by Dixie Cash
“Well there was plenty that sat well with me.” She heaved a sigh, her heavy bosom rising and falling. “Good thing I’ve got my sweet ol’ Charlie waiting at home. But I’m still curious. Don’t forget to ask your friend about him.”
“I won’t,” Sandi promised, “Thanks for letting me see the puppies. I’d better get back to Waffle. He’s probably trying to figure out how to open the display cases so he can have more goodies.”
Prissy laughed. “As smart as he is, I’m surprised he hasn’t already done that.”
Stepping outside Sandi was surprised to see Nick Conway again. He sat behind the steering wheel of a beat-up pickup that looked like its next stop might be some wrecking yard. He was talking on a cell phone. He looked directly at her for a few seconds, then looked away again.
“Screw you, buddy,” she mumbled.
She’d had enough of self-centered men to last a lifetime. Tossing back her long hair, she lifted her nose a bit higher and strode toward her store. Still, she was unable to stop thinking about the damn cowboy. She didn’t like him and if those puppies had belonged to her instead of Prissy, she would’ve told him to take a hike.
***
Nick watched the redheaded woman stalking up the sidewalk. His reaction to her had caught him off guard and left him tongue-tied. He hadn’t even asked the questions he wanted to ask about the dog breed. He supposed it didn’t matter because it was obviously a Heinz57.
The redhead was tall, about chin high to him. Her hair was thick and shiny and she smelled flowery and feminine. The sight of her holding that puppy against her breast had washed over him like nothing had in a long time and sent a longing all the way through his system. He had heard the expression “thunderstruck.” That was what he had experienced in those few seconds, but now he was confused. He liked the feeling, but at the same time, he feared it.
A voice on the phone interrupted his thoughts.
“Well, hello, stranger,” his friend Sylvia said. “You in town?”
He visualized Sylvia, with her thick black hair and long tanned legs. “Hi. Yeah. Came to see the pup I told you about. I can’t pick him up for a couple more weeks. You home for the day?”
“Just closed up shop.”
“Okay if I come by?”
She chuckled seductively. “Have I ever said no?”
“Guess not. See you in a little bit.”
The redheaded woman had disappeared from his sight. With his attention focused on his phone conversation, he hadn’t noticed where she had gone. Just as well. He didn’t have time for the foolishness of women who made him think of anything more profound that what he had with Sylvia. A woman like that redhead would leave. They always left. Everything he had ever cared about left, even his dog.
He snapped his phone shut, cranked his old Ford’s engine and backed out, thinking he had better pick up a six-pack and some snacks on his way to Sylvia’s.
Chapter 4
Debbie Sue tossed her purse onto a hair dryer chair and set a Hogg’s Drive-In sack holding a hamburger and fries, two peach fried pies, a Snickers bar and a chocolate milkshake on the payout counter. “Here’s your lunch,” she told her skinny partner, Edwina-Perkins Martin. “If you eat all this, I don’t see how you’ll keep from exploding.”
“Thanks, girlfriend.” Edwina put the final touches on Bervena Mayfield’s carrot-red hairstyle and fogged it with a cloud of hairspray. “What do you think?” she asked Bervena, passing her a hand mirror. She blew a huge bubble and popped it against her vivid red lips, then sucked it in and continued smacking her gum.
“Edwina Perkins-Martin, I swear you’re a genius,” Bervena said. “After the mess that kid at that five-dollar-hairstyle place made of my hair, I thought it would never be the same. I’ll never go up to Odessa to get a haircut again.”
“Just goes to show, Bervena, you get what you pay for. And I’m throwing in the color touch-up for free.”
“Looks good, Ed,” Debbie Sue said, flopping into her own styling chair. She was the one who was full to the point of exploding. She had eaten an Elvis special at Hogg’s, which was far too many calories. That meant supper would be salad even if Buddy wanted a steak.
Her dear Buddy would never look at another woman, but Debbie Sue believed a girl should never let herself go. If she did, the next thing to go might be the husband. And losing Buddy Overstreet twice in her lifetime was something she did not want to think about. Their divorce hadn’t occurred so long ago that she had forgotten the misery of life without him.
Edwina collected money from Bervena and said good-bye, leaving the beauty shop empty of customers. She picked up the sack of food, moved to her own styling station and began to lift out her lunch. “What’d you bring me?”
“I can’t even remember all of it,” Debbie Sue said.
“So did you ask them if they knew who new hand is out at the Flying C? I saw him at the grocery store last night. Lord, he gets better looking every time I see him.”
Debbie Sue and Edwina knew everyone in Salt Lick, Texas, and almost everyone in Cabell County. The new good-looking man, who appeared to be unmarried, had all of the single women and half the married ones in a tizzy. With Debbie Sue and Edwina being licensed private detectives and with the Styling Station being the town’s A-Number-One source of information, both true and false, they both felt it their duty to learn all they could about him.
“I forgot. I’m gonna call C.J. and ask her,” Debbie Sue said, getting to her feet. A call to her old high school friend, Carol Jean Carruthers, was long overdue anyway. A few years back, C.J. had married and started having kids and Debbie Sue no longer saw her as much as she used to.
To say that C.J. had married well was an understatement of colossal proportions. Her husband was one of the wealthiest men in Texas, but being around her, you’d never know it. Having money hadn’t changed her one bit. She now had three small kids that she took care of herself. No nanny. She maintained a beautiful home and the only help she had was a housekeeper who came in three days a week. C.J. often claimed that she couldn’t cook a meal worth eating, nevertheless, she did the cooking for the family.
Debbie Sue walked to the payout desk, picked up the phone and punched in C.J.’s stored number.
“Hello?” C.J.’s soft country twang was unmistakable.
“What in the hell are you doing, C.J.?”
“Oh, Debbie Sue. I’ve been meaning to call you. But it seems like every time I stop to do it, something happens that I have to take care of first. I’ve missed you and Edwina so much. How are you?”
Now Debbie Sue felt guilty for calling to ask about the new ranch hand rather than to check on her old friend.
“We’re both fine,” Debbie Sue answered. “Just finished a ridiculous amount of fattening food from Hogg’s. ’Course Ed doesn’t have to worry about getting fat.”
“Oh, my goodness,” C.J. said. “I haven’t been to Hogg’s since I was pregnant with Jaden. I just absolutely craved their fried green tomatoes my last trimester with him.” She laughed. “Come to think of it, I’d kill for a plate of those right now.”
“You don’t mean you’re —”
“Oh, heavens, no. At least, I don’t think so. Harley and I think three is enough. Of course, if another came along, neither one of us would be upset.”
Still feeling guilty for not calling C.J. sooner, Debbie Sue saw an opening and decided to go with a little white lie to spare her old friend’s feelings and glean information at the same time. “Speaking of Harley, I saw a Carruthers ranch truck in town yesterday. I thought it might be Harley running an errand. I intended to say hi, but—”
“Harley’s in Fort Worth this whole week,” C.J. said.
“Yeah, I soon saw it wasn’t him. In fact, I didn’t know who the guy was. Y’all letting just any ol’ somebody drive your pickups these days?”
Debbie Sue waited for her friend to comment about the pickup’s occupant, but instead, C.J. stopped talking and answered one of he
r kid’s questions. When she came back to the conversation, she said, “I’m sorry Debbie Sue, what were you saying?”
“I said that I didn’t know the guy in the pickup and I thought I knew all the hands at the Flying C.”
“Hunh. Say, is Buddy in town? Maybe the two of you could come for supper this weekend. I can ask Martina to help me fix something special. Does Buddy still like enchiladas?”
Debbie Sue sighed, she was getting nowhere, but then the information was nothing that couldn’t wait until the weekend. “He sure does. A taste for enchiladas never goes away. He’s in town now and we’d love to. We’ve got a lot to catch up on, girlfriend.”
“Then it’s all set,” C.J. said happily. “Saturday night. Sorry, but I need to run. The kids have gotten really quiet and I don’t like the sound of that.”
Debbie Sue hung up and stared blankly at the phone. Sometimes a person needed a map to have a conversation with C.J.
“What’d you find out?” Edwina asked.
“Harley’s in Fort Worth, and C.J. craved fried green tomatoes when she was pregnant. She doesn’t think she’s pregnant now, by the way. They don’t want any more kids, but she and Harley wouldn’t be upset if they had another and she doesn’t like the sound of kids when they’re quiet. Oh, and Buddy and I are going out to the ranch for enchiladas Saturday night.”
“You got all that in less than two minutes?”
“It’s an art, Ed. Talking to C.J. is kind of like walking through Saran Wrap. You have to know how to do it.”
“But you still don’t know who the new guy is.”
Debbie Sue shrugged.
“Well, it’s nothing that can’t wait for the weekend,” Edwina said, unwrapping a peach fried pie.
Debbie Sue gave her a look. It was frightening to think about, but Edwina knew her better than she knew herself. “Right,” she said.
“He must be a foreman,” Edwina added. “Or a manager or something if Harley’s letting him drive one of the ranch’s newer trucks.”
“Must be,” Debbie Sue said.
***
Sandi wrapped a rubber band around the day’s deposit and dropped it into the side pocket of her satchel. Another profitable day. She couldn’t keep from being self-satisfied. She had gambled on a venture that had done well.
“C’mon, Waffle, let’s go home.”
The golden dog rose and trotted to the back door, looking back at her as if to be sure she followed.
Her affection for this dog was more than she had ever had for another pet. He was more than a pet; he was a companion and a friend. The only thing lacking was speech. He was so smart, if he suddenly started talking, she wouldn’t be surprised. In fact, she often wondered if he and Jake communicated.
Outside, she opened her SUV’s back door and Waffle dutifully jumped in and seated himself squarely on his haunches in the middle of the bench seat. She assumed that position gave him maximum visibility and the opportunity to sniff the air from the open window or to lay his head on her shoulder as she drove.
“Let’s run by the bank,” she said, looking at him in the rearview mirror. “I’ll go the long way.”
Waffle gave her a whine of approval. He loved a car ride, even lingered behind in the car occasionally after they got home, not eager to leave his comfortable spot or the wonderful smells that came to him as they moved along. Sometimes she had to coax him into the house.
Sandi lowered all windows, allowing the cool autumn late afternoon to enter. Turning the radio volume higher, she sang along with a Carrie Underwood tune. She couldn’t wait to get home and chill out. And she had to call Richard.
Taking one residential street, then another, she slowed as she spotted the pickup truck she had seen earlier in the day occupied by the good-looking Nick Conway. It was parked in Sylvia Armbruster’s driveway. That woman was the most accommodating female in the whole area. Sandi’s mouth slid into a sneer. Typical man.
Sandi and Sylvia had been classmates in college and even then, Sylvia’s reputation for sharing her attributes had been well known. Twelve years hadn’t whetted the woman’s appetite for collecting males, only now her trinkets were men instead of boys.
She might be even prettier now than she had been in college. She was also smart and well-educated. She was a CPA and had recently opened her own practice.
Sandi still intended to ask Fiona about Nick Conway, but seeing him at Sylvia’s told her all she needed to know.
She turned into the commercial deposit lane at the bank.
“Hi, Miz Walker,” the young teller at the window said. “How’s Waffle today?”
Everyone knew Waffle. H e had been a fixture in both her store and car only for only a couple of months now, but inquiries about his wellbeing came regularly.
“He’s good, thanks. He’s enjoying his ride in the car.”
“I can see that.” The teller returned the deposit cartridge with a receipt. “Y’all be careful out there.”
“You, too,” Sandi called back as she drove away.
The brief exchange brought to Sandi’s mind how much she loved Midland and why, after losing her job and getting her second divorce, she had chosen to stay here instead of moving back to Big Spring. It was the people. Over a hundred thousand residents lived in the city of Midland, but it still had a small-town feel with small-town values.
Since she had lived here for years and formerly worked at a major bank, she felt she knew everyone, which made the good-looking stranger all the more puzzling. If she knew everyone, how had he slipped under her radar? Perhaps it was because she was loyal to her boyfriend, Richard, and rarely noticed anyone else.
If her neighbor Fiona, on the other hand, had encountered the hunky Nick Conway, she would have talked about him for weeks. A new, good-looking single man was always good for weeks of gossip.
As Sandi pulled into the drive of her two-bedroom vintage home—built in 1955 to be precise—she spotted her pal and neighbor sitting on her front porch step, cigarette in hand. She was wearing her perennial favorites—T-shirt and shorts and four-inch high-heels.
Fiona, barely five feet tall, insisted that high-heels and shorts made her appear leggy and therefore, taller. Sandi had pointed out numerous times that a height of five feet was still five feet no matter how you tried to rearrange it.
Sandi had known Fiona only as a customer of the bank until after she and Ken Coffman divorced and she had been forced to find a more affordable home. By the end of the first month after Sandi had moved into her place on Buffalo Way, she and Fiona had become fast friends.
Sandi enjoyed going out and having a good time, but Fiona was flat-out crazy when it came to socializing. She loved to party and rarely encountered anything in life to drag her down or stop her momentum. Fiona did things Sandi would never dream of doing, said things Sandi would like to say, but usually remained mute. Thus, Sandi reveled in her company.
“Hey girl,” Fiona yelled, hoisting a margarita glass. “Come on over! It’s happy hour on Buffalo Way!”
Laughing, Sandi yelled back, “Give me a minute.”
“Hell to the yeah!” Fiona answered. “I’ve been home since two o’clock. Made my first margarita at two fifteen.”
Fiona owned a busy, successful beauty salon and she was rarely home as early as five, much less two. Sandi noticed a slur in her speech. “You’ve declared the whole city block your bar?”
“What time ’zit now?”
“A little after five. Save me a margarita. I’ve got a bone to pick with you. I’ll be right back.”
As Sandi started toward the front door with Waffle trotting along with her, she could hear her friend still talking. “Me? You got a bone to pick with me? What’d I do? I didn’t do it, whatever it is.”
The minute Sandi walked into her own house, a screech came from up the hall. “Helllp! Helllp! Lemme out! Lemme out!”
She rolled her eyes. The screamer was Jake.
Along with his screeches, a distinct odor met her
. When she had agreed to take him, she hadn’t considered that he would make her whole house stink. Thus, she left the door to his room closed all day. He made a big enough mess in his room. No way did she want him flying around and pooping at random in the other five rooms. She had watched a video on YouTube about potty training a parrot, but so far, she hadn’t had much success.
“Just hold on, Jake.”
Waffle trotted up the hallway, anxiously looked up at the closed door, then swung his gaze back to Sandi, his tail wagging. Waffle and Jake were pals. Jake liked riding on Waffle’s back.
She opened the bedroom door, checked the floor in case Jake might have left something for her to step in and walked in. She opened the window to let fresh air into the room, then snapped one end of a tether around Jake’s leg and the other around her wrist.
“Waffle’s a pretty boy, Waffle’s a pretty boy,” Jake squawked. “Move your hand. Move your hand. Don’t touch my knee. Don’t touch me.”
Sandi arched her brow and sighed. She could only conclude that Jake had learned sentences like that listening to the goings-on in the bar from which the SPCA had rescued him.
Waffle barked and whined.
With Jake riding on her shoulder and Waffle following, Sandi walked through the house to the kitchen, gathered a plastic bowl full of treats and continued on through her back door. Waffle bounded to the middle of the back yard. She let Ricky and Fred out of their pen and they joined him in rough and tumble play.
Once, her backyard had a nice lawn, but no more. With so many animals passing through, she had given up on lawn maintenance. A full quarter of the yard was fenced off with chicken wire to make a pen for the various large dogs that had passed through her life. In the other back corner, she’d had a small aviary built for Jake. On her days off, she parked him in it so he could be outside and get fresh air.
She moved through the yard petting and scruffing heads, checking water levels and handing out treats.
“Where’s mine? Where’s mine?” Jake squawked.
“I’ve got a muffin for you,” Sandi said and handed him a small muffin she made herself just for him.
