Sweet Vidalia Brand (2 page)

Bobby Joe McIntyre drove his pickup truck as far as the giant Christmas tree in the center of town. The forty-foot blue spruce was all decked out in twinkling lights against one of the darkest nights he could recall. There had been stars before, when he’d been standing outside the OK Corral with Vidalia, but clouds had blown in and not a single star looked down at him now. It was like they’d all gone out three months ago when his charmed life had come crashing down around him. He’d thought maybe seeing Vidalia again might reignite at least a couple of the luminaries that used to favor him. And it had, for a few precious seconds. But she’d shot him down, added a bucket of ice water to the star-dousing party.

It had been years ago, but he remembered it like it was yesterday.

He’d been a single, hardworking handyman. She’d been a married mother of four girls with a husband who was perpetually absent. She’d bought an abandoned motel for back taxes and hired him to help her turn it into a saloon. The OK corral.

She’d been something else back then. Hell, she still was. All of five foot two, with curves that probably still drew appreciative looks from every red-blooded male in town. He was no exception. Rich, lustrous curls as black as ebony wood, and the most fiery brown eyes ever to flash his way. Lashes like velvet fringe. Skin like caramel satin.

He’d admired her. Her work ethic. Her no-nonsense attitude. Her temper. Her steadfast morality. And the passion he sensed bubbling like a cauldron over a low flame—passion neglected by the man whose job it was to tend it. She kept that cauldron covered up tight.

They’d worked late the night before the OK Corral’s grand opening, unpacking glasses and bottles of liquor, stocking the kitchen and the shelves. By then he knew two things for sure: She had no intention of breaking her marriage vows, and she wanted him just as bad as he wanted her.

“How about a toast?” he’d asked. “To celebrate your dream coming true?”

She’d smiled—that killer smile he had never managed to get out of his head in all these years. Then she went behind the bar to pour them each a shot of top-shelf whiskey.

He’d walked over to the brand new jukebox–the same one that had been playing country Christmas songs tonight–dropped a nickel into the slot, and chose
Lead Me On
, by Conway and Loretta. He’d never forgotten the way she’d looked as she’d come around the bar with a drink in each hand, pretending not to notice the lyrics. Beautiful. Tempted. And scared.

She handed him a glass. “To the best little saloon in Oklahoma,” she said, lifting her own.

He lifted his too. “And to the prettiest saloon owner in the entire U S of A.” He tapped the rim of his glass to the rim of hers and downed the whiskey in a single gulp. She only sipped from hers. And then he said, “Break in the dance floor with me, Vidalia?”

She lowered her eyes a little. “I should get on home. The girls–”

“Are sound asleep by now. So’s the sitter, I’ll bet. They won’t notice if you’re five minutes later.” He took her glass from her, set it on the bar beside his. “C’mon, Vi. You’ve worked hard.
We’ve
worked hard. We deserve to celebrate, even if it’s just with one dance.” He held out his arms.

Sighing, she went into them. “Just one dance,” she said. “And that’s all.”

“That’s all.”

But when she moved up close to him, and he lowered his arms around her waist, he couldn’t help the sheer male pleasure that filled him. The scent of her perfume reached him. Vanilla and something else. Something just slightly spicy and exotic. Her body was just barely touching his, and he wanted to press her closer, but knew she’d probably slap the lust right off his face if he did. So he settled for the soft, accidental brushing of breasts to chest, and thigh to thigh every now and then.

She rested her hands on his shoulders, didn’t close them around his neck the way he wanted her to. But he didn’t push. He settled for that. They’d spent hours together, for months on end while she’d worked her perfect backside off and put every spare penny into the saloon. She’d insisted on paying him for the work he did, even though he’d offered more than once to do it for nothing. Just being around her was payment enough.

And finally the work was done, and he would have no more excuses to be with her all the time, alone, late at night. No more reason. And he knew her too well to think she might give him one.

This was a goodbye dance. And he was pretty sure she knew that as well as he did.

And then the song ended, and a miracle happened. She tipped her head up, looked right into his eyes and let him see, just for a second, the feelings she kept so closely guarded.

He couldn’t help himself. He lowered his head, and he caught her mouth with his, and she didn’t pull away. No, she kissed him back, her arms twisting tight around his neck to pull herself up higher. His heart took off like a racehorse at the sound of the starter’s pistol, and he bent over her, holding her body tight to his just like he’d been wanting to. He kissed her deeply, leaving no doubt in her mind that he’d like to do a lot more.

She kissed him right back, just as full of enthusiasm as he was. And when he finally lifted his head, wondering where they would go to do what seemed inevitable, she looked deeply into his eyes, and hers were wet.

“Are you...crying?”

“Not yet.” She put her hands on his shoulders, and firmly held them there while she took a step back. “I’m a married woman, Bobby.”

“Don’t I know it.”

She nodded. “Then you know this has to stop right here. I shouldn’t have even....” Closing her eyes, lowering her head, she said no more. Just walked over to the juke box and pulled the plug. Then she picked up her shot glass, downed its contents in a gulp. “I’m not the cheatin’ kind, Bobby. I’d hate myself if I did something like that.”

And right then, he felt the truth of those words. “I guess I know that, too.”

“You ought to. You oughtta know it better than most anyone in this town.”

He nodded, wanted to argue, to reason, to rationalize, but he did know her better than anyone, and he knew that if he made love to Vidalia Brand, he would be destroying her at the very same time. He couldn’t do that to her.

“I’m leaving town tomorrow, Vidalia,” he said. And he hadn’t known he was going to say it until he did.

“Don’t feel like you have to–”

“I have to.” He sighed. “I’ve got some money saved up. There’s a falling down Cantina just this side of the Tex-Mex border going up for auction.”

Her head came up, eyes lighting, her smile genuine. “You’re goin’ into the saloon business?”

“Not like you, but yeah, that’s the plan.”

“You’re gonna do well, Bobby,” she told him. “And I’m not ashamed to say, I’m gonna miss you.”

“I’m gonna miss you too,” he told her. And he thought he meant it a whole lot more than she did.

She held his eyes for a long time, and then she went behind the bar and refilled both their glasses.

That had been twenty-some-odd years ago. And that whole time, he’d never been able to get past the notion that Vidalia Brand was The One. The only woman for him. And for some reason, he just wasn’t meant to have her. Not in this lifetime, anyway.

Maybe next time around, he thought as he stood there looking up at the red and green and blue and white lights of the giant Christmas tree. If there was a next time. He wasn’t the sort of man who had any real convictions about what happened after you died. But he supposed he’d be finding out firsthand in short order. Any time now, according to his doctors.

He sighed heavily, and his breath made a steam puff in the darkness. Then he got back into his pickup and turned it around, driving back toward the former feed store he’d bought at the far end of town. He had the entire thing draped in an exterminator’s tent, so the work going on inside would go unseen until he was ready to make it public day after tomorrow.

He’d made a fortune taking over failing bars, saloons and nightclubs, recreating them into successful hot spots, and then selling them for massive profits. He’d become one of the richest men in Texas. He’d married, had three sons, and neglected them almost as much as John Brand had neglected his daughters. He’d divorced after fifteen years with a woman he had liked at first, disliked later on, but never loved. There was only one woman he’d ever really loved.

It was only a month ago that he’d realized he wanted to leave something more behind than a portfolio stuffed with paper wealth. He wanted to leave his sons something real. Something of him. Something they could be proud of. And he wanted it to be in Big Falls Oklahoma, where he’d been a young man with his entire future ahead of him, who didn’t yet know that he’d never be happier than he was right then. Richer. More successful. Busier. But never happier.

Seeing Vidalia again had been a bonus to coming back here. But it hadn’t been his only reason. He intended to breathe his last in Big Falls, the closest thing to a hometown he’d ever had.

But his main reason for coming back here now was because he wanted to spend one more Christmas in Big Falls. Christmases had been magical here. Vidalia and her little girls always made them so special, even when he’d just been a lonely drifter handyman with no family to call his own. Three Christmases, he’d been invited to share in the holiday meal with the Brands. Three Christmases when John Brand had seen fit to be elsewhere. Even poor, Vidalia had given her girls holidays to remember. Meaningful, sparkling, magical holidays full of love and laughter.

He wanted his boys to experience a holiday like those ones he remembered, just once. He’d been too busy getting rich to give them any of those. And according to his doctors, he should just about have enough time left to make that happen.

An hour later, after closing time, Vidalia stood in the cold rain, looking across Main Street at what used to be Milner Feed & Grain. The big building was wearing an “I’m being exterminated” sort of disguise. Maybe it really was an exterminator’s tent covering the entire place. Vidalia wouldn’t know, having never seen one. Bugs only tended to be a problem in big cities, where there wasn’t room for them to live outdoors where they belonged. She’d seen big city life. Never lived it. If she had, she figured she’d have most likely run screaming for this particular corner of Oklahoma. The northwestern part, where there were mountains, and where there was weather. They got a little snow once or twice over the course of an average winter. She wondered again if they would this year. Snow for Christmas...that would be something, wouldn’t it?

She almost asked God to send her some, but then she couldn’t quite do it. She’d sinned. She’d sinned in a big way, and she had never made that sin right. And while she’d managed to push it to the back of her mind for a good many years, it was front and center, now. She didn’t feel she had any business asking God for anything.

Sighing, she pushed the dark thoughts aside and got back to the moment at hand. There wasn’t a lick of traffic on the slick, shiny ribbon of road that unfurled in either direction. The sheen of rain on the blacktop was the only way to tell the difference between the road and the night itself. There wasn’t another car around, either. And she’d left her own a football field away, before she’d got here. The former feed store was right on the edge of town. Vidalia lived five miles beyond the other end of town, back the way she’d come. The OK Corral, her best friend for the past more-years-than-she-cared-to-count, was on the opposite end of Main.

Her hair was getting wet. She should’ve brought a hat. But she hadn’t had one with her at the Corral, and she’d come directly here from there. Probably because she was afraid she’d lose her nerve if she went home first. It would be too easy to just go to bed and try to forget about....

About Bobby.

Not that she would’ve been able to.

Nope, Bobby Joe McIntyre was on her mind. And in her town. And it hadn’t taken too much algebra to figure out why. He’d made his millions buying out saloons, rebuilding them into something huge and gaudy and soulless, and then selling them again. There were no out of business saloons in Big Falls. Not right now, anyway. But there was one former feed store, auctioned off for taxes months ago, that had suddenly come to life underneath an oversized tent. And there were strangers in town. Oh, they were careful, showing up only a few at a time to shop or use the Post Office. But there were a lot of them. She’d been keeping track. No less than twenty new faces had appeared on the other side of her mahogany bar in the past few weeks. Working men, hardly a female among ‘em.

Until she’d seen Bobby, she’d assumed it was some PR stunt by whatever corporate giant was going to try to put up a chain store where the feed and grain used to be. There’d been good-natured debate among the locals about what it would be.

But the minute she’d seen Bobby’s still sinfully sexy backside walking away, it had hit her. It was a saloon. That was his business. Big, flashy, city-slickin’, modern mockeries of old west clichés. He was in this town to put her out of business.

And playing on that one night, and what had happened between them–almost happened, as far as he would ever know–to keep her too flustered to notice what was happening right under her nose.

She would be damned if she was going to take this sitting down.

But of course, she had to make sure.

Drawing a deep breath, she hunched her shoulders, stepped out from under the leafless tree that she’d been trying to use as an umbrella, and jogged across Main Street and around to one side of the building. Then she stood there with her back against the canvas tent, looking at the night and the parking lot and the road.

It was quiet as a churchyard and cold enough to raise goose bumps on the Devil’s backside.

Okay, it’s now or never
.

The main entrance to the feed and grain used to be right about where she was standing. So she crouched low, lifted the tent, and ducked underneath. And then she stood there between the brown slab wood siding and the canvas, fumbling in her jacket pocket for the flashlight she’d brought from the saloon.