Hell, Yeah (3 page)

Nothing—be it man, woman, or an angel with a golden halo walking a tightrope bearing roses and singing “Redneck Woman”—would keep her from the Honky Tonk. That was the pure guaran-damned-teed gospel and could be written in stone and propped up beside the neon Honky Tonk sign.

“I’m glad I came to Mingus and I’m so tired if I don’t get a shower I’m going to fall down on this floor and wake up tomorrow morning smelling like the bottom of a two-day-old ashtray,” she mumbled.

She tossed her jeans and T-shirt in the general direction of the hamper at the end of the hallway and headed for the bathroom where she let the water warm up before she stepped inside. She lathered up her hair and then let the hot spray beat down on her tired shoulders.

When she finished she wrapped up in a towel, padded back to her bedroom, and put on her favorite pair of faded red flannel pajamas before slipping into the big king-sized bed.

“I might not have put the fear of God into Travis, but that look he shot me as he left said he’d never set foot in the Tonk again. I wonder what he does for a living. Is he a rancher like Jarod or is he a professional football player for the Dallas Cowboys? Whatever he is or does, he’s one fine looking cowboy and his kisses are delicious.”

She fell asleep quickly and dreamed about Travis. They were arguing on the porch of the Honky Tonk about whether or not she was going to sell it.

Normally, Cathy slept until ten or eleven o’clock, but the next morning she sat straight up in bed, glanced at the clock to see that it was only eight thirty, and grabbed her head in an attempt to erase the crazy dream as well as all the racket. She’d never heard so much noise in her life. Not even when the countdown had all the women yelling “hell yeah” the night before. It sounded like Armageddon had arrived in the middle of a hurricane and tornado combined.

She threw back the covers and jumped out of bed, already getting a speech ready for whoever or whatever was making so much racket. She pulled up the mini-blinds to discover a backhoe digging a trench right down beside her property line to the road. Men were hanging on the electric poles like monkeys in palm trees. Chainsaws were tearing up the forest where the deer and wild possum lived. A plumber’s truck pulled in and two men threw open the back door and commenced to hauling out vicious looking black tubing. And everywhere the men were yelling above the machinery.

She jerked a fleece-lined leather jacket on over her faded flannel pajamas and stomped across the bedroom and living room cussing all the way. She slung open the front door expecting her very presence and drop-dead looks would quiet the noise and put her world to rights.

It didn’t.

Cold wind rushed across her bare feet and shivers danced up her spine. She slammed the door shut and shoved her feet down into a worn pair of brown cowboy boots. Frozen grass crunched under her feet with every step. Her anger was fueled to the over-full level by the time she reached the edge of the wooded area.

Leave it to a bunch of idiot men to make a mistake and start tearing up the wrong property. When she got through with them they’d all have their little tails tucked between their legs and glad to go home to watch the New Year’s Day parade on their television sets. Why in the hell were they working on New Year’s Day? Didn’t they know it was a holiday?

Someone had made a major mistake. That land belonged to Amos and he was going to be madder than a rabid coyote when she called him. She felt around in her coat pocket but her cell phone was in the apartment. Besides, she couldn’t hear jack shit with all that noise going on anyway.

An enormous tree fell and landed so close to her backside that the dead branches tangled up in her hair. She grabbed her head and ducked.

“Lady, what in the hell are you doing out here?” the tree trimmer yelled.

“What in the hell are you doing out here?”

“Getting ready for a trailer to be brought in on Monday,” he said.

She gritted her teeth until her jaws ached. She was truly living a nightmare; maybe not one where that sexy hunk of a cowboy was arguing with her, but a bad, bad dream still. What was she going to do with neighbors? And why in the devil would they want to live right behind a noisy beer joint?

A familiar voice yelled behind her. “Hey, Cathy!”

She whirled to see Amos only a few feet from her. “What are you doing here?”

“I didn’t think about all this noise and confusion interrupting your beauty sleep, but it won’t last but a couple of days. We’ll have the trailer in by Monday and then it’ll be quiet around here again.”

“Trailer? Nobody asked me if I wanted a trailer on my land,” she hollered, even though he was right behind her.

“It’s not on your land. The Honky Tonk land ends one foot behind your garage. Think about where you mow the backyard, Cathy. All the acres behind it belong to me,” Amos said.

“Oh.” All the air left her lungs.

Amos took her arm and led her back to the Honky Tonk. “Come on inside. I’ll explain.”

When they were inside the apartment she shook off his hand and threw her coat on the couch.

“It’s not a nightmare, is it?” she moaned.

“No, it’s not a dream. I’m really putting a business back there, at least a temporary one. It’ll be there at least two months, maybe longer.” Amos pulled out a chair at the small kitchen table and hung his coat over the back before sitting. “You going to make coffee or you want me to do it?”

“I’ll make coffee. You explain,” she said.

Amos chuckled. Cathy reminded him more of Ruby than Daisy ever did. Slow to wake. Grumbling when she did. Neither of the O’Dell women looked like Ruby and Daisy didn’t even act like her. But if he shut his eyes and didn’t look at Cathy, she could be Ruby’s daughter.

“I’d thought to put my business trailer over on my property next to Tinker’s rent house, but there will be times there’ll be equipment parked around and kids live there. So I changed my mind at the last minute. Meant to come by and tell you but got all involved with the holiday parties at work and just forgot. Merle’s niece, Angel, is going to work for me but you already know that. She’s been in the Honky Tonk pretty often. The rig crew will be in and out of it in the daytime. The trailer I’m putting back there will be mainly an office and will shield the sight of the smaller travel trailers the rig crew will live in. So there shouldn’t be a conflict of interest here. If we hit oil in this area I may put up a more permanent office building. If not, well, we’ll cross that bridge when it gets here. Sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

“You promise all the noise will stop by Monday?”

“Cross my heart. Had to pay out the nose to get these men out here on New Year’s Day, but I want this place up and running coming Monday morning.” He went to the kitchen and poured two cups of coffee.

Cathy eyed him. He didn’t look seventy and he damn sure didn’t look like he dressed up in leather and rode motorcycles with a gang out of Dallas on weekends either. That morning he looked the part of a businessman in his khakis and starched blue shirt. Gray hair rimmed his otherwise bald head and his lean face was etched in deep wrinkles.

He handed her a cup of coffee and sat back down.

“No men in the apartment,” she said.

Amos’s eyes twinkled. “I was part of the reason Ruby made that rule. I don’t expect at my age there’s a chance I’m going to get lucky with you, is there?”

Cathy grinned and sipped the hot coffee. “Not today.”

“Okay, then, I’m going back out to supervise the work. I’ll bring the cup back before I leave. Oh, besides the trailer they’ll use for the office, they’re bringing in gravel this weekend. There’ll be twenty travel trailer spaces back there for the oil crew. It’s probably only for a couple of months and then it’ll all be gone,” he said.

She swallowed quickly to keep from spewing coffee onto the carpet.

“I’ll get back out there and make sure it’s all coming along. By Monday you can sleep until noon again.” He opened the door and said, “Come right in out of the cold.”

Cathy looked up to see who he was inviting into her apartment. Surely that wasn’t… but it was!

Amos threw an arm around Angel’s shoulder. “Cathy, I don’t know if you’ve met my new team. This is Angel Avery, Merle’s niece. And this is the best damn petroleum engineer in the whole state of Texas, Travis Henry. He’s been working for me several years. The trailer’s living room will house our office and one bedroom will serve as a filing room. The other one is where Travis will be living the next couple of months. Meet your temporary new neighbor. Travis, this is Cathy O’Dell. She owns the Honky Tonk.”

Cathy mumbled something.

Travis muttered a “hello.”

Angel patted Amos’s arm. “We were at the Honky Tonk last night for the New Year’s Eve party. I whipped Garrett McElroy’s ass in pool but just barely. Just looking at that cowboy almost puts me off my game. And Travis kissed Cathy.”

“I didn’t know she owned the place,” Travis said with clenched teeth. What in the hell had he done? At least he didn’t see that enormous bouncer anywhere in the small apartment, so maybe he wasn’t on a hit list. Not yet, anyway.

“Damn, Travis, I swear you have no tact. Forgive him, Cathy. He’s outside material. I’ll try to get him housebroken so he won’t be a horrible neighbor,” Angel teased.

“You kissed Cathy?” Amos asked.

“New Year’s kiss. You can bet it won’t ever happen again,” Travis said.

“That’s right,” Cathy smarted off.

“Well, it looks like you two got things worked out between you. Let’s get out of here and let Cathy go back to sleep. She’s unbearable when she first wakes up. We don’t want to get bit.” Amos chuckled and ushered them out to the porch.

Cathy rolled up into a ball and moaned. He would be living within spitting distance of her back door—so much for not having to deal with him ever again.

* * *

“Why in the devil didn’t you tell me the bartender was the owner?” Travis sputtered when they were outside.

Angel ignored the question and explained to Amos, “Travis kissed her at the stroke of midnight without asking.”

Amos threw back his head and roared. “Never a dull moment at the Honky Tonk, is there? I can’t wait to tell…” he stopped.

“Who?” Angel asked.

“No one. Just a slip of the tongue. So you kissed Cathy without her permission and you are alive? Count your blessings, Travis,” Amos said.

“Why?”

“You figure it out.”

“Well, I thought the owner was some old broad and that the bartender was just hired help,” he groaned. He’d never tell Amos and Angel that the kiss had stayed hot on his lips for hours and that the barmaid, Cathy, had been in his dreams all night.

Angel poked him in the ribs. “That’s what happens when you think about anything other than finding oil.”

“For the next eight weeks, I’m staying in the field and thinking of nothing but oil,” he declared.

Amos chuckled. “Don’t lie to me, son. If you can kiss something that looks like Cathy and not ever think about it again, there’s something terrible gone wrong with that brilliant brain that’s been working for me all these years.”

Blessed quietness filled the car. A few snowflakes fell from the gray skies but nothing that would accumulate according to the weather man. Cathy reached out to turn on the radio but pulled her hand back. The silence was wonderful, especially after waking up to noisy machinery and yelling men.

The bright red Cadillac was a joy to drive and Cathy still couldn’t believe the car was hers, or the Honky Tonk, or the Harley cycle. She pinched herself at least once a day to make sure it was real. Daisy had always said that Toby Keith’s “I Love This Bar” was her theme song, and the only way she’d ever leave it was when they carried her cold dead body out the front door and she’d die with her fingers wrapped around a longneck bottle of Coors beer. It hadn’t happened that way, but Cathy made the same boast after Daisy had married Jarod and moved to Oklahoma. Jarod was one of those special men that God only made one of and then broke the mold, so Cathy had no misbegotten illusions that she’d get the same miracle in her life that her cousin had gotten.

Besides, after Brad Alton, Cathy didn’t trust her own judgment anymore. She’d loved Brad, accepted an engagement ring from him, and let him move into her apartment. For all that she’d gotten to fall on the floor and be whipped with a belt while he screamed obscenities at her. Travis might be a wonderful man as well as a sexy one, but Cathy couldn’t take a chance. Another mistake like Brad would wipe out every thread of her self-confidence.

She passed two pickup trucks before she made a right-hand turn toward Gordon. A couple of deer grazed in the ditch beside the road. They raised their heads but didn’t bolt and run when she passed them. A little further down the road a momma skunk with a couple of half-grown babies behind her scooted across the road.

Anger replaced the peace in her heart. Progress came at a great price, but why did it have to come out of her yard? Most weeks she saw at least a dozen deer from her kitchen window. And poor old Rascal, the possum she fed dry cat food to on the porch, would never wander through that maze of trailers. Come Monday the only view would be a tin can trailer house, pickup trucks, and travel trailers. The only wildlife she’d see would be thirsty oil men and the lusty women and men in the Honky Tonk.

She was still aggravated about the change when she made a right-hand turn onto Jezzy’s ranch. Three hundred acres of rolling hills covered up in mesquite and rocks with a few head of Angus roaming about here and there. Two extra trucks in the driveway said that she wasn’t the only dinner guest that day.

“Well, shit,” she fussed. She’d looked forward to a long, lazy afternoon with Jezzy, Leroy, and Sally without anyone else around. Call it downright selfish, but Cathy figured she deserved it after the way the day had started. Sharing another bit of her life with strangers didn’t seem a damn bit fair.

She crossed the yard slowly, wiped her boots on the doormat, and knocked. The house was a small three-bedroom white frame with a tiny porch flanked on either side by dormant rose bushes. According to Jezzy, the roses were in a live-or-die situation. They could live or they could die, but she wasn’t telling them bedtime stories and handpicking aphids from them the way her grandmother had. That almost put a smile on Cathy’s face… but not quite.

“Come on in,” Jezzy called out.

Cathy stepped inside and slung her coat on the rack behind the door.

Jezzy called out from the sofa in the living room. “Happy New Year’s Day. We’re at the end of the parade. Everyone, this is Cathy O’Dell who I’m sure you’ve already met. She owns the Honky Tonk.” Jezzy had naturally red hair and freckles across her nose. Red was not her best color, but she wore a Crayola red sweater that day with her jeans.

Cathy looked around the room and came close to grabbing her coat and lighting a shuck right back to the safety of the Honky Tonk. Jezzy, Merle, and Leroy sat on the sofa. Sally and Travis Henry were on one loveseat, and Angel was on the other.

“Hi, Cathy. I didn’t know you were having dinner here today,” Angel said.

Jezzy patted the sofa between her and Leroy. “Sit, girl. After all that standing last night your feet have to still be tired.”

Merle piped up from the corner, “Did you know that Travis kissed her?”

Cathy wished she could dig a hole, fall into it, and pull the dirt in with her.

“It was New Year’s Eve,” Cathy said.

“If I’d known what a stir it was going to kick up, I wouldn’t have done it,” Travis said.

Jezzy laughed. “You are an idiot. I don’t know a man alive who wouldn’t give his left ball to kiss Cathy or one that would apologize for it.”

Travis intended to shoot Jezzy a dirty look even if he was a guest in her house, but when she winked he chuckled. “In my defense I had no idea she was the owner. I figured someone with a name like Cathy was at least sixty years old. Besides, what’s a pretty young lady like you doing in a place like that anyway?”

Sally slapped his arm playfully. “That line is older than me and it wasn’t a good one when it was new.”

Sally was Leroy’s twenty-three-year-old daughter who’d graduated college and gotten a mid-term position in Gordon as a kindergarten teacher. She’d moved in with Leroy and Jezzy a couple of weeks before. Her mother was Asian and Sally had inherited her barely toasted skin, almond eyes, and complexion that a modeling agency would pay big bucks for.

Cathy looked across the room at Travis. “The line really is old. And what I’m doing at the Tonk is running a beer joint. I like my job. I love the Honky Tonk. So don’t bad-mouth it.”

Travis was her dream man. Blond hair. Blue eyes. The glasses had never been part of the dream, but even they were a little sexy. Jeans that fit just right. Boots. So why in the devil was she angry and not flirting? Other than kissing her, dancing through her mind all night, and showing up in her morning, he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Travis held up his palms in defense. “I quit. I’ll talk about oil wells and soil samples the whole time I’m in Texas. At least I won’t have to eat my shoes that way.”

Angel patted him on the arm. She was short and had naturally red hair that lay in ringlets around her face and green eyes. She wore a flared denim skirt and an army green sweater the same color as her eyes. “It’s all right, darlin’. You’re a geology geek. They aren’t supposed to be able to sweet-talk the women. Folks understand when you put your big old size twelve boot in your mouth.”

Travis blushed as red as the flannel shirt he wore with faded jeans. Angel’s jokes about him had been funny before. Now they weren’t. Cathy would think he was a country bumpkin who picked his nose and didn’t know how to use a fork.

“Ah, y’all give him a chance,” Jezzy piped up. “If Leroy Folsom can be tamed, Travis can too. Why, I’ve even taught Leroy where the bathroom is and he’s even quit pissin’ off the back porch.”

“Only when she’s lookin’,” Leroy teased back. “We didn’t have fancy toilets in the desert.”

Cathy smiled.

“Ah, a grin. She’s going to forgive old Travis,” Angel said.

“I wouldn’t get that enthusiastic,” Cathy said. “Are the peas about ready, Jezzy? I went to sleep listenin’ to the sounds of a few lonesome old cold crickets and the wailing of a coyote. I got rudely awakened by a scene from that old movie
Red Dawn
. It sounded like terrorists were surrounding the Honky Tonk with armored tanks. I thought I heard machine guns and a cannon, but it was just every kind of construction machine in the world out there tearing up my peaceful backyard. I was so mad I went straight into the Tonk and cleaned up last night’s mess. I didn’t eat breakfast and I’m starving.”

“Soon as the parade is over we can eat. Cathy, you and Sally come on and help dish it up and put it on the table. Sally made a banana nut cake for dessert,” Jezzy said.

“What about me?” Angel asked.

“You and Travis need to talk to Leroy some more about this oil idea. We can take care of the dinner,” Jezzy said.

“It’s your property,” Leroy said. “I’m just the hired help.”

“You know more about that end of the business than I do. That’s why you are the hired help. Listen to what they got to say. If you think it’s a good idea, they can put one of them black pumpin’ devils in the middle of my kitchen floor. I can just see Elijah and Paul’s faces. Those self-righteous sumbitches would pass little green apples if this old rocky ground makes me rich. And that would make me very happy,” Jezzy said.

“Rich?” Sally laughed. “You already own ninety percent of the stock in Fort Knox.”

“Well, maybe I want to buy out the other ten percent, and this oil well will let me do it.” Jezzy headed for the kitchen through an archway to the left of the living room. The room was oversized with cabinets on one side, a refrigerator, stove, and sink on the other, and a round table with eight chairs circling in the middle of the floor.

“Eli and Paul will just pray harder for your wild and wanton ways,” Sally teased.

“All goes to prove their prayers don’t go no higher than the ceiling. I got a feeling that my brother prayed for the same thing and it didn’t do any good.” Jezzy pulled a pan of ham from the oven. “Cooked it last night and carved it this morning so I wouldn’t be so rushed. That’s enough talk of money and oil. Cathy, you tell me why are you being mean to that sexy cowboy? If you don’t want him then don’t be selfish, kick him over the fence to Sally.”

Sally whipped around and shook a hot pad at Jezzy. “I don’t want him. I’ve got a boyfriend.”

“Damn, Sally. You’re supposed to play along with me. I was trying to make her jealous,” Jezzy whispered.

“Jealous of who? What’d I miss?” Merle pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. “I couldn’t hear a damn word with y’all whisperin’. It’s got to be good or you’d be talkin’ louder. For a minute there I thought I was losin’ my hearin’. Wouldn’t surprise me none what with all the wooden balls I’ve knocked around in my lifetime.”

“They were talking about Travis kissing Cathy,” Sally said.

“I’m surprised she didn’t kill him,” Merle said.

“It’s not too damn late. Hell, he’s done disgraced my honor by kissing me in the Honky Tonk so he deserves to die. God knows it’s an unforgivable sin to be kissed right smack on the lips in a beer joint. That’s supposed to go on in the backseat of a car in the church parkin’ lot after a prayer meetin’. Load up Granny Green’s old blunderbuss over the fireplace and I’ll avenge my honor. I’ll gut shoot him and he can die a long and painful death. Teach him to go around kissing women on New Year’s that he don’t know,” Cathy whispered.

Jezzy giggled. “Take him outside first. I don’t want blood on my new carpet.”

“Give me ten minutes and you and Sally bring the shovels. We’ll bury him down by the pond,” Cathy said.

Sally threw up her hands. “Don’t bring me into this. I’m not digging in the cold, hard dirt. I’d break a fingernail. I’ll talk to the cops and give you an alibi, but I’m not touching a shovel.”

Cathy smiled. “There’s nothing to worry about. He’s not my type. I like bad boys and he’s too pretty to be a bad boy. He’s not much good for anything other than oil wells.”

Jezzy began stacking ham slices on an oversized platter. “Maybe he’s good in bed. Ever think of that? With all those muscles to wrap your legs around and those blond curls to hang onto, I bet that cowboy would give you a damn fine ride.”

“Remember that old song that said not to call him a cowboy ’til you’ve seen him ride?” Cathy asked.

“You gonna see if he’s a cowboy when he shucks out of them boots and that belt buckle? Did you notice that it had a bull rider on it?” Jezzy asked.

“Hell, no! And you shouldn’t be looking at that area of his anatomy either.” Cathy blushed.

“Why not? If he’s wearing a big silver buckle with a bull rider on it, then it’s beggin’ to be looked at and a woman’s eyes can’t help but fall a few inches further down to check things out. You’re not that innocent, Cathy,” Sally said.

“Honey, I was the inspiration for Gretchen Wilson’s ‘Redneck Woman’ and I’ll look at any belt buckle I want to,” Cathy declared.

Leroy called from the living room, “Dinner about ready in here?”

“Herd ’em in,” Jezzy said. “I’m puttin’ the peas in the bowl now.”

Jezzy sat at the head of the table with Leroy to her right. Angel sat to her right and Sally next to her with Merle at the other end. Cathy sat to her right with Travis beside her. It wasn’t the best-case scenario, but it wasn’t too bad. If she’d been on the other side of the table then she would have had to look straight into his crystal clear blue eyes. Just knowing he was sitting beside her almost gave her an acute case of hives. If someone had told her a week ago that she’d be having dinner with someone who took her breath away on New Year’s, she would have sent for a straightjacket and had the person committed.

Cathy’s hands shook when she picked up the tea pitcher, filled her glass, and passed it on to Travis. His big hand closed over hers in the transfer and she clamped her jaw shut to keep from gasping at the scarlet blush rising up on her neck. Any minute now she’d be blushing like a prepubescent teenager with a crush on the next big name in Hollywood.

“Is this sweet tea?” he asked.

“You diabetic? Only thing we drink in Texas is sweet tea. And besides, Sally made banana nut cake.”

“No, I’m not diabetic. I drink sweet tea. Hate that stuff they sell in stores that takes two cups of sugar that never dissolves. Glad you told me about the cake. I’ll have to save room,” he said.

Angel groaned. “Travis?”

“Get ready for it, Angel. I’m going to embarrass you. You been tellin’ everyone I ain’t housebroke. Well, if you’re goin’ to give me the name, then by damn, I’ll have the game. This reminds me of home and I’m not going to be bashful,” Travis said.

Leroy handed him the platter of cornbread. “Man works all day in the hot sun or the freezing cold, he ought to be able to enjoy his vittles without worrying about etiquette. You want seconds or thirds you better eat fast, though. New Year’s dinner is my favorite one of the year. So you best load your plate up real good. We might even fight over the last chunk of cornbread.”