I Love This Bar (13 page)

   "You got it." Holding her with one strong arm, he grabbed the quilt with the other hand and threw it over his shoulder. He carried her to the truck, let the tailgate down, and eased her into the truck bed.

   She pulled him down on top of her. Kisses continued until she was breathless. She ran her hand up under his shirt and he quivered, proving that he wanted her as much as she did him. It might be nothing more than a one night stand, but she couldn't have stopped at that point if it had meant facing a firing squad. She pulled the shirt over his head and he kissed the hollow of her neck.

   She moaned.

   "Like that, do you? God, you are so damn beautiful. Your skin is like fire-hot silk. When I touch you every sane thought leaves my head."

   "And you, darlin', are a damn fine lookin' cowboy. Anyone ever tell you that your chest is so damn sexy that… oh, don't stop. Please, Jarod, don't stop."

   "Honey, if there's any chance you want me to quit, say it now. If you slip your hands over my body again, wild mustangs couldn't stop me," he said.

   "I'm not saying anything, darlin'," she whispered in his ear.

   He slipped his hands under the top of her dress and pulled it down slowly, tasting every bit of her skin as he tugged it all the way to her ankles. Then he started back up from her toes to her breasts. By then she was lost. There was no tonight, no yesterday, no tomorrow: just a red-hot fire in the pit of her insides that begged to be eased.

   He wanted to rush things and it was going to take a ton of willpower to restrain the excitement ripping at his heart. When she arched against him during a deep kiss, he peeled her bikinis from her hips.

   She moaned and begged, "Oh, Jarod, please."

   "I sure do love to hear my name on your lips, beautiful," he said.

   "I'll say it over and over, Jarod, if you'll just… please." Her body melted against him again.

   "Yes, sweetheart. Did you know that the moonlight on your body makes you even more beautiful?" He hurriedly shucked out of his jeans.

   He managed to make it last long enough that the stars flew out of the heavens and landed all around them in the bed of his truck. She heard a loud hum in her ears that sounded like the whine of a country fiddle just before he whispered her name in a deep throaty southern drawl. She shivered and he hugged her closer to him in a crushing embrace. He rolled to one side without letting her out of his arms and buried his face in her hair.

   Deep down, Daisy felt what she'd only heard about before—that sensual aura called an afterglow. She pulled the quilt over them even though the night breezes were scorching and snuggled down closer to his chest and shut her eyes. If only… but that didn't happen in real life. Happily ever after was for people like Chigger and Jim Bob and maybe occasionally in a big thick romance book.

   Jarod stared at the twinkling stars in the sky and the big round full moon. His heart and pulse still raced even after she snuggled up to his side. Nothing had prepared him for the passion lying between them after the sex was over. Nothing would ever be the same and yet it couldn't change. She was a bartender who had no intentions of ever leaving the Honky Tonk. He was a rancher who wanted a wife beside him every night and morning. He wanted her to be there when he came home at noon or when a new baby calf was born. Daisy had made it very clear she would never leave the Honky Tonk. It didn't keep him from hugging her tightly that night.

   
So much for not having time or falling for a barmaid,
he thought as he fell asleep.

   An hour later she awoke. "Hey, cowboy, it's time to wake up and go home."

   He opened one eye. "Why?"

   "Because it's a wonder someone hasn't driven past, saw a strange truck, and stopped to see what was going on," she said.

"Who cares?"

   "I'm going inside. You stay here as long as you like." She wrestled the quilt from around them and wrapped her body in it. She picked up her underwear and Chigger's dress, silently cussing both the whole time. If she hadn't been wearing something of Chigger's she wouldn't have just had sex with a man she'd only known a few days. Chigger had probably really had put some kind of "slut" curse on them before she loaned them out. In all her life, Daisy had never slept with a man she'd only known a couple of days. Chigger's morals were truly contagious. She'd guard her water jar with a shotgun from that day forward. She wondered if there was an anti-slut antidote?

   She almost forgot her vet bag and grabbed it at the last minute.

   "Tackle box?" he asked.

   "Something like that," she said.

   Jarod sat up in all his naked glory. "Why are we out here and not in your apartment?"

   Daisy eased down off the tailgate and tucked the quilt firmly around her like a strapless prom gown. "Because the one rule Ruby had was that I didn't have men in the apartment."

   "Ruby is dead. You own the Honky Tonk. You make the rules."

   "Like I said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Good night, Jarod."

   "Good night, Daisy. Hey, aren't you going to thank me for a good time?"

   "Are you going to thank me?" She was inside the apartment before he could answer.

   She heard his laughter as she slid down the wall to sit on the floor just inside the door. What in the hell was she going to do?

   She touched her lips, amazed that they were cool and not still fiery hot. Ruby's rule played through her mind. "No men in the apartment to avoid hasty mistakes."

   "Hasty or not, I'm not going to regret tonight."

Daisy awoke the next morning at nine o'clock to the ringtone of her cell phone. She grabbed it and answered without opening her eyes, hoping to hear Jarod's deep voice on the other end.

"Miz Daisy, this is Rayford. Some fool cut my fence and my stud bull went through it. Done tore up his side somethin' horrible. Can you come out here and stitch him up?"

   "I'll be there in twenty minutes." She was out of bed and finding her jeans before she broke the connection. She threw on a T-shirt and tucked jeans down into her work boots. She had her purse in one hand and her black bag in the other when she opened the back door. The phone rang in the Honky Tonk but she didn't have time to talk to the beer distributor right then. Rayford's bull needed stitches.

   She made it from Mingus to Gordon in fifteen minutes and met Rayford in the pasture beside his house. The rangy old bull was bleeding and rolling his eyes, daring anyone to come near him.

   "How'd you get him corralled?" she asked.

   "Led him along with a feed bucket. I ain't sure how you're goin' to handle 'im. He's not friendly when he's well."

   "You just stay on this side of the fence. I'll take care of him," she said.

   She crawled over the split rail fence and started talking calmly. The bull lowered his head but he didn't charge. She told him what a handsome old boy he was in a sweet voice. Before long she was so close she could touch him and in a few deft movements, she had a needle loaded with deadening medicine and shot into the wound. She cleaned it thoroughly before she tied off thirteen stitches in his hide and then gave him a healthy dose of antibiotic to keep down any infection.

   "You sure got a way with animals, Miz Daisy. Don't know why you don't stop workin' at the Honky Tonk and go into it full time," Rayford said.

   "I'm in it full time," she laughed.

   "What do I owe you?" He laughed with her.

   "I'll send out a bill first of the month. Have to figure up the medicine," she said.

   "Might as well come on in and have breakfast with us. Dora has it cooked up and ready. She'll be mad if you don't."

   "Thank you," Daisy said.

   Dora met them at the door. "You two wash up at the sink while I put this food on the table. It might not be as good as it was when it was fresh, but that old bull had to be took care of before anybody could think about eating. I heard Emmett's great nephew, Jarod, is over there takin' care of him. Somebody needs to. Since Mavis died, that man has really gone down. You met Jarod?"

   Daisy started at the name. Couldn't she go anywhere without someone bringing it up?

   "Yes, he came into the Honky Tonk." Daisy related the story of the clash.

   Dora and Rayford laughed so hard they almost choked on their pancakes.

Jarod didn't think to get Daisy's cell phone number before he left early on Monday morning and it took an hour to locate a phone book among all the clutter in Emmett's house. When he called the Honky Tonk business number, a fine bead of nervous sweat bubbled up on his upper lip. While the phone rang he went through a dozen first liners, all of which sounded lame and stupid.

   Five rings later he'd decided on one. Ten rings later he'd forgotten every one. Surely she could hear the telephone ringing. Was she deliberately not answering it because she didn't want to talk to him? On the twelfth ring he slammed the phone back down on its stand and turned around to find Emmett right behind him.

   "What?" he snapped.

   "Ain't me with woman problems. You bring her home where she belongs and you won't have to be callin' her," he said.

The crowd at the Honky Tonk was slim that night. A few truckers stopped by and four older ladies who always came in for a gossip session claimed a corner table and asked for a pitcher of piña coladas. Daisy kept a watchful eye on the front door as she worked and listened to the Bellamy Brothers sing "Let Your Love Flow" and "He'll Have to Go," by Jim Reeves. The old 45 rpm records still spun around a turntable inside the rounded sixties-style jukebox and dropped down when

quarters were put into the slot.

   One trucker laid his head on the bar and sighed. Daisy patted his big broad shoulder. "Got troubles, Mac?"

   "Wife's on her six-month kick. About twice a year she gets like this. She doesn't like for me to drive a truck and bitches about it for a solid week. We can't live without the money I make so she'll come around, but she's in a mood until she does," he said.

   Merle claimed a stool next to him. "Give me a Coors. Longneck. What's the matter with you?" she asked Mac.

   Merle was seventy years plus and wore her jeans tight. Her pearl snapped Western shirts were always flamboyant and the one she wore that night was turquoise with bright red appliquéd roses on the detailed yoke across the back. Her stovepipe black hair was pulled back into a ratted French twist and piled high on her head.

   "Wife troubles again," Mac said.

   "Stop your bellyachin' and come shoot some eight ball. That lazy Joe Bob Walker don't come around except on weekends. How in the hell he expects to keep his skills honed up is beyond me."

   Mac sighed again. "I couldn't whip you so what's the use."

   "Oh, stop your carryin' on and give me a little competition anyway. God Almighty, you reminded me of that jackass on Winnie the Pooh that's always dragging around in a bad mood."

   "You watch cartoons?" Mac asked.

   "Well, hell yeah. They're cute, all but that Eeyore jackass. He's a whining pain in my ass. Now get a stick and let's play. You know damn well that you are one of the finest pool sharks this side of the Louisiana line."

   Mac perked up. "You ready to lose?"

   "Tell you what. We'll play for jukebox music. I win, you keep the music going. You win, I'll put the money in the box. I'll put in the first five dollars. That'll take us through the first game. After that loser pays. How about some old George Jones? He's a good one to listen to while we play," Merle asked.

   Mac nodded. "That feller knows the pain of lovin' a woman, don't he? Get your quarters out, Merle. I feel lucky tonight."

   Merle winked at Daisy.

   Daisy thought of Chigger's infamous winks, which brought on thoughts of Jarod and sex in the back of a pickup truck. She fanned her burning face with a dry bar rag. George Jones sang a song that had lines in it about how tomorrow night they'd meet again. Daisy glanced toward the door but Jarod didn't materialize. Surely he'd call or stop by in the next couple of days.

   Merle cocked her head to one side. "What are you all dressed up for tonight?"

   "I'm not," Daisy said but she felt the slow burn of a blush on her neck. Hell's bells, she hadn't blushed so much since she was sixteen.

   "Yes, you are. I ain't never seen that cute little shirt. And you've got on makeup and your hair is down. That nephew of Emmett's got you all hot and bothered?"

   "Good lord, Merle, go shoot eight ball and drink your beer."

   "He's a good lookin' cowboy. He might have me all hot and bothered if I was thirty years younger. Hell, today I couldn't keep up with him."

   Daisy pointed toward the tables. "Go."

   Ray Price sang next, an old beer-drinking, snotslinging song about how his woman didn't love him anymore. He said his new love's lips were warm and the one waiting at home was cold. Were Daisy's kisses cold?

   
Hell, no! My kisses set him on fire as much as his did
me. It might have been a one night stand, but by damn,
it was red hot.

   Dolly Parton and Ricky Shelton started singing "Rockin' Years." Dolly said that her heart only had room for one and sang about rockin' chairs, rockin' babies, and rock of ages. She said that side by side they'd be together always. Was there really that kind of love left in a crazy mixed up modern world?