Burned in Broken Hearts Junction: A Cozy Matchmaker Mystery (Cozy Matchmaker Mystery Series) (3 page)

I really wished Dale would put a little more effort into the acts he booked. Granted, it was March, and this was a small town in Oregon. But still. There had to be something better than these guys. We were two sets in, and my ears were already begging for mercy. I swear, I didn’t know if I could take much more of—

“You
git
your hands
off
of her.”

A raised voice boomed over the music.

A moment later, a beer bottle shattered against the wood floor, and then there were a few surprised screams.

Chapter 4

I squinted into the crowd. Even though their backs were to me, it only took a couple of seconds to realize who was making the ruckus.

And why.

Kirby Carruthers, a big, Paul Bunyan-looking gas attendant who Beth Lynn had dated for three months, was standing face-to-face with her new young friend. I swear, I could see steam coming out of the big man’s nostrils.

This was going to get ugly. And get ugly fast.

I scanned the crowd, looking for Dale and his big muscles. But typically, he was nowhere to be found.

I came around the bar, knowing with each step that I was making a boneheaded decision.  

But there was no one else around, and I’d be damned if these two fools were going to make a mess of my bar.

Even though I didn’t own The Stupid Cupid Saloon, I sometimes acted like I did.

Beth Lynn’s young friend shouted something inflammatory back in Kirby’s face, and the big man’s cheeks grew a bright, rage-filled shade of cherry red and the veins in his neck started bulging. He stepped closer to the kid in that weird kind of way guys did when they were fighting. Where you thought the two would either start throwing punches, or start kissing.

The music died down as the boys in
Cattle Carnage
caught wind of what was playing out on the floor.

“Now, boys,” I shouted in my loudest and strongest voice. “I don’t care what y’all do, but you’re not doing it here in my bar, got it?”

They both acted like they hadn’t heard me, staring deep into each other’s eyes. I glanced at Beth Lynn, who shook her head sheepishly.

I don’t know why I had ever tried helping her find true love. Beth Lynn was a lost cause if I ever saw one.

Everyone’s eyes were now on the pair. The music had stopped altogether, and anticipation of the oncoming fight hung thickly in the air like cigarette smoke.

“Mark my words if you start something in here, you’ll never see the inside of this bar aga—” I started saying.

But I was too late.

Kirby took the first swing. It landed on the kid’s face, and he went flying backwards.

Flying back into me.

Boneheaded move.

His elbow came crashing into my face. He regained his footing, but I lost mine. I hit the cold, wood floor of the saloon hard. There was the sound of more blows, and more scuffling, but I couldn’t really see much from where I was on the floor.

The side of my face was completely numb.

“You got no right!” Kirby yelled from somewhere above me. “You got no right taking my woman!”

Kirby let out a grunt as Beth Lynn’s young friend landed a blow. The two scuffled some more.

The entire bar shook under their violent movements, and for a moment, I feared that Old Velma, the huge, mounted ox head that hung over the bar, might just come crashing down with all the commotion.

It appeared that no one was going to stop it. Some bar patrons appeared to be transfixed. Others seemed to be giving into their lesser urges to see two guys rip into each other.

But just when I thought the whole place was going to be destroyed, another voice joined the fray.

“
Either of you take another swing, you’ll have me to answer to
.”

The voice wasn’t loud. In fact, it was hardly above a whisper.

But there was fire in his words, and everyone could hear it.

Fire, and something else. Something that made you shudder to think of what might happen if you disregarded his warning.

Everyone hushed, and Beth Lynn’s two boyfriends stopped swinging at each other.

I started getting to my feet, but a wave of dizziness hit me, making my vision black out for a second. Kind of like the way it felt when one of my visions was about to come on.

I sat back down, still unable to see who was behind the voice that brought a stop to the fight.

Beth Lynn came over and knelt over me, a worried expression on her face as she surveyed the damage. Her mouth dropped open a little, and I knew it must have been bad.

“Yeah?” Kirby said in a bear-like growl. “And who the hell are you?”

“I don’t think you want to find out the answer to that,” the man said. “But you’re welcome to it. More than welcome.”

Kirby let go of the kid’s collar and his big boots thudded against the wood floor as he approached the man.

“I don’t know what your game is, but you can’t come in here and—” Kirby started saying.

“C’mon, baby,” Beth Lynn said, getting up and getting in front of Kirby.

She grabbed a hold of his thick arm.  

“You made your point. Don’t get busted up any more than you already have because of me.” 

Her young guy’s face fell a little bit, watching her caress Kirby’s arm like that.

“Tell this rug rat here that you’re done with him, and I might consider it,” Kirby said, nodding to the kid.

Beth Lynn sighed.

“I told you, Kirby, you can’t act this way. We broke up, and that’s that.”

Kirby started chuckling, his big beer belly jiggling with the effort.

“Sure, but you were singing a different tune last night, baby,” he said. “A tune all the neighbors could hear, if you know what I mean.”

Beth Lynn gasped a little bit and then placed a hand up to her face in embarrassment.

Her young friend’s face fell completely now into a broke-up expression.

“But, Beth Lynn, I thought…” her cougar catch started saying.

His voice was all thick and you couldn’t help but feel bad for him. Those big puppy dog eyes of his couldn’t hide the hurt.  

It must have been a big blow. His cougar had been stepping out on him.

Guilt spread across Beth Lynn’s face like a wet blanket, and she let out a short wail before turning around, pushing her way through the crowd, and running through the front door.

Like I said. My best friend Beth Lynn was a hopeless case if I ever saw one. And I might have felt more sorry for her if she hadn’t just gotten my face busted-up.

“Sorry to break it to you like this, young fella,” Kirby said, smiling smugly at the kid. “But that’s my woman you were pawing.”

“You son of a—” the kid responded, lifting up a curled fist.

“You two get the hell outta here,” the man who’d stopped the fight said. “And don’t come back.”

Beth Lynn’s young friend stopped mid-punch and pulled back. He stomped out of the bar angrily, doing as the man said.

He had more sense than Kirby, who just stood there laughing. A deep, throaty laugh that reverberated throughout the bar.

“Poor fool,” he said, shaking his head. “All right. I’m calling this one a night. Close out my tab, Bitters.”

Here I was, still on the floor, dazed and confused because of him, and he wanted me to close out his bar tab.

I was about to start another fight with him myself.

“Leave it,” the other man said in a steely tone.

The voice suddenly sounded familiar, and though I still couldn’t see him from my position on the floor, I knew who the mystery man was.

The southern drawl came through loud and clear.

“I don’t think so,” Kirby said.  

“You’ll leave it,” the stranger said, the tone even steelier.

He was no man to mess with. Even someone as dumb as Kirby Carruthers could figure that much.

The fool paused for a long moment, then finally scoffed.

“Fine,” Kirby said. “I’ll be back tomorrow for my credit card, Bitters.”

“Get a new one,” the stranger said. “Don’t come around here again.”

Kirby scoffed again.

“We’ll see,” he said, backing away. “We’ll see.”

Vague threats were a trademark of Kirby’s. I knew that much from Beth Lynn’s stories.

Kirby walked out in a huff. Loud voices started up again, the gossip mills already running. I stayed on the floor, placing a hand up to my throbbing cheek.

“Jeez, look at you,” Courtney said gruffly, coming over from where she’d been hiding behind the bar.

“Where in the hell is Dale?” I asked.

“That good for nothing husband of mine walked out half an hour ago.”

“Typical,” I said. “Just goddamn typic—”

A shadow passed over us. Courtney stood back.  

I looked up.

He reached out a hand to me. I stared at it a moment before taking it.

The stranger, the one who ordered the orange soda, the one who had just stopped the fight, pulled me to my feet.

Chapter 5

My cheek was beginning to puff out like a microwaved marshmallow.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I think so.”

It was starting to throb now. The numbness was beginning to wear off, and small waves of pain rolled in to take its place. 

Courtney left and went for the broom in the back. She came back and started scraping together the shattered glass on the floor. It was the first time I’d ever seen her holding a broom. Most the time, she hardly worked around her.

The lead guitarist of
Cattle Carnage
started playing again, and the band followed, filling the bar with their terrible racket. The drummer started pounding even harder against the set than he had before.

It was almost enough to make my head explode.

“C’mon,” the stranger said, nodding back toward the bar. “That eye of yours is going to be worthless tomorrow ‘less we get some ice on it.”

“We’re shorthanded tonight,” I said. “And I’ve got a drink order longer than—”

“Take a look around you,” he said. “It ain’t like anyone here’s going thirsty.”

Bob Browning, a heavy-set real estate agent whose face was plastered on signs all over this town, drunkenly shouted something to the band about playing The Eagles’
Life in the Fast Lane
, and I realized the stranger was right.

Say what you will about The Cupid, but no one in this place had ever gone thirsty, or ever would as long as it was still standing.

Chapter 6

“That was sure something you did back there,” I said, pressing the bag of frozen peas up to my cheek. “I’ve never seen anybody break up a fight so cleanly.”

That numbness was quickly coming back as the ice bag worked to stunt the inflation.

“Well, not that cleanly,” he said. “Somebody did get hurt.”

“I’ll be okay,” I said.

He nodded.

“I guess you could say I’ve seen my share of bar brawls,” he said. “The trick is to make guys like that big fella believe you mean what you say. Which is hard to do. Guys like that don’t usually have much sense to begin with.”

“I’ve never seen Kirby listen to anybody around here,” I said. “He’s as senseless as they come.”

We were in the bar’s kitchen. The kitchen was sort of a leftover remnant of The
Cupid’s glory days, when they had a real chef and a real menu. These days we hardly used it. Dale and Courtney couldn’t afford to hire a line cook, and it seemed easier to them to throw peanuts and chips at the customers and have them go across the street to the sandwich food cart if they got hungry.

I sat on the kitchen counter, giving my feet and head a break. The stranger had no reason to linger on with me, but he did.  

The sound of
Cattle Carnage
rumbled on from the front, the beat vibrations coming up hard through the floor.

“So let me see if I’m understandin’ the way this saloon works. You’re the bartender
and
the bouncer?” he asked.

“Bartender, yes,” I said. “And bouncer only when Dale can’t be found.”

I sighed.

“Which seems to happen a lot these days.”

“Dale is the owner?” he said.

I nodded.

He crossed his arms and leaned back against the steel counter top, and I could tell what he was thinking.

“I can manage just fine,” I said. “I might not have the, uh,
mediation
skills you have, but I get by when I need to. Tonight’s just a special case.”

“I’m sure you do a fine job,” he said. “But it just seems to me like you’re wasting a perfectly pretty face on a job like this.”

“Well, what should a pretty face like this be doing?”

He came over and gently pulled away the bag of peas from my cheek, inspecting the damage.

Normally, a stranger looking at me like that would have made me feel uncomfortable and on edge, but there was something about him that calmed me.

That didn’t happen to often when it came to me. 

He sucked in wind like it caused him pain just to look at my injury.

“That bad?” I asked.

“Well, let’s just say it might be worth it to talk to that boss of yours about giving you a few days off of bouncer duty,” he said. “Or at the very least, a raise.”

“Fat chance of that happening,” I said.

“Really though, you ought to not get in the middle of fights like that. You should just let that kind of thing play out.”

“Are you kidding? I wasn’t going to let those two fools destroy my saloon,” I said. “No way.”

“
Your
saloon?” he said, leaning back again. “I thought you said Dale was the owner.”

“Well, I may not have any money in it, but I reckon that it’s just as much mine as it is his. I love it more, anyway.”

The stranger smiled.

 “Well in that case, get this saloon of yours a real, live bouncer with a neck bigger than a tree trunk.”

“You want the job?” I asked.

“Tempting, but I’m afraid…”

Just then, the music died down, and I heard a familiar voice out in the front of the house.

He was shouting.