My Give a Damn's Busted

by Carolyn Brown

  “Then I’ll win again. I’m stronger than he is and I’m finally doing what I should’ve been doing for years. I’m going to refill my coffee cup. You want one?”

  “Yes, I would,” she said.

  She drew her feet up into the chair, stretched her nightshirt down to cover her toes, and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her hair billowed out around her face when she plopped it forward resting her chin on her knees. Her sweet little world she’d found with a plastic headed thumbtack had just been blown to smithereens. A Hiroshima-type bomb couldn’t have done a better job. Hank was going to be a full-time rancher and Luther had even made friends with him again. Sunday morning she was driving to Perry and pulling that map down again. Surely she didn’t belong in Mingus anymore.

  “Here you go,” he said.

  She brushed her hair back and reached for the mug. “Thank you.”

  Using one finger he tucked a strand behind her ear. “You missed one.”

  His touch was as soft as a butterfly kiss. How could something that gentle feel like dynamite exploding in her heart? “Now I know what you are doing in Palo Pinto County. Tell me what you are doing in Mingus and on my porch.”

  “Waiting for you to wake up so we can talk,” he said.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Yes, there is. At least you didn’t come out here throwing rocks and threatening me with a restraining order is a good start. We’ll build on that. It’s enough for one day. I’m here and I’m not leaving,” he said softly.

  “You going to live on my porch forever? If you got a dumb ass notion like that, darlin’, then I might have to think about a restraining order or else talk to Henry about committing you.”

  Hank chuckled. “You know what I mean, Larissa. I’m back in the area and I’m here to stay. Get used to seeing me around.”

  “You’ll get bored,” she said.

  “Can’t. This summer when I was here Dad said that he was ready to retire. He’d sell the ranch and put part of the money into a trust fund for me or else he’d give me the ranch. I had a year to think about it. It took less than a month to figure out where I really want to be. So I can’t leave. Besides, Mother is one pissed off woman. I’m not sure I could crawl back into her good graces.”

  “You’ll hate it in a year.”

  “You’ve been here almost a year. Do you hate it?”

  “Hell, no!”

  He set the empty cup on the porch and rose up from the rocker, reminding her of the day at the lake. That hot afternoon she’d likened him to a Greek god with water sluicing over his muscular body. That fall morning he stretched and became a flesh and blood mortal that she liked even better than the mythological god from the past, but she wasn’t falling into a relationship with him again. She still didn’t trust him, not even if he did just make a big declaration about being a rancher and putting Hayes Radner on the run.

  “I rest my case. Thanks for the coffee and the visit. I got to get on down to Stephenville. Dad needs a tractor part and that’s the only place that’s got one available right now,” he said.

  She sipped the coffee. “That is a crock of shit. Mineral Wells is a hell of a lot closer than Stephenville and I bet they’ve got tractor parts.”

  “You’d have to see the tractor. Mineral Wells doesn’t have any antique tractor parts dealers. There’s an old feller in Stephenville who has a tractor graveyard. When Dad needs a part he can find it there. Want to come along?”

  She shook her head. “I’m going back to bed.”

  He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  She left half a cup of coffee on the porch and went straight back to bed. But she couldn’t sleep. Everything that had happened from the time they’d been introduced by a deer to that morning played through her mind like a television movie. There he was with the hot Texas summer wind blowing his shirt out while he cussed and ranted about the damn deer; on the bar stool in the Honky Tonk; dancing with her; baling hay; painting the house. Trust building with each passing day only to be broken like a thin crystal wine glass when it hits a concrete floor.

  Finally she threw the pillow at the wall and jumped out of bed. She stormed into the kitchen and ate three chocolate chip cookies. That didn’t help so she drank milk straight from the jug and still felt restless. She made a circle through the house. From her bedroom, through the kitchen where she picked up another one of Linda’s chocolate chip cookies from the table and ate it as she paced, through the living room, the spare bedroom, short hall, and back to her bedroom. Twenty minutes and dozens of rounds later she fell back on the sofa.

  She would not run away. And she wasn’t putting a tack on a map again. It had worked the first time but she wasn’t pulling up roots and leaving her home. Hank Wells wasn’t making her sell out any more than Hayes Radner had

  The clock said it was ten o’clock and it was Wednesday. That meant the ladies would be out of town doing their shopping and having their hair done. The garden had stopped producing and she’d pulled up all the plants so she couldn’t spend the rest of the day playing in the dirt. Sharlene would still be asleep. And she wanted to talk. She called her mother but got the answering machine. She hung up without leaving a message.

  “Merle,” she said aloud. She’d never been to Merle’s place but she had a general idea of where she lived. She jerked her nightshirt over her head on the way to the bathroom, took a quick shower, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and grabbed her keys and purse on the way out the door.

  The mailbox had M-rle Ave-y written on it in black block letters that could be purchased at any hardware store. A “No Trespassing” sign hung on both sides of the fence leading the way up to the house. None of the letters were missing on those signs. She turned across a cattle guard and drove slowly through the pecan tree-lined lane. The house was a long, low ranch house set at the back side of a circular driveway. The flower beds were a blaze of fall colors with yellow, bronze, and gold mums, bright pink and red roses still putting out blooms, dianthus in all shades of bright colors, and rose moss creeping along the edges. It reminded Larissa of the flower beds in Perry. Their gardener took great pains and delight in his flowers and she’d always loved them every season of the year.

  She stood beside the car and made a decision never to sell the Perry house. Too many people would be affected if she did—Rosa, the housekeeper, who’d been there at least thirty years; Manny, the gardener; Cleo, the cook; and Lanson, who took care of the garage and all the vehicles in it as well as the pool in the summertime. Four people who’d taken care of her, along with Nanny, and had been there since her grandparents moved into the house. They’d helped raise Larissa. They’d been there when Nanny died. They’d always welcomed Doreen home. They lived in two apartments in a wing off to one side of the place. Rosa and Manny in one; Cleo and Lanson in the other.

  “Are you going to come in or stand out there and stare at the flowers all day?” Merle yelled from the door.

  Larissa looked up and smiled. “Good morning. They are beautiful. Who is your gardener?”

  Merle stepped out onto the porch. “Me. Old southern women are supposed to grow flowers. I put the flower beds in when Ruby Lee died as a memorial to her. Seemed a waste to take flowers to the grave to lie there and die. She was a live wire, not a wallflower, so I planted flowers and when I get lonesome for her, I come out here and sit on that bench and we talk. What in the hell are you doing up and about at this time of morning after the night you had at the Honky Tonk?”

  Larissa stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. “What do you do in the winter?”

  “I plant pansies and that purple shit that looks like overgrown cabbages. I reckon she don’t care what it looks like as long as I don’t forget to tell her everything that happens. I’ve got lunch ready. Made soup today. We’ll eat early today. Come on in. You can answer my question while we eat.” Merle held the door for her.

  “That sounds
wonderful, and is that bread I smell?”

  “Cornbread to go with the soup. I whipped up some cinnamon rolls for dessert.”

  “Who else are you expecting?”

  “I got up this morning with a feeling that someone would be coming by. Thought it might be Angel. She still might run through sometime today. She often does. It’s closer to come out here than to drive all the way back to the ranch and besides, Garrett’s noon and hers is two different things.” Merle led the way through the small foyer into a great room that housed living room, dining room, and kitchen.

  “Love your house. Want to sell it?” Larissa asked.

  “Hell no! Had it built when we came to Mingus exactly the way I wanted and I ain’t changed my mind about what I want far as a house goes in all these years. Honey, terrorists couldn’t blow my old ass out of it. I’ll show you the rest of it after we eat.”

  “What can I do to help?” Larissa asked.

  “Bowls are on the bar with the cornbread. Soup is on the stove. Don’t need to do anything but help yourself. We’ll eat in here at the kitchen table since there’s only two of us. It’s cozier. Now tell me what brings you to my house today?” Merle picked up a bowl, crumbled cornbread in the bottom, and carried it to the stove, where she filled it.

  Larissa did the same. “Tea in the fridge?”

  “Yes, it is. Ice in the door. Make us both one,” Merle said.

  Larissa blew on a spoonful of hot vegetable soup before she put it in her mouth. “Good,” she muttered.

  “Picante sauce.”

  Larissa’s eyes asked the question.

  “That’s the secret. Half a cup of picante sauce. It spices it up and puts a little fire into it. I’m always glad for company but why are you here, Larissa?”

  “I woke up to find Luther and Hank both on my porch this morning.”

  “Luther is fighting with Tessa. She wants to ask you if she can work the bar a couple of nights a week to make some extra Christmas money. She helped Sharlene the other night and she’s damn good. Luther don’t want her to work in a bar.”

  “Well, that’s a double standard. He works for me,” Larissa said.

  “Yes, it is and they’ll work it out. Luther is still carrying around baggage about his ex-wife and that driller that she had an affair with. He’s got to let it go and realize Tessa isn’t that piece of trash. She’s a good woman. I’m sure Luther wanted you to tell him he was right and to ask you to not hire Tessa. Now what in the hell was Hank doing there?”

  Larissa tipped up the tea. “He said he and Hayes had a fight and he won. He says he wants to be Hank on a full-time basis. Henry is giving him the ranch and he’s going to be a rancher.”

  “You got a problem with that?” Merle asked.

  “He’ll get bored. He’s used to the fast life.”

  “Did you? Mingus is a little smaller than Cairo or London or even Stockholm. They’re a hell of a lot more exciting than Dallas, Texas, and you lived in all of them before you moved here. It sounds to me like you and Luther got a lot in common.”

  “What?” Larissa was dumbfounded. She’d expected Merle to offer to have Hank killed like she had an old boyfriend of Cathy’s back in the days when Cathy owned the Tonk.

  “Luther’s judging and so are you. Maybe not for the same reasons. You didn’t know Hayes except for a day, hell, for less than an hour. How do you know that he wasn’t dissatisfied with Dallas before he ever met you or came to Mingus this last time?”

  “Are you telling me to pick up where we left off?”

  “Hell no! You got to start all over if you are interested in that cowboy. Toss the past out the window and start from scratch. Just like me when I make a mess of a shirt. I can’t very well put a patch on the design and expect to sell the damn thing. I have to throw it in the trash can, pick up a piece of material, and build another shirt. That’s what you’ve got to do if you are interested,” Merle said.

  “What about trust?”

  “That’s why you start over. That trust is gone. You never could trust Hayes. Now you got to see if you can trust Hank. And that’s already a bit shaky so don’t get in a hurry. Give it time. Build a good solid foundation. You can’t put up a house without a foundation that’ll weather cold, hot, and everything in between. Learn to be his friend and let him be yours. Then go from there.”

  Larissa smiled. “How’d you get so smart?”

  “Old age.”

  “You? Don’t give me that line of shit. Merle Avery is ageless.”

  “For that you get two cinnamon rolls.”

  ***

  The Honky Tonk was full five minutes after the doors opened. Wednesday night used to be the slowest night of the week. Not so, anymore. Three-for-a-quarter songs about cheatin’ and drinkin’, cold beer, good mixed drinks, and a bouncer who kept things from getting out of hand kept people waiting in the parking lot for someone to leave.

  “Need some help?” Tessa asked. She was a tall brunette with green eyes and a splash of freckles across her nose. Black plastic framed glasses perched on her nose that was just slightly too large for her face. Tight jeans stretched across a bottom that was wider than her top half. She had a ready smile and a quick wit.

  Larissa thought about it for less than a minute before she nodded. Luther might get mad but he could get glad in the same britches. She did need help and she’d already had it from a damn fine source that Tessa could do the work.

  “I pay minimum wage and you keep your tips. You run the beer handles, Tessa. Sharlene, you move up to mixed drinks. I’m going to work the bar and do buckets. Anyone gets in a bind, holler and I’ll help whoever needs it,” Larissa said.

  “Fair enough,” Tessa said.

  “Luther going to quit because of this?” Sharlene asked.

  “That’s Luther’s problem,” Larissa said.

  “We had us a talk. He’s fine with it now,” Tessa said. “But I’m glad you hired me without asking. I hear that Hank Wells is back in town. What do you think of that?”

  “Hey, can I get a bucket of longneck Coors?” A customer asked from the far end of the bar.

  Larissa grabbed a galvanized milk bucket, shoved six bottles of beer into it, and added two scoops of ice. She carried to the end of the bar and set it in front of the man.

  “You got a Wednesday special on this, right?” he teased.

  “Sure I do. On Wednesday you get it for twice the amount you pay on Tuesday,” she shot back at him.

  “That the price for drinkin’ instead of listenin’ to preachin’ on a church night?” he asked.

  “You got a guilty conscience?”

  “Not me!” He handed her a twenty-dollar bill.

  She made change and counted it back to him.

  “Want to dance? I see you got lots of help and no wedding ring.”

  “Don’t dance with customers,” she said.

  “Too bad. I’m a damn fine dancer.”

  Hank slid onto a bar stool. “I know one customer you danced with once upon a time.”

  “Yes, and look what it got me,” she said. Her crazy heart was acting like her fat cells when they found a hidden candy bar. Over the top with excitement and couldn’t wait to get the paper off and taste the sweetness.

  “What did it get you? Sharlene, could I get a martini?” Hank raised his voice but didn’t take his eyes off Larissa’s face. If fate would let him, he would be content to sit on that bar stool the rest of his life, sinking into the depths of her brown eyes.

  “It got me in a mess and I thought Hayes was gone.”

  “He is.”

  She nodded toward Sharlene who was heading toward the mixed drink table. “Martini?”

  “Hank likes them too. Especially the ones that he gets in the Honky Tonk. They’re almost as good as the owner is beautiful.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere,” she said.

  “I’m not uttering words of flattery, ma’am. I’m speaking the pure gospel truth.”

  Sharlene lo
oked at Larissa before she even made the martini. At her nod she put it together and set it in front of Hank. “What are you doing here?”

  “I been answerin’ that question all day. I’m here for a drink and a little conversation with the customers, to listen to some good old country music and watch the dancin’. I’d ask the pretty boss to dance with me but she told that other man that she don’t dance with customers. I guess that’s what I am tonight so that’s what I’m doing here,” he said.

  “I need help,” Tessa called.

  “Enjoy the martini.” Larissa left Hank on the bar stool and went to help draw a dozen beers.

  “What happened?” Sharlene whispered out the side of her mouth. “I figured you’d shoot him on the spot if he ever showed his face in the Tonk again.”

  “I’ll tell you the whole story after we close tonight,” Larissa promised.

  “That’s five and a half hours from now. I can’t wait that long.”

  “Short version then. He’s moved back permanently. Showed up on my porch this morning. More later.”

  “That’ll keep me until we close,” Sharlene said seriously.

  Chapter 17

  Larissa didn’t want to wake up. She peeked at the clock to find that it was noon. Stallone was stretched out on the pillow next to her, his eyes wide open and set on her face. Voices carried from the porch into the house for the second morning.

  “Shit!” Larissa moaned. Two mornings in a row was too damn much. The smell of coffee reached her nose and she threw back the sheets. She padded barefoot to the kitchen, poured a cup, and sat down at the table. Luther and Hank needed to find a new place to take their morning break or she was going to put a quart jar on the porch and charge them to sit in her orange rocking chairs. For two men who hated the colors she’d picked out they were damn sure making themselves at home there.

  She cocked her head to one side and strained her hearing. That wasn’t Luther’s voice or Hank’s. One of them was a woman’s and the other was deep and slow. The masculine one asked a question and the woman talked… and talked… and talked.

  “Sharlene!” Larissa said.