I Love This Bar

by Carolyn Brown

  She set her plate on the coffee table and sat down cross-legged in front of it. "I'd like to explain about this morning, but you're going to think I'm crazy."

  He sat across from her. "Explain away."

  Daisy took a deep breath. "This is going to sound like I'm trying to justify a bad mood and I'm not really sure how to put it. But I hate all this clutter. I feel like I'm being smothered to death and I didn't even realize it until Chigger pointed it out."

  "Chigger always going to have to point it out when you are bitchy?"

  She cut her blue eyes around at him. "I admit it. I'm so sorry for the way I behaved. It was mean and bitchy and just plain ugly. I felt like all the junk in this house was closing in on me. And then there you were all happy because I'm your girlfriend, as you put it, with your arm around me and it felt like you were closing in on me too. Everything in the place was sucking the life out of me. The evil eyes of those animals damned me. You were all possessive. You want to end our committed relationship because I was bitchy one time, then evidently I was wrong about you anyway."

  "I don't want to end it. I want to work through it. You never acted like that before," Jarod said, the ice crystals melting from the words.

  Daisy went on. "And I will never act that way again because I've worried all morning that you would take it just the way you did and it wasn't a good feeling. I would have hated for you to have treated me like that in front of your friends and family. I'm truly sorry. Please, please forgive me," she said as she locked gazes with him across the table.

  He touched her hand. "Forgiven." Daisy was different. When she was wrong she apologized. She hadn't let it fester for days but had cornered him as soon as he was back in the house, and he had a very good feeling that she'd never bring it up again. Yes, sir, his Daisy was honest and he believed her when she said it wouldn't happen again.

  "Just like that?" she asked.

  "Just like that. Forgiven and forgotten."

  "You are a good man, Jarod." I love you. I really do but I can't say the words. Please don't give up on me. I'll be able to say them someday.

  "You keep right on thinking that. I've got a confession. All this junk drives me crazy, too. I hate to be in the house with it. Garrett says the night he spent here when Emmett died was like a horror movie. He said their eyes watched him every time he moved. He's planning on making a bonfire out of it all."

  "Chigger says we can box it all up and take it to her mother's church. They give away stuff to folks who need it."

  "Bless her heart. Garrett will pay you all to take care of it."

  "No payment necessary. Can we make up now?" Her eyes twinkled.

  He leaned across the table and brushed a quick kiss across her lips. "Don't do that again. I'll meet you halfway. Hell, I'll even meet you three quarters. But I can't read your mind. Makeup will have to wait. Remember Garrett, Livvy, and Ben are all moving in today. Garrett is taking your old room. Livvy and Ben will take the other one until their trailer is hooked up. We will have to put makeup on the back burner but I guarantee it will be worth it when we get around to it."

  She moved around the table to sit close enough that their hips and shoulders touched. "Why didn't you tell me that last night?"

  Joe Bob eased open the door and peeked in. "Mind if I join you? Tables are full in the backyard and besides, I want to talk to Jarod about this Sunday thing. Lord, can you just see me acting all lovey-dovey with Cathy? She's liable to slap my face."

  "What Sunday thing?" Jarod asked.

  Joe Bob frowned. "You didn't tell him, Daisy? I'll eat on the front porch. I just figured you could give me some advice since you played like you were married to Daisy." He left without shutting the door.

  "Explain please," Jarod said.

  "It's like this. Chigger figured out that I had hot flashes the first time I laid eyes on you. Don't look at me with that grin. It's hard enough for me to admit all this but I'll be damned if I ever keep a single thing from you again," she said and went on to tell him the whole story.

  It started as a mild chuckle and wound up a loud guffaw that had him reaching in the pocket of his bibbed overalls for a red bandanna to wipe at his eyes. "So we get to be married again on Sunday?"

  "Married twice. They say the third is the charm. We'll have to be very careful," she giggled.

  The laughter stopped when he tipped back her face and his gray eyes locked with her dark blue ones. He bent and she stretched. Their lips met in a long drawn out kiss that left them both aching.

  "I'm going to get hot flashes thinking about you," she said.

  He kissed her forehead. "Good. I hope you have to take a cold shower just like I will. I'm going now before I carry you off to a hay loft and put a 'do not disturb' sign on the door. Give us thirty minutes and then come on out to the corral. Keys to my truck are on the top of the refrigerator. Bring it. That rutted path out there will rattle your cute little car to death."

  "Thanks for the truck but I'd rather go to the hay loft," she said.

  He laughed softly. "Me too, darlin'."

  Cathy poked her head into the living room after Jarod left. "I see what you mean about stuff. It's everywhere. The longer I'm here the more I see. How on earth did anyone collect so much in just one lifetime? Looks to me like it would take three lifetimes to get this much gathered up."

  Daisy motioned her on into the room. "It could have taken three lifetimes. There's probably stuff here from Mavis' parents and maybe even from Emmett's. But Jarod said Garrett would be very thankful to have it out of here."

  Cathy plopped down on the sofa and leaned her head back. "It's been a morning and I'm tired but Chigger and I will get started once we put the leftovers away. I don't have to be home until six. It'll take you that long to get your outside jobs done anyway. Y'all get that tiff straightened out? We heard a lot of giggling going on in here. I don't suppose you did anything hinky though. Never known a man to like a woman to giggle while he's putting the make on her."

  "Yes, we did get it straightened out. Now about this mess we've got to clean up. Got any ideas?" Daisy was getting damn good at changing the subject away from her and Jarod.

  Cathy shrugged. "Don't worry about it. Me and Chigger can take care of it today while you are outside. I can't believe I'm supposed to be hankering after Joe Bob Walker on Sunday. He's been avoiding me like the plague. How are we supposed to convince Momma Jones that we are an item if he's afraid to be in the same room with me?"

  "We convinced her that Jim Bob was as shy as Willa Mae," Daisy said.

  "Who in the hell is Willa Mae? Oh, that's Chigger. Well, neither she nor Jim Bob have a shy bone. I'll never keep all the secrets and family ties straight."

  "I still have a hard time of it too," Daisy said.

  "But you've had seven years to get used to it. I wish I'd have come down here when you first went to work at the Honky Tonk. I thought you were crazy for working in a beer joint in some podunk place even smaller than Mena, Arkansas."

  "I loved it from day one. What am I going to do about Jarod?"

  "That's your decision. He's in love with you."

  "Don't say that. I don't want to hear it right now."

  "Not saying it doesn't make it go away. Enough talk. Time to get on with the packing. When we finish this horrible job we're driving to Abilene in my Caddy and I'm going shopping for new jeans. Chigger is going too, and she says she hopes maternity jeans don't make her look like a clown."

  "Do you think Victoria's Secret makes sexy maternity clothes? I can't see Chigger in plain old plaid shirts and jeans. Keep that in mind while I go help Jarod take care of the cattle," Daisy said.

  She found him at the corral where they had the rest of Emmett's herd penned up and waiting for her to pass judgment.

  "Hey, sweetheart, I thought I was going to have to come back to the house and wrestle you away from Chigger and Cathy." Jarod met her halfway between the car and the corral and slung an arm around her shoulder.

  "Those
two broads couldn't keep me away from you," she teased.

  A smile turned the corners of his mouth up. Life was good.

  "Run the first one in the chute," she said.

  "All business and no love," he asked.

  She stopped dead in her tracks and wrapped her arms around his neck, grabbing a fist full of dark hair and dragging his mouth down to hers for a hard kiss right there in front of the hired hands, his nephew, and even God.

  "You decide which one," she whispered seductively in his ear when the kiss ended and he still held on to her in a tight hug.

  He laughed in amongst the whistles and shouts of all the men around them. "Guess it'd better be business with an audience like this."

  His Daisy would show them that she was a smart vet as well as his woman. His heart swelled with pride as he carried her black bag to the corral. How on earth he could have ever thought it was a tackle box was a mystery.

  "This heifer is good stock but God only knows what she's bred to. Emmett had everything from Limousin to Angus on the ranch. There at the end he wasn't culling anything. I'd sell her at the sale if you want to keep pure Angus on the Double M," she said.

  "Put her in the trailer to take back to Oklahoma for the sale," Garrett told the men.

  "That bull calf has a lot of potential, don't you think, Jarod?" she asked when they ran the next animal into the chute.

  "I do. He's a big old boy for his age. I vote we keep him," Jarod answered.

  The third one was a yearling, definitely mixed blood even if it was a healthy calf.

  "To the sale barn," Jarod said.

  "I agree," Daisy told him.

  "Hey, you two, we got a problem down by those trees. There's a heifer down having a hell of a time delivering. She's one of the Angus that we brought down from Oklahoma. If we'd known she was this close to calvin' we'd have left her up there," Rudy said.

  "Let's go," Daisy picked up her bag.

  Jarod grabbed her hand and they jogged to the spot where the cow was lying on her side and heaving with every contraction. Daisy dropped to her knees, opened her bag, and pulled out a stethoscope. She laid it on the cow in several different places before she looked up at Jarod.

  "Calf has a strong heartbeat so it's still alive. Let's see if it's too big or breach or what the problem is. Here, you keep a monitor on the heartbeat and I'll check out the calf. Tell me if the heartbeat gets faster or slows down." She moved to the back end of the heifer, rolled up her sleeves, and shoved her arm up into the cow's uterus halfway from elbow to armpit. Jarod listened to the calf and watched Daisy.

  "Good lookin' stock Garrett has," she said. "This heifer is in great shape. This is just her first baby and she doesn't know what to do."

  "I'd have thought nature would take care of that," he said.

  "Not always. Sometimes they get scared. It's not breach but it's got one big head. Tell me when the next contraction is and I'll pull," she said.

  "Right now," he said. He'd pulled dozens of calves himself but sitting there with Daisy helping him felt so right and so perfect.

  She pulled hard and felt the calf move several inches.

  "Again," she said.

  He waited a minute and said, "Now."

  She pulled again and two hooves popped out. She was able to get a better hold at that time and waited until the cow contracted again before she gave a hard tug. The black calf came out in a whoosh, spurting fluids all over Daisy. She jerked her overshirt off and wiped the calf's nose.

  "Breathe, you lazy boy. Your momma didn't work all day for you to die now," Daisy said.

  Jarod bit back a chuckle. She didn't care that she was covered in gunk—she didn't even know it. All she saw was a newborn calf. In that moment Jarod loved her more than ever before.

  The calf sucked up air and let out a whimper.

  She shouted, "Look, darlin', he's alive! He's a fine bull calf."

  The heifer slowly got to her feet and began to lick the new baby while Jarod and Daisy stood to one side and watched. His arm was tightly around her shoulders. Her fingers were hooked in one of his back belt loops.

  "We did good," she said.

  "We sure did," he agreed.

  ***

  It took every bit of ten days but on the Sunday of Chigger's family dinner and wedding reception combination the house was cleaned out. The old furniture took on a new look without all the stuff shoved in every spare square inch. The walls were a mess with all the nail holes. The carpet was a sight with dark places where the extra tables had kept the light from fading the color. But the next week a crew was scheduled to patch and paint one day. On the next day the carpet layers would arrive.

  Jarod awoke on Sunday morning knowing that his job was finished. It was time to go home. An empty hole was in the middle of his heart and the only one who could fill it was Daisy. He had less than a week to convince her that her place was with him permanently.

  He pulled a pair of creased jeans from the closet and laid them across the chair in his empty bedroom. Today he would be Daisy's husband. Their children, two little girls, had gone for a play day with their church Sunday school class or they would have brought them along. That was the story line or was it the story lie?

  He grinned.

  What would it be like to share two little girls with Daisy? Would they have his black hair and her dark blue eyes? Would they be as sassy as she was or as bullheaded as him? It didn't matter to Jarod as long as Daisy was their mother.

  ***

  Daisy found Cathy already up and at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee in front of her. "Good morning, Joe Bob's girlfriend. What did you teach in Sunday school this morning?" She poured herself a cup and grabbed a package of toaster pastries out of the box.

  "I taught your two little girls, Janene and Julianna, the story of Jonah and the whale. It's kind of like the story of you and Jarod. Jonah is symbolic of the love you share, only it's been swallowed up by this big whale called fear who refuses to spit it out until you own up to the fact that you really are in love."

  "That's enough!" Daisy pointed at Cathy.

  "Okay, okay. Then I'll tell you about your sweet little girls. It is so cute the way you gave them J names like their father," Cathy smarted off.

  Daisy's eyes twinkled. "Janene and Julianna. I'll tell Jarod so we can pass it on to Momma Jones. But if you ever think I'll name my daughters such names you are crazy."

  "You won't have girls. You'll have a whole yard full of mean boys. Chigger's going to have girls," Cathy said.

  "That written in stone or is there some wiggle room?"

  It was Cathy's turn to laugh. "I'm just jealous. You get to have a handsome hunk husband all day and all I get is a red-haired boyfriend."

  "What's the matter with Joe Bob?"

  "Two things. I've never been attracted to red-haired men. Not after Bubba McMann spit chocolate on my shirt and told me it was tobacco when I was in the first grade."

  "What's the second thing?"

  "I'm not so good at pool. He'd never stay with a woman who couldn't challenge him on the tables."

  "Guess that's enough to keep a relationship from working. You'd best get to primping though. Oh, did I tell you that Chigger invited her brothers and their wives to the shindig too?"

  Cathy groaned.

  Chapter 18

  Jarod arrived in his Saturday night Honky Tonk clothes: creased jeans, boots, and a plaid Western shirt. "Is my wife and Joe Bob's girlfriend ready for the party?" he asked when Cathy answered the door.

  "Daisy, your husband is here," Cathy yelled over her shoulder.

  Jarod met her in the middle of the living room floor, tipped her chin up with his fist, and kissed her hard.

  "I missed you so much," he said.

  "Me too," she whispered.

  "Ahem!" Cathy cleared her throat.

  "I wouldn't care if God was standing where you are, Cathy," Jarod said.

  "But you have seen each other every day. Most of the time you'
ve spent every minute together," Cathy said.

  "We saw each other and we haven't had a spare minute to be alone." Jarod held the door for them and then helped them into the truck.

  "Aha, not only a husband but a gentleman and no one is even looking," Cathy said.

  "A man has to be good to his wife and cousin-in-law or they'll leave him high and dry. Old Joe Bob has to be good or else his girlfriend won't give him a good night kiss. Me, I've got to worry about alimony and child support." He shut the doors and whistled as he rounded the truck and strapped himself into the seat.