“Jeff?” My friend swallowed and pasted on a bright smile, which looked a little funny, as her everyday expression was something between solemn and funereal.
His transformation was awe-inspiring. First, the deep furrows across his forehead changed into solid lines; then his hard, down-turned mouth relaxed; and finally the bite and brawl in his eyes cleared into something bright and shiny. “I thought you’d decided to wait until after the show.” He smiled at my friend as if she were the best dark lager, tastiest apple pie, and smokiest beef brisket all rolled into one.
I hoped that look was genuine because Patti deserved someone who truly cared for her. She’d seen enough hurt in the past few years to last until she was gray. But my stomach filled with dread, signaling a warning that he wasn’t to be trusted.
Ignoring my nauseous reaction, I turned my attention to the room behind him. “Everything okay in there?” I nodded toward the dressing room. I didn’t care if he was country singer Jeff Clark or the governor of Texas. He would pay for any damage caused by their testosterone-laden tussle.
His smile dimmed for a brief moment, and I caught the calculation behind his charm. Dang it. I didn’t want my gut reaction toward him to be correct.
“Jeff, this is my good friend Josie Callahan.” Patti placed her hand on his arm. “Her family owns this place.”
His expression morphed into one of delight. “What a pleasure, ma’am. Can’t tell you how great it is to be playing Two Boots after all these years on the Texas circuit.”
I couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t answered my question about the state of the dressing room.
“Watch out,” the Two Boots bouncer interjected. “Next thing you know the sun’ll melt your cell phone right through your windshield.”
We chuckled. “This is Vince,” I said. “He keeps things from getting too rowdy around here.”
With a nod, Jeff shook his hand. “Howdy.”
“Head doorman and bouncer,” Vince added. Both men’s biceps bulged as the handshake turned into a test of their virility.
Jeff grinned as he disengaged from Vince’s strong grip. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind if I find someone in need of bouncing.” His eyes locked with Patti’s until his gaze lowered briefly, caressing her body from the butterfly tattoo at her ear to the black combat boots on her feet.
From the look on Patti’s face, I could see she’d cast caution to the wind.
I gave myself a mental shake and let go of my worries. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, if only for the sake of my friend’s happiness. After all, I was jaded from my own disastrous relationship. The truth: my BS meter was kaput.
A young man wearing a Jeff Clark Summer Tour tee and tattered jeans hurried over from the direction of the kitchen. “Jeff, where you been?” He ignored the rest of us. “Less than five minutes, man.”
“Right.” Jeff transformed from lover to businessman in the flutter of an eyelash. “See you soon, sugar.” He kissed Patti’s cheek and whispered something that made her blue eyes dance.
“Three minutes.” The roadie shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet.
Jeff managed to grace each of us with his oh so sincere smile. “Enjoy the show,” he said, and hurried off, already in earnest conversation with his roadie.
We maneuvered our way back to our table, but after fifteen minutes there was still no sign of the charming Jeff or his band onstage. “I hope my eardrums are still intact after this,” I said, as we waited at our table.
Ty Honeycutt and his band of local musicians were currently playing his boot-stomping, electric-guitar-wailing blend of country rock for a standing-room-only crowd. Though they’d greeted his opening number with enthusiastic applause and his guitar solos with cheers, it was obvious by the disappointed sighs at the beginning of each subsequent song he wasn’t whom the crowd had paid to see. I hoped he didn’t notice the crowd’s lack of enthusiasm for his music.
“Is this a sellout?” Patti made a sweeping gesture. “And is it legal?” With a glance of dismay, she drank a healthy swig of beer.
“It’s an answer to Uncle Eddie’s prayers.” We needed the additional revenue to cover the night’s elevated expenses.
“Huh.” She shook her head at my conservative turn of phrase. “You better pray no one has the fire marshal on speed dial.”
I lifted my cider. “Here’s to paying our debts, expanding our business, and more tourists than we can shake a stick at.”
Her pinched lips relaxed and broke into a grin. “Amen, sister.”
Due to the success of our Wild Wild West Festival and the popularity of the late Dixie Honeycutt’s jewelry designs, Broken Boot was now a slightly bigger blip on the radar. Tourists not only passed through town on their way to Big Bend National Park; they also stopped for lunch and, more and more, stayed the night at the Cogburn Hotel and the Rifleman RV Park.
Nearly giddy with the chance to finally make money and pay his bills, Uncle Eddie searched until he found an up-and-comer for the Homestead Days Music Festival that would draw a bigger crowd. That man was Jeff Clark.
“Good night, Broken Boot,” Ty yelled from the stage with a whoop and a screech of his electric guitar. The crowd applauded with more enthusiasm now that the main event was finally within their sights.
Suddenly Jeff Clark and his band stormed the stage to whoops, hollers, and thunderous applause. From the audience, the singer looked handsome and dangerous. Tattoos decorated his well-formed biceps, trailing down to his wrists. Funny, I hadn’t noticed those earlier. Had he donned tattoo sleeves? With a whiskey-smooth baritone he greeted the crowd, earning another round of enthusiastic cheers.
I joined in, cheering and applauding like a true believer. I pushed aside my own disappointments and clung to hope. As he began his set, he made eye contact with the front row of fans, mostly women, and tipped his hat. They screamed in response like a crowd of eighth-grade girls at a boy band concert. If anyone else besides my fiercely intelligent friend had decided to make a play for this country girl’s fantasy, I’d have chalked it up to temporary insanity and told them to get back on their medication. I sighed. This wasn’t about me. It was about Patti finding happiness.
I caught her watching him with laser-beam intensity, the corners of her mouth lifted in a huge smile of anticipation.
And, sure enough, within seconds, the sexy musician’s gaze abandoned the front row of adoring fans to lock eyes with Patti. Again, he tipped his hat and widened his million-dollar smile. Heads turned to find the recipient of his attention, but none landed on my companion. It was too hard for them to believe he had eyes for a Goth princess.
“Looks like he’s making his move.”
“You bet your sweet Aunt Fanny he is.” She swigged the final sip of her beer, slammed the bottle to the table, and wiped her mouth with her thumb.
From the stage, Clark gave Patti a come-hither wave of his hand, and the ladies in the crowd went wild, as if his invitation was meant for them.
Goth Girl jumped from her stool. “Here goes nothing.”
“Be careful,” I hollered as she headed toward the stage and disappeared into the crowd.
When he slowed things down with his next song, couples around our table paired off for a slow dance—if you could call shuffling an inch forward and backward dancing.
“This song is our new single, available tomorrow on iTunes,” Clark said over his band. “Hope you like it. It’s called ‘Sweet Thing.’”
A whoop from the fans rocked the rafters as Jeff reached down into the crowd. His biceps flexed as he lifted a woman with long black hair and multiple piercings from the crowd. Patti.
The crowd hushed. Jeff started to sing, but with eyes only for his companion. As the electric slide guitar led the band into a heart-melting instrumental break, Jeff handed his instrument off to a roadie. While the audience sway
ed, he slow danced with Patti in a tight embrace beneath a tender blue spotlight.
It was the spotlight that gave him away. Two Boots didn’t own a blue spotlight, which meant two things: 1) His crew set it up before the evening began; and 2) the romantic lighting was an integral part of all his concerts. The only thing that changed was the girl.
My stomach was aching from the schmaltz of it all. Where had hard-as-nails Goth Girl gone?
After the dance, the band skedaddled off the stage for a barely earned break, and Patti left the stage with Jeff.
I eyed our basket of chicken wings and dared them to come one step closer. They didn’t, and I called it a night before I broke my vow to eat a tad smarter.
The parking lot was full. Some industrious patrons had parked on the grass, in front of the Dumpster, and even created new spaces at the end of rows, to the point that it was going to be a major horn-blowing fest to get everyone’s car out without incident.
I spun away from a couple kissing behind a red Dodge Ram and started toward Milagro and home. I didn’t miss my ex, the slime bag, but I did miss holding a man close, the smell of his skin, the rough of his beard, his breath on my face.
As soon as that image entered my brain, I thrust it away. Love had done me wrong and love could kiss my queso.
Chapter 2
On Friday morning, the town council couldn’t have asked for better weather. The sun hung proudly over our desert community, gilding the buildings and railroad tracks with affectionate arms of gold. The Chisos Mountains boasted gorgeous cloaks of pale gray shadow and rosy gold clouds.
“Yip,” Lenny said, anxious to show off his pioneer getup. I’d dressed him in a plaid shirt and a straw hat. If I had to meet Jeff Clark, I wanted someone on my side to remind me to remain not only a neutral journalist but an open-minded, kind human being as well.
It was high noon as we promenaded down the wooden sidewalk, past Wicks of the West and Elaine’s Pies.
“Come on,” I said to Lenny.
“Yip,” he agreed.
We continued for another block and a half, treading lightly around the slow-as-snails window shoppers and the locals clogging up the sidewalk with their daily gossip sessions until we made it to the Cogburn Hotel. Jeff Clark’s publicist had e-mailed his client’s location for the weekend, but I could have saved him the trouble. All the musicians who came into town, whether for the Wild Wild West Festival or a gig at Two Boots, stayed in the only downtown hotel Broken Boot had to offer. They could have stayed at a chain hotel out on the highway, but they preferred the ambience of the historic hotel, which dated back to 1883.
With Lenny in my arms, we had no trouble circumventing the rotating door. The lobby, as always, spoke to my inner cowgirl: exposed beams; thick doorframes of the same dark, rustic wood; authentic Mexican tile; and the requisite live game heads on the wall, each with wide horns and glass eyes.
“Good afternoon.” The desk agent was an older man with a fringe of gray hair behind his ears and wire-framed glasses. He pursed his lips, peered down his nose at Lenny, and then raised his gaze to the sign on the wall behind him that read:
NO PETS
His look might have bothered me if I didn’t know for a fact that you could stay in the Cogburn Hotel with a pet if you paid them enough money under the counter.
“Good afternoon to you. Nice costume.” I smiled, and Lenny bared his teeth at the man.
Simpson Crane, according to his name tag, sucked his teeth and waited for me to continue.
With a sinking feeling, I realized that what I assumed was his pioneer attire—a plaid vest and red saloonkeeper’s tie—could very well be his normal wardrobe. “We’re here to interview Jeff Sexy—I mean, Clark. I’m with the Broken Boot Bugle.” I had no credentials, so I slapped a copy of the paper on the counter. On the last page above the fold sat my byline along with my picture. It was a good likeness, if you tilted your head and closed one eye.
With the air of a man who had no other joy in life than to drive others to pull their hair out, he eyeballed my latest column. “Humph,” he said after several seconds, and turned to his computer. His fingers clicked across the keys, rapid-fire. “He’s not here.”
I was wise to the minor-celebrity mind-set. I untied my prairie bonnet and stowed it in my bag. “I know Jeff Clark’s not officially here, but would you please call and tell him that I’m here? My name is Josie Callahan, and his publicist, Terry Riley, set it up.”
He pursed his lips the way Senora Mari did right before she lost her temper with Uncle Eddie. “He checked out this morning.”
“Do you know where he’s staying?”
“I’m sorry.”
I leaned in. “Please, can you at least tell me where Mr. Clark said he was going?”
Like a cat drunk on ice cream, he shook his head slowly from shoulder to shoulder. “We never divulge the personal information of our guests. Why don’t you call his publicist again?” he asked with a smirk.
“Thanks,” I muttered over my shoulder as I marched into the revolving door with Lenny and hopped out the other side. I tried to call the publicist, but had to content myself with leaving a voice mail. As I considered my next move, Lenny sniffed the tufts of grass beside the sidewalk. My gaze followed a couple of girls with dyed black hair and tattoo sleeves made of real tattoos across the street.
“That’s it! Let’s go ask Patti.”
“Yip,” Lenny said.
Inside the Broken Boot Feed and Supply, the place was dark, but the Open sign was on. I shoved open the door and set the cowbell clanging. A woman in a denim skirt and matching jacket spun in our direction, a plump hand to her heart.
“Woo, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“I apologize, ma’am.”
“Yip,” Lenny said.
Her prairie bonnet shaded the woman’s features from the glare of the overhead fluorescents. “Don’t mind me. Having too many babies shot my nerves long ago.”
As I laughed, I tried to locate Patti with a surreptitious glance around the store. “Nice to meet you,” I said.
“Got to run.” She hurried to the door and her long skirt swung wide, revealing denim-blue boots, a nice complement to her outfit.
“She just moved to Broken Boot this week.” Patti joined us from the back of the store, wearing her version of a costume: black pants, a red-and-black flannel shirt, and a black felt hat. Surprisingly, she’d omitted her typical black liner and ghostly pale foundation.
I gave her a slow once-over.
Without flinching, she met my gaze with a stare that would melt iron, but after a few seconds, her cheeks flushed pink.
“You finding everything you need?” Patti asked the other woman.
“Do you carry rat poison?”
Patti grinned. “Sure thing. It’s right over here.” While my best friend led the older woman to another part of the store, Lenny and I perused the doggie clothes in the pet section, which consisted of one aisle—one side food and litter; the other side boutique clothing and chew toys.
After the woman paid and left, Lenny and I sidled up to the counter.
“What have you done with Jeff Sexy? Enquiring minds want to know.”
“Where’d that name come from?”
“It’s my own creation. Don’t you like it?”
“No. Makes him sound like a stripper.” She reached under the counter to retrieve a big hand-thrown ceramic cup. Over the rim lay the tag of her favorite flavor of tea, sage rosebud. She took a long swig before answering, gazing at me over the rim.
“Last time I saw him, he was asleep,” she finally said.
“That’s more than I wanted to know. I need to interview him for my article, and I’m running behind. Where’s he sleeping?”
She blushed. “On my couch.”
“Humph.” Was she blushing because he w
as on her couch or because he was actually in her bed? Enquiring minds didn’t want to know, because if they did, enquiring minds would give her a speech that would fall on deaf ears.
“He said he doesn’t sleep well in hotels.” She sipped slowly. “What was I supposed to do? He has to play again tonight.”
“You’re a real community volunteer. Would you please send him a text and ask him if I can interview him? Lenny and I’ll even walk over.”
She screwed up her nose and spluttered her tea. “Don’t go over there. I haven’t vacuumed or dusted in a coon’s age.”
“I’m not passing judgment on you or your housekeeping skills.”
“No, not going to happen.” She was redder than before, which made me wonder what could be so embarrassing. “You could interview him here,” she gestured with her chin, “in my office.” Her eyes held a hint of dreaminess.
“Okay, but I’m on a deadline. As in, I have to finish this and send it in by three o’clock.” According to my watch, it was one. I wasn’t SuperWriter. I needed time to edit and polish, like everyone else.
Patti pulled out her phone. “Wouldn’t you know it?”
She opened her mouth and shut it again, both sides curled up like the joker in a Batman movie.
“What’s he saying?”
“This is a text he sent hours ago.”
“And?”
After giving me the stink eye, Patti read the text. “Why don’t you come home, baby? And bring some tacos. I’m starving to death in more ways than one.”
I laughed when I caught sight of my best friend’s expression. She looked as if she’d swallowed a spider. “What’s wrong with you?”
In spite of my question, I knew what was ailing her. Patti had this thing. Some might call it a fatal flaw where men were concerned. If they even hinted that she was to wait on them, especially in the area of meals, her heart would curl up like the toes of the dead witch in The Wizard of Oz and retreat into its protective shell.
The Good, the Bad and the Guacamole Page 2
