I Love This Bar (7 page)

   "You been promising me for years you'd hire someone else. Sunday is my day to get things done around here," she said.

   "Woman is only good as her word and you said that you'd be glad to help us until I could find someone. Ain't no one else I trust. You tellin' me your word ain't worth shit?" Emmett asked.

   Daisy had been cornered and the only way out was straight ahead. "My word is good as gold, you cantankerous old goat. I'll eat if you make steaks and baked potatoes and corn on the cob. I'll bring dessert."

   "Cherry cheesecake?" Emmett asked.

   "You got it. The one from the freezer section at the grocery store. It'll have time to thaw out on the way. I've got to get back to work now. You be good and don't be startin' any brawls. I run a decent place," she said.

   "I could whip anyone in this joint," Emmett said.

   "Don't doubt it one bit but if you feel the need to fight you get outside or I'll throw your sorry ass out myself. I won't even let Tinker do it. I don't abide brawls and you know it," Daisy reminded him as she headed toward the bar.

   Jarod watched her go from the corner of his eye. Damn it all to hell on a silver platter. He'd never get her out of his mind with that visual firmly implanted there.

   She heard Emmett telling the guys that Ruby didn't allow fightin' in the Honky Tonk either. She couldn't make out what Jarod said in response. They all laughed loudly and Emmett went on with another story. She wondered if it had anything to do with Ruby and would have loved to listen in but there was entirely too much noise.

   "Well?" Chigger said.

   "Well what?"

   "Your cowboy make any moves?"

   "He's not my cowboy and no he did not."

   "You sure he's straight? Me or you, neither one affected him? Is he blind or just dumb?" Chigger said.

   "He's straight and he's not blind or dumb. Emmett has sure gotten cantankerous in the past year. I'm figurin' Jarod has a woman stashed somewhere. Maybe a fiancée that he doesn't want to bring down here to meet Emmett for fear the old coot will run her off."

   Chigger handed off the bar rag she'd been using to Daisy. "That Emmett always was a pistol. Mavis kept him in line. Now that she's gone, he's runnin' wild, so to speak. I wouldn't take Jarod's job for all the dirt in Texas. Way I figure it is that when a person gets old they just become a bigger whatever they were when they were young. If they were sweet and kind then they become that kind of old folks that can't do enough for others. If they were an asshole like Emmett then it intensifies and they're unbearable as old people."

   "How'd you get to be so smart?" Daisy asked.

   "Fixin' hair. I can fix a girl's hair for the prom and tell you what she's going to be like when she's eighty," Chigger said.

   "So what's Jarod going to be like when he's eighty?" Daisy asked.

   Chigger giggled. "I knew you were interested. I shouldn't tell you but you got me on Momma's good side, so here goes. Jarod's got tunnel vision. When he sets his eyes on a woman, that's the only one he'll see the rest of his life. But he's got Emmett's genes in him too, which means there's a hell of a lot of fire and temper."

   "And Jim Bob?"

   "Like a big old cuddly teddy bear." Chigger winked.

   "Then you aren't going to seduce him?" Daisy asked.

   "Who we talkin' about? Jim Bob? I don't have to seduce him. He's ready all the time."

   "You know who I'm talkin' about," Daisy said.

   "Jarod? I gave you my word," Chigger said.

   "You know what I think?"

   Chigger smiled. "That I flirt with lots of men but I go home with Jim Bob and have for the past year?"

   "You are a clairvoyant witch," Daisy said.

   "Maybe so, but when Jim Bob finally catches me, he'll think he's won the lottery," Chigger said.

   Daisy slowly shook her head from side to side. "Were you ever as wild as you claim?"

   "Oh, yes, ma'am. Every bit, but that red-haired cowboy tamed me pretty quick and, honey, he's been just as wild as I have been so he can't ever play goodytwo-shoes with me. I just don't want him to think I'm a pushover. If he has to work for the goods, they'll be a lot more valuable."

   Daisy narrowed her blue eyes. "You never did intend to seduce Jarod, did you? It was just a story to get me to go meet your momma."

   Chigger shrugged. "Guilty as charged. Got to go protect my cowboy now from the other women. Don't get mad. We're friends now. We wouldn't have been if you hadn't met Momma."

   "How in the hell do you tell them apart? You could be going to bed with a different Walker triplet every night and not know the difference. That might be why you think he's so good in bed. You got three of them keeping you happy."

   Chigger threw back her head and laughed. "Jim Bob is the best lookin' one of the three. Billy Bob has bigger ears and Joe Bob has a bigger nose. I know my man, girl, and he's the biggest Walker where it counts."

   Daisy blushed. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"

   Chigger shook her finger at Daisy. "Momma will have to pray for your sorry ass if you keep talkin' like that. And here she thought you were such a sweet little lady."

   "I don't think your momma's prayers make it past the ceiling. She's got to be getting calluses on her knees prayin' for you and look what the results are."

   "Hell, honey, just think how bad I'd be if she wasn't prayin'," Chigger said.

   "You got a point there. You ever figure out why they all got Bob for a middle name? Is their father's name Bob?"

   "Naw, his name is Harlin and he's a sweetheart. Love his momma to death, too. They both think I'm just the ticket for their son. Jim Bob says they all got the middle name of Bob because his momma was so bumfuzzled at havin' three at one time she didn't know what to name them so she thought up first names and then put Bob on all of them. Actually, she told me one time that her maiden name was Roberts and the boys have real fine names. It's just that they got shortened down. Billy Bob is William Robert. Jim Bob is James Robert and Joe Bob is—"

   "Joseph Robert," Daisy finished for her.

   Chigger nodded. "The whole family is wealthy ranchers and oil men. You could do worse than Billy Bob, Daisy."

   "Probably, but he don't make my little heart dance. I'm not ever settlin' for less than passion," Daisy admitted.

   "That's right, sister. Have it all or take nothing," Chigger threw over her shoulder as she headed back toward the table where Jim Bob waited.

   Daisy filled two jars with Miller beer and watched Chigger sashay across the floor. She said something to Emmett before she turned her attention to Jim Bob who popped up like a windup toy and led her to the dance floor. Daisy wished she had life by the horns as well as Chigger did.

   At midnight she turned around to find Jarod leaning on the bar at the far end. She made her way to him, filling a couple of orders as she went. "What can I get for you?"

   "Nothing. I'm taking Uncle Emmett home. He's tuckered out. I just wanted to tell you that you don't have to come to dinner that Sunday. He'll forget all about it by tomorrow. The Alzheimer's gets worse every day. He'd argue with a stop sign. I swear he would."

   Daisy could have listened to him talk for hours. His deep voice mesmerized her. Her eyes were half closed and a smile tickled the edges of her full mouth as her imagination ran rampant. Would his voice go even deeper if he was in bed with her and whispering sweet things in her ear as he nibbled his way to her lips?

   "Did you hear me?" he asked.

   "Sorry. My mind was somewhere else." She blushed. "I gave my word and I'll be there. I was joking about the beef steak. I will definitely bring the cheesecake in case he remembers. It's no trouble. I'll just pick one up at the grocery store."

   "I'd rather you didn't. What did he mean it was time for you to come out there?" he asked.

   "It isn't your ranch and what goes on is between me and Emmett. You don't want to be there for dinner, that's fine. Go somewhere else. Why are you staying anyway if you don't want to be there?"

   Jarod shook his head. "Don't call it dinner. It's supper. He'll really go off the deep end if you call it dinner. That's the noon meal. And I'm there because he needs help. My dad will probably sell the place or else give it to one of the grandsons when Emmett is gone."

   "It's the old way of thinkin'. He's just holdin' on to what he knows. Why aren't you going to keep the ranch?"

   "I don't want it. I refuse to let it dry up and blow away, but I damn sure don't want to live in this godforsaken country. And you got that right about him holdin' on to what he knows. He won't let go of a damn thing. Guess I'll see you a week from tomorrow."

   "That's your choice. I'll be there. You decide where you'll be," she said.

   "Sassy piece of baggage, aren't you?"

   "I am what you see."

   He let her have the last word and made his way through the dwindling crowd for the door where Emmett was shuffling along with his walkers, in the plural sense of the word. He had his aluminum walker surrounding him. Jim Bob Walker was on one side, Joe Bob on the other, and Billy Bob held the door open for him. Jarod wondered if it wouldn't solve a whole hell of a lot of problems if he went back to Oklahoma and let Emmett bequeath his ranch to the Walker brothers.

Daisy shut the doors at two o'clock. She popped the top off a bottle of beer, propped her legs up on a table, and went back over the night's events. Every single thought either began with a vision of Jarod or something he said.

   "Damn it," she swore and attempted to turn her thoughts away from him by thinking about the Honky Tonk. The beer joint had been good to her, had given her a job and a family of sorts. What was a family anyway? A bunch of people connected by a bloodline? Well, the Honky Tonk was home to a bunch of people connected by friendship. That could make a family, couldn't it?

   She raised her bottle up in a toast. "Ruby, I don't know what in the hell you saw in me that day, but I'm glad for everything you did. Thank you. You changed my life. Now could you erase that sexy man out of my heart and mind?" Daisy asked.

   She started across the floor when a hard pounding on the front door caused her to change course in the middle of the room. Before she took two steps, they hit the door again, this time harder and longer. She swung it open, expecting to see a Mingus citizen with a cat that had been hit on the road and needed to either be sewn up, bones set, or put to sleep. She hoped it wasn't the latter; she still got misty-eyed when she had to put an animal down.

   "You didn't even ask who was here. You got a death wish or something?" Jarod asked.

   "What do you want? And it's none of your business what I do."

   "Uncle Emmett left his wallet on the table back there. I told him you'd find it and I'd come back tomorrow but he can't sleep until it's safe in his hands. I asked him what was in it and he said Aunt Mavis' picture when she was a young woman."

   "Well, come on in and find it," she said.

   Jarod went straight for the table. The wallet had been kicked back against the wall. He held it up for Daisy to see. He damned sure didn't want her to think he'd invented an excuse to come back to see her that late. He'd tried every argument in the world to keep from driving fifteen miles back to the Honky Tonk at two thirty in the morning. He'd been sound asleep when he heard Uncle Emmett yelling at him from the bottom of the stairs. He'd thought the old guy was sick or had fallen. Adrenaline had shot through his veins like lightning and he didn't even remember how he'd gotten to the living room, but he could have strangled Uncle Emmett when he heard what the commotion was all about.

   "Can't sleep so I wanted to talk to Mavis and when I do I look at that picture. It's at the Honky Tonk. You go get it right now," Emmett had said.

   "I can't go back there now. The place closes at two o'clock. Besides, that bartender will find it and put it up for you," Jarod had argued.

   "Daisy isn't just a bartender, boy. She's a fine woman. Why, one time your Aunt Mavis even said that she'd make you a wonderful wife. You could do a hell of a lot worse in this world than Daisy O'Dell."

   "I wasn't being snide or condescending."

   "That ain't what I heard. I heard you say 'bartender' like it was dirty."

   When he'd exhausted every excuse in the world, he'd dressed and gone to retrieve the wallet. Now he felt pretty stupid standing there with it in his hands.

   "Lock the door and ask who's there before you answer it," he said.

   "Don't tell me what to do."

   "You aren't big enough to stop someone from hurting you."

   "Good night, Mr. McElroy."

   She'd no more locked the door and started back across the dance floor when he knocked hard again. She slung the door open. "This is not funny."

   "You need to ask."

   "You need to mind your own business."

   "What if I'd been drunk and rushed inside to hurt you?"

   "Try it," she said.

   He took two steps forward only to find a sawed off shotgun pressed firmly in his ribs. He held up his hands in surrender, his left one still holding Emmett's wallet.

   "How'd you do that?"

   "I told you not to worry. I can take care of myself. Just remember that it's loaded at all times. Permit to have it is posted right beside my license behind the bar. And I'm not one bit afraid to use it."