“Last time I saw something like this was when Jarod collided with Daisy,” Merle said.
“And they got married and she gave her cousin Cathy the Honky Tonk. Then be damned if Travis didn’t kiss Cathy on New Year’s Day and, dear God, do you think there’s a hex on this place? The owner falls for a cowboy?” Larissa moaned.
“Hell, I hope not. I’m tired of the Honky Tonk changin’ bartenders more often than a hooker changes her underpants,” Merle said. “Listen to Shelly West singing that song. I’d rather see you drink too much tequila and wind up dancing on the bar, kissing all the cowboys, shooting out the lights, and starting a fight as wind up falling in love.”
“Jose Cuervo” played through to the end with the dancers kicking and slapping their fannies in unison. It played twice more and then the dancers hit the bar in a dehydrated frenzy ordering Mason jars of beer and pitchers of margaritas.
Merle wandered over to the jukebox and put some money into the slot. She pushed H5 to play “Somebody’s Knockin’” so she could hear all the words again. Larissa was too damn classy a broad to get caught up with a drugstore cowboy even if he was the devil in disguise. At least Cathy and Daisy, the former owners, had each gotten a real, live guar-damn-teed cowboy down to the boots and belt buckles. If Larissa couldn’t have the bona fide product, then she needed to kick the devil with his whiskey colored eyes and blue jeans out the front door. If she couldn’t do the job then Merle was sure that Luther would be glad to do it for her.
***
Hank parked the truck in the front yard of the rambling ranch style home with a big porch wrapped around three sides and coon dogs lounging on the front steps. His father, Henry, sat in a wooden rocking chair with wide arms back in the shadows. When he spoke, Hank jumped.
“Didn’t mean to startle you. Where you been?”
“That little beer joint down in Mingus that everyone is talking about,” Hank said.
“One that plays country music and looks like it came out of an old Western movie set or the brick one up north?” Henry asked.
“The Honky Tonk? You been down there?” Hank asked.
“Lots of times back when Ruby Lee owned the place. Sit a spell.”
Hank pulled up a second rocker and eased down into it. “Who was Ruby Lee?”
“A lady that I should’ve married instead of your momma, but hindsight is the only thing that’s not tainted like rose-colored glasses. Ruby Lee was a hellcat from over in east Texas. Her daddy was a preacher man and he couldn’t get the hell preached out of that girl, no sir. When she was legal aged she took off and went to Dallas to her aunt’s place and got a job. Worked two jobs. One at an office and the other as a bartender. That’s where I met her. I was down there for a cattle sale and she was the bartender at the sale. God, she was pretty and we fell hard. Then her aunt died and left her a wad of cash and she wanted to build a beer joint in Palo Pinto County so we could be close together. My wife wasn’t going to own no damned old beer joint and I told her so. Asked her to marry me and move to the ranch with me. She told me to ride that idea straight to hell and kiss the devil right smack on the ass when I got there. She built the Honky Tonk and ran it until she died. I went down there and tried to talk her into giving me a second chance but she wouldn’t. I met your mother and married her and never went back. Are they still playing the old songs like they did when Ruby put the joint in? She said she’d never change any of it.”
“They were playing Emmylou and Loretta tonight,” Hank said.
Henry nodded seriously. “And Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings. Those are the old stars.”
“Why couldn’t your wife own a bar?” Hank asked.
“I was too proud. Back in those days everyone would’ve talked and what other people thought was important. People’s opinions and my stubborn pride cost me the love of my life. I cared about your mother in those few weeks we were married but I never got over Ruby Lee. Who’s bartending these days? I heard that she left the Honky Tonk to some little old dark-haired woman that she’d kind of adopted like a daughter. Named Daisy O’Dell.”
“Daisy married a rancher named Jarod McElroy last fall and gave the Honky Tonk to her cousin Cathy,” Hank said.
Henry cocked his head to one side. “How’d you know all that?”
“Don’t take long to hear the history when you are sitting on a bar stool in the joint,” Hank said.
“What’d Cathy look like? Was she another dark-haired beauty?” Henry asked.
“Tall, blonde. How long has it been since you were down there?”
“More than thirty years. When I asked your momma to marry me I stopped going,” Henry said.
“Well, Cathy married an oil engineer in the spring and moved out to the panhandle. She gave the place to Larissa Morley. She’s dark-haired and dark-eyed,” Hank said.
“Be careful. Them dark-haired ones will steal your heart.”
“Why’d you fall for Mother if you liked dark-haired women?” Hank asked.
“Man can love lots of women but only one gets to lay claim to his heart. Your mother was a beauty. Still is and so smart it ain’t funny. Don’t know why in the hell I’m tellin’ you this tonight. Guess it’s because you brought up the Honky Tonk. Think I’ll go on in to bed. We got hay to put in the barn tomorrow. You going to help or go out and wreck another one of my vehicles tomorrow?”
“Merle says that she knows why you want to fix up the old truck instead of junking it, and she says that my neck ain’t red enough so I reckon I better get out in the hay field and get it the right color,” Hank said.
“Now Merle is a different story for a different night.” Henry’s chuckle came from deep in his chest. “I’m sure she remembers that truck. She saw it often enough back in the first days of the Honky Tonk’s business. I’ll rattle your door for breakfast.”
Henry was a tall, lanky man and might have retired seven years before when he reached sixty-five but he loved the ranch too much to put it in anyone’s hand but his son’s and Hank wasn’t ready for it. Maybe that dark-haired beauty down at the Honky Tonk would settle him down. A father could always hope.
“Good night, Dad,” Hank said.
“Night, son.”
***
Larissa locked the door behind Luther at two o’clock. It had been a booming night even for a Monday, which was fast turning into their busiest times. When Cathy and Daisy ran the place Monday night was old jukebox night. The rest of the week they played the newer artists, but the Tonk soon got a reputation for being the new “in” place for vintage country music, so nowadays Larissa only plugged in the new jukebox on Friday and Saturday nights.
She picked up a beer and carried it to the nearest table where she propped her legs up on an extra chair. Bartending was the hardest work she’d ever done but she loved every minute of it. From the music to the customers hustling and hassling her. Like Toby Keith said, she loved the bar with its lookers, hookers, bikers, and preppies.
“But I would like to kiss that Hank fellow just once to see if it would set me on fire. Just thinking about it makes me tingle all over,” she said aloud. “Still, something just ain’t right. Was it that crazy song playing through my head that made me think about him being the devil? I’m talking to myself out loud. Wonder if Cathy ever did that after she shut the place down?”
She tipped back the bottle and finished off her beer and left by way of the back door. She pushed the button on the remote to roll up the garage door where she parked her vintage 1965 Mustang every night. She wondered on the way home why Hank Wells had asked her to dinner so quickly. Was that what had made her think something wasn’t right? Or was there a little suspicious part hiding in her heart saying that Daisy and Cathy found a sexy cowboy when they owned the Honky Tonk and it could happen to her also? Did Larissa want a love in her life? Or did she want to be like the old original owner and go out in a blaze of glory without a man?
Chapter 3
Larissa shared her s
mall two-bedroom home with a stray cat she had inherited when she bought the house. The real estate agent couldn’t tell her the cat’s name or even if he had lived at the place before the previous owner died. He was black and white and got the name Sylvester because he reminded her of the old cartoon cat. The first time he showed his cocky independence she called him Sylvester Stallone. That got shortened to Stallone which fit him better than the bumbling Sylvester who was always chasing Tweety Bird.
Stallone wasn’t worth much when it came to hoeing the garden but he was a fine listener and she could tell him anything. He sat beside the knee-high okra plants and the green beans, moving when she got ahead of him, chasing the occasional butterfly out of the garden, and he didn’t disagree with a thing she said. Starting with opening the Honky Tonk the night before, she told him about the whole evening, including Merle fussing because no one could give her any pool competition and the new cowboy who’d set her emotions in a tailspin.
“And then I looked up and there he was. After the wreck I didn’t think he’d ever want to even look at me again. Hell, I even thought he was married, but evidently he’s not if he’s asking me out. There’s an aura about him. Not even the English Earl made me go all smushy inside. Did you ever find a little feline beauty that set your ears to twitching? What is the matter with me? God, I’m turning into a crazy old cat lady who plants a garden and talks to tomcats and doesn’t have a man in her life.” She leaned on the hoe and wiggled her bare toes into the warm soft dirt.
The sun had passed the straight-up stage and was slowly sinking to the west, but the rays were still hot enough to make sweat pour down her neck and wet the band around the bottom of her bra. Her cutoff jean shorts had two damp spots on the seat and there wasn’t a dry thread on her faded orange knit tank top. She’d pulled her short hair up into two lopsided dog ears but errant strands kept sneaking out and sticking to her face and neck.
She swatted a mosquito and left a smear of blood on her arm in its wake. “Damn things are big as buzzards in this part of the world and out to suck every drop of my blood. Why can’t you chase them the way you do butterflies and birds?” she fussed at Stallone and went back to chopping weeds from her garden.
“Hello, where are you, Larissa?” a deep voice called from the front yard.
She stopped and shaded her eyes with her hand. “Luther?”
“I was driving past and thought I saw you back here. Garden is lookin’ good. Got any iced tea?” Luther asked.
“It’s in the fridge. Help yourself and make me a glass while you’re at it.” Larissa propped the hoe against the back of the house. The back porch was little more than a stoop with a tiny roof held up with two scaly porch posts. She sat down on the bottom step and leaned back against a post. She’d just about hock old Stallone for a breeze but a good wind in Texas couldn’t be bought, begged, or stolen in July. Truth be told, if it did blow it’d be like the forced air from a furnace and cook the skin right off a person. Still, she could long for a nice cool ocean breeze. It wasn’t a cardinal sin to wish for something even if it was like wishing for gelato from that cute little Italian restaurant that she liked so well. She was wondering what in the devil made her think of that place when Luther pushed the back door open.
“I found some cookies on the table and ate two of them.” The quart-sized Mason jars looked like shot glasses in his big paws.
She reached up and took one jar from his hand and said, “Janice made them. You should have eaten more so I wouldn’t have to work the garden so much to get rid of the calories. I can’t leave the danged things alone. So where are you headed?”
“Back to the ranch. I came in to the office to bring a form and pick up a V-belt. Got to work on a rig. Sometimes I make excuses to go to the office just so I can talk to Tessa. Now I understand why Travis always wanted to run the errands that would take him to the old office where Cathy worked. Lord, that woman has gotten under my skin so bad it hurts. I want to ask her to move in with me but I’m scared to death she’ll say no and then tell me to get lost,” he said.
“I don’t think she would say no,” Larissa said.
Luther’s eyes sparkled. “Really?”
“Only way you’re ever going to find out is to ask her. You really ought to marry Tessa.”
“I would go to the courthouse with her tomorrow if she’d have me,” Luther said.
“Well, honey, she tells me all the time that she gets tired of living all cramped up. She was raised up on a ranch and loves the outdoors much as you do.”
“I want all of it. Marriage. Kids. And the whole thing. She’s too pretty to want to tie up with something big and ugly as me,” he groaned.
Larissa clicked her fingers and Stallone came over to get his ears rubbed. “You got to make her feel special.”
“I ain’t no good at that romancin’ shit,” Luther said.
“Most men aren’t, but women want that romancin’ shit and if they don’t get it, nothing happens in the relationship,” she said.
Luther narrowed his eyes at Larissa. “Should I take her roses or candy?”
“Flowers and tell her she’s beautiful in whatever she’s wearing that night,” Larissa said.
“She’s beautiful all the time,” Luther said.
“How many times have you told her that?”
He dropped his head and looked up at her from under heavy dark brows. “Them is hard words to say.”
“Learn to say them,” Larissa said.
“How’d you get so smart when it comes to women folks?” he asked.
“I’m one of them women folks,” she laughed.
“I’ll give it a try but every time I get around her I get all tongue-tied and nothing comes out right. We can talk about the rig all day and I can tease, but when it gets time to be serious I’m speechless,” he said.
Larissa patted him on the arm. “Say what’s in your heart.”
“I can put up a rig or flirt with any other woman, but Tessa is special. She gets my hormones to flowing but she’s my friend too. I wouldn’t ever want to throw that away for a quick romp in the hay,” he said.
“Tell her that in those words and hand her one long-stemmed rose. Tell her that she’s one of a kind, just like the rose,” Larissa advised.
“I’ll have to practice sayin’ that for a long time before them words would come out of my mouth, but thanks Rissa. I’ll ask her out on Sunday. I ain’t leavin’ you without a bouncer in the beer joint, and besides, she’s in there all the time anyway.” Luther set his tea jar on the porch and disappeared around the side of the house.
He’d rented the ranch from Jezzy and Leroy when they moved to Hampton, Virginia, a couple of months before. Jezzy had been one of the Honky Tonk regulars when Cathy ran the place. She’d inherited the ranch when her grandmother died and then Angel and her crew found oil on the land and Luther took care of the wells. Leroy’s daughter, Sally, married a military man and moved to Virginia and Jezzy and Leroy followed her the next month. Now those were two people who did things their way. They’d been friends since they were kindergarten students in Bugtussle, Oklahoma. Jezzy had her affairs and never married. Leroy married three or four times and had one daughter. They lived together in a purely platonic relationship. Larissa hated to see them move away because she and Jezzy had become really good friends.
But like Merle said, crowds came and went in the Honky Tonk. There were those like Chigger and her crew that had been regulars back in Daisy’s time as bartender, then Jezzy and Angel who’d been regulars during Cathy’s reign as bartender. Now it was Larissa’s turn and her regulars were Julio, Patrick, Justin, and Eddie, the Monday night truck drivers. Betty and Elmer, Janice and Frank, and Linda and J. C.—Mingus citizens who were off to Las Vegas for a week—and Merle, who’d been there since dirt. Larissa figured Merle sat down in a pasture and refused to move so Ruby Lee built the Honky Tonk around her. And Amos who’d been there almost as long as Merle. He’d been in love with Ruby Lee but she refu
sed to marry him. He owned oil companies all over the world and was mega-rich. He was more than seventy and still rode with a motorcycle club and brought the whole biker crew to the Honky Tonk at least once a week. And of course Luther and Tessa, who would eventually figure out they were made for each other.
Stallone came out from under the porch when Luther had gone and rubbed around her sweaty legs leaving cat hair in his wake.
“Do you have a fluffy little lady friend you want me to talk to?” Larissa asked.
Hank poked his head around the corner. “You talkin’ to that cat or to me?”
She jumped. There she sat in all her sweating glory. Barefoot. Hair like funky rockers from the nineties. Dirty. Smelling like a bag lady who hadn’t seen a shower in a month. She consoled herself by deciding that if Hank Wells was a real cowboy, then he’d seen sweaty, working women before in his life. If he wasn’t, then there was something fishy about him anyway.
“He don’t give me much sass and he don’t carry gossip. Are you stalking me?”
“No, ma’am. I was driving through town and saw you in the garden a while ago. When I came back through I noticed you sitting on the porch. I thought I’d stop by and make sure you hadn’t found any hidden bruises.”
The telephone in the house rang but she ignored it. “I’m fine. How are you? That seat belt bruise about gone? Want some iced tea or a beer?” she asked.
“Beer sounds good on a hot day like this,” he answered.
Sweat stains circled his faded chambray shirt that hung open baring his broad chest. His old truck had both windows rolled down so evidently the air conditioning didn’t work. His jeans had hay stuck to the legs and his work boots were scuffed at the toes.
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