Just Down the Road (20 page)

“So.” Martha Q folded her hands over her middle roll of fat. “I heard you broke up with this girl you finally got to go out with you.”

“Looks that way, but we didn’t say any words or yell at each other. She just wasn’t there when I went to pick her up, and the next night when I dropped by on break she said she didn’t have time to visit because they were shorthanded.”

Martha Q raised one eyebrow. “Was the place busy?”

“No.” He didn’t want to admit that he’d sat out front and counted all eight people in the truck stop even though only three were sitting in the café.

“Then she was saying good-bye to you,” Martha Q said matter-of-factly. “Might have been that hair of yours. Double too long, if you ask me.”

“But shouldn’t she have at least said something like ‘I don’t want to see you again’ or ‘Drop dead, loser’?” He pushed his hair out of his face. “And I don’t think it was the hair, Miss Q.”

She’d told him a dozen times not to call her Miss Q. First, she’d been married seven times, so she didn’t qualify to be “miss,” and Q was not her last name or middle initial. It just followed along after Martha.

Martha Q frowned and ignored his last comment. “It’s been my experience that in this life you don’t always get a good-bye kiss, and some folks don’t want to stay around for the autopsy for who killed the relationship. Others, unfortunately, want to beat any feelings between the two of you to death so that you can’t remember the good times without feeling the pain of the breakup. I’ve tended to get involved with the second type myself, and I can tell you I’d prefer your girl’s choice.”

“So you’re saying I got off easy.”

“That’s about it.”

“But I don’t even know what I did wrong.”

“Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong, Beau. Sometimes it’s more a matter of not doing anything right. Tell me, what did you like about this girl?”

Beau smiled. “I liked the way she kissed.” He thought of adding how he loved the way she felt and smelled. He liked the way she kind of giggled when he touched her breasts. She had nice breasts, not big, but nice. They sure had felt good in his hands.

“What was her favorite color?” Martha Q interrupted his R-rated thoughts.

He shrugged. He’d never thought to ask.

“Her favorite TV show?” Martha Q shot questions. “Her favorite movie? What class did she hate in high school? When she was little, what doll did she collect? What would she be if she could be anything? Where would she live if
she had the world to pick from?” When he didn’t answer, she added, “What kind of underwear did she wear?”

When he opened his mouth to answer, Martha Q held up her hand. “I’ve figured it out. Boy, you didn’t love this girl or probably wouldn’t even like her, I suspect, if you spent a few hours talking to her. But you do love women, and I fear you’ll break many hearts because there are a great many women out there who can’t tell the difference between a man loving them and a man who just loves women. I suspect you’ll write your share of sad songs too.”

Beau put his head in his hands. The old bag was right. He liked Willow but probably for the wrong reason. Maybe she liked him for the wrong reason as well. She seemed to just want a boyfriend, and he happened to be the one who came along.

“What do I do?” he asked.

“About what?” Martha Q snorted. “About being a man and looking at women just because they’re women? Well, I’m not a doctor, but I’d say your illness is terminal.”

“Thanks a lot.”

She laughed. “All right, I’ll tell you what you got to do, but you have to promise to do it. I don’t like giving advice that’s not used.”

He wasn’t sure if she really had the answer or if she just saw her chance to get even with the entire male population by picking on him.

“Next time you meet a girl, look at her eyes. Don’t walk away without knowing her eye color, and don’t look down once you start talking to her.”

“All right.”

“Second, if you get lucky enough to have another female come up to you, you’ve got to spend at least five hours talking to her and listening to her before you touch her. That means no hand holding or kissing, or anything else. Five solid hours of talking to any girl. If she says one thing that bugs you in that time, walk away. No, run. If she does anything that bothers you, run. I’ve got enough experience to know that it’s those little things people overlook the first
hundred times that will drive you crazy when you marry someone.”

Beau remembered the hiccupping girl and decided old Martha Q might have something. He hadn’t been with them thirty minutes, and both of those girls would have led him to murder within a few hours. When he’d climbed into the backseat of their car after he finished playing, the one now hiccupping grabbed him and started kissing him. If the truck stop had been a few more miles away, she would have had his clothes off before they had time to order breakfast. At that moment he thought she was pretty near perfect. Ten minutes later in the café, he couldn’t wait to get out of there.

“Thanks,” he said, and meant it.

She leaned closer. “If you really want to make it as a singer, boy, you got to concentrate on that goal. Women can get you mixed up and lost faster than you think it’s possible. I know, I’ve been the mixer for many a goal-seeking man.”

He smiled. “You sound like my dad.”

Martha Q laughed. “Well hell, I ain’t never been compared to a preacher.”

She stood and walked to a cabinet. Pulling a pair of scissors out, she cut one long strand of rawhide on a pillow that said
Happy Trails
. “Tie that hair back, boy, and buy you a black hat. There’s got to be more to you than the music.”

Beau tied his hair back and smiled as Border called for them to come in to dinner. He didn’t talk to Martha Q any more that night, but he thought about what she said. Five hours of talk seemed like a long time when girls anywhere near his age made him nervous. Half the time he couldn’t stop the stuttering when he first met them, so he’d better look for one who really loved to talk if he planned to ever get kissed again.

Martha Q had been the first female in a long time who hadn’t made him fall over his words. Maybe he should just date old bags. The thought made him shake his head to rattle that idea out.

Saturday night he stepped into the cage with his hair
pulled back and wearing a black Stetson that he’d found at the secondhand store. Halfway through the second set, Border took a break and Beau picked up his old Gibson and began to play one of the sad songs he’d written. Everyone was already moving off the dance floor, planning to grab a drink between sets. Without the speakers, his song would be little more than background music, but Beau needed to play even if no one listened.

As the song ended, he looked up. No one was dancing. No one was even talking at the tables. Everyone in the place, including Harley behind the bar, was staring at him.

For a moment, Beau thought he must have broken some huge rule of what to play in bars, and then a roar went up. Folks were clapping and yelling and laughing.

“What’s wrong?” Beau looked at his friend just behind him.

Border smiled. “I’m not sure, partner, but I think they just witnessed the birth of a star.”

Beau grinned and touched two fingers to his hat in thanks. “Maybe Martha Q was right about the hat,” he whispered.

S
UNDAY

O
CTOBER
2

T
YLER
W
RIGHT SAID GOOD NIGHT TO
A
UTUMN AND CLIMBED
the stairs to his quarters above the funeral home. He could hear the wind whipping around the buildings downtown like an angry teenager stirring up trouble. Tomorrow there would be leaves and trash to clean up as well as branches, but tonight all he wanted to do was be alone. His Kate had been gone two weeks and he hadn’t heard a word from her.

He told himself he’d be happy, he could make it this one last time, if he could just hear from her. He just wanted to know she was all right. He needed to tell her he loved her one more time, and then he’d be fine with waiting until she got back. Major Katherine Cummings wasn’t just an arson expert for the army, she was his one forever love, and Tyler needed to know she was fine.

He didn’t even have a number to call. Officially, he
wasn’t family yet. She never talked much about her work, and he couldn’t remember her ever calling anyone she worked with by name. There was one she called
the kid
. Tyler remembered she’d said she was worried about him holding it together. One was another woman—much younger, Tyler thought he remembered her saying. Once she’d said something about a captain who was all army.

Tyler stepped out on the little balcony off his living quarters and let the wind pound at him. Why hadn’t he listened closer when she talked? Why couldn’t he remember at least one name? Tyler knew the answer. When Kate talked about her work, he was more interested in watching how she felt. Was she going to miss it? Would she give up all the excitement of travel and knowing that what she was doing was important for a life with him?

All his life he’d known his place in the world. He could never remember not knowing that he’d grow up to run the family business. Tyler had always taken pride in his work, in his reputation. He’d never really looked at it from the outside, except through Kate’s eyes. Maybe the reason she kept saying
someday
when they talked of marriage was that she still wasn’t sure.

He watched the stormy clouds rising black across the sky, and he knew all the way to his bones that his Kate was in trouble. Whether she wanted to live in Harmony, or marry him, didn’t matter as much as her coming back safely.

Wherever she was. Whatever she was doing halfway across the world right now, he could feel her and her mood, her emotions, just as he always did.

Major Katherine Cummings, his slightly plump, forty-five-year-old future bride was in trouble, maybe fighting for her life, and he could do nothing.

He straightened, trying to be a fraction of the soldier she’d been for more than twenty years.

A
DDISON’S THREE DAYS OFF HAD MELTED AWAY WITH THE
time spent at the ranch, and she had to go back to the hospital. Tinch told himself he didn’t mind; she was mostly in the way. She couldn’t cook, didn’t know how to play any board games, and asked almost as many questions as Jamie about ranching.

He was surprised that no matter how late she worked, Addison continued to come over to his place at night. He’d grown used to sleeping with her on the other side of the big bed. When Jamie cried in his sleep, she always pulled him close and hummed a little tune to him. About dawn he’d hear her cell phone alarm chime. He’d wait until she climbed out and hit the shower, and then he’d pull on his jeans and go downstairs. Some mornings, with no more than a nod, she’d greet him as he handed her a cup of coffee before she ran for her car.

Other times they’d talk out on the porch over coffee. Neither knew much about the other’s work, so both were
full of questions. In a way, what they did was more alike than different. They both tried to ease pain. Tinch was surprised how much he enjoyed their early-morning talks. She’d fire up quick when she disagreed, but she’d settle down more often than not with a smile.

Sometime during their week together, he figured out she had a good heart inside that ice princess body of hers. He was even getting used to her long bare legs that she didn’t seem to see any need to cover. He’d asked her one morning, when she was sitting at the bar eating breakfast in just his shirt, if she ever let the sun see those legs, and she’d answered simply, “Why?” like he was the odd one for even making the suggestion.

After waving her good-bye a little after dawn, he worked with the horses, very aware of where Jamie was at all times. The morning was cold, so Tinch wrapped the kid and the kittens in a blanket and set them out of harm’s way for a few hours. By lunchtime it had warmed up enough for Jamie to play in the yard with the two pups one of his cousins had brought over, promising they would help with security.