He gave her a crooked grin. “I’m moving to the bunkhouse.”
7
“TARNATION, boy, don’t they feed you in New York City?” Fred stared at Quinn as he served himself a second helping of biscuits and gravy.
“Not like this.” Quinn dove in while Emmy Lou beamed. He’d never been a breakfast eater in New York. Coffee and toast did the trick. But he wasn’t in New York anymore, and he polished off enough bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy to make him embarrassed, except that everyone else ate almost as much. None of the people sitting around the table was plump except Emmy Lou, and on her it looked nice.
Nobody was rude enough to mention the ice pack Quinn had positioned against his crotch. Emmy Lou had noticed the way he was walking and had suggested it. After a few minutes the ache had gone away and he just felt numb down there, which was probably a good thing considering the direction his thoughts took every time he glanced across the table at Jo.
The topic of conversation turned to Quinn’s impending move to the bunkhouse. Jo didn’t say much, just got pinker and pinker as the discussion continued. Her hair was damp from her shower, and she wore no makeup. Quinn had always loved the stage in a relationship when a woman became comfortable enough to appear in front of him fresh from the shower without doing her hair or putting on makeup.
Of course this didn’t count as a stage, because he wasn’t involved with Jo. Wouldn’t be involved with Jo. Dammit. Maybe he should strap an ice pack permanently to his crotch.
“People will think it’s terrible if we make Brian Hastings sleep in the bunkhouse,” Emmy Lou said. “I think you should stay up at the house, Quinn. The bunkhouse is grungy.”
“No, it ain’t!” Fred said. “Just because I won’t let you clean it every five minutes and put doilies around on whatever don’t move, you—”
“It’s a pit,” Emmy Lou said to Quinn with a smile.
“Fred and Benny act like it’s their clubhouse or something. All I did was try to vacuum one day and rearrange a few things, and you’d think I’d burned the place to the ground.”
“You Hoovered the ace of clubs out of my lucky deck of cards, woman!”
Emmy Lou leaned over and patted Quinn’s hand. “Stay up at the house. Don’t you agree he should, Jo?”
“Well, I—”
“Emmy Lou,” Fred said, pointing at her. “Don’t be forgetting that Jo’s a divorcée.”
“So what?” Emmy Lou said.
Fred acted as if he were explaining a simple fact to a three-year-old. “People think a certain way about divorcées. They’ll think there’s hanky-panky going on between him and Jo if he sleeps in the house.”
And they would be right, Quinn thought. But it had nothing to do with her being divorced. Jo would tempt him single, divorced, even virginal.
“That might be the way your mind works, Fred,” Emmy Lou said. “But everybody doesn’t automatically think like that.”
“Wanna bet?” Fred pointed at Emmy Lou. “Try hanging out in the Lazy Bones Saloon sometime.”
Emmy Lou glared at him. “I’ve been meaning to try that. But first you’d better teach me how to chew and spit. Honestly, Fred. As if I care about what a bunch of old booz—”
“Watch yourself, woman,” Fred said.
Benny’s eyes widened. “You’re gonna learn to chew and spit, Emmy Lou?”
“Not really, Benny.” Emmy Lou smiled at him. “I think it’s a perfectly disgusting habit, don’t you?”
Benny glanced uncertainly from Fred’s scowl to Emmy Lou’s smile. “I think…I want some more biscuits.”
“Well done, Benny,” Jo said. “It doesn’t pay to get in the middle of a lovers’ quarrel, you know.” Then she looked stricken. “Oops. I didn’t mean to say that. I really didn’t. Must be the stress getting to me. I’m sorry.”
Quinn stopped chewing as silence descended over the table. He looked at Jo, who sat gazing anxiously at Fred and Emmy Lou. Then he glanced at Fred, who had a murderous gleam in his eye, and Emmy Lou, who had turned the color of the tomatoes ripening on the windowsill.
Finally Emmy Lou cleared her throat. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Josephine.” She stood and started collecting dishes. “I wouldn’t take up with that old goat for all the tea in Japan.”
“It’s China!” Fred muttered. “And that goes double for me.” He pulled his napkin from where he’d tucked it into his shirt and tossed it on the table. “I got chores to do.”
“You don’t have to hide it!” Jo cried. “I didn’t mean to spill the beans and embarrass you both, but I think it’s wonderful if you two have something going!”
“Me, too!” Benny said. “What do they have going, Jo?”
“Not a dad-blasted thing,” Fred said. He started out of the kitchen just as the doorbell rang. “I’ll get that.”
Jo walked to the sink and put her arm around Emmy Lou. “Em, I’m sorry. I didn’t even figure it out until this morning, and then—damn, I just opened my mouth and out it came.”
Emmy Lou squirted a large stream of dishwashing liquid in the sink and turned the faucet on full blast, creating mounds of foam. Then she began washing furiously. “If that man said anything to you I’m going to hang him by his…thumbs.”
“No! It was just the way he made a certain comment, and I asked if you two were sweethearts, and he got all red, like you’re doing now. Em, you and Fred are like parents to me. This feels perfect, the two of you in love.”
In her agitation Emmy Lou slopped water and soapsuds on the floor. “Who said anything about love?”
“It’s perfectly obvious, the way you two fight, that you’re in love.”
Quinn sipped his coffee and watched in fascination. For so many years he’d lived by himself in Manhattan. Sure, he had buddies, and twice he’d had a live-in girlfriend for a few months, but aside from occasional trips to Murray’s house, he hadn’t been in a family setting in a long time. That’s what this morning felt like, and he was loving the hell out of it.
Fred appeared in the kitchen doorway. “It’s that fool Doobie and his scrawny wife, Eloise. I parked them in the living room. I imagine they want to get a look at Brian Hastings.”
Quinn tensed. Last night’s performance with Dick had been a reflex action, and Dick hadn’t been inclined to be skeptical. Quinn remembered that Doobie was president of the local bank. In his experience, bankers were born skeptics. He glanced at Jo.
“It’s up to you,” she said. “You don’t have to see them. In fact, you don’t have to see anybody. You can be as reclusive as you want.”
“Yeah, but this is your banker. I’m supposed to offer him a part in the movie, remember?”
“You don’t have to.” Ever since they’d squirmed together in the mud this morning she’d had a captivating shyness in her eyes whenever she looked at him.
Quinn smiled at her. Hell, didn’t she know he’d do just about anything for her? Only a guy who was wrapped around a woman’s little finger would voluntarily suggest that he move to the bunkhouse after she’d announced that they shouldn’t become sexually involved.
“I’m sure we can find a part for him somewhere,” he said. He’d never wished that he could be Brian Hastings, but at the moment he almost wanted to be, just so he’d have the power to shoot a movie here and help her cause. He set down his mug and pushed back his chair. “Come and introduce me.” He stood up, and the ice pack dropped to the floor.
Jo blushed as she glanced at the ice pack and at his crotch. “Um, are you better?”
Quinn leaned down and picked up the ice pack. “Good as new.”
“I’m glad. I mean, that’s good. I mean…”
Fred coughed. “Maybe you should drop that particular topic, Jo.”
“Good idea.” Jo swallowed. “Come on, Quinn. Let’s go meet my banker.”
“I’ll come in with some coffee and arsenic in a little bit.” Emmy Lou continued washing dishes without turning.
Fred snorted with la
ughter. Then he snuck a look at Emmy Lou and glanced quickly away again. “Benny, you and me got stuff to do. Let’s get a move on.”
Emmy Lou kept her back to Fred while she washed and rinsed dishes with a vengeance. “I was hoping you men would clear out of my kitchen and let me get my pot roast in the oven,” she said. “Can’t accomplish a dad-blasted thing when you’re underfoot.”
Jo winked at Quinn.
He winked back and followed her out of the kitchen. “How long do you think it’s been going on?” he said in a low voice.
“Probably years. I was just too wrapped up in my own problems to notice, but when Fred started talking this morning I got this flash, and all sorts of things began to click in my brain.” She walked into the living room, where a skinny man and his wife sat on a worn leather sofa. “Mr. and Mrs. Doobie! May I introduce you to Brian Hastings?”
Doobie popped up from the sofa and came forward, hand outstretched, but Mrs. Doobie looked as if she might pass out.
Her mouth opened and closed several times, but she made no sound.
“Mr. Hastings,” Doobie said in an unfortunately high voice. The few strands of long hair he’d combed over his bald head quivered as he pumped Quinn’s hand vigorously.
“This is quite an honor.”
Definitely not a speaking part, Quinn thought. “I feel lucky to be here,” he said. “This is the perfect location to film The Brunette Wore Spurs.” Yeah, that was a good title. Amazing what he could come up with on short notice.
Jo stared at him in astonishment. “That’s a working title, right?” She gave him a slight nudge with her foot.
“Guess so. Works for me.”
“It sounds a little like a film that would be in the adult section at the video store.” Jo chuckled and nudged Quinn again. “But, as we all know, film titles get changed all the time.”
“They do?” Quinn had never thought about that. “I mean, yes, they certainly do. Why, Julia told me—you all know Julia Roberts, right?”
Jo looked wary, but Doobie and his wife nodded enthusiastically.
“Well, Julia told me that Pretty Woman was almost called Pretty Prostitute. And the other day I was talking to Bob Redford, and he said that—”
“Coffee!” Emmy Lou announced. “Hello there, Doobies! So good to see you up so bright and early this morning. What do you think of our celebrity guest, Eloise?”
Eloise licked her thin lips and twisted her hands in her lap. “Mr. Hastings, was that really your fanny in that nude scene?”
“Eloise!” Doobie blanched.
Quinn gulped. He hadn’t seen a Brian Hastings movie in years. He didn’t know the guy had shot a nude-fanny scene. He wished he had known before he’d agreed to impersonate the guy.
“Of course it was him.” Emmy Lou calmly poured coffee from a silver urn into a china teacup. “You think anyone else would have a tush that cute? Here you go, Eloise. Sugar and cream’s on the coffee table there.”
“I’ve always wondered,” Eloise said. She took the coffee but continued to stare at Quinn as if she might ask him to strip down and prove it was his fanny in the scene. “The lighting wasn’t very good. You were mostly in shadows.”
Thank God, Quinn thought. Even though he hadn’t been the one naked in front of the cameras and half the free world, he was pretending to be that guy. He hoped there had been lots of shadow.
Doobie turned to his wife. His face had gone from pale to quite pink. “You told me you closed your eyes at that part.”
“I lied, Cuthbert.”
“You know I don’t approve of a married woman seeing another man’s naked…parts.”
Eloise sat up straighter. “And I’ve obeyed you all the years of our marriage, until I found out there would be a nude scene in Rogue’s Reward. When we saw it at the Lyric Theater I closed my eyes to please you, but I left them open a little slit, like this.” She demonstrated her peeking technique. “Then I bought the video,” she added bravely.
“And watched that scene again without me?” Doobie looked scandalized. “Eloise, how could you?”
“Brian Hastings is the only man who could tempt me to break my vow to you, Cuthbert.” Eloise gazed adoringly at Quinn. “Two hundred and six times.”
Doobie made a little choking sound.
“Well, that certainly must be a record!” Jo said brightly.
“I don’t know how many people watch the same movie two hundred and six times. You should be very flattered, Brian.”
“Oh, I didn’t watch the whole movie.” Eloise took a dainty sip of her coffee. “Only the nude-fanny scene. I keep the tape permanently rewound to that section.”
Quinn couldn’t look at Doobie. The poor little man seemed about to have a fit, and Quinn couldn’t say he blamed him. He wouldn’t be too happy to discover such a fact about his wife, if he had one. He glanced at Jo. “What did you think of that scene?”
“It was pretty hot, Brian. Some of your better work.” She looked as if she might burst out laughing any minute.
He didn’t think it was so damn funny, and he didn’t much like the idea that she’d been drooling over Hastings’ butt, too. “Did you buy the video?”
She pressed her lips together, as if that was the only way she could keep from laughing. She shook her head.
“I did,” Emmy Lou said. “And since you never watch your own movies, you might like to take a look sometime.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’d like to see that, uh, scene.”
“It’s wonderful,” Eloise said with a sigh. “All the girls think so.”
“Girls?” Doobie squeaked. “What girls?”
“The Ugly Bug Garden Club. We always close the meeting with a showing of that scene.”
“Oh, my God,” Doobie wailed. “My wife’s peddling porn in the sanctity of our home.”
“Get a grip, Cuthbert,” Emmy Lou said. “It’s one scene, for crying out loud. And it’s not pornography, it’s art.”
“We’re all hoping you’ll do another,” Eloise said to Quinn. “Any chance of that in The Brunette Wore Spurs?”
“No.”
“That’s too bad.” Eloise set down her cup and saucer. “Mr. Hastings, the ladies of the garden club would consider it a great honor if you would—”
“What?” Quinn wasn’t aware he’d backed up until he bumped into a leather wing chair in the corner of the room.
“—speak to our group,” Eloise said. “Goodness, what did you think I was going to ask?”
“Uh, nothing.” Quinn cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “I’d love to do that, of course.” Not. He couldn’t imagine speaking to a bunch of women who ended every meeting ogling his bare butt. Or Hastings’ bare butt, which nearly amounted to the same thing. “But I’ll be pretty busy investigating the area and figuring out…” He racked his brain for what a filmmaker might need to know about a location. “I have to decide where we can plug in our lights.”
Jo turned to him with a puzzled expression.
But he’d hit upon a way to work in something he knew about, which was home improvement, and he decided to go with it. “Yep, electricity’s a big concern with these things. I look around at Jo’s ranch, and I like what I see, but I have to ask myself, are there enough outlets? When you’re filming, you can never have too many outlets.”
“Or generators,” Jo said, rolling her eyes.
“Well, there’s that option, too,” Quinn said casually.
“Personally I like lots of outlets.”
“So I guess the Brian Hastings town festival is out of the question,” Doobie said, sounding relieved.
Jo turned to Doobie. “What Brian Hastings town festival?”
“Dick Cassidy brought it up last night when he was buying rounds of drinks at the Ugly Bug Saloon. I guess he’s pretty set up about getting a part in the movie. Word got back to the town council, and the mayor asked me to come out this morning and ask about it, considering that I have a close relationship with Jo, here.”
“Do you?” Quinn asked. From what he’d heard, Doobie could hardly wait to foreclose on the Bar None.
“Absolutely.” Doobie smiled at Jo. “She’s like the daughter I never had.”
Eloise bounced out of her seat. “Cuthbert Doobie, you have a daughter, and she’s given you nine lovely grandchildren. It’s not her fault that none of her husbands have been able to hold a job.”
Quinn decided it was time to stroke old Cuthbert’s ego. “I’ve been thinking about something ever since I walked in here.” He pointed a finger at the skinny banker. “You’re the perfect Pierre.”
Doobie blinked. “Pierre?”
“A French character in the movie. You have that same worldly look, that same sophistication.”
Doobie preened. “Maybe so, but I don’t speak French.”
“No problem. It’s not a speaking role.”
“Then how do we know that he’s sophisticated and worldly if he never says anything?”
“Trust me. The minute you walk in front of the camera, everyone will know the kind of person you are.”
Doobie nodded and looked wise. “I see your point. Then certainly, I’ll do it. How about a dance?”
Quinn’s jaw dropped. “You want to dance with me, Cuthbert?”
“No, no.” Doobie laughed, and his dentures slipped a little. “I meant we could have a dance, just a simple dance on Saturday night, instead of the town festival. Or say, even better, a small rodeo in the afternoon, followed by the dance. If you could possibly see your way clear to participate, the people of Ugly Bug would be very appreciative.”
Quinn glanced at Jo, and she shrugged, letting him know it was up to him. A dance sounded relatively harmless. He was a decent dancer. But a rodeo would expose him as a fraud, for sure. “You don’t want me to perform in the rodeo,” he said. “The liability, you know. If I got hurt, the resulting suit would bankrupt the town.”
“Oh! Then of course we don’t want you to be in the rodeo. You can be the guest of honor.”
“All right.”
“Wonderful! Then—”
“Cuthbert, if we hold these events, we have to make a rule,” Emmy Lou said. “Women are not allowed to grab at Brian’s clothes or pinch his tush. No button popping, no pocket ripping. None of that.”
With a Stetson and a Smile & The Bridesmaid’s Bet Page 8