“Good.” He had already let Liz know that his two coconspirators were the only ones who were in on their wedding.
She wouldn’t be wearing her ring, either, since she’d told him she would take care of getting it sized. That worked out perfectly, though, because they’d agreed to keep their marriage on the down low until the contract was put into place and he could inform Jameson. Not a second before.
“Have fun out there,” he said.
“Oh, I know fun is a guarantee. How cute is this town, anyway?”
“‘Cute’ is not a word many people use to describe Rough and Tumble. I’ll get to the saloon to join you before the bikers really start tearing it apart, since that’s the routine after sundown. Right now, though, it should be calm enough for salad eating.”
“It gets that bumpy, huh?” She beamed, but then cleared her throat, probably remembering she was going to be a Chamber of Commerce member soon enough. “It’ll be interesting to check out.”
Either way, she seemed excited about this new life. Would she adjust as easily to a gated community, charity events, and society columns?
“Tell Kat who you are and she’ll set you up right,” he said. “Then we can do our business back here.”
Was Liz’s smile strained at the word business? Couldn’t be, because the next moment, she was as bright as that diamond ring he’d put on her finger earlier.
As she left, he noticed that she wasn’t wearing the Rolex, but that was all for the best.
She was his wife, not a Rough & Tumble honey, and she was here to stay for the time being, for better or worse.
12
The second Liz got to the Rough & Tumble, she fell in to absolute, rock ‘n’ roll love with it, mainly thanks to the sign posted on the pressed tin blocks of the building.
Beware! Cheap Talk and Loose Women are Permitted in this Establishment.
How delightful was that? Actually, she’d become a fan of the town the moment she’d driven off the interstate ramp and over the winding road into the mountains, past the cemetery fenced in liked a corral of gravestones, then past this old-time saloon with its hitching post and a boardwalk with a table in front just like it was waiting for some cowboy to sit down and smoke a cigarillo with his boots propped up. The dust-kissed road had also led her past a few gleaming motorcycles parked in front, their chrome reflecting the setting sun.
But now, there were a few more steel ponies outside, and a band was hauling in their guitars and a drum set, leaving the door open and letting out a punch of country rock music.
Liz toyed with the idea of taking a picture of the sign so she could post it on Facebook, but . . . bad idea. She’d have to get out of the habit of sharing everything she did, especially since, tonight after she got back to Ben’s temporary home, she was going to start taking down all the obvious cyber footprints she’d left over the Internet, then hire someone Ben recommended to clean up the rest. She and Ben had talked about that as part of her image makeover and his, too, although he wasn’t a social media nut like her.
A long-haired Jesus band guy with a denim jacket draped over his shoulder was holding open the door for her, giving her the eye, probably thinking she was dressed more for the Strip than a wonderful little dive in the middle of nowhere.
She nodded at him in thanks, and he let out a low whistle to his friends as she passed him, going inside.
Yup, she already loved Rough & Tumble.
She stood in the middle of the wood-planked floor, taking in the adorable decorations—the charming painting of a leather-clad girl that reigned behind the bar, beer signs winking in advertisement, the smell of cigarettes that’d worked their way into the wood grain, hardly chased out of here by the ceiling fans.
More than anyplace—clubs like Bordello, the Le Galion Bay pool, the kind of house Ben was probably going to be looking for—this was Liz’s thing. And if what Ben said about it being so down and dirty was true, that lit a fire in her even more.
Pure kitsch, party, and fun!
But why would Ben, of all people, be attracted to a place like this? In her experience, billionaires were more the Bordello clubbing type, but not Ben—no, he’d been pretending not to be a Richie Rich on the Strip.
A total mystery. And the more she thought about him, the more she wanted to solve him.
The thought of that made her tingle and tangle, and she took a seat in the middle of the bar, down the way from a couple of rough-looking motorcycle club men with leather cuts and biker boots who were mingling with some older-looking gents with frizzy salt-and-pepper beards and beer guts. One even had a handlebar mustache, which was quaint. They all grinned at her as the female bartender—was it Kat?—strolled over, all silence and scruffiness. She seemed tough in her cut-off jeans, ankle boots, and who-gives-a-crap hair that she’d probably taken a pair of scissors to herself. But she had big blue eyes that reminded Liz of sugared blueberries.
“Hey,” Kat said, narrowing her gaze as she inspected Liz.
“Hi.” She set her purse on the bar next to the embedded video poker machine. She almost introduced herself—I’m Liz Palazzo . . . um . . . Hughes. Totally married to Ben. Can you believe it?
But she’d agreed to keep mumster about all that, especially in a bar where others could hear. Too bad she was bursting with the news, but Ben had been very clear about this being a business arrangement, a way to clean his slate as well as hers.
And they could sure do that—as well as maybe more . . .
Another tingle attacked her. Another tangle. Liz stretched forward, leaning her arms on the bar, wishing Ben were here. Wishing he were next to her so she could feel the vibration of his skin near hers, electricity and chemistry doing strange things to their brains and bodies.
Jeez, she was already addicted to him, and it’d taken everything she had not to jump him back in that house. All she needed was another dark, shaded place with him tonight, a touch from him, and she’d be a goner. . . .
While the bikers down the way kept scanning Liz, Kat slid a napkin onto the bar.
“You’re Liz?” Kat asked.
“Yes.”
“I recognize you from a picture Jameson sent Ben.” She was keeping her voice low enough so no one else would hear.
But if Liz expected dear Kat to get chummy because they were secret-keeping sisters, that didn’t happen.
“So what’s your poison?” Kat asked, solely focused on her job.
Okay. Maybe she thought Liz had roped Ben into a marriage and that’s why she was being remote and kind of judgy? Or was there also a gleam of sympathy in her gaze because she was thinking that Ben had done her wrong in the first place?
It was hard to tell.
“Truthfully?” Liz said. “I had enough booze last night. Iced tea would be great, and if you have a salad, I’d love that, too.”
“I’ll grab the rabbit food from the general store next door.” But Kat wasn’t going anywhere, her blue eyes still running over Liz, still inspecting her.
Liz decided to take the bull by the horns, and she bent farther over the bar, whispering only loud enough so that Kat would hear her over the music.
“I know it must seem kooky, what happened with me and Ben . . .”
“Kooky doesn’t even begin to approach this black hole of nonsense.”
Liz sat up, impressed with Kat’s bluntness. “You’re to the point. You remind me of my best friend, Anita.” She smiled. “You’d both really get along, you know?”
The saloon door banged open, and a chorus of rowdy hellos greeted a biker with a dirty blue bandana on his head, a worn leather cut hardly hiding the bulge of his T-shirted tummy. He had his arm around the shoulders of a much taller bottle blonde who wore jeans, an open flannel shirt tied at the waist, revealing a breast-squashing bodice, and a fashionably large silver watch on her wrist.
Wait. That watch looked pretty familiar. Was it . . . ?
As the woman got closer and the other men yelled, “Beetles!” Liz reco
gnized a Rolex when she saw one.
Kat had already poured a glass of iced tea and placed it on the bar. She’d noticed that Liz was staring at the watch.
“He gave you one, too,” Kat said matter-of-factly.
Liz nodded, thinking about how she’d left the piece in her apartment for now.
“Take heart.” Kat’s gaze softened a little. “The Rolex Bunnies don’t often make their way back here to the saloon, but every once in a while, one will wander through. Ben can’t help himself with giving those watches out like Halloween suckers. His philosophy is that a gift will let the girls down easy.”
Liz should’ve felt better knowing the watches were only about short-term flings with Ben. So what did it mean that he’d given her a Rolex?
She knew—he’d been ready to say sayonara before she’d sprung the marriage news flash on him.
Her heart sank with this evidence that she hadn’t been any different from the others, that he’d married her because he’d been pissed at his family and was using the wedding as a tool that would work to his benefit now. But she kept holding on to those quiet moments from last night that’d persuaded her he was The One anyway.
His kisses . . . his intimate gaze . . . I adore you, Liz . . .
At some point, he was going to remember that. She only needed to remind him.
She smiled. Maybe tonight would be the night to start working on the confused man.
When the Rolex blonde snuggled against a biker who wasn’t the “Beetles” guy she’d walked in with, Liz raised an eyebrow. So that’s how it was in here—free love. She raised her eyebrow even higher as Beetles took money out of his back pocket, lifted the bill up, and waited for Kat to go over and take a bucket out from beneath the bar. He stuffed the cash into it and Kat put the receptacle away.
Liz didn’t get a chance to ask what that’d been about, because the door opened again, this time letting in a well-built man who was tall and wide enough to be one of the pro ballplayers who used to lurk backstage at her shows.
But instead of seeking out Liz the ex-showgirl first off, he gave Kat a grinning, two-finger salute to the forehead and went to a table in the corner, sitting down and opening up a battered paperback with the title Urban Legends of the West.
Well, how about that.
When Liz glanced at Kat, the other woman gave a start. She’d been staring at him, but it sure seemed like she hadn’t wanted to get caught.
“Ooo-lah-lah,” Liz said, grinning.
Kat looked like she didn’t know what the phrase even meant as she opened an ice maker and shoveled some cubes around, suddenly very busy.
Liz snuck a peek at the man, who was subtly watching Kat. Then she turned back to the bartender.
“Are you two sparking?” she asked.
“I’m not familiar with the phrase.”
“You like him. He likes you. Sparks.”
Kat kept at the ice.
Liz couldn’t hold back. “You know, he keeps looking over here. . . .”
“Then I wish he’d stop. I’m not worth a look.” She touched her scraggly, dirty-blond hair, then slammed shut the ice machine lid.
“Sure you are.” All Liz’s years in front of a mirror touching up her makeup for shows just begged to be set free for the good of a woman in need. She gestured to Kat’s hair. “With a little gel, you could get your hair into . . .” A style? Something? ”. . . a nice evening look.”
Kat was frowning like she didn’t believe her.
Liz opened her purse and took out a tube of sangria-colored lipstick. “This is absolutely made for someone with your complexion. Try it on.”
As if the lipstick were a strange device that’d just fallen out of the sky, Kat narrowed her eyes at it. “I don’t do makeup.”
“That’s because you don’t own a fantastic shade of sangria lipstick. Here.” She handed over the tube. “Experiment with it. Have a grand time.”
Kat looked doubtful, but she slyly took it when nobody was looking. Liz thought she heard a muted “thanks,” but the music might’ve covered it as Kat left the bar and sped to the courtyard, toward the general store for Liz’s salad.
Meanwhile, that Beetles guy had programmed some songs into the jukebox, and he was cajoling the Rolex blonde to dance. She had more interest in another biker, though, but Beetles didn’t seem to mind because he caught Liz looking at him and wandered from his end of the bar to her. Liz only kept smiling, used to all kinds of guys approaching, knowing how to handle every one of them.
This time, she’d be handling one as a married woman.
Married!
She settled herself down, even though a pitter was still pattering through her. She’d see how married she was tonight when she got home with Ben, and she couldn’t wait. It’d be fun to have him make up for the crap he’d put her through last night and this morning.
The stocky biker swept her an unexpected bow, and Liz couldn’t help thinking that he had Pekingese dog features—a little smooshed but harmless.
“You’re a fresh face around here,” he said.
“And you’re the welcoming committee?”
As he laughed, the door opened again, and more bikers and rough-around-the-edges girls came through. Another bartender, wiry and spastic, rushed in from a back room and manned the bar. The music seemed to get louder—a Jace Everett song, gravelly yet smooth, rhythmic yet loose, making her want to dance.
She wiggled in her seat, drinking her iced tea, so happy. So surprisingly, I’ve-finally-got-a-chance, who-knew-I’d-be-this happy.
The biker stuck out a hand. “Jimmy Beetles.”
She shook with him. “Liz.” She’d leave a last name for another time.
“You like this song?” Beetles asked, gesturing toward the jukebox.
“Love it.” She did a fun little groove-diggity. “It’s bluesy and bad, and it belongs in a place like this.”
She noticed that every new male arrival—and a couple of females—kept putting money into that pail the bartender had beneath the bar.
“You probably don’t know this,” Jimmy Beetles said above the music, flashing his tobacco-stained teeth at her, “but we’ve got a tradition here in the R and T.”
“If it has something to do with downing shots, I’m not up for it, thanks just the same.”
“Nah, nothing like that.” In the corner, some girls were dancing, rubbing their breasts against men and their leather jackets and laughing. “We have a boot contest everyone likes to enter.”
“A what?”
“A boot contest,” Jimmy Beetles repeated as the new bartender set a pail of iced bottled beer next to the biker. “It’s a tradition from back in the miner days, but we carry it on in modern times. And I noticed that you’re wearing a slick pair of boots, baby.”
Liz inspected one of her legs, thinking that her boots were indeed cool. Jimmy Beetles seemed to appreciate the footwear, too, or maybe just the length of her gam.
Ben had done the same last night, and Liz smiled, thinking of how he’d shown his appreciation—with his hands, his mouth, his fervor while making love to her.
Ah.
“Know what I think?” Jimmy Beetles asked. “You’re a sure winner tonight. How about being the first contestant?”
“Are you here to sponsor me or something?”
“If you want to call it that.” He wagged his caterpillar eyebrows. “How about it? You just hop on the bar, show those boots, and we see who challenges you.”
Sounded innocent enough. Then again, down the bar, one of the bikers had his hand up the front of a woman’s shirt, and Liz was having hard time looking away. She’d been in some skeezy locations in her time, but this place had an edge of the unpredictable, and she tried to picture Ben hanging out here.
So he liked it like this, did he? She was going to be a perfect, respectable wife outside the saloon, of course, but was this the way to his heart tonight? By being all rough and tumbly?
As the music twanged into a son
g with a nasty, grinding beat, Liz thought, What the hell, scooped up her purse, and followed Jimmy Beetles down to the end of the bar. The men there cheered her as the biker helped her up.
She had a good view from the heights as more customers poured in through the door, pumping their fists when they saw her.
Jimmy Beetles called out, “Dance down the bar and show us those boots!”
Oh, heck. Liz might not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she knew when she was being scammed. Dance, indeed. But the music was good, and she was married and happy, so she shimmied ever so slightly, working a classy yet crowd-pleasing dance move that made the men howl, even if she was taking care to make sure no one could see up her skirt.
She was laughing, pumping her fists with them, totally in on the joke, when Kat came busting over from the courtyard door, a packaged salad in hand, shooing the men away. And . . .
Had the woman put a dab of lipstick on and smoothed back her hair with some water?
“Jimmy Beetles!” Kat chided. “You scummy little prick! What’re you doing with her?”
“Hey,” the biker said. “This prick’s a few dollars richer now. Nobody won the pot last night, so I believe I’m due that cash in the pail.”
He winked up at Liz as she put her hands on her hips, still laughing. Then she bumped a hip toward the crowd, telling them all was forgiven. They cheered again at her good humor.
She was just about to get down when she noticed that the bikers weren’t the only ones in the gathering crowd.
Her husband was there, too.
Oops.
But if Liz expected him to be disappointed in her or tell her to get her ass home, it didn’t happen. No, instead, Ben was watching her with a hunger in his eyes that flipped her inside out, making her fall for him all over again.
Lust, adoration . . . whatever it was, she was bundled in it.
All his.
***
At first, when Ben had walked in to find Liz dancing on the bar, he’d only chuckled, even if his new wife was supposed to be keeping a low profile and working on building an image that would fit with the narrative they’d constructed about their marriage.
Down and Dirty Page 15
