd been wrong.
Uncle Emmett had gone plumb crazy since his wife died the year before and refused to listen to a word or idea that Jarod had to say. After that day, Jarod was seriously considering throwing in the towel and going home to Oklahoma. Right now he was almost glad he didn't.
He looked down the length of the shiny bar at the bartender who'd taken his order. When he'd raised his head up and seen exactly who'd broken his fall, he'd had the urge to kiss her. Looking at her, he wished he had. He could have blamed it on the moment. Now he'd never know what those full lips tasted like.
"She's a barmaid." Aunt Mavis' voice perched on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. "Remember your second fiancée?"
Jarod's jaw muscles worked like he was chewing peanuts.
"Man don't get a good woman in a bar, Jarod. You done proved that," she taunted in that gravelly voice of a fifty-year smoker.
"I hear you," he mumbled aloud.
Sure, the barmaid at the Honky Tonk was a looker and there was something about those long legs and that tiny waist that made his mouth go dry, but a vow was a vow and Aunt Mavis would claw her way up from the grave and haunt him if he looked at a barmaid twice. Well, maybe he'd better make that three times because he'd already had a very long second look at her.
Daisy felt his stare. A sideways glance told her that he liked what he saw. The set of his jaw said he wouldn't act on it. Owning a bar or tending a bar didn't make her a slut or an immoral person, and it was her damn business. Not his. She wouldn't let him buy her a dime paper cup of lemonade from a school kid's stand if he asked. Not after that condescending, sidling look he'd shot her way.
Billy Bob Walker slapped the cowboy on the shoulder. "Hey, Jarod, where's Emmett? Just heard this week that you were over there helping him. You should have called us. Why didn't Emmett come with you tonight?"
Daisy moved a few steps closer. With lots of effort she tuned out the noise of the jukebox and forty people talking at once and zeroed in their conversation.
Jarod took a long pull from the Mason jar and said, "I don't think a stick of dynamite could blow his sorry ass off that ranch. Won't do a thing with it, but he's not about to let me do what needs to be done. And he sure won't leave it for five minutes for fear I'll move the damn salt shakers. I've been here six weeks and I'm thinkin' about committing myself to the nearest asylum."
"Since Mavis died he's got worse. I reckon it's that Alzheimer's stuff settin' in," Billy Bob said.
"That's what the doctor says and there's no getting any better. Some days he's barely tolerable. Today is not one of them. He got a burr up his butt this mornin' and the day went from bad to worse. I had to get away or else I was going to give myself a concussion banging my head against the barn door," Jarod said.
"I hear you, man. Got a grampa just like that over at Morgan Mill. Him and Emmett were sawed out of the same old bull hide leather and they ain't neither one ever goin' to change. They used to have coffee over there at the café a couple of times a week and bitch about the young people and their high-powered ideas."
"God save us from anything new. Where's your brothers?" Jarod asked.
Years before, when Aunt Mavis was still living, he'd spent a couple of weeks each summer on the ranch. She'd always invited the Walker triplets over for him to have kids his own age around in those days. Jarod was convinced that if you looked up redneck in the dictionary you'd find the Walker triplets' picture. They were identical with their red hair, freckled faces, and green eyes. He'd loved it when they came to the Double M, but he hadn't had time to g
ive them a call since he'd been back in the area. His uncle had demanded every waking moment and lots that should have been sleeping ones as well.
Billy Bob pointed across the room. "That'd be Jim Bob hugged up to Chigger. He's in love with that woman. One of these days he's goin' to talk her into marryin' him and he'll be one happy fool."
"I took her for a hooker," Jarod said.
"Naw, man. A hooker charges. Chigger ain't never charged a dime. She just likes a good roll in the hay and so does Jim Bob. They'll make a good pair if either one of them ever gets their wild oats sowed and settled down."
"And Joe Bob?" Jarod asked.
"He's shootin' a little pool. Lost twenty dollars last night, but he's already won it back in the couple of hours we been here. Merle stayed home tonight."
Jarod raised a heavy black eyebrow. "Who?"
"Merle Avery. She was one of Ruby's friends, that'd be the woman who built the Honky Tonk and ran it 'til last year when she got killed in a motorcycle wreck. She was seventy and still ridin' a Harley. Anyway, Merle still comes around a couple of times a week to take all Joe Bob's money. She might be past seventy, but she's pure magic with that cue stick. Joe Bob would probably marry her just to learn her tricks," Billy Bob laughed.
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