I Love This Bar (26 page)

   Liam sat down beside his son. "I'm full-blooded Irish and I'd be honored if you gave your baby my name. My grandfather came over here from the old country and spoke with a heavy accent until he died. I'm supposed to have a temper to go with the name but…"

   Frankie put her plate on the table, sat down beside him, and said, "…but he's mild tempered compared to me. I'm half Cherokee, the other half mixed mongrel. Momma was the Indian. Daddy was a plain old white man who didn't have a clue to his background. He must have had a temper gene somewhere because Momma was the most laid back, calmest woman you'd ever met. But me, I got a white hot temper that flares up like a forest fire especially if someone messes with my family. How about you, Daisy? You got a temper? With a name like O'Dell I'd guess you've got some Irish?"

   Daisy took a long drink of her tea before she answered. "O'Dell is from my father who I never met. He was killed before I was born. My momma was Cherokee Indian too, a quarter. Her mother was half and brought up in Cherokee, North Carolina, on the reservation. And yes, ma'am, I have a temper. Don't surface real often but when it does it takes a lot of water to put it out. I pick my battles but I don't back down from anything."

   Frankie nodded seriously. The lines were drawn. She'd laid out her cards and Daisy had put hers on the table. It didn't matter who had the full house or aces; Momma Frankie intended to win the jackpot because her son deserved better than a barmaid.

   "You got that much water, Jarod?" Cathy asked.

   "Jarod's got a pretty healthy dose of temper himself. Mitch is more laid back like me. Stephen got some of his momma's disposition, but Jarod got a big chunk of it," Liam said.

   "Did I hear my name?" Stephen pulled out a chair beside his mother.

   "We were talkin' about Irish tempers," Daisy said.

   "Jarod got that. I got the good looks. Mitch got left out," Stephen said.

   "Sounds like me," Billy Bob said. "I got the good looks. Joe Bob got the smarts and poor old Jim Bob got—"

   "Me!" Chigger said and leaned over to kiss Jim Bob on the cheek. "You two are going to be left out here in seven months when I have a pretty little girl for his momma."

   Jim Bob beamed and the conversation went to naming the baby. Daisy wouldn't have cared if they'd discussed dead bodies over the dinner table as long as they left her alone. That was another reason a serious relationship would never work between her and Jarod. Not even a romp in the bedroom could calm two equally scorching tempers. Like she'd said, it would take a lot of water to put out her temper. She couldn't imagine what it would take to extinguish both when she and Jarod both flared up at the same time. Texas didn't have that much water.

   Jarod squeezed her thigh under the table and she jumped. Chigger winked from across the table and Cathy giggled.

   "You want to walk home?" she asked Cathy.

   "Ah, I was hopin' you'd let me drive the car home and Jarod could haul you home," Cathy said.

   Daisy shook her head. "Not in this lifetime, cousin."

   "Why can't she drive your car?" Joe Bob asked.

   "Ask her," Daisy said.

   "She carries a grudge forever, too. We were both sixteen and she had a waitress job so she bought this old junker of a car to get her back and forth. I had a crush on the quarterback of the football team so she let me take the car to the football game. I wrecked it and she won't let me drive her cars," Cathy said.

   "Fender bender?" Joe Bob asked.

   "Totaled it," Daisy said.

   "Y'all kinfolks?" Frankie asked.

   "On the O'Dell side. My daddy and hers were brothers. We're both only children and we're all that's left of that side of the family," Cathy said.

   "And what do you do for a living? Are you a rancher?" Jewel asked.

   "No, ma'am. I'm a bartender. Work at the Tonk for Daisy. It's a good beer joint. Got a big old burly bouncer named Tinker and he keeps things on the up-and-up. The folks around Mingus know Daisy don't put up with no shit. Pardon my language if it offends anyone's delicate ears. Me and Daisy, we just call 'em the way we see 'em. I've worked in worse places, let me tell you. So has Daisy," she said.

   "I see," Frankie said coldly.

   Daisy reached under the table and squeezed Jarod's leg. He gave a little start and smiled at her.

   "Something I can do for you?" he whispered.

   "You're in big trouble," she said out of the corner of her mouth.

   "Probably, but it's worth it," he said.

   Jewel leaned around Stephen and said, "Hey, Daisy, did he tell you that he's already bought three engagement rings so you could have had a choice if Uncle Emmett would have ever noticed you weren't wearing rings."

   Jewel had red hair cut in a short bob, green eyes, and enough freckles to give her makeup hell. She might have weighed a hundred and ten but that was with rocks in her pockets.

   "I heard he'd been engaged three times." Daisy's tone was one of icy dismissal before she looked across the table. "Cathy, did you tell Tinker we'd be back in plenty of time to open up tonight?"

   Jarod's face was a study in anger.

   "Just thought you'd like to know he's a three-time loser," Jewel said.

   Daisy leaned forward and smiled at Jewel. "Diamonds don't mean squat to me, darlin'. I want a man's heart, not his damned old ring." She couldn't believe she was taking up for Jarod. She'd told Emmett that he could take care of himself and the first rattle out of the bucket she was fighting his battles. Maybe Emmett had been right when he said every man needed a good woman.

   "Touché, Daisy. Well said. You ought to know that he's spoiled though. You ever hear that song by Blake Shelton, 'The Baby'?" Maria asked.

   "It's on my new jukebox," she said.

   "That's Jarod. He came along when the other two McElroy boys were half grown. Momma Frankie was tired so she spoiled him rotten and protects him like a mountain lion with a cub," Jewel said.

   "Rest assured, Jewel. Jarod and I are not planning a wedding," Daisy said bluntly.

   "Everyone he introduces to the family, he ends up engaged to. I just thought I'd give you the lowdown and save you some time," Jewel said.

   Daisy frowned at Jewel that time. Honey didn't work. Maybe vinegar would shut the woman up. "It's my time and whether I waste it or not is my business."

   "I'm just warnin' you. Everything goes pretty good until he puts the ring on your hand then it all goes in the toilet. We never have figured out why," Jewel kept on.

   "Well, the toilet won't get clogged with my big diamond because I don't want one from any man. I'm not interested in marriage, engagements, or relationships. I'm very content in my Honky Tonk beer joint, and honey, when I leave it'll be after a night of drawing beer and listenin' to good country music. They'll take me out with my boots on and my hand wrapped around a longneck bottle of cold Coors. Now I'm going for a walk around the property one more time before I go home. I've had all this sweet company I can stand for one day." She pushed her chair back.

   Jarod did the same.

   "Where are you going?" she asked.

   "With you," he said.

   "I didn't ask you."

   "I didn't ask you either, but I'm going."

   They locked gazes and the rest of the world disappeared. He intended to pursue her until she was his. She intended to run as fast as she could so that she didn't have to face her own feelings for him.

   She shrugged and started walking but her high heels sank in the ground with every step. After a few feet, she stopped, took them off, and tossed them toward the back porch, and walked out of the fenced yard in her bare feet. Jarod caught up to her, swooped her up in his arms, and carried her like a new bride to the nearest barn.

   Her first impulse was to kick and scream until he put her down. But that would have made Jewel happy. Daisy would have endured walking through hell in her bare feet before she let Jewel win the catfight. The minute they were in the barn she wiggled and squirmed until he lost his grip and put her down.

   She gritted her teeth. "Why'd you do that?"

   "Goat heads," he said.

   "Are you crazy? What has goat heads got to do with anything?"

   "Pasture is full of them."

   He tilted back her chin and claimed her lips with a burning kiss. She clung to him as the bones in her legs dissolved. She wanted more and was angry at herself for the lack of control. She didn't believe in love at first sight. It was something that happened in fairy tales, not real life.

   He broke the kiss but kept her hugged up to his chest tight enough to hear her racing heart keeping time with his. "Tell me again about how you don't want relationships?"

   She rolled up on her tiptoes, wrapped her hand around his neck, and pulled his face down for another searing kiss. "No commitments. Just long slow kisses and what they lead to."

   "What's that?"

   "In this barn with all those people seeing through the wide open doors, it will lead to nothing, especially right after a funeral. Some things are sacred. Carry me back to your truck and take me to my car. I'm ready to go home."

   "Can I come into the apartment for a cup of coffee?"

   "Hell, no. Men aren't allowed in the apartment," she said.

   "I was in it yesterday," he argued.

   "It won't happen again."

   "Then walk," he said.

   "You son-of-a-bitch," she said.

   "Dad might get riled if you call his wife that. See you later, Daisy. Don't forget we got a cowboy date on Sunday." He left her standing there and whistled a tune by Lonestar all the way back to the yard.

   She sat down on a hay bale and drew her bare feet up when she saw a mouse skitter across the barn floor. It's a good thing she didn't have her shotgun or Jarod would be having a close up and personal visit with Uncle Emmett.

   He stopped at the table and said a few words to Cathy, then stopped to speak to some people at another table before he disappeared around the back corner of the house. Daisy bit at her lower lip. Walking across a pasture of burrs would be pure torture and it would be impossible to get her boots on for work that night. Sitting where she was all afternoon in the sweltering heat of the barn would cause dehydration. It was a loselose situation.

   Cathy waved toward the barn. Chigger and Jim Bob did the same as they made their way to Jim Bob's truck and Daisy motioned for them to come and rescue her. Jim Bob backed the truck out of the parking place and drove away in the opposite direction from the barn. Daisy couldn't take her eyes from the tailgate of the big dualtired truck as she watched her rescue disappear. Cathy was going to be calling a taxi to take her back to Dallas to catch a bus to Mena when Daisy got home that evening.

   Another movement caught her attention and a white truck appeared out of the dust coming toward the barn.

   "My knight-in-shining-damn-armor. Billy Bob, you never looked so good. Maybe I'll marry you after all," she said.

   Billy Bob did not step out of the truck when it pulled into the big double doors of the barn. Jarod did with a big smile on his face. Without a word, he scooped her up into his arms for the second time and carried her to the driver's side where he gently set her down. "Scoot over, but not too far. I'd like to feel you next to me."

   "You are a rat," she declared.

   "Had you guessing, didn't I?"

   "Hell, no! I was about to yell for Billy Bob. He wouldn't let me walk across a field of stickers," she said.

   "That's alfalfa in that pasture, Daisy. There's not a sticker or goat head in it. Are you sure you are a vet tech?" he said.

   "I'm a vet tech, all right, but I'm not a rancher. I don't know alfalfa from green beans."

   "Want to learn?" He cocked his head to one side.

   
More than you'll ever know,
she thought.

Chigger's wedding dress was a demure white spaghetti strap cotton sundress that flowed from an empire waist to the top of her new pink cowboy boots. A wreath of white roses with ribbons flowing down back circled her upswept blond hair and she carried a bouquet of pink and white roses. Jim Bob was dressed in black Wranglers, white shirt, and polished, black eel dress boots.

   Daisy stood on Chigger's left in a pink and white checked sundress and white sandals. She wished she had a bouquet to hold to keep her hands from shaking. She'd expected Joe Bob and Billy Bob and maybe even the Walker parents to be present and they were. She had not expected to see Jarod there also. Yet there he was on the other side of Jim Bob, standing right beside Billy Bob and Joe Bob.

   Jarod couldn't keep his eyes off Daisy or his mind on the ceremony. She was beautiful. She was smart. She was funny. She was so many things that he couldn't begin to list them all. And he wanted to be a part of every single bit of her life from that day forward, until death parted them. And not Emmett's death, either.

   Daisy looked around Chigger and locked gazes with him. One eyelid slowly dropped and a slow smile curved his mouth upward.

   Her heart quickened and her pulse raced.

   She calmed both by making a mental list of what

liquors were getting low at the Honky Tonk; how many bags of peanuts and pretzels were in the storage room; whether or not the old record of George Jones singing "I Always Get Lucky" should be replaced on the jukebox this week.