A Slow Dance Holiday

by Carolyn Brown

“It’s the way that Cameron looks at you,” Abigail said. “Daddy still looks at Mama like that, and the second thing is that you are happy. I can see it in your face when you’re working, and I heard you humming a couple of times.”

  “I had to hum to calm myself down. I wanted to climb on top of the bar and kick you off that barstool.” Jorja was pretty sure that her sister was creating an excuse to tell their mother so she wouldn’t be in trouble for not bringing her errant younger sister back with her. “You are right on one count. I am happy. I don’t have to worry about deadlines or what people think of my work. I just have to show up, draw beer, and man the grill. Cameron and I get along famously well, and we like each other a lot.”

  “I can see that, and I believe he’s a good man. If he’s not, I trust you to take care of things.” Abigail finished off her root beer. “I’m going home. I’ve already called, and an Uber will be here in ten minutes to take me back to the airport. I can get an early-morning flight out of Fort Worth and be home in time to have leftovers for lunch. I’ll pave the way for when you bring Cameron home to ask Daddy for your hand in marriage.”

  “Hey, now!” Jorja threw up both palms. “Let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves.”

  “Just callin’ it like I see it and, honey, don’t worry. Cameron don’t even know it yet either. If someone had told me I’d sit in an old dive bar for four hours and leave without you, I would have had them committed, but I feel in my heart that you are right where you belong and with who you belong with.” She pushed her chair back and bent to give Jorja a hug. “Merry Christmas and promise me you’ll try to get away to come visit us soon. I don’t think I’ll be able to drag Mama and Daddy to a place like this, and they really want to see you.”

  “Miracles really do happen at Christmas.” Jorja grinned.

  * * *

  Cameron took a quick shower, pulled on a pair of pajama pants that his mother had given him last Christmas and a T-shirt, and then began to pace the floor. If Abigail talked Jorja into going back to Tennessee, he’d have to find someone to help run the bar. He and Jorja had fallen into the partnership so easily that it was like they could read each other’s minds from the beginning. Cameron didn’t believe in love at first sight, and his disbelief was compounded by the fact that Jorja had a gun pointed at him the first time he laid eyes on her. That disbelief aside, he couldn’t explain in any other way this thing that was obviously developing between them.

  Finally, after several trips from the wall where the television hung to the kitchen sink and back again, he heard a vehicle start up. He rushed to the window, cupped his hands around his eyes, and looked out, but he couldn’t see a blessed thing. Was one person or two in the car? He couldn’t tell, but lo and behold, there were two squirrels playing chase up and down Mr. Frank James Snowman. A bit of tinsel sparkled on one of their tails.

  “I’ll be damned.” He chuckled. “Jorja is right. Fate or the universe or the magic of Christmas is trying to tell us something. Squirrels don’t even come out to play at night, and yet there they are. I can’t deny all the signs any longer now.”

  The door from the bar into the apartment swung open, and Jorja headed toward the bathroom. He was almost afraid to turn around. Now that he had admitted that they belonged together as more than just partners, he didn’t want her to leave. Should he beg her to stay? He finally whipped around and locked eyes with her.

  “Are you leaving or staying?” He couldn’t tell from her expression. Maybe her intention was to get her Christmas shower curtain and pack it with the rest of her stuff.

  Jorja yawned. “I’m not going anywhere, and Abigail is on her way back to Fort Worth to the airport. She says there’s an early-morning flight to Nashville, and she’ll be on it.”

  “Thank God.” He heaved a big sigh of relief.

  “Are you glad she’s going so you don’t have to sleep on that lumpy sofa in the office, or because I’m staying and you can get a decent night’s rest in your own bed?” she asked.

  He took a couple of long steps toward her, wrapped her in his arms, and swung her around. “I’d sleep on the floor if I had to, darlin’. I’m just glad you are stayin’. We make a good couple, and I didn’t want you to leave.”

  “As in partners, or…”

  He answered her question when his lips came down on hers in a long, passionate kiss. When it ended, he led her to the table and pulled a chair out for her. “As in everything, Jorja Jenks. I don’t know what the future holds, but right now, no matter what it is, I want us to be together in all of it.”

  “I don’t take risks,” she whispered. “I usually calculate every single move I make. Signing the papers to take over this bar with you was the most impulsive thing I have ever done. After watching my sister glare at me for the past four hours, it seems like the smartest move I’ve ever made.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “And no matter what the future holds, we can face it together. After all, you are the snake slayer and I’m the spider killer. We make an excellent couple.” She took him by the hand, stood up, and led him out into the bar.

  The place was a total mess with bottles, mugs, and pitchers on the tables, and chairs strewn about everywhere, but that didn’t matter. All the decorations were still lit up and sparkling.

  “Look,” Jorja pointed to the window. “The sky has cleared, and the stars are dancing around the moon.”

  “What are we doing in here?” he asked. “If we’re going to have a midnight snack, I’d rather have a chunk of that cobbler you made for our dinner.”

  “Later,” she told him as she plugged coins into the jukebox, took him by the hand, and pulled him toward the door.

  When they were on the porch, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body close to his, then pointed at the porch rail where a pair of robins were roosting. “Robins are a harbinger of spring. They’re telling us that we belong together every season in the year, not just at Christmas.”

  “I believe it,” she said. “This is our song, and I wanted to have this dance with you out here under the real lucky stars.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cameron two-stepped with her on the porch for the first verse and then danced her back into the bar for the rest of the song. “We’d freeze if we stay out there any longer,” he said.

  “Not when I’m in your arms,” she whispered. “We should close out Christmas this way from now on.”

  “I love that idea. Merry Christmas to us,” he agreed and brushed a soft kiss across her lips.

  The End

  Get ready to party at the Honky Tonk!

  Join Sharlene and Holt for a Christmas celebration no one will ever forget.

  Available now from Sourcebooks Casablanca

  Chapter 1

  The whirring of the helicopter blades cut through the hot Iraqi desert wind. It was late summer, and the shamal wind was throwing enough sand around to limit visibility. But she could make out the target in her crosshairs, and the sand kept the choppers from getting a direct bead on her and Jonah. They’d already made four passes. She had sand in her mouth, sand in her boots and in her ears. She’d been trained to ignore everything and take out the target, but that damned buzzing noise reminded her of a bunch of swarming bees—and she hated bees.

  “Keep focused on the target,” she whispered so low that Jonah couldn’t hear the words.

  She set the crosshairs on the terrorist behind the machine gun mounted on the hood of a military jeep. She’d never missed yet and didn’t want to spoil her record.

  “Convoy is less than a mile from the ambush,” her commander’s voice said on the radio. “Fire when ready.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Adjustments, Jonah?”

  Her spotter ran his finger down a column of numbers and called out the wind velocity. She made adjustments in the blistering heat. She took a deep breath and blinked twice for good luck. If she took out the am
bush, the convoy took her friends back to base. If she didn’t, there’d be widows and orphans crying that night in the States.

  Sweat trickled down between her breasts to puddle at the bottom of her bra where a sand trap waited. Evidently God knew what he was doing when he gave breasts to women and not men. Boy soldiers wouldn’t last ten minutes out in the heat with bras biting their ribs and shoulders. They’d scratch and fidget until the enemy blew their weak little asses all over the sand. She wiped moisture from her brow, inhaled, and blinked twice again for good luck. Then she pulled the trigger and the target dropped graveyard dead.

  “Mission complete. Convoy can proceed. Send in rescue,” she said.

  Gunfire started and the sand kicked up all around her. She looked over at Jonah to tell him to keep his head down and get ready to run when their rescue team lit. His chin rested on his chest, and blood was everywhere.

  “Jonah’s down!” she screamed into the radio. “Send me some help now. Jonah is shot.”

  * * *

  “Hello, anybody home?” a deep Texas drawl yelled, and light from the open door filled the Honky Tonk.

  She jerked her head up and scanned the area. It was dark and cool. Where had the desert gone? Where was her rifle and why was she wearing cowboy boots? She looked to her right and Jonah Black was gone. She drew her eyebrows down. He’d been there the last time she blinked. Then the past faded into the dark corners of the beer joint and the present brought a cowboy across the hardwood dance floor.

  “Back here.” Her voice was hoarse and her mouth dry. She’d fallen asleep on the table when she sat down for a rest. Her arms tingled as the feeling returned, and her heart pounded. It was the same thing every time she went to sleep. Recurring dreams of Iraq, of the job that women did not do and were not trained to do in the army. But Sharlene had done the job, and when she was discharged, she’d brought it home with her in the form of nightmares.

  The sound of cowboy bootheels on the hardwood floor coming toward her sounded like gunfire. She covered her ears and shook her head. She needed another second or two to bury the visions and pull herself away from the sight of Jonah and his dark-brown dead eyes.

  “I’m looking for Sharlene Waverly. I was supposed to meet her here at one o’clock.” The Texas voice grew closer.

  She stood up and extended her hand. “I’m Sharlene. You must be Holt Jackson. Have a seat. Can I get you a beer?”

  Holt’s big hand swallowed hers. He noticed that her hand trembled when he shook it.

  “No, I’m fine. You are Sharlene Waverly?” He frowned as he let go of her hand.

  She had kinky red hair and green eyes. She didn’t look old enough to work behind the bar, much less own one. She barely came to his shoulder and would have to produce an ID to get out of a convenience store with a six-pack.

  “Yes, I am. Sit and we’ll talk.” She motioned toward the table with four chairs around it and an empty beer bottle on the top. “I was just about to start cleaning up the place from last night’s business. I fell asleep with my arms under my head and they’re still tingling.” She shook her arms to restore feeling.

  He pulled out a chair and sat across the table from her. He was tall with thick, dark hair that tickled his shirt collar. His mossy-reen eyes scanned the beer joint, finally coming to rest on her.

  “So where do you want to build an addition to this place?”

  She pointed toward the north end of the Honky Tonk. “I want to knock out half of that wall and make a room as big as the original Honky Tonk. I’ll put the pool tables and jukeboxes back there, and that will leave more room in here for a bigger dance floor. Hardwood floors, paneling on the walls. The good stuff, not that stuff that looks as cheap as it is.”

  “Why not go to the south?” he asked.

  “Because I’m barely over the county line as it is. Erath County is dry. Palo Pinto is wet. If I get over into Erath County, I couldn’t have a beer joint,” she explained.

  He stood up and reached for a steel tape fastened to his belt. A vision of someone grabbing a gun made her flinch, but she covered it well by throwing her hand over her mouth to cover a fake cough.

  He pulled a small spiral-topped notebook from the pocket of his chambray work shirt and began measuring and making calculations. “Twice as big? That’s a hell of a big addition.”

  “I need a big addition. Folks are waiting in the parking lot now because my max says three hundred or less. I want to be able to bring in more customers.”

  Holt made notations and measured some more. “Windows?”

  “No. Solid walls. No windows and no frilly curtains. I run a beer joint here, not a boardinghouse for proper little girls.”

  “Why?” Holt asked.

  “Because I like running a beer joint and I would not like a bunch of whiny little girls fussing all day long about having to learn the proper way to set a table,” she said.

  “Why no windows? It’s your business what you do for a living, lady, not mine. I’m just here to build an addition.” Holt grinned.

  “Sorry that I bit at you. I’m grouchy today. It’s not your fault. Drunks aren’t real good with windows. If they get into a fight before Luther can break it up, the walls don’t break. I’m going to clean while you figure, then we’ll talk when you get the estimate worked up,” Sharlene answered.

  Holt worked for half an hour, then slipped the tape back on his belt and hiked a hip onto a barstool. “I’ll take that beer now, Miz Waverly. If you like my estimate and can find me a rental house with a yard in Mingus, I can do this job for you.”

  “Call me Sharlene. ‘Miz Waverly’ makes me look behind me to see if my momma is in the place. Let’s see, it’s mid-August. I’d like to have it finished and ready by Christmas…” She hesitated because it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she’d give him her apartment if he could have it done by Thanksgiving.

  “You don’t know much about building, do you?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Not really. Is that not doable?”

  “I can get this done by Halloween if we have good weather. Probably within eight weeks, which would finish it by mid-to-late October,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “I’m figuring we can have it done in eight weeks, maximum,” he said.

  “How big is your crew?”

  “I’ve got three men who work for me. If it’s a long distance from home, we live in our travel trailers. If it’s close by, we commute. I see you’ve got some trailer spaces over there. Interested in renting two of them?”

  “Two? Why only two if you’ve got three men who work for you?”

  “Two are from up close to Wichita Falls. That’d be a pretty long commute, and they are both single so they don’t mind staying on the site. The other is from Palo Pinto. I reckon he’d rather commute since he’s married and has kids.”

  She nodded. “I’ve got plenty of spaces back there. Plumbing, water, and electricity go with the rent.”

  He glanced at the bar. “Pretty nice location for Kent and Chad. They’re brothers, by the way, and they’ll love the idea of being close to a beer joint so they can get a brew after working all day.”

  She set a beer in front of him. “Estimate?”

  He handed her the paper and tipped up the bottle.

  It was twenty percent higher than she’d figured but less than Merle had thought it could be. She could afford it. “I can live with these numbers. When can you start?”

  “Monday morning. I’ll call Chad, Kent, and Bennie and tell them. They’ll be here sometime over the weekend to get the trailers hooked up. We’ll get our equipment set up, the materials ordered, and hopefully get it stringed up and leveled on Monday. Then Bennie will begin the concrete work Monday morning. I figured you’d wrangle with me on the price. I allowed ten percent for some haggling room.”

  “Then
take ten percent off. But I don’t want concrete floors.”

  He held up his palm. “I know what you want. The concrete is for the foundation. I know what I’m doing Miz… Sharlene.”

  “Then yes, we have a deal and you can start the job.”

  He set the bottle down. “Not so fast. I’ll need a place to live. I was renting a trailer up in Palo Pinto and I could commute, but the hot-water tank blew a gasket and flooded the whole thing. Owner doesn’t want to fix it so we’ve got to find a place to live. Find me a rental house by tomorrow and then we’ll have a deal.”

  Sharlene cocked her head to one side. “How about a side bet? You get the trailer spaces and a house free of rent if you promise you can get the job done by Thanksgiving. If you fail, then I get to take your rent out of the final payment. I’ll pay you half now and half when it’s finished. That all right with you?”

  He extended his hand. “Sounds pretty good to me.”

  She shook with him. “Good. I’ll get the keys from my purse.”

  “You own a rental house?”

  “I do.”

  “And where is this house?”

  “Which way did you come into town?” she asked.

  “From Palo Pinto.”

  “Did you see that house by the post office? The turquoise one with hot-pink trim and yellow porch posts? It’s got two orange rockers on the porch.”

  He shuddered. He’d seen the house all right and wondered what drunk had painted it. “So you own that white frame house just west of it?” he asked.

  Sharlene handed him the keys. “No, I own the turquoise one. It’s yours until the job is done.”

  Holt groaned. “How big is it, and does it have kitchen appliances?”

  She nodded. “Kitchen, living room, two bedrooms. Larissa left living room furniture in there. You can move it out into the garage out back of the Tonk or use it. Stove, refrigerator, and the washer and dryer are in the kitchen. You still interested?”

  “You think I’ll turn it down, don’t you,” he said.