My Give a Damn's Busted (4 page)

She leaned back and started at his boots, let her gaze go up his long legs to the Texas Longhorn bull on his tarnished silver belt buckle, on up to chambray work shirt sleeves that had been rolled up to his elbow, taking time to check out his hands and his neck.

“I heard about that. Larissa said you laid down some rubber tryin’ to get that truck stopped and that it was probably totaled, old as it is. Why did you come all the way back down here tonight?”

“That’s exactly what happened. And it is probably totaled out but my dad is bound and determined to fix the thing. He’s got this affection for it. I think it’s a sixty-something model and he’s already put two engines in it. I’ve been hearing a lot about this place. I was close and the chores were done so I came to town for some company and a beer.”

“You almost fooled me, Hank Wells. But you are a drugstore cowboy. You ain’t the real thing.”

Words froze in his throat.

Larissa stopped in front of them. “He’s not real?”

“He’s the best fake I’ve ever seen,” Merle answered.

“What makes you say that?” Hank asked hoarsely.

“Two things. Your neck is lily white. That means you don’t work outside enough to be a real honest-to-god cowboy at your age. And your fingernails. That’s dirt up under them but it’s not ground in enough. Add that to the fact that you didn’t recognize Emmylou and something ain’t kosher.”

“I don’t have to justify myself to you, Miz Avery. But I am not a fake. My father owns the Lazy R Ranch north of Palo Pinto. Henry Wells? Heard of him? I have a job in Dallas and don’t spend all my time on the ranch,” he drawled. “When I’m at the ranch, I’m a bona fide cowboy whether I look like one or not.”

“I knew Henry years ago,” Merle said. “Didn’t know he had a boy. Don’t tell me that truck you wrecked is an old sixties model Ford. Red with white leather interior?”

“It is. How’d you know that? You clairvoyant or something?”

“I’ve got the memory of an elephant, honey. When you go home you tell Henry that you were down here at the Honky Tonk. He might explain about that truck if he wants you to know. Me, I ain’t sayin’ another word except I understand why he would never junk it.” Merle picked up the beer that Larissa set before her and took a long gulp. “You any good at pool?”

“No ma’am, but I understand there’s a couple of guys back there who are,” he said.

“Ah, that Julio and Patrick ain’t no competition. Julio’s Mexican temper and Patrick’s Irish one get in the way of either of them bein’ good at anything but arguing. Damn, I miss Garrett and Angel,” she said.

Hank looked at Larissa with a question in his eyes.

“Angel would be her niece and Garrett is Angel’s husband. They’re newlyweds and don’t come in too often anymore.” Larissa barely got the words out when someone ordered two buckets of Miller Lite and a pitcher of hurricanes.

Merle waited for the noise of the blender to stop before she turned to Hank. “I can see by the way you look at Larissa that you are interested. If you want to impress her then you got to work on getting that neck red and them hands dirty. She said when she took over the Honky Tonk that the only way she’d ever look at a man was if he was a real cowboy.”

Hank frowned. “And I thought I was pretty damn close to the real thing. Not that I’m interested in impressing Larissa or anyone else in this place. Someone else can have my stool. You have a good evening, ma’am.”

“Go haul some hay or drill some wheat and bring a red neck back with you when you come back in here,” Merle told him.

He tipped his hat at her and made his way through line dancers doing their routine to “Johnny B. Goode” by Buck Owens. He could still hear the guitar licks when he opened the door to his father’s newest pickup truck. He crawled inside and rolled down the window. He’d rather have been driving his own car but one look at it and not just Merle, but everyone in the county, would know he didn’t belong in the Honky Tonk. The next singer was Loretta Lynn. He’d recognize that nasal twang anywhere because he’d heard his father and mother argue about it when he was a little boy. His mother hated anything country and his father loved everything country. His mother was a socialite and citified woman who liked Broadway plays and classical music; his father was a rancher who listened to country music and grew his own food. They’d married on a whim and divorced before the ink was dry on the marriage license. The only thing that connected them was a son conceived on the wedding night in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Hank leaned his head back on the headrest and listened to the country music drifting out through the parking lot. Sweat poured down his neck and when he shut his eyes a visual materialized of Larissa Morley in those skin-tight jeans and that little red knit top that barely touched the top of her jeans. She was a tasty little morsel and he’d be the first to admit she’d gotten under his skin. She wasn’t the first woman who’d taken his eye the few times he went slumming, and she wouldn’t be the last. He would get over it and her because he had a job to do, and a relationship with the likes of Larissa Morley would blow the hell out of his work.

The next vision that flitted through his mind was Hank introducing a bartender to his mother, Victoria. He imagined the look on her face when he said, “Mother, meet Larissa. She owns a beer joint called the Honky Tonk.”

“She would die of an acute cardiac arrest,” Hank said aloud as he started up the engine to the truck and drove north toward Palo Pinto. He pushed the button and Merle Haggard’s voice filled the truck. He kept time to the beat with his thumb on the steering wheel.

***

Larissa was so busy behind the bar that she seldom knew when anyone arrived or left at the Honky Tonk, but the minute Hank Wells left his bar stool she knew it. She watched him walk across the floor, meandering around the line dancers and out the door past the Honky Tonk bouncer, Luther.

“Why did that particular man make you pant?” Merle asked.

Larissa shrugged. “Remember that song ‘Somebody’s Knockin’’? It says that she’d heard about the devil but she’d never dreamed that he’d have blue eyes and blue jeans. Well, I never dreamed he’d have whiskey colored eyes. Terri sings that they’ll have a heavenly night. I was ready to test that out without asking a single question. Lord, he could be serial killer and I’d still peel them jeans off his firm little hind end and enjoy doing it. I almost said yes when he asked me out to dinner. But something ain’t right. I can feel it in my bones, but at the same time I’m kicking myself for not saying yes. Remember how Cathy said that Travis was sex on a stick on her wedding day? I didn’t understand such a crazy saying then but I do now. It would probably be best if Hank Wells didn’t ever come back in this place. I don’t know what the attraction is, but it’s damn sure there.”

“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?