“Two of sugar and barely white,” Travis said.
Sally fixed it and handed it to Cathy. “Would you please take this over there while I fix Angel’s?”
It was filled to the brim so Cathy had to walk slowly. Travis’s fingertips brushed hers when she handed it to him. She thought she had things under control, but his touch was as hot as the contents of the cup.
Stop it right now, she argued with herself. It ain’t happening. I won’t let it. I’m not trusting a man again after Brad Alton, not even Travis. We are going to be neighbors. He’ll be in the Honky Tonk buying a beer and there will be times when his fingers touch mine. This has got to stop.
She got a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach and got angry because she couldn’t make it disappear.
“Thank you very much,” Travis said. She was one gorgeous woman and she’d be living right next door. But it was only for two months. Nothing could happen in that short length of time.
“You are welcome.” Cathy started back to the loveseat but Angel and Sally were side by side talking about medicinal qualities of green tea.
“Grab a cup of coffee and sit here. Kickoff in thirty seconds. Do you like football?” Travis patted the end of the loveseat.
“I put five on the Cowboys to win by four touchdowns.”
“You are my kind of woman,” Travis said.
She sat down.
Sally handed Cathy a cup of strong black coffee. “I’ll see your five and put five on the other team to whip the Cowboys by two touchdowns.”
“You are speakin’ treason,” Cathy said.
“Oh, I’m a Cowboys fan but I’ve done my homework. They’re goin’ to get their plow cleaned today because they’ve gotten cocky.”
“Everyone and everything in Texas is cocky. Why should they be any different?” Travis said.
“Be careful. You are in a room with a bunch of Texans,” Cathy said.
“Not really. Leroy and Jezzy are both from Oklahoma. Angel and I are from Arkansas. Merle might be the only natural Texan here and she knows she’s cocky.” He locked gazes with Cathy and what fired up between them was hotter than the embers in the fireplace.
“And you’re saying you’re not cocky, with that belt buckle the size of a dinner plate?”
He grinned and touched the buckle. “It does make a statement, doesn’t it? At least I didn’t buy it at a pawn shop. I earned it. Made a little extra money doing some rodeo work when I was in college. Love ranch life. Momma has a horse ranch and raises some cattle on the side. I was more at home in the barn than anyplace else.”
“And now?” Cathy asked.
“Now I’m too busy to rodeo and do much ranchin’, but I miss it. Love the sound and the dirt of the rodeo and the people who go to them. And the peace in a hay barn sometimes calls my name. Ever been to a big rodeo?”
She shook her head.
“Well, someday you’ll have to go.”
“Back to the Cowboys. They’ve gotten cocky and it’s going to cost them, I’m afraid,” Angel said.
Travis grabbed his heart with his free hand. “Oh, no! Was it something in the peas that poisoned you?”
Cathy chanced a sidling look at him. He was funny as well as handsome and he liked the Cowboys, so he wasn’t a total washout. Maybe they could be friends and neighbors. As long as she kept him out of her apartment. He was so damned handsome that having him that close to a bed would be far too much temptation for a lily white angel straight from heaven.
And Cathy O’Dell was not a lily white angel and she’d never had a halo, not even a severely crooked one.
Chapter 3
Cathy put a quarter in the jukebox and Ronnie Milsap was singing “What Goes On When the Sun Goes Down” as Tinker checked IDs and the people came in out of the cold in groups of twos and threes.
“Where’s Angel?” Garrett slung his leather jacket over the back of a bar stool.
“Haven’t seen her yet. Get you a beer?” Cathy asked.
“Bud, pint-sized. She said she’d be here at opening. I thought I was the late one.”
“Maybe she’ll be in later. How’re things out at the ranch?” Cathy asked.
“Things are coming along. Come spring, we’ll be ready to hit the ground running,” he said.
Merle and three truckers came in fussing about the cold weather. Merle shivered and hung her denim duster on a hook beside the cue stick cabinet. “Colder’n a mother-in-law’s kiss out there. Set me and these boys up with a bucket of beers. I’ll buy the first round.”
“Where’s Angel?” Garrett asked.
“Said if you came in tonight to tell you that she’s workin’ late. Bring that beer over here and show me that you’ve been practicin’,” she said.
Disappointment showed in Garrett’s face, but he picked up his beer and followed Merle.
Cathy wondered if the Double M Ranch was one of those lucky love places. Would the next couple to find their soul mates be Garrett and Angel? Her cousin and Jarod, who’d come from Cushing, Oklahoma, to help his Uncle Emmett through the last days of his life had found love out there on the ranch. Now it was happening all over again.
The old jukebox with the forty-five records played music from Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Buck Owens, and Waylon Jennings. Songs were three for a quarter just like it had been back when the jukebox went in the Honky Tonk in the early sixties.
The old songs were like a warm blanket around Cathy’s shoulders on a cold night. They brought back memories of listening to country music cassettes as she and her father worked on an Oldsmobile F85 that she’d used all her carhop money to buy the summer she was sixteen. Melancholy waves washed over Cathy as she drew up a Bud Light for a customer. She made change for a twenty, dropping a quarter and having to touch his hand when she handed it to him. Nothing happened. Not a single spark danced around like they did when her elbow brushed against Travis.
“Bartender looks pretty sad tonight,” the stranger said. His dark hair was feathered back in a cut that probably cost more than she’d make in tips that night. He looked like a cowboy—well, almost. Most real honest-to-God cowboys didn’t wear a diamond set in a wide gold nugget band like the one on his right ring finger. His fingers were long and slim with nails that shined like they’d been buffed. And that ring hadn’t come out of a McDonald’s Happy Meal. She didn’t know a real cowboy in the whole five county area that got manicures.
“Little bit,” she admitted.
“Country music will do that to you,” he said.
“Guess so.”
“How’d a pretty girl like you end up working in a place like this anyway?”
“That is a long story, mister. Where you from?”
“Dallas.”
“What brings you to the Honky Tonk here on a cold night like this?”
“Came to talk to you, Miss O’Dell.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I’ve done my homework. You inherited the Honky Tonk from your cousin a few months ago. It’s a lonely existence. Living in the back of the place. Running it by yourself with only that big bruiser of a man back there to help with the rowdies.” He glanced back at Tinker.
She took a closer look at him. Creases in his jeans weren’t even faded. The fold line across the pocket of the shirt said that he’d just bought it. She leaned over the bar and looked at his feet, not giving a damn if it was rude or not. Not a scuff mark on those new boots. If he was a real cowboy Cathy would do a striptease on the top of the pool table.
The bullshit radar in her head sounded like a tornado siren in her ears.
“Who are you and why are you here? You just get out of prison, or did you suddenly decide that cowboys get all the hot women?” she asked.
He extended his hand across the bar. “Bart White.”
She ignored it. Bart was too damned close to Brad, her abusive ex. Both names reminded her of that bastard.
He slowly laid it down on the bar and went on, “Ever see The Godfath
er?”
She nodded. “You got a dead horse head you’re about to throw up here on my bar?”
“No, but I’ve come to make you an offer you can’t refuse.” He chuckled.
“I doubt that very seriously. Drink your beer and get on down the road, Mr. White. I’m not interested in a damn thing you are selling.”
“I’m not selling, I’m buying.”
Cathy’s face flushed. “On that note, I reckon you’d better just get on out and not bother with the beer. Something tells me you don’t drink beer anyway.”
“You have misunderstood me, Miss O’Dell. I’m not asking to buy your body. I’m here to make you an offer for the Honky Tonk. One that you’d be a downright fool to ignore.”
“Why?”
“Because I want it,” he said.
“It’s not for sale.”
“One million dollars.”
She shook her head. “Guess that makes me a downright fool.”
“One and a quarter million,” he said.
She glared at him. “Get out of my beer joint before I throw you out.”
He eased off the bar stool. “One and a half. Final offer. You’ve got twenty-four hours to think about it.”
“Don’t need twenty-four hours. Don’t need twenty-four seconds. The Tonk is not for sale at any price, Mr. White. Not to you for a million and a half. Not to a beggar off the street for a dollar ninety-nine,” she said.
“Mr. Radner will be disappointed,” Bart White said.
Cathy shook her fist at Bart. “You tell Hayes Radner that the Tonk will never be his. I don’t care if he buys up the whole state. This is my place and it’s not up for grabs. Right now, I’d burn it down before I sold it to him.”
Tinker looked her way.
She shook her head and he settled back into his chair.
“Mr. Radner gets what he wants, one way or the other. He wanted to start with the Honky Tonk. You will sell to him someday, lady, because there won’t be anyone left to support the place. The rest of the area will be an amusement park. Only by then the price will be so low you’ll feel like you’re selling to that beggar off the street,” Bart said.
“Hayes Radner can take his money and his highfalutin’ ideas and go to hell with them,” Cathy raised her voice.
Bart White gave her a knowing smile and meandered across the floor, walking as if the new boots hurt his feet. Cathy hoped they rubbed blisters the size of half-dollars on his heels and he had to wear his house shoes to work the next morning. What on earth was he thinking? That she’d jump at the chance to sell the Tonk if he was dressed up like a cowboy? Well, he’d better butt his head up against a brick wall and get that shit out of his head.
Merle popped up on the bar stool Bart had occupied and asked, “Did that drugstore cowboy ever touch this beer?”
“No, he did not. How’d you know he wasn’t the real thing?”
“He walked like he had a corncob stuck up his ass when he came in here. It was the boots. If a man don’t grow up walkin’ in them, they have trouble. Listen to the Hag singing ‘Everybody’s Had the Blues.’ I do believe he’s talkin’ about Garrett and Angel. She’s workin’ and he’s got the blues tonight.”
Cathy leaned on the bar. “So you like the old Hag, do you?”
Merle shook her head. “I don’t like him. I love him. Lord that man could have parked his cowboy boots up under my bed any night of the week.” Merle picked up the beer and tossed back half of it before coming up for air. “Little flat but it’s wet.”
“Garrett seems plumb smitten by Angel,” Cathy said.
“He ought to be. She’s smart, funny, cute, and can whip his ass in pool. What’d that fake cowboy want anyway?”
“To snooker me. My bet is he’s some kind of fancy-ass lawyer and he thought he’d get on my good side by showing up looking like that. Hayes Radner sent him to buy the Honky Tonk from me. Crazy men ain’t got any brains at all if they think I’ll sell my home to them,” Cathy fumed.
Merle picked up the beer and gulped down another inch before she came up for air. “Garrett just beat me fair and square. I swear I’m losing it, Cathy.”
“It’s probably the weather. Brings out idiots and lets amateurs win. Betcha there’s a full moon out there.”
“Wouldn’t know. Can’t see a damn thing for the clouds,” Merle said.
“What’s Angel working on tonight?” Cathy changed the subject. Merle only lost once in every sixth blue moon, but when she did it was because she let her opponent win so he or she would keep playing. Not often did someone really beat her, and when they did she pouted like a two-year-old who wanted chocolate candy five minutes before supper.
Merle sighed. “They are out there in that trailer talking about shale samples and how far to drill before they give up and all those important things. They’re going to bring in the drilling crew for Jezzy’s land next week. Looks to me like come five o’clock they could put it all away and forget it, but oh, no! They’ve got to hash and rehash the whole thing a hundred times. She should be out here playin’ a game or two with me, sucking down a few beers to loosen up, and maybe even seducing Garrett so he’ll have his mind on sex rather than pool,” Merle fussed.
“So she and Travis are cousins, are they?” Cathy asked.
“That’s right, but best friends too. She’s always looked up to him like an older brother. Probably because his younger sister, Emma, was her best friend almost from birth. Most kids’ first words are momma or daddy. Hers was Travis and she said it right plain. He’s six years older than her and they’ve talked science since she spit out her first words. I’d never seen the boy until he showed up on New Year’s Eve. It’s a good thing they are cousins or I’d tell Angel to go after him. They’ve got everything in common,” Merle said.
Cathy rounded the end of the bar and claimed a stool next to Merle. “So how’d they wind up here together?”
Merle downed an inch of beer, wiped her mouth with her hand, and said, “Travis has been workin’ for Amos for several years. And I said something to Amos about Angel being at the top of her college graduating class. Guess Travis put in a word for her too. And here they are. They always were interested in the same things. I always figured she’d end up with a rich oil man. Someone like Amos in his younger days. Don’t see what that rancher has to offer, but she’s free and over twenty-one and I damn sure can’t talk sense to her. I’m going home before the roads get so slick I wind up in a ditch.”
Cathy gave her a loose hug. “Drive careful and if you get in trouble, call me. I’ll send Tinker to haul you out of the ditch.”
“I appreciate it,” Merle said. She stopped in the middle of the floor and wrapped her arms around Clark, a middle-aged truck driver who’d recently made the Honky Tonk his Monday night rest stop. The two of them waltzed through “Walk Me to the Door” by Conway Twitty before she left.
Cathy remembered when Buddy and Mac were the regular truck drivers on Monday night. Then Mac finally let his wife talk him into taking a day job as a dispatcher for a trucking company. And Buddy started driving the mail route between Oklahoma City and Dallas. Cathy missed them but not as much as Chigger and the Walker triplets. At least she still had Merle and Amos and her new friends Jezzy, Leroy, and Sally and now Garrett and Angel. She had no doubt that she’d see many customer changes if she stuck around as long as Daisy had.
At midnight a soft drizzle was turning everything that wasn’t moving to ice. Most folks either wanted to get back out on the interstate or else to the safety and warmth of their homes. Not one person was left in the beer joint, so Tinker slipped his arms into his worn leather coat, unplugged the jukebox, and put his cooler on the bar.
“Stay in the Honky Tonk. You’ll freeze,” Cathy said.
“Naw, I’ll just get onto my fire and stoke it up.” Tinker smiled.
“I’ll give you my bed and sleep on the sofa. I’m afraid for you to ride that cycle on the ice,” she said.
“Don’t you worry
about old Tinker. I could drive that cycle through an iceberg or hell, whichever one was between me and my own pillow. Thanks for the offer.” He pulled a ski mask down over his shaven head and disappeared out into the dreary night.
Cathy wasn’t tired enough to prop her feet on a table and have a cold beer. She went back to her apartment where she took a warm shower, dressed for bed in an oversized sweatshirt and flannel pajama bottoms, and cuddled up with a frayed quilt and pillow on the sofa. She picked up the remote control and found the channel that played old movies all night and settled in to watch Steel Magnolias.
* * *
“Back out easy and don’t hit the brake if you start to slide,” Travis warned when he helped Angel into her coat. “And call me when you are safe at home.”
“I’ve driven on black ice before. Stop treating me like a kid.”
“Just be careful,” Travis said.
“I’ll call.”
He watched from one of the three oblong windows in the trailer door until the taillights of her small truck disappeared around the corner. Then his gaze went to the yellow glow from Cathy’s living room window. The Honky Tonk was dark. The driveway empty. He checked the clock. It was only twelve thirty. Evidently the bad weather sent everyone home early.
A shadow moved across the window and he stepped back quickly as if she could see him staring across the distance into her private quarters. When he peeked out again the shadow was gone. He stood there for a long time wondering who Cathy really was. In the Honky Tonk she was a crackerjack bartender. After the New Year’s Day dinner at Jezzy’s place she was a loud cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys. And she whooped, hollered, and danced around when she won the pot in the middle of the coffee table. But what did she do when the Honky Tonk closed and she went home? Was she really alone or was that shadow he saw a man? Was that the reason she was so pissy about the kiss—she had a boyfriend?
He finally left the window and went to the bathroom where he took a warm shower, then changed into a pair of dark blue flannel pajama bottoms and a red thermal knit shirt.
He’d been in the trailer a week but everything was still strange, from the bed to the position of the light switch. By the time two months had passed he’d be able to maneuver in the dark and then it would be time to get used to a new place. He turned on a lamp beside his queen-sized bed and snuggled under a thick dark brown down-filled comforter. It went with him on every job and had covered up more beds than he could count in the six years since he’d started working in the oil fields. It had been from Alaska to the tip of Maine, made a swing through Nebraska and back to Oklahoma before settling down this time in Texas.
Hell, Yeah Page 5