Cowboy Courage

by Carolyn Brown

  A loud boom right behind her startled Rose so badly that she dropped to her knees and put her hands over her ears. Sure, she’d had combat training, and she’d done a couple of tours in Afghanistan, but she had always worked as a translator. She’d never been in combat, and the sound of a shovel hitting a spider sounded like gunfire.

  “Two down,” Luna said. “If there’s another sumbitch down there, it better light a shuck for another state, because I’m a sure shot with the backside of a shovel.” She looked at the black spot on the wall and said, “I’ll get the cleaner and get rid of the nasty stuff now. Y’all go on and finish that kiss I interrupted.”

  Rose’s face instantly turned crimson. Hud helped her to her feet and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll get on to fixing that leak before it turns the basement into a mud lolly.”

  “With all the excitement, I’d forgotten about that.” Rose was still quivering inside. The spiders had scared the devil out of her, but now, all she could think about was that sweet kiss he had brushed across her forehead.

  Chapter Seven

  That afternoon, Rose made a quick trip to Walmart for a bouquet of flowers to put in the guest room that would be occupied that night. She picked up a box of chocolates and planned to arrange them on a cute little three-tiered crystal stand that she’d found in the kitchen. Then she found a bottle of champagne to set down in the ice bucket that matched the crystal, and planned to use the wine flutes she’d located in the cabinet.

  When she got home, Luna was waiting on more than half a dozen customers in the gift shop. Evidently, she’d told a couple of ladies that everything was half price and they’d gotten on their cell phones and put the word out. Rose took her purchases to the kitchen, shoved the flowers down into a tea glass full of water, and rushed back to help Luna. In an hour, they’d sold almost seven hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise, leaving space on the shelves to unload two boxes of Valentine things.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Luna said. “The folks that were going to stay here tonight called about thirty minutes ago. The husband died and his funeral was today. They won’t be joining us tonight.”

  “And I just bought flowers, champagne, and chocolates to put in their room.” Rose groaned.

  “I told you someone was going to die, didn’t I?” Luna whispered. “We will have a wake tonight with the champagne and chocolate for the dear old man. We can warm up the spaghetti for supper, and then we’ll throw a quilt on the living room floor, steal one of these candles”—she motioned toward the display of jar candles—“light it, and have us a good old Irish wake. We can’t waste what you already spent money on.”

  “You’re not Irish,” Rose told her.

  “Yes, but you are, and I can’t let you mourn alone,” Luna said.

  Word spreads quickly in a small town, and with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, people arrived at the shop all afternoon. By six o’clock, when the store closed, Rose had unpacked all but two small boxes out of the storeroom. She’d made more in that afternoon than she’d made in the whole two previous weeks she’d been in Bowie.

  “Whew!” She wiped her brow dramatically, locked both the shop door and the front door, put out the CLOSED sign, and sat down on the bottom step of the staircase. Aunt Luna came out of her bedroom. She’d changed from her overalls into a muumuu printed with bright yellow flowers and shamrocks and with a matching turban tied around her head.

  “It’s got shamrocks and they’re green, so I expect it’s Irish enough for our wake,” she said as she spread a quilt out on the foyer floor. “Are you going to change?”

  “Nope,” Rose answered. “How do we even know the man was Irish?”

  “His name was O’Cleary,” Luna said, “so he was Irish, whether he knew it or not. I’m going to heat up the spätzle, and you can get the champagne to cooling and open up the chocolates. We’ll say an Irish blessing for the dearly departed.”

  “Aunt Luna, I’ve been to Ireland”—Rose rolled her eyes—“and spätzle and spaghetti are two very different things.”

  “It’s all noodles, so I’ll call it whatever I want.” Luna adjusted her turban and headed for the kitchen.

  Not even sucking on a lemon could have kept the grin off Rose’s face. She’d been almost kissed, and Aunt Luna was a hoot. Lord, she wished that woman had come around more often when she was growing up.

  They sat cross-legged on the quilt and shared the spaghetti with a bottle of beer while the champagne chilled in the crystal ice bucket. When they’d gotten down to the last bite, Luna shoved the plastic container over to Rose and raised the beer up. “Mr. Ralph O’Cleary, I have no idea if you were a good man or a regular old sumbitch, but here’s to you. May you have been in heaven three hours before the devil knew you were dead.”

  Rose poured each of them a flute of champagne and opened up the box of chocolates. She touched her glass to Luna’s and said, “Mr. Ralph, I hope that you lived a good full life, and that sometime during the last months of your life you repented of all your sins.”

  “Now that’s a good one.” Luna threw back the champagne like it was a shot of cheap whiskey and held out her glass for more.

  Rose refilled it as well as her own. “How about this one? If life is just a story, then I hope the last chapter was your best one, Mr. Ralph O’Cleary.”

  They started on the chocolates about the time that the champagne was finished, and the chocolates were half gone. “Too bad that we can’t eat the flowers,” Rose said with a giggle, “but we could put them on Mr. Ralph’s grave if we knew where he was buried.”

  “We should say a prayer for Mrs. O’Cleary.” Luna bowed her head and said, “Lord, give the grievin’ widow some peace and help her lean on happy memories. And while I’ve got your ear, will you please make Wilbur call me. Amen.” She raised her head. “It’s a shame to waste such pretty daisies. Now, if your feller had brought them to you, that would be a different matter, but I believe it might be a sin to buy them for a guest and not use them wisely.” She burped loudly. “Not bad manners, just good champagne and spaghetti, I mean spätzle.” She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Pardon me, Mr. O’Cleary, for calling your wake food by an Italian name.”

  The woman was goofy as hell, but Rose couldn’t remember when she’d had such a buzz on or had been so entertained. She got up too fast and had to hold on to the railing for a moment before she went into the kitchen and came back with the bouquet of bright-colored daisies.

  Luna was already standing and had a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in her hand. “Let us celebrate the life of a good Irishman. We don’t know where he’s buried, but we can go out in the backyard and put these flowers in front of that cute little angel yard ornament that Molly likes so well. And if Wilbur don’t call soon, I may knock him in the head with that angel.”

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Luna,” Rose said. “Maybe he’ll call real soon.”

  The sun had long since gone down and a cold blast of wind met them as they made their way out onto the screened-in back porch. Luna grabbed a quilt from the back of a settee and carried it with her out into the yard. Rose sat down on the sidewalk right beside the concrete angel. Luna laid the flowers in front of the ornament.

  “Rest in peace, Mr. O’Cleary,” Luna said.

  “Aunt Molly said she’s the sane one of you three girls,” Rose whispered.

  “In the realm of all things great and good, she always was the sanest one of us. My sister Devine, your Granny Dee, thought she was either an angel or a witch. We never knew whether to pray with her or help her concoct a potion to pour on someone’s yard who’d done evil to us. Did you know that I met Wilbur at a carnival? One came to town, and I fell in love with the guy who ran one of the rides. When the carnival left town, I went with him. He got me a job getting all dressed up and telling fortunes. I loved it, but we got bored with that kind of life after a couple of years, and when they closed it down for the winter that year, we went back to Florida, to the warm, sandy beaches
.”

  Rose shivered against the cold wind. “Never heard that story. So that’s why you can work with the Tarot cards?”

  “Yep, and tea leaves,” Luna said. “You’re freezing. Let’s wrap up in this quilt. We’ll have us a little nip of Jack to keep us warm, and you can tell me the whole story of your sexy cowboy and you. Did he kiss you today?”

  “Just almost,” Rose said.

  “How does someone almost kiss you?” Luna spread out the quilt and sat down on the very edge. She patted the place beside her. “Sit beside me and tell me about it.”

  Rose moved closer to Luna, who pulled the rest of the quilt up over them until only their faces were uncovered. Luna brought one hand out from under the covers, took a long swig from the bottle of Jack, and passed it over to Rose.

  “It was a forehead kiss. It was sexier just being plastered to his body with my legs and arms around him.” Rose took a sip and passed it back to Luna. Champagne was good, but it didn’t have the warmth that a good gulp of whiskey had. “I fell in love with him when I was fourteen. It was love at first sight. He helped me find my first class and was so nice. His twin brother was one of those bad-boy types back then, struttin’ around like a little banty rooster. He always had a girl on his arm and a gleam in his eye, but Hud was different. Just as sexy, only in a different way, and he was so sweet to me. I still think that Daddy found out I had a crush on Hud, and that’s the reason he made us move after I finished the school year. I’ve dated a lot of guys, and even been in a relationship or two, but no one ever made my body tingle like Hud Baker did and”—she paused and took another drink—“and still does.”

  “You never forget your first love,” Luna said. “What was it about him that got your blood boilin’? Lord, you wasn’t but thirteen or fourteen.”

  “I don’t know if I can put it into words, but from the time we looked at each other, there was this connection. He was so kind and sweet, showing me where homeroom was, and then staying close by those first days. His twin brother, Tag, was the ladies’ man at the school, but Hud…” She stopped and searched for words.

  “Every time we held hands, I got all hot and bothered, and I didn’t even know what the feeling was back then. I dreamed about him and couldn’t wait to get to school every day.” She’d begun to slur her words. “Dammit, Aunt Luna, I still get hot when he’s around, and I can’t wait to be around him. And why are you fussin’ at me for feelin’ like that when I was fourteen. You wasn’t much older than that when you ran off with Wilbur.”

  “I was seventeen and he was nineteen,” Luna said.

  “Holy crap on a cracker,” Rose spit out.

  “We been together more’n sixty years,” Luna said. “We’ve bought and sold two carnivals, lived just the way we wanted, and now we got us a trailer in Alabama that we call home…” She stopped and wiped away another tear. “I miss him.”

  “Oh, Luna. I’m sure he’ll call soon.” Rose squeezed Luna’s hand.

  “He’d better.” Luna sniffled. “But right now let’s talk some more about Hud Baker. I like that cowboy.”

  “So do I,” Rose admitted. “I like him a lot.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Rose’s head was pounding like there were a hundred little men with bass drums inside it. She sat up, kind of remembered the wake from the night before, and frowned when she tasted whiskey and spaghetti in a burp. Then she grabbed her aching head with both hands and groaned.

  “Aunt Molly will kill me…” she said and then she heard whistling and pots and pans rattling in the kitchen. “Praise the lord, Aunt Luna isn’t dead.”

  Her phone rang and she scrambled to find it in the back pocket of the jeans she’d worn yesterday. “Hello, Aunt Molly. She’s not dead. It was Mr. O’Cleary.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Molly asked.

  “Me and Aunt Luna got pretty drunk, and I didn’t check to see if she made it in the house. I was afraid she’d died in her sleep, but I hear her in the kitchen. She’s whistling,” Rose explained.

  “Some days, not even a good Christian woman can catch a break,” Molly said. “I should’ve told you about her years ago. She cusses like a sailor, and, honey, she’s got two hollow legs when it comes to booze. She gets plastered and never, ever has to suffer for it. Told me that hangovers are for sissies. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear my mama had her by artificial means and they preserved the embryo in straight moonshine. Why in the name of God did you have a wake for someone that neither of you even knew?”

  Each word was like a hammer beating on Rose’s forehead. “It seemed like a good idea after the rats.”

  “Rats? What rats?” Molly yelled even louder.

  Rose explained everything in as much detail as she could, from the electricity going out, to the mouse and spiders, and even the kiss Hud had given her on the forehead.

  Molly sighed. “Lord have mercy!”

  “Sorry,” Rose said.

  “Oh, honey, none of this is your fault. I’ve been meanin’ to get the place rewired, and the holes the bullets made can be patched. Don’t worry about repainting. I was going to do that this spring anyway. Already got the painters lined up to come in the first of March,” Molly said. “Patsy just stuck her head in the door, so we’re ready for the excursion. But don’t you be worryin’ about anything, or even about Luna.”

  “I love you, Aunt Molly,” Rose said.

  “Love you more. Talk to you later,” Molly said and the call ended.

  “Breakfast is ready,” Luna called out cheerfully.

  Rose threw back the covers, jerked on a pair of faded pajama pants that had Miss Piggy printed on them and a T-shirt that hung halfway to her knees and would have fit a baby elephant, and made her way downstairs in her bare feet. She hoped that Aunt Luna had made only muffins. The thought of eggs made her gag.

  She thought she heard voices as she crossed the foyer into the kitchen, but Aunt Luna talked to herself all the time. Maybe that’s why she and Wilbur had an argument every so often—he got tired of hearing her constant chatter.

  She stopped in the doorway and rubbed her eyes. Never before had she had hallucinations with a hangover, but there was Hud, in all his sexy glory, sitting at the end of the table.

  “Good mornin’.” He smiled at her, and there were those vibes again.

  What was he doing in her kitchen for breakfast? Sweet Lord!

  “Good mornin’,” she whispered.

  “Hud came by to get those candles that he’s been trying to pick up for days,” Luna said. “Poor boy hadn’t had breakfast, and he’s done so much for us that I invited him to stay. Sit down, darlin’.” She motioned toward the chair to Hud’s right. “A good breakfast and two cups of black coffee will take care of that hangover.”

  Hud got to his feet and pulled the chair out for her. She slumped into it. The smell of bacon and eggs, sausage gravy and biscuits, and a big stack of pancakes might have looked good any other day, but it sure didn’t right then.

  She picked up the coffeepot and poured a cup, then it dawned on her what she was wearing. If all the catastrophic things that had happened in the bed-and-breakfast hadn’t scared Hud off by now, seeing her in the condition she was in that morning surely would. One peek at her reflection in the mirror above the buffet verified that she could easily be a bag lady stoned on drugs. Her red hair looked like she’d just grabbed hold of a bare electric wire. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her mascara had run down her cheeks—probably the result of laughing so hard the night before.

  “Honey, hammered owl crap would be pretty compared to you this morning.” Luna laughed and passed the platter of bacon and eggs across to her. “Eat at least two eggs and some bacon. It’ll help get rid of the hangover. And then you need a banana—I put them in the pancakes—and put some honey on them. But leave the gravy alone. No milk products this morning.”

  “Aunt Molly said you don’t get hangovers.” Rose took a small portion of eggs and bacon and passed the
platter on to Hud. When their hands brushed in the passing process, she glanced over at him. Their eyes locked, and for a few seconds that seemed like hours, she felt as if he was making love to her with his eyes.

  “Wilbur.” Luna broke the spell with one word. “God love his soul.” She glanced up at the ceiling. “He loves the taste of Jack Daniel’s or Jameson, but the poor old darlin’ gets a hanger every single time he drinks. It don’t even have to be as much as we put away last night. Two shots, and he thinks he can sing just like Hank Williams. I learned a long time ago how to cure his headaches the next morning. Eat your eggs. They’re not good cold.”

  “So you’ve got a good hangover recipe?” Hud asked.

  “I thought you were a choirboy,” Rose muttered. “Why would you need a hangover remedy?”

  “I’m a good little boy on Sunday morning when I go to church to ask for forgiveness for what happened on Saturday.” He grinned. “But I still like to blow off a little steam and do a little two-steppin’ after a hard week’s work. So what were you drinkin’ last night, or can you just not hold your liquor?”

  “Aunt Luna and I shared a beer, then a bottle of champagne, and after that, we took a bottle of Jack out to put flowers out for Mr. O’Cleary.” She went on to tell him about the angel lawn ornament and the daisies.

  “Sounds like I missed a good time.” Hud finished off his bacon and eggs and slid four pancakes onto his plate.

  “It seemed like it last night, but this morning, not so much.” Rose clamped a hand over her mouth.

  “Sick?” Luna asked.

  “No, I just thought about how crazy we were.” Rose was amazed that her headache was already feeling better.

  “Into every life a little insanity must come,” Hud chuckled. “And speaking of crazy, I miss the Fab Five.”