Hell, Yeah (8 page)

Cathy saw that Larissa had traded Rudy in for another of Garrett’s hired hands. Maybe Rudy wasn’t tough enough for the citified martini drinking woman who was out slumming that night. Jake did look a little more rough with his goatee and tattoo of a tiger peeking out from under the rolled up sleeve of his shirt.

At closing time Tinker made the announcement that the Honky Tonk would shut down in five minutes. What customers were left found their coats and were gone in a few minutes. He carried a six-pack of empty soda cans to the bar and picked up his paycheck.

“Been a rowdy night,” he said.

“Yes, it has. What did you say to those men, Tinker?” Cathy asked.

A slight grin turned up the corners of his mouth. “Old Indian secret. If I tell, it might take the magic away from it. See you tomorrow night, Cathy.”

“You’re not Indian,” she called out as he crossed the floor.

“No I’m not, but my secret is Apache.”

“Where’d you get an Apache secret?” she asked.

“My friend was in Vietnam. Good night,” he said as he pulled on his coat and left.

She popped the lid off a longneck bottle of Coors and carried it to the nearest table. For all the rowdiness the place wasn’t in too bad of shape. Empty beer bottles had been pushed to the middle of the tables. Very little trash littered the floor but beer had been sloshed out of the jars in several places so it would require a thorough mopping the next day.

She propped her feet on the table and tilted the chair back to the wall. She took a long draw on the beer and enjoyed the icy cold liquid as it slid all the way to her stomach. One more song was left on the jukebox so she listened to Jason Aldean sing about her being country from her cowboy boots to the songs she sings.

“That’s my story,” she said as she kept time with her foot. “I’m a hick to the bone. Nothing here for Travis Henry to be interested in, so why in the devil can’t I get him out of my mind?”

* * *

Travis cussed the key into opening the door of his trailer. He hadn’t been buzzed since high school. There was that night when he and the football boys had a secret party and he’d gotten really plastered. The next morning he had awakened with a headache and figured he was in big trouble with his father. But his dad had played dumb and told him at the breakfast table they would be cutting wood all day for the fireplace. The chain saw felt like it was cutting through his brain and he vowed never to get drunk again. He hadn’t until that night and he couldn’t even remember why he’d had more than one beer. It had something to do with Cathy, the bartender, looking so cute in that tight black top and those hip slung jeans. The way they hugged her rear end had made his mouth dry and his hands want to cup a hip in each of them.

Why had that one kiss affected him like that anyway? He was almost thirty years old and had been in three serious relationships. Not engaged but not far from it, and now a barmaid’s kiss heated him up and set him to thinking thoughts that had no place in his world.

He left a string of clothing from the front office through the kitchen and down the hall. By the time he reached the bathroom he was naked and shivering. He leaned against the edge of the shower and turned on the water. Nothing happened. He frowned, cocked his head to one side, and twisted the handles on the sink. Nothing there either. Without thinking he flushed the potty. The water swirled away but none came back up.

All the beer he’d drunk hit at that moment and his bladder felt like it would explode.

“Well, damn it all to hell! First no electricity and now no water. I swear someone is trying to tell me to take my sorry ass away from here.” He stumbled down the hall to his bedroom, then jerked on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from off the dirty clothes hamper.

Cathy had just stepped out of the shower when she heard hard pounding on the back door. She hurriedly threw on a terrycloth bath robe and headed in that direction. When she reached the living room it sounded as though someone was trying to tear the door off the hinges. She peeked out the window to see Travis hugging his body and shivering.

The first thing she did was check the electricity. It was on in her place and there was light showing in the trailer window. She slung open the door and he rushed inside.

“Damn, Travis, don’t you have any better sense than to run around in your bare feet in the cold?” she asked.

“I’m buzzed and I’m not thinking straight and there’s no water in my trailer. Can I use your bathroom?”

She sighed. “You know where it is.”

He hurried down the hallway and shut the door with a bang. She sank down on the sofa and waited.

In a few seconds the potty flushed. The shower started and stopped ten seconds later. “Well, shit!” His deep voice carried to the living room.

Travis reappeared. “I forgot my pajamas. Got to run back out to the trailer and get them.”

She frowned.

“It’s either that or knock on your door every time I have to take a leak all night,” he said.

“Then go get ’em. And put your boots on. You’re going to catch pneumonia in your bare feet.”

He gave her a thumbs-up and took off, leaving the door wide open.

“At least the storm door shut.” She went to the door and watched him gallop across the yard and into the trailer. A minute later he was jogging back toward her with a bundle of clothing. He kicked off his boots at the door and frowned. “Crap! I forgot to bring socks.”

“You can borrow a pair of mine. I’ve got white tube socks that’ll fit you,” she said.

“Thanks, Cathy.” He grinned and hurried to the bathroom again.

She couldn’t leave him out there in a trailer with no running water and she couldn’t let him stay in the apartment. The rule said no men and it had served both Ruby and Daisy very well.

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Okay, Ruby, it looks like it’s time for us to have a sit-down. This rule about no men in the apartment worked fine for you and for Daisy. But neither of you had a neighbor living right across the backyard. So the rule has got to go. I can’t let him freeze or live with no water, either. So are you going to sit on my bedpost and haunt me?”

No strange icy wind blew past her and no apparition knocked the sugar bowl or salt shakers from the table so she decided Ruby was all right with the idea. Travis was singing the song about a honky tonk badonkadonk when she passed the bathroom door on the way to her bedroom. She wondered what woman in the beer joint had brought that particular song to mind that night but couldn’t come up with a single one. She put on a pair of red flannel pajama bottoms and an oversized sweatshirt, brushed back her wet hair, and picked up a set of sheets from the linen closet.

When he came out of the bathroom she had the sofa bed made up with an extra quilt folded across the bottom. He wore navy pajama bottoms and a gray long sleeved thermal knit shirt. Water droplets hung on his hair and his glasses were fogged over. Her hands went clammy at the sight of him standing there like some kind of mythical god. Her breath caught in her chest when the fresh scent of soap and shampoo wafted across the room.

He stopped in his tracks and stared at the bed. “Why didn’t you tell me it made out into a bed?”

“You didn’t ask. Need some coffee to get that buzz out of your head?”

“Do you have tea?”

“Not green. Have some plain old tea bags. Want me to put one in a cup and microwave it?” she asked.

“That would be wonderful and thank you.”

She remembered that he liked sugar and cream and added both. She gave him his tea and sat down in the rocking chair. When he sat on the end of the bed their knees were practically touching. Close enough that he wanted to wiggle slightly and feel the warmth of her leg next to his, but touching her could send him straight back out to the trailer to live without water, so he adjusted his position.

“What happened to your water?”

“Don’t know but I’ll find out come morning. I hope the pipes aren’t frozen. Amos will throw a shoe at some plumbers if they’ve frozen and burst. Maybe I ought to check them tonight?”

“It hasn’t been that cold. You can figure out the problem when morning comes,” she said.

They looked up at the same time. He moved forward a few inches to find her doing the same, and their lips met without any other parts of their bodies touching. The fiery embrace had them both panting before they finally broke away. She sat up straight in her rocker, sipped the coffee—which was cold compared to the fire in her lips—and seriously wondered if they’d shared a kiss or if she’d imagined it.

“Damn!” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“That was hot!”

So it really had happened. She touched her mouth. Blazes didn’t burn her hand. It was really quite cool. “Yes, it was, and now I’m going to bed.”

“Okay, and thanks for giving me a bed and a bathroom.”

“You are welcome.” She set her empty cup on the table. She shut her bedroom door and stretched out on her bed with a book she’d been reading for more than a week. She hoped the characters would take her mind off that steamy kiss, but as luck would have it she’d reached the three-page sex scene in the book. She read all the way through it, tossed the book on the nightstand, and laced her fingers behind her head as she replayed what she’d read, putting Travis in the hero’s place.

“Damn, damn!” She swore as she sat up and beat her pillow into a more comfortable position. She heard something that sounded almost like music. She cracked open the door to hear Travis humming in his sleep. Or maybe he was still awake. She hoped so. If she couldn’t sleep then it was only fair that his tea kept him awake too.

Travis hummed “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” and thought about how often he’d stared at Cathy’s cute little fanny every time her back was turned. The words to the song asked just how she did get them britches on? Travis didn’t care how she got them on; he wanted to take them off. He pulled the covers up and shut his eyes and dreamed of her again that night.

“My head still hurts.” Travis was sitting in the middle of the sofa bed with a beer in his hand. “Hair of the dog thing,” he explained. “I left the money for it on the bar.”

Cathy looked fine in her tight jeans and black sweater, but Travis’s head hurt too badly to even think about her honky tonk badonkadonk.

“I’ll make coffee. Want tea?” Cathy asked.

“And breakfast?” Travis asked.

“Don’t push your luck. I’ve got Pop Tarts and I could make cinnamon toast.”

“Toast please.”

The sound of truck tires crunching on the parking lot right outside the door made her start in that direction. She had the door open before Amos knocked. He held out a box of doughnuts. “You got coffee. I got pastries.”

“Come on in. Travis didn’t have water last night so he stayed on my sofa. Ruby and I had a talk and I don’t think she’s going to practice any voodoo on me,” she said.

“Doughnuts! Amos, you are a saint,” Travis said.

“I’d say you had one too many last night if you’re already drinking this morning.” Amos sat down at the table and opened the box to reveal a dozen assorted doughnuts, long johns, and cinnamon rolls.

“On your way to the office?” Cathy asked. He wore an expensive three-piece suit and a bright blue tie.

“Yes, I am. Got time to talk?”

“What’s on your mind?” Cathy filled three coffee cups and set them on the table. She picked up a cinnamon roll and dipped the edge in her coffee.

Amos looked at Travis. “You ask her?”

She looked up so fast her hand slipped and she dropped the roll in the coffee. She fished it out and hurriedly ate the part that was soggy. “Ask me what?”

Travis shook his head. “I wasn’t sure you wanted me to.”

She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and said, “Please tell me you aren’t putting more trailers in.”

Amos shook his head. “Nothing like that. But I was tellin’ Merle about my problem and she told me how you are doing her taxes. So I did some checking and was amazed at what I found.”

“You want me to do your taxes?” Cathy asked.

“I want more than that. The accountant I hired to work for Angel had a car wreck last night. She was supposed to be here come Monday morning to start runnin’ the office. Angel and Travis can’t do that and keep up with the rig work. She’ll be out of commission at least two months, so this is a temporary job. I’ll pay you big bucks. You name the price. I thought maybe that was why Travis looked so down in the mouth tonight. I told him if we didn’t find a bookkeeper he and Angel had to trade off days and stay in the office.”

Cathy started shaking her head before the part about the big bucks. “Hell no!”

“Start at noon and be off by five. I wouldn’t make you work mornings. It would be dangerous for the clients,” Amos teased.

“Please!” Travis begged.

“No!” Cathy pulled an errant strand of blond hair back into her ponytail and shook her head again.

“You can work in your jeans and T-shirts. I wouldn’t make you dress up. You can walk to work. No expenses on your part. Paycheck at the end of each week and a five thousand dollar bonus when Maggie is able to come to work.”

“I’ll leave candy and cookies on the bar and ice cream in the fridge,” Travis said.

She hesitated before she spit out another no.

“I know you are a bartender, but I also know now that you are an accountant with a college degree in business finance,” Amos said.

“Why are you runnin’ a bar if you are a high-powered accountant?” Travis asked.

“It’s a long story and I’m too busy to tell it tonight,” she said.

“Don’t make sense to me.” Travis picked up a glazed doughnut. “Please come to work for us. I’ll do anything up to and including cooking for you. Supper a couple of times a week. Breakfast every morning.”

“What makes you think I can’t cook?”

“Pop Tarts!” He frowned.

“I can make my own food, thank you very much. What else have you got to tempt me with?” She considered it as she finished off the roll and reached for a chocolate iced doughnut. It would never work. The fire she had for him wasn’t going away until she poured enough water on it to extinguish the flames. There wasn’t that much water in Palo Pinto County. And the flames would set her on fire if she had to be close to him in a small trailer every day.

But the whole idea is that he’ll be in the field and you’ll be in the trailer alone all afternoon doing the paperwork. It’s nothing more than you did in Mena, and you know damn well that you’ve missed that work. It’s what you were educated to do. You can have both worlds for a couple of months.

“Want some time to think about it or is the answer a definite no?” Amos asked.

“It’s a definite maybe hell no,” she said.

“Good enough. If you want the job go to work tomorrow at noon. If you don’t show I’ll start interviewing temp applicants. Maybe I’ll make Angel do the interviews for me.” Amos brushed a bit of glaze from the lapel of his jacket.

“You think she and Garrett are getting serious?” Cathy asked.

“Oh, yeah. She stayed at the farm last night,” Travis said. “So you going to take the job?”

She shrugged. “What kind of ice cream you got?”

“Whatever kind you want. I’ll make a trip to the store and stock up. Name your poison. Are you really civil by noon?” He wished he could take the words back as soon as he uttered them.

“What difference would it make? You’ll be in the field with Angel so I won’t bite you,” she said. Good grief, had she just made up her mind to take the job? First she tosses out Ruby’s rule and now she was contemplating another job. Would that be Honky Tonk adultery? Was it a sin?

Another rapping on the door turned their attention that way. She laid her doughnut on a napkin and eased around the sofa bed. When she opened the door Angel walked in and headed for the kitchen table.

“Food and coffee. Life is good,” she said.

“Help yourself,” Cathy said.

“Be careful, though. She bites in the mornings,” Travis said.

“Looks like she was good enough to let you spend the night on her sofa for whatever reason,” Angel said.

“I’m only grumpy until my third cup of coffee, but I’m not
that
mean.” Cathy was glad for Angel’s diversion to give her time to think about Amos’s proposition.

Travis pushed back a blond curl tickling his eyebrow. “Amos says she gets a rabies shot every year.”

Amos threw up his palms defensively. “Hey, I’m trying to get her to work for me. Don’t drag me into a fight between you two.”

Cathy ignored him and looked at Angel. “What brings you out so early?”

“To see if Amos talked you into coming to work for us. I’m here to beg if you didn’t say yes. Did I get here before you turned him down?”

“Just barely,” Travis said.

Cathy shot him an evil look.

“You sure about that rabies shot?” Travis asked Amos.

“I told you to keep me out of this.” Amos grinned.

Cathy set a cup of coffee in front of Angel. Her small dining area was full with four people. If anyone else came knocking, they’d have to sit on the floor.

Travis held up his cup for a refill before Cathy sat back down. “I was only teasing about the rabies shot, but she’s surly until she’s had a pot or two of coffee. Just remember that and you’ll get along fine.”

Angel frowned. “Stop teasing and tell me that she’s going to work for us. I hate to be cooped up in the office as much as you do.”

Cathy was warming up to the offer so quickly that it made her head spin.

“So?” Travis asked.

“What?” She needed more time. She couldn’t bring herself to take it at that moment, yet she didn’t want to close the door to the possibility.

“You going to take the job?”

“Why should I?”

“I hate being stuck in an office. It’s like prison. I can’t breathe. All I do is pace the floor and want out. I feel like a caged animal.”

Their eyes locked in the middle of the table. Sparks danced around the crowded room like pole dancers in a strip joint. He could see flashes of color bouncing off her dark blue eyes. She felt like she was standing in front of an old open-face heater.

“Say something. Don’t just stare at me like that,” he said.

Her face began to burn. “I’m thinkin’ about it.”

“Hell, woman, spit out what’s on your mind. You women are always beatin’ around the bush. No wonder men don’t understand you.” He wanted to kiss her so bad his lips hurt. To taste the sweetness again, to see if it was as good as it had been the night before.

She whispered, “I am not a hard woman to understand. I just don’t know if I want to take on a second job.”

Angel tapped Travis on the shoulder. “What’s going on here? You two drawin’ a line in the dirt and spittin’ on your knuckles?” She looked from one to the other so quickly that her kinky ponytail flopped back and forth.

Cathy stood up. “Give me time to think about it, okay?”

Travis drew his eyebrows together in a single line and pressed his fingertips to his forehead. Women! His sisters said they were from Venus and men were from Mars. Well, that wasn’t so hard to understand. He’d be willing to bet that when little girl babies were born an ethereal being snatched their souls and took them to live on an all female planet for thirteen years. When they hit puberty they slung them back to earth and men had to try to understand the impossible from that age on.

Angel waved a hand between them to break the tension. “Both of us hate to be cooped up in an office. Please come to work for us! We’re working on a tight deadline and we’re both needed at the rig. Believe me, you won’t see hardly anyone in the office.”

“Give me until tonight. I’ll think about it until then,” she said.

“Fair enough. Me and a bunch of the bikers are planning to come to the Honky Tonk tonight so we’ll talk then,” Amos said.

“Please,” Angel whispered as she followed Amos out the door.

Travis grabbed another doughnut, put it in his mouth, and started making the bed.

“Get on out of here. I’ll do that. You are probably already late for work,” she said.

“Thanks,” Travis said around the pastry and darted out the door in his bare feet.

* * *

The Honky Tonk was absolutely rocking an hour after they opened that night. The jukebox wasn’t quiet one second and the dance floor always had at least a dozen people either two-stepping or even more doing line dances.

Travis arrived at ten o’clock and hiked a hip on the last remaining barstool.

“Hey, good lookin’. You from around these parts?” The girl next to him winked.

“Just for a couple of months. Where y’all from?” Travis asked.

“We’re at a family reunion in Mineral Wells and had to get away for a while,” she said.

“How’d you know about the Honky Tonk?” Cathy asked.

“One of the cousins is from down in Huckabay. He’s been here before and said it’s got the best dance floor around. Got a tray? I’ll take them in two trips,” she said.

“Hey, Travis, you up for a game?” Merle asked.

“No, my mind wouldn’t be on it,” he said honestly.

Cathy worked at the other end of the bar, barely keeping up with the orders. She wished Sally would show up and offer to draw beers while she mixed drinks. Maybe she should offer the schoolteacher a job on Friday and Saturday nights.

Yeah, right, can’t you just see that? Schoolteacher working as a bartender in the Honky Tonk. That would send her superintendent and half the Bible totin’ parents of her students into a whirlwind.

She caught up just in time to start over. The kids who’d escaped the family reunion were ready for refills. The tall red-haired girl who had ordered the first round showed up with empty trays. She wore her jeans slung low and her skintight knit top short enough to show a belly button ring and was evidently the designated driver because she was not drinking. She delivered them to the table and two-stepped through “Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts with Rudy.

Cathy was working on a pitcher of hurricanes when she looked up to see the girl at the bar again. “Be with you in a minute,” she said.

“I got to stay sober and drive these yahoos home tonight. Want some help? I’m twenty-two, got my bartender’s card, and would rather be working than sitting,” she said.

“You are hired,” Cathy said.

“I’d have helped if you’d asked me,” Travis said.

Cathy smiled. “Are you twenty-two and own a bartender’s card?”

“I’m more’n twenty-two so that should make up for not having a card,” he said.

The girl efficiently filled an order for a martini and then went to work on a tequila sunrise. “I’m Mindy. Live over in Mineral Wells. Used to work at the Lazy Circle Bar before it shut down.”

“I’m Cathy and the whining cowboy is Travis,” she said.

Travis narrowed his eyes. “I’m not whining.”

“I think he’s cute,” Mindy said.

Travis grinned. “Thank you.”

“Looks like that movie star, the blond one. What’s his name? He played in
The Wedding Planner.
Matthew McConaughey. That’s who he looks like.”

Travis grinned bigger.

“Don’t feed his ego,” Cathy said.

Mindy giggled and set up a clean blender to make a piña colada.

“Want a job on Friday and Saturday nights?” Cathy asked.

“Not really. I’m usually out with my boyfriend those nights. He’s off on a conference trip to Germany this weekend so I’m out partying with my rowdy Oklahoma relatives. I work all week at a computer consulting firm.”

“I’ll work for you on Friday and Saturday nights if you’ll take the job for Amos,” Travis offered. “For free. I might not be able to brew up whatever she’s doing, but you can do that and I can draw beer. See, the handles are even marked so I wouldn’t make a mistake.”

“Deal,” she said.

“Are you serious?”

“I am very serious. You work for me those nights and I’ll work for Amos, but remember…” She looked up and almost lost her train of thought. “Just remember that Amos is my boss.”

“I’ll be your superior since it’ll be my house you are working in,” Travis argued.

“And I will be your boss two nights a week and you will answer to me. Remember that if you get all cocky,” she smiled again.