by Stuart, Amie
I winced again at the dent two months’ rent would make in my nest egg, but it was an evil necessity. The icemaker was definitely a selling feature in Texas, along with the air-conditioning. I stepped into the tiny kitchen and looked around. The flowery linoleum and the refrigerator looked newish. There were only a handful of cabinets, but I didn’t need much storage space.
I spun around in a circle, taking it all in, and then smiled at her and Kellie. “I’ll take it.”
I was in the middle of mixing up a half-dozen Sex on the Beaches when Tim sidled up to my bar. I flashed him an automatic smile and nodded, but kept on working. My hands shook as I took Dixie’s money and set the six shot glasses on her tray.
Tim wasn’t the first to chase me, and I knew he’d be far from the last. That wasn’t the problem. The way he stared at me—as if I was a steak, and he’d just been rescued from a deserted island—made my hands shake and the nape of my neck tingle from hyper-awareness. And worse, he acted like all he had to do was crook his finger at me. Men! His ten-dollar tip had bought me a new coffee pot, but it wouldn’t get him in my pants.
I slammed the register drawer and walked down the bar to take his order, my attention caught by the young girl coming up behind him. She was a dead ringer for Tim; she had to be Rene. With a tall father, she'd be tall herself, but right now the poor thing was all arms and legs and tiny breasts, dressed in faded denim and a plain, baby blue T-shirt. He followed my gaze, turning to talk to her. When I caught her gaze, I gave her a smile, but she apparently wasn’t the friendly type—unlike her daddy. With one last frown my way, she accepted the money her father handed her and took off for the game room.
“Tha’s her.” I nodded at her as she disappeared in the crowd.
“Your little one?”
Tim slowly nodded, too, his expression somber as he turned his attention back to me. “Beer, please.”
I wanted to snap at him to stop staring. Instead I reached into the cooler in front of me and yanked a bottle free of the ice. “She looks just like you.”
“Yeah, except she’s moody, like her mother.” His eyes hardened as he raised the beer bottle to his lips.
I shrugged and accepted his cash as a big blond sporting at least three days worth of stubble claimed the empty stool beside him.
“What’ll it be, handsome?”
“Coke.” He gave me a tiny smile and dipped his head, focusing on the bar.
He was the saddest looking man I ever saw in all my life. I fixed his drink, slapped a napkin down, and set the cold glass in front of him.
“This is my brother, Ty.”
I looked from Tim to him and back again. Just like with Susie, there was no family resemblance, though I could definitely see one between Ty and Susie. Interesting.
About that time, one of the waitresses hollered out an order, and back to work I went. The dancehall was much busier than it had been Thursday night, and I didn’t get a chance to catch my breath until Susie came to relieve me a few hours later. But no matter what I might be doing, I could feel Tim’s eyes on me, burning into my skin, whether he sat at the bar or one of the nearby tables. And more than once, I scolded myself for looking for him. He wasn’t part of my agenda, but I still felt a twinge of disappointment when I didn’t find him out in the beer garden on my break like the previous night.
Instead, I ran into Ty. In his own way, he was just as handsome as Tim, but what in the world had made him so damned sad?
“Mind if I sit?” I waved at the empty space beside him.
“Help yourself.”
I practically collapsed on the bench beside him, glad to get off my feet for a minute. For all his size, he wasn’t nearly as intimidating as his brother. He reminded me of an oversized pussy cat who’d gotten his nose smacked one too many times, and I fought the urge to reach up and smooth back his hair or scratch behind his ears.
“Bad day?”
“Ever-day’s a bad day,” he said with a harsh laugh. “Excuse me.”
I winced, but didn’t say a word as he stood and disappeared around a bend.
“Aint Ree left him.”
“‘Scuse me?” I peered over my shoulder at Tim’s little leggy daughter stepping out from behind a huge oak tree.
She came closer, arms crossed over her chest, her face screwed up in an ugly scowl. Color me intrigued. What had made the little one so angry?
“He’s been like that ever since Aint Rhea left him.”
“I see.”
“You Daddy’s new woman?” she demanded, looking me up and down.
Ah, the little one’s got territorial issues. I chuckled and shook my head. “Non, no.”
“Yet?” She tilted her head to one side and quirked one eyebrow at me.
“Never, little one. What’s your name?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer. Anything to keep her here just a bit longer.
“Rene. You?” She was hard around the edges…but still tender on the inside. Something about her reminded me of me, before I’d gone from sad and angry to hard and bitter. Memories flitted by, cutting me as they went.
I stood, preparing to head inside and stretch out for a few on the break room couch. “Toni.” I smiled and held out my hand, but she just frowned at it before taking a step back, her narrow-eyed gaze never wavering. A weaker person would have found her scrutiny uncomfortable. That wasn’t me. “My papa’s mother was a Rene, too.”
“Toni. I don’t think Daddy’s ever dated a woman with a man’s name before.”
She was definitely sizing up the competition, not that she really had anything to worry about from me.
“I’m not dating your daddy—”
“—Yet.”
“At all. And now, I have to get back to work. Have a good night, Rene.”
TIM AVOIDED TONI’S bar all evening, relying on waitresses instead, and danced with two women who would have been more than happy to take him home, but he found himself using Rene’s presence as a completely legitimate excuse to retreat, even though she’d gone home earlier with Ty. Maybe he was coming down with something.
And he knew damn good and well what it was.
Around eleven he decided to call it a night, but not before one more stop at her bar. She was gone. That was okay. He knew where to find her. He headed out to the beer garden, back to the spot where she’d found him last night. She lay stretched out on the wooden bench, her crossed ankles propped on the armrest, hands tucked under her head. She raised up on her elbows, frowning at him in the moonlight. “Your daughter thinks we’re dating,” she scolded.
“You talked to my daughter?” Tim moved closer until he was level with her feet. He shoved his hands in his pockets, resisting the urge to sit, slip her shoes off and rub them.
“Obviously, yes.” She lay back down and folded her hands across her ribcage, not even offering to move so he could sit beside her. The moonlight gave her hair blue highlights and made her white T-shirt glow. “Why would she say that?”
“Because she knows her old man pretty well.” He chuckled, deciding to take a chance. “Speaking of dates, what are you doin’ later?”
He winced as her own low chuckle quickly turned into a full-fledged belly laugh. She swung her legs off the back of the bench and stood in one fluid motion.
“I’m thinking you’re not talking breakfast, and I ain’t that kinda girl. You want me, you’re going to have to do a whole lot better than that. G’night, Flirty Boy.” She strolled past him, and he fisted his hands, refusing to turn and watch her denim-clad departure.
“Oh...Tim.”
He whirled around at the sound of his name on her lips, caught up, once again, in her accent and her husky, sexy voice. Wondering what she’d sound like naked, beneath him. The thought made his belly tighten in anticipation.
“I got a ride home tonight, too.”
Great, another comedienne. She was turning out to be as prickly as Rene. To hell with her. What the hell had he been thinking, lusting after some w
oman he barely knew? He had work to do, for cryin’ out loud. Horses to train. A daughter to raise. He damned sure didn’t need Toni’s kind of trouble.
Tim stood at the bottom of the stairs, debating whether to check on Rene, but he’d given up tucking her in at six or seven, and it was way too late to start again now. Besides, she definitely wouldn’t appreciate the gesture.
He changed out of his jeans and grabbed another beer from the fridge, feeling wired and strangely restless. A part of him was sad that he couldn’t remember the last time—exactly—he’d tucked his daughter in or why he’d stopped. And how six more years had passed them by so damned quickly.
This was all her fault. Miss Creole Queen. No, that wasn’t true. It was Charlene’s fault. She was the one who’d started all this, left him with a mess. They’d gotten married over spring break their senior year so they didn’t have to miss any school, but she’d dropped out a few weeks later. It didn’t seem to matter how long they’d been divorced, he couldn’t forgot their anniversary, which had just passed a few months back. And Rene’s birthday was in August.
He looked around him, at the worn linoleum that needed to be mopped, and the laundry room whose contents were creeping into the kitchen. He locked the back door and made to hit the light switch, stopping as he turned and looked around again. His poor old kitchen needed some TLC. For that matter, the whole house did. Tomorrow, he’d get up early, work his string of yearlings and then spend the day cleaning. Getting Rene to help would be a fight to the death, but he figured he could bribe her by letting her help with the yearlings.
Only problem was, no amount of cleaning would make the place feel homey. It never did.
Maybe he should start over. Buy new furniture. Hell, even a new bed maybe. Rene needed new stuff anyway. The pink canopy bed of hers had to go. With a sigh, he headed out the French doors and settled on the steps of the side porch. It was so dark and quiet. Across the way, the cleared area for the new barn looked ghostly in the moonlight. A light flickered through the front windows at Ty’s, and Tim figured his brother was sleeping on the couch again with the television for company.
Tim was worried about him, but there wasn’t much anyone could do but keep an eye on him. Ty had to figure out how to fight his demons alone.
Something Tim had yet to master so many years after the fact.
WHEN I HEARD Dad’s truck coming up the road, I’d killed my light and prayed he hadn’t seen. He’d have a genuine fit if he found me still up so late, especially if he’d brought someone home with him. It was rare but not unheard of.
Luckily, from the sound of it, he’d come home alone. I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
I lay staring up at the ceiling, listening to him move around downstairs, then slipped under the covers, flashlight in hand to work in my journal. Aunt Dee’d gotten it for me for Christmas and said I could put anything in it, and even draw. Her mom taught her all about journaling, saying it was good for your brain and stuff.
And if you had a problem, you should write it down, leave your problem alone for a week, and then check to see if it was as big as you thought, or if maybe you’d come up with a solution. Sometimes this worked, just not with Dad.
At first, journaling was really hard, and I’d struggled to put down words, but after a couple weeks, I’d gotten the hang of it and began to enjoy just rambling on nothing and everything. Especially the horses. There was no right or wrong. Only what I wrote. That’s what Aunt Dee had said. My favorite times were mornings before Dad got up and the house was quiet, when it felt like I was the only person in the whole world.
And now, I had a problem.
I’d written down everything I could remember, everything I could think of about the woman at the bar—Toni. She looked mean, tough. Maybe old was a better word but not literally old! Just that she wouldn’t be the type of person to let anything slip past her, because she already knew every trick in the book, and she kinda scared me. I couldn’t imagine why Dad would want someone like her, but I’d seen that look in his eyes before. Well, close, but not this bad. Normally, he picked women who dyed their hair and drank and laughed a lot, but she didn’t look like she did any of that, and that’s what scared the crap out of me.
She definitely wasn’t like the others.
I’d gone nine years without a stepmother, and I had no intention of breaking one in now.
Please God, don’t let him marry the Wicked Witch of the West.
I WOKE LATE in the morning and nibbled on toast while putting a pot of jambalaya on. While it simmered, I soaked in my nice, clean, shiny tub, a cup of coffee at my elbow. Other than my flirty cowboy and the fact I had yet to hear anything about the repairs on my car, things weren’t going too badly.
Tim was the type of man you could take home, but not to Mama. Not that I had a mama, but I still laughed at him propositioning me. He damned sure wouldn’t fit on my sofa-bed, and he had a little girl, so obviously, there was no going to his place. Did he take women home with the little one there? What kind of man was he? What kind of father? Maudit. Stop!
No men, ever. No men, and no babies. Except for Nichole. My eyes drifted down to the faint stretch marks on my belly, and I traced them with my fingers. I’d spent years averting my eyes from those stretch marks, pretending she didn’t exist, pretending I hadn’t spent ten hours struggling to bring her into the world only to have her taken from me. That was the only way I could cope. Except for with Miss Rose who’d made sure we secretly celebrated Nichole’s birthday every year with cupcakes. But mostly, I’d spent years not thinking about all the moments I’d missed, or even what she looked like. Now? I found myself daydreaming about what she looked like, my baby girl. She’d been born with a head of dark hair, like mine. Her eyes had been blue, like all babies, and I wondered if they’d turned lavender. When I was a child, Grandmère had said the lavender eyes were a first-born trait, so I’d always assumed Nichole’s were the same.
I closed my eyes and sank lower in the steamy, orange-scented water. My mind wandered to another dark haired girl. I tried to mesh the two pictures in my head, Nichole and Rene, and I wondered if my baby were buxom like me or skinny like the little one. Those blue eyes of hers were huge. Then the dark side of me wondered why she had no Mama.
Enough! Rene was none of my business. No more maudlin thoughts.
I sloshed water on the floor as I lurched from the tub, threw on a baggy T-shirt and old sweats, and curled up on the couch to braid my hair. Kellie would be here soon for lunch, and I needed to get in gear.
Jambalaya was best when left to simmer all day, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. We had to be at work by four, and it was already noon.
While I waited on Kellie, I put on the water for rice, grabbed some quarters, and headed to the pay phone to check on my car. Over the repeated thunk of someone’s shoes banging around in the dryer, Petey assured me he was still searching for a new radiator and he’d contact Susie or Kellie as soon as he found one. I ran into Kellie on my way back to my apartment, and we walked side by side around the complex to my door. The heat and humidity were already stifling. By late afternoon, it would be a swamp pit.
“This humidity sucks.” I pulled my damp shirt away from my body and fanned myself with it.
“I thought you’d be used to it, being from Louisiana and all.”
I unlocked my door, and we stepped inside the cool, air-conditioned apartment. “I haven’t been to Louisiana in fifteen years.”
“And you have such a thick accent. Wow! It smells great in here.”
“You like jambalaya?”
“Sounds good.”
I talked as I worked, dishing up rice and smothering it with jambalaya. “My mother’s mother was Italian. She died when I was eleven. Never spoke a word of English. If I wanted to talk to her, I had to speak Italian, too.” I shrugged and blew on the steaming bowl in my hands before handing it Kellie. “I asked her once. I said, ‘Nonna, why don’t you speak English like us?’” I quickly
dished up a second bowl, and we sat at the rickety table. “Nonna, she says, ‘so I never forget who I am and where I came from. Italy will always be the home of my heart.’”
“Aw that’s kinda sad. Y’all were close, huh?”
“Hmm, she was an old tartar. Used to drive my grandfather up the wall.”
“So you speak Italian?”
“And some French…from my father’s side.”
“Wow, multilingual and you cook. Thanks for this, by the way,” she said, pointing to her bowl. “I mostly eat out, so it’s a real treat.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
“So are you and Tim like a thing now?” she asked between mouthfuls.
My hand shook in shock and I spilled tea everywhere. With a sigh, I set the pitcher down, grabbed a nearby cloth and mopped at the spill.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy, but, well, the girls…” She shrugged while her voice trailed off.
“It’s nothing.” I set the towel aside, fighting the urge to ask just what the girls had said. Especially since the girls had already warned me, in graphic detail, he’d chase anything that purred right. She watched me, her pale cheeks a bright red, and again I wondered about her. “Non, we’re not. Why do you ask? Are you interested?”
“Oh, God, no.” She grimaced. “I was just curious. And besides, he’d never look at someone like me.”
“That’s not what I asked.” I took another hard look at her. Her red hair was a cinnamon color that matched her freckles, and fixed in a neat shoulder-length style. She had pretty dark brown eyes and a sweet face. Plus she was a rare find. A genuinely decent person.
“He’s way out of my league.”
I snorted. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Why would you say that? Because you’re a waitress? I’m a bartender; that puts him out of my league, too. If I cared about stuff like that. But I don’t.” And she shouldn’t either.
