My Give a Damn's Busted (9 page)

“Yep, you can. But I’m as mean as you are and you’d best run fast, long, and hard if you do.” Larissa set her empty bottle on the table. “Lock up behind me. There’s a key to the back door of the apartment on the kitchen table so you can go and come as you please for groceries or whatever.”

“Thanks, Larissa,” Sharlene said.

“You are very welcome. You’re going to earn every word you don’t get to write.”

***

The next morning Larissa opened the back door to let Stallone in the house and blinked a dozen times before she believed her eyes. Hank was sitting on the porch, his back against a post and one knee drawn up. He wore faded overalls and a white gauze tank top, scuffed up boots, and a dusty old misshapen straw hat.

“Mornin’,” he said.

“How long you been sittin’ there?”

“About fifteen minutes. I’d have started scrapin’ but I was afraid I’d wake you up. I didn’t want to work with an old bear all day so me and Stallone have been having a Mexican standoff.” He nodded toward the black and white cat sitting at the edge of the garden with his ears laid back and giving Hank a dirty look.

“Come on inside and have a cup of coffee while I get dressed.”

He leaned against the inside doorjamb while she made coffee. The house was old and in need of multiple repairs. He wondered how much she’d paid for it and how much it would take to buy it from her. His claim to fame had always been that he could read people but Larissa Morley stopped him in his tracks. Her movements and even the short red silk pajamas covered with a fancy kimono robe screamed money. But no one with money would be living in a seventy-year-old house in Mingus, Texas.

“Why’d you ever move here?” he asked.

“You want the truth?”

“I’m a big boy. I think I can handle it,” he said.

“I’d been hunting for myself in all the wrong places and couldn’t find peace or happiness so one day I quite literally pulled down a map of the United States, shut my eyes, turned around three times, and put a tack in the map. Then I moved to Mingus and that is the gospel, pure unadulterated, one hundred proof damn truth.”

“You are crazy,” he said.

“Probably. But I’m happy.”

She brushed past him on the way to the bedroom. She looked up into his eyes but he blinked and looked away. The moment passed even though a flash of heat flickered between them. She wanted the kiss and felt cheated when he let the opportunity pass.

His jaw gritted in anger. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her, and even more, but he couldn’t, not until he knew who she was and why she was so attached to the Honky Tonk. Was he making the same mistake his father had made? Did it really matter if she owned a Honky Tonk? Did it matter that she’d found her niche in Mingus, Texas? What did it matter to Hank Wells?

She hurriedly threw on a pair of cutoff jean shorts, cowboy boots that she’d used in the hay field, and a bright red tank top, then smeared sunblock on her face, arms, and legs and brushed her hair up into a lopsided ponytail. When she went back into the kitchen he’d already poured two cups of coffee and was sitting at the table.

“What color are you going to paint the house?” he asked.

“Turquoise.”

He jerked his head around so fast that his neck popped. “What?”

Larissa smiled. “I love the islands. Folks down there aren’t afraid of color. So I bought turquoise paint and the trim is going to be hot pink. It’ll be bright and make me laugh.”

“This is not the islands. When and what islands did you visit?” he asked.

“There’s lots of books in the library and I like the ones with pictures,” she said. “My mind is made up and the paint already custom mixed. I only bought one gallon of lemon yellow though. Don’t you think that’s enough for the porch posts and front steps?”

He swallowed hard. The woman baffled him more than he thought possible.

“And if there’s any left I’m going to use it to paint my kitchen chairs. One of each color and then I’ll buy some purple for the fourth chair.”

“You don’t strike me as that kind of woman,” he said.

She shoved a bagel into the toaster and got out the cream cheese. “What kind of woman am I?”

“Classy. I could picture you in a little café in Paris having coffee and watching the people.”

Her breath caught in her chest and it ached until she remembered to exhale. “Boy, I’ve got you fooled. What in the hell would make you think something like that?”

“The way you carry yourself and hold your head. You’ve either been around people who were classy or else you come from money somewhere up the line. Did you lose your shirt with bad investments?”

“Sorry to pop your sweet little bubble but I didn’t lose jack shit on any investments,” she said. “Want something to eat before we start? I figured we’d work until about three and take a lunch break down at the Smokestack. You fed me so I’ll feed you but I don’t have Oma living in my house to cook for us.”

“Better give me a couple of those bagels. Got any espresso hiding in the house to go with them?” Hank said.

“Sorry, plain old coffee is the fanciest thing I’m offering. No lox or caviar for the bagels either. This is not the Café de la Paix. I might rustle up some plum jam that Linda brought over last week.”

He snarled his nose. “With cream cheese?”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” she said.

“You eat it that way?”

She didn’t answer but scooped up a tablespoon of plum jam and topped off the bagel with cream cheese spread over the top. She shoved it toward his mouth and he opened it on impulse. “Bite,” she said.

He obeyed.

“Not bad.”

She motioned toward the toaster where his had popped up. “Help yourself.”

Biting into the bagel where his mouth had been caused her insides to go all mushy and a blush to warm up her neck. Sharing anything with him brought on thoughts of sharing more—like her bed.

He smeared cream cheese on two bagel halves, put them on a paper plate from a stack on top of the microwave, and carried it to the table. “Tell me that you aren’t serious about the colors for the house. And when did you have breakfast at the Café de la Paix?”

“Like I said, I read a lot. You ever had breakfast there?”

“Yes, I have. I love Paris. Love the laid-back way you go to the café for coffee and end up sitting at a table on the sidewalk for hours watching the people and talking to the locals,” he said.

She nodded. “Sounds like fun. Someday maybe I’ll have breakfast there. And yes, I am very serious about the colors and the chairs too. I think I’ll leave the table its natural color since it’s still in good shape. But the chairs are all mismatched so they’ll look cute in different colors. I got them at four different garage sales. I made several purchases in surrounding towns when I first bought the house. Found my bed over in Gordon, the dresser in Mineral Wells, and the rocker in Palo Pinto. My dishes are all mismatched. My house is a picture of life. It’s not perfect and it’s all mixed up but stuck together with contentment and love.”

“A philosopher?”

“No, just a hippy born thirty years too late. Want another bagel before we go to work?” she asked.

“No, I believe this will hold me,” he said.

“I got everything all ready on the front porch. Ladders, scrapers, paintbrushes, and pans. Linda loaned them all to me. Bless her heart. Saved me a fortune in buying all that stuff that I’d just have to store in the garden shed later.”

He followed her out the front door. “Didn’t take you long to make friends in Mingus, did it?”

“Never thought about it. Linda lives on the next corner and Betty and Janice are her friends. We just kind of got to know each other. Then I got to know Cathy when I went hunting a martini and some company one night and met the regulars at the Honky Tonk and everything fell into place. Convinced me I was where I needed to be.”

He picked up a ladder and carried it out in the yard. “I’ll do the high places. You can do however high you can reach. And honey, when you get this house painted to look like a Bahama Mama hut, they may run you out of Mingus.”

“Or else folks will stand in line to hire us to paint every house in town like it.” She grinned.

He grimaced. She had about as much finesse as a trailer trash hooker. It must have been that earthy characteristic that had attracted him. Most men liked that kind of woman but only for a night or two and they left the money on the nightstand.

He tried to make sense of his feelings as he scraped peeling paint from two-inch Cape Cod siding. She kept up with him on a lower level, the hot July sun beating down on them with a breeze that felt like it was flowing straight from a bake oven.

“Lord, I could use a gelato from the Daphne Inn,” she mumbled.

“In a plastic cup because they say that a cone interferes with the pureness of the flavor?” he asked.

“You’ve been there too? Just what do you do in Dallas when you are there? Rob banks or are you a famous thief?” She really did crave a gelato in a plastic cup and a long sit on a bench near the fountain. If she’d been living in her previous life and had met Hank when he was a Dallas head honcho, they would have probably gotten along splendidly.

“No, I’m just a businessman whose business takes him to Paris and Italy occasionally.” That nagging voice started again telling him to be honest and tell her that he spent time in Europe every year just because he loved the old country. But to make that admission would mean he’d have to tell her more and more and finally she’d pour a bucket of that hideous paint on his head in a fit of anger.

“How long do you think it’ll take to get this all done?” she asked.

“This is Saturday. If we work hard, we might have the scraping finished by the middle of the week. The rest of the week we can paint.” He was glad to change the subject.

“Tomorrow?” she asked.

“Is Sunday. Ranchers take that day off for a day of rest. We didn’t haul hay on that day.”

“Okay.” She drug out the two syllables to make five or six.

“So I thought maybe I’d pick you up about ten in the morning and we’d go fishing out at the lake. I’ll have Oma make us a picnic,” he suggested.

“Is that a date?” She smiled.

“Do you want it to be a date?”

“If it’s a date do I get a kiss at the end of the day?” she teased.

“Do you want a kiss at the end of the day?”

“Yes, I do,” she said.

“Why?”

“To see if it will knock my socks off like the first one did or if that was just a fluke,” she said.

“And if it was?”

“Then I’ll stop thinking about it.”

“You don’t have any trouble speaking your mind, do you?”

She shaded her eyes with the back of her hand. “Not a bit. That bother you?”

He smiled down at her. “It wouldn’t do any good if it did. So at the end of our date when we have a second kiss are you going to be honest and tell me if it knocks your socks off or are you going to fake it to keep from hurting my feelings?”

“Honey, I don’t fake a damn thing.”

His mind fell into a deep gutter.

***

At three she wiped the sweat from her brow and said, “If I don’t put food in my body soon you are going to have to call the undertaker.” She went into the house, got her car keys, and tossed them to him. “I’m too weak to drive. You’ll have to do it. Just remember she’s my special baby and if you are mean to her, you’ll never drive her again.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He held the door for her.

The Smokestack is the only business in Thurber, Texas, population from five to eight depending on who a person talks to that day. The restaurant is in an old warehouse building with the walls covered with antiques and pictures of days when Thurber was a thriving town.

Larissa led the way to a booth toward the east end of the restaurant. She slid into one side and Hank did the same on the other. She held up two fingers when the waitress looked up and nodded when she mouthed “pie.”

“So what are you cooking today?” Hank asked.

“Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, salad with garlic bread on the side, hot rolls, and coconut cream pie. Sweet iced tea. Speak now if you don’t like ranch dressing or sugar in your tea and I’ll tell the waitress to make a couple of changes.”

He shook his head. “Both are fine. That all they serve in here? It’s quaint, but it’s not the Brasserie Bofinger on the Rue de la Bastille, is it?”

“Nope, but I don’t expect you’d get a Texas-sized chicken fried steak there, would you? Or that you’d go there in paint-stained overalls either,” she smarted off. She leaned across the table and whispered, “As far as what else they have or serve in here, I have no idea. I’ve never seen a menu.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because I came here first with Cathy and Amos and they never ordered from a menu. The chicken fried steak is so good I can’t imagine ordering anything else. I’ve got another confession. I’ve never been fishing.”

His smile erased the frown. “Are you serious?”

“Do I need to go buy any equipment?”

He shook his head. “No, Dad keeps enough fishing stuff out at the ranch for an army to use. He loves to fish on Sunday afternoon.”

“Is he going with us?”

“No. He’s going to Whitesboro to a gospel singing. Would you rather go to that?”

She shook her head. “I hear singing every night. I’d rather go fishin’.”

The waitress brought iced tea and salads. Hank downed half his tea before he came up for air. “That’s almost as good as Oma’s.”

“What do you do when you aren’t at the ranch? I remember you said once that you didn’t live there all the time.” She sipped at her tea.

“I work in an office in Dallas. Love the ranch in the summertime so I spend as much time as I can in this area.”

“Even better than the Café de la Paix?” she asked.

“Now that’s a hard question. Which one do you like best?” he asked right back.

“Like you say, it’s a hard question. I don’t get over to Paris nearly as often as I did back before I inherited the Honky Tonk,” she said. But her thoughts went to that café while she looked out the window at heat waves rising up from the concrete parking lot.

“I never know when you are joking or telling the truth,” he said.