Red's Hot Cowboy (12 page)

“It’s your room, apartment, or house. Whatever you want to call it. You can do whatever you like to the place. Rosa lived here when I was a little girl back before she remarried and moved into a house. She had a sofa and end tables and a bookcase on that wall. I remember because I was a little girl and she used to read to me. Then when I got older we’d watch movies together sometimes and she’d make popcorn for us. Back then she used the refrigerator and old cookstove hooked up in the storage room behind the laundry. You’re welcome to use those any time you want to, Lucy.”

Lucy melted into the recliner, put her head in her hands, and sobbed.

“Lucy, what’s the matter? Did I say something wrong?” Pearl asked.

She shook her head. “It’s more’n I hoped for when I left Kentucky. I can’t believe I’m this lucky.”

“You’ll think lucky when you have to clean rooms. Sometimes they leave them in a mess.”

She wiped her eyes and stood up with a ramrod straight back. “Enough of that bellyachin’. You didn’t hire me to listen to me whine around like a kitten took away from its momma. Let’s get this bed outta here and then go to work.”

Together they removed the comforter, folded it, then the blanket and linens. When they were done, they carried the mattress out to the breezeway, leaned it against the wall, and went back inside for the box springs. Before they could pick it up Wil had parked his truck in front of Lucy’s room.

He hurried out of the truck and into the room. “Saw y’all moving a bed out when I was passin’ by so I turned around and come back to help. Here, let me do that for you.”

“What are you doing out this early?” Pearl asked.

“Darlin’, it is almost seven o’clock. I done been up long enough to feed the cows, horses, pigs, and chickens and me and Digger had a big breakfast. I’m on my way over to Rye’s to break a couple of young horses. Me and Raylen said we’d be there before eight but I got time to haul that stuff wherever you want it took.”

“It’s just a bed and we are takin’ it to the garage,” Pearl said.

His eyes lingered on hers a few seconds longer than necessary. “Okay, then. Stand back and I’ll put it on the truck and take it around there.”

He brushed past her and his touch slapped every single sane thought from her head. She did have enough sense to step back and let him into the room but it took a second before she regained her composure.

“I was trying to think about where we would put this in the garage. There’s a couple of places,” she said to cover her blush. “Lucy, this is Wil. And Wil, this is Lucy, my new hired help. She’s going to live in this room. That’s the reason we’re moving the bed out.”

Wil noticed the bruises and the way the woman kept her eyes downcast. It didn’t take a high-powered psychologist to figure out that she’d been abused. He hoped Pearl knew what she was doing hiring a woman with trouble riding on her tail end. When her husband or boyfriend or loan shark caught up to her, Pearl would try to cut them into bite-sized pieces with the edge of her sharp tongue. Boyfriends, she might get away with it. Husband, probably not. Loan shark? No way in hell.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lucy. I’ll get this out of your road,” he said. He picked up the heavy box spring like it was a feather pillow and carefully carried it outside. Then he loaded the mattress just as easily and went back for the bed frame.

“Thank you,” Pearl said.

“No thanks necessary. Neighbors help neighbors. Now if you’ll ride with me and show me where to put this thing I’ll unload it and be on my way.”

Pearl crawled inside his old work truck. They passed his new Silverado with four flat tires still sitting in front of room one on the way though the parking lot. He pulled around the west end of the motel and backed his truck up to the garage door.

“I’d be glad to drive one of these trucks back to your place if you want to air up those tires this evening,” she said.

“See! Neighbors helping neighbors. Thank you, Red. I’ll take you up on that offer. Want to have dinner with me when we get done?”

He wanted to slap himself right in the forehead. He’d cleaned rooms to pay off his debt so why did he keep asking the woman out? He didn’t owe her anything and she had enough boyfriends to go out with a different one every day of the week. Maybe she had them tattooed with the days of the week on their arms, like those little undershorts his mother bought him when he was a kid. Superman on Monday; Mighty Mouse on Tuesday and so on.

“You cleaned rooms. Your debt is paid in full and I’ve warned you about calling me Red. You are skating on some mighty thin ice.”

“I’m a good skater.” He grinned.

She bailed out of the truck, entered the garage from the door at the end, and hit a button to roll the big doors up. He already had the mattress in the garage and was going back for the box springs before she had time to jog past the Caddy, around her truck, and back to his vehicle.

“What’s her story?” he asked when he had the bed stacked at the far corner of the garage.

“Wife abuse. Comes from Kentucky. Got an accent you couldn’t cut with a sharp knife.”

“You trust her? She could be feeding you a line just to have a place to hide from a loan shark.”

“I do and Wil, she’s not lyin’. I’m a pretty damn good judge of character. What time you reckon you’ll need me to drive a truck for you?”

He leaned on the back fender of his truck. “Long about suppertime if that’s a good time for you.”

“That’ll be fine. Lucy is here now. She can watch the lobby while I drive your truck home.” She started around him but he reached out and drew her tight against his chest. He’d tipped her chin up with his fist and landed a hard, passionate kiss on her lips.

Everything about her said that she had to end the kisses but her heart and lips begged for more. She melted against his rock hard chest and pressed against him even tighter.

Wil hadn’t planned to kiss her. It just happened. And it glued the soles of his boots to the gravel and erased every sane thought from his head. Damn that woman had some fine lips and she fit right into his arms. He teased her lips open and tasted her morning coffee and something sweet like a donut.

When the kiss finally broke, she took a step backwards. She started to say something, but he brushed a sweet quick kiss across her lips and abruptly turned around and started for the front of the truck. He left her standing there with bee-stung lips and a silly grin. He pulled out onto the highway and was completely out of sight before she could make her feet take a step.

She went around the motel and into the lobby, into her apartment, and poured a cup of coffee and picked up her second donut. Neither tasted as good as the bacon and maple syrup on his lips. She’d only taken one bite when the bell on the lobby door rang, so she laid it on the cabinet and went to check someone out or else see what Lucy wanted.

I probably need to suck on a lemon to get this shit-eatin’ smile off my face. Lord, the way that man can kiss it’s a wonder someone hasn’t already lassoed and branded him.

It was the sisters who’d arrived fairly late the night before. She gave them a receipt and then checked out the three guys who’d been her first customers. She waited a few minutes but no one else showed up so she walked toward the laundry room, rubbing her lips several times along the way. They felt cold on the outside, but thinking about that kiss generated enough heat to keep her warm all day.

Lucy was folding sheets and singing something by Patsy Cline as she worked. A burst of steam flowed outside when Pearl opened the door and the singing stopped.

“Did you get it took care of? I moved the little table over and now it looks like a little apartment. That was one fine lookin’ man. Is he your boyfriend?” Lucy said.

Pearl tried to change the subject. “You were singing.”

“I was, wasn’t I? I hadn’t done that in a long time. Is he?”

“Is who what?”

“Is that Wil feller your boyfriend?” Lucy asked again.

“No!”

“Then why does he look at you like he could eat you plumb up? And why are you smilin’ so big like you’d let him do it?” Lucy asked.

Pearl needed to talk and Lucy needed a friend. “I’ll tell you about the last couple of days while we clean a room. First of all we load up this maid’s cart. It saves a lot of work and runnin’.”

Lucy watched every move and followed Pearl to the first room. “On Christmas Eve every room was full because the lights went out in Henrietta.” She went on to tell her what had happened. Lucy laughed at the story of the spider and the big woman standing in the middle of the bed, but she clucked her tongue when Pearl told her about the young girls flirting with Wil.

“He’s a good man. And those girls were lucky. They could’ve got in big trouble,” Lucy said as she helped make up the two beds.

Pearl went on to tell her about the policemen and Wil helping clean rooms. She didn’t tell her about the kisses.

Lucy giggled. “A man who can clean, looks like he does, and who has kind eyes. You can tell if a man is mean by his eyes, you know. There’s something in them that’s kind of dead lookin’ if they’re mean. If you got any idea that you want a man in your life, you’d better be chasin’ after that Wil. I can do the next room all by myself,” Lucy said.

Pearl nodded.

“I didn’t mean to be tellin’ you what to do. Maybe you don’t want to get tangled up with a man. I was just sayin’ what I saw,” she said.

Pearl laid a gentle hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “If we’re goin’ to live this close to each other and work together every day, let’s be honest and say what we think.”

Lucy smiled. “I’d like that.”

“I see some folks ready to check out. I’ll see you in a bit.” Pearl left her alone.

It was an hour before she got back to check on Lucy. She was in the third room by then and singing again. Pearl found her standing on a kitchen chair dusting the tops of the door frames.

“Good grief, woman! You’re liable to fall. There’s a step ladder in the laundry room if you need to crawl up on something.”

Lucy laughed. “I’ll use it next time. There was dust up here and spider webs behind the pictures above the beds.”

Pearl was amazed. “I hired a perfectionist.”

“Whatever that is, I hope it’s a good thing.”

“It is. I’m going to go on back to another job. Watch the clock and come on to the lobby at noon. We’ll grab a sandwich in my apartment.”

Lucy smiled again and the bruises didn’t look nearly so horrid. “Thank you,” she whispered.

***

Wil found Raylen sitting on the top rail of the round pen where Rye penned up his horses to break them. He wore a snug-fitting denim jacket just like Wil, but he already had his chaps and spurs on. Wil pulled his from the back of the truck, belted on the chaps, and snapped on the spurs.

“You been here long?” Wil asked.

“Just got settled on the fence. Rye’s on his way. Had to kiss on the pretty wife. That’s the way of it, you know.”

Wil leaned on the fence. The icy wind found its way through the thick denim jacket and chilled him to the bone. Later when he was roping and breaking one of those horses in the corral next to the pen, he’d work up a sweat and wouldn’t even feel the cold, but right then he wished for some of the heat that had flowed between him and the red-haired motel owner when they’d been tight against each other.

“So what would you do if you found a woman you’d rather kiss than break a horse?” Wil asked.

“Drop down on my knees and beg her to marry me.” Raylen grinned. “There’s Rye. Look at that smile on his face. I’m goin’ to get me one of them one of these days.” Raylen hopped down and got ready to lasso a horse.

***

The sun was drifting toward the horizon when Lucy and Pearl came out of the grocery store that evening. Lucy had been frugal, buying necessities and very little luxuries.

“Is there a library in town?” Lucy asked when they left the grocery store.

“Sure is. I’m not sure if it’s open after the holiday, but we can check. You like to read?”

“When I get a chance.”

“Well, let’s go check it out.”

The librarian was the only person in the small brick building a block off the main street through town. She had asked the board of directors to close the library for Christmas and the day after since no one would be interested in books. They’d disagreed but she’d been right. Up until Lucy and Pearl arrived, she hadn’t had a single customer so she’d spent the day arranging books and getting completely caught up on overdue notices.

“Good afternoon, ladies. We’ll be open another fifteen minutes.”

“I guess the first thing we need is library cards. I’m Pearl Richland. I run the Longhorn Inn out east of town. This is Lucy Fontaine. She works for me.”

“I’ll fix you right up.” The librarian raised an eyebrow at Lucy before she handed both women a card and looked at the clock.

“Point me in the general direction of where J. A. Jance and Sue Grafton will be,” Pearl said.

Lucy was like a kid in a candy store with a hundred-dollar bill in her pocket. She’d choose a book and put it back, pick up another and read the fly and put it back, all the time watching the clock’s second hand speeding around the numbers.