“Help me out, Khloe, how can your husband give you fairness?” Beau asked.
“Easy,” she said, leaning into the pillow and taking his fingers. “Every hand I have ever been dealt has been loaded with low cards of unfairness until it robbed me of my ability to smile. I only need him to show me that life has a good side as well. Will you tell him that when you see him? Tell my husband I just want him to be fair.”
She fell asleep holding onto his hand, a soft touch which melted the hardened barriers around his heart. Fairness was all she wanted from him. He could give her that and so much more.
KATY MAE STOOD IN THE kitchen next to her big brother sipping on a strong black cup of coffee, staring out the window. She knew her brother would be furious with her for getting his wife slap up-side the head drunk, but she didn’t know the woman was a featherweight when it came to liquor. It had been a great deal of fun, but that wasn’t her brother’s type of entertainment.
“Morning,” he mumbled, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Katy Mae, how much did she have to drink yesterday?”
She picked up a shot glass and showed it to him.
“You’re telling me she had a whole shot glass of that stuff to drink?” he asked in disbelief.
“No, she had a teaspoon of my good stuff in this glass that was filled the rest of the way with Squirt,” she told her brother. “You know she told me she didn’t really drink, but I’ve heard that before. Remember Sally Jean? She said she didn’t drink and downed half a gallon of Pa’s corn mash.”
“A teaspoon and she is down like that?”
“Beau, I think this may be the best sleep she’s had in years. Did you know she’s traveled the world?”
“Oh yeah?” He said, surprised at that bit of information, he kind of knew, considering she’d been in the Army, but he hadn’t had an opportunity to discuss all the places she’d been stationed.
Katy Mae was pleased as punch to fill him in, telling her brother, “She went to the Olympics in Brazil, traveled to Cape Horn, and even Australia!”
“You sound like you want to date the woman,” Beau said facetiously.
“No, it’s just nice to a have another lady to have a conversation with that can actually add real and interesting points on topics with facts,” Katy Mae said. “I would love to have her come to my Social Studies class as a guest speaker. It’s too bad all the pretty treasures she collected from all over the world got burned up in the house fire. You know her Mama burned down her house? Herself in it!”
“Yes, I know,” he said, raising the mug to his mouth, but stopping midway at the sight of his father coming across the back deck. “What in the hell?”
Katy Mae turned around to see their father taking a seat on the deck like he was waiting for the waitress of the establishment to come and take his order. She poured her Pap a cup of Joe and took it out to him. Beau followed along behind her addressing his father first.
“Morning, Pa,” he said. “Everything going okay?”
Feeling guilty for showing up unannounced, Albus raised his arm to show the dirty dressing on his hand. “I got it dirty,” he said, looking away like a child in trouble.
“Khloe is not feeling well today. Pa you need me to rewrap that for you?” Beau asked.
“Hell no,” he said, grumbling. “I came to have my coffee with my daughter-in-law and get a new dressing for my wound. Damn near cut off my finger, but she sewed me up real nice like yesterday. What’s wrong with her? You over-sexing that sweet young woman, you big galoot?”
“Pa! No,” Beau said. “Katy Mae brought that brown jar of poison over here for drinks and the poor thing has been out since yesterday.”
“Anybody made her a get better drink?” Albus wanted to know.
“I think it’s best if we just allow my wife to sleep it off,” he told them both, his attention now drawn to a vehicle coming up the pass. It was Jethro. “What in the hell does he want this early in the morning?”
Albus drank his coffee as he looked at the dressing he’d intentionally gotten dirty so he could have Khloe put on a fresh one. It defeated the purpose to have his son do it. If that was the case, he could have let Honey put on a new dressing, which she offered to do, but he wanted to talk a bit more to the woman who’d married his son. Now his nephew was coming as well, the interlopers irritating the old man, breaking in on his time with Khloe.
Jethro climbed the steps as everyone went to greet him. He issued a good morning to all his family and gave a sly grin to Beau. Normally at this time of the day, his cousin would have been at work. “Hey, why is everyone here? Is Khloe okay?”
“She’s a bit under the weather this morning,” Beau offered.
Jethro hit him with the back of his hand like a boy acting out in Sunday school. “You went at her too hard, didn’t you? Poor thing, having to lay under all that bear meat and act like she likes it. Where is she? I would call a doctor but she is the only medical professional in these parts for 100 miles and you broke her!” Jethro yelled.
“I didn’t break her, and why are you at my home when I would normally be at work Jethro?” He asked. “You making moves on my woman?”
“No, of course not,” he said. “I was going to see if she wanted to get out of the house today and maybe go for a drive, you know to pick up things she may need.”
“That is for her husband to take care of, boy,” Albus said. “Get to work all of you.”
“I’m staying to see about her while you’re at work, Beau,” Katy Mae said. “Pa, let me make you a bit to eat.”
“Your Ma fed me already. I just came to have my bandage changed and have coffee,” he said, hiding his hand he’d stuck in the dirt on his way down the mountain.
“Jesus, walk with me,” Beau said wiping his hand across his eyes. “Two days. I have been married for two days and you all have turned my life upside down. I have to go. Please, Katy Mae, call me if she...if my wife needs anything. You all do realize this is nuts!”
“No, what’s nuts is that you said please,” Katy Mae said. “I love her already.”
KHLOE LAY QUIETLY IN bed listening to the Montgomery’s fighting over her. To wake up in a home filled with people who cared for each other touched her expressive side, which she had tucked away in her emotional safe until the arrival of her future children. She fought back the tears threatening to blow the door off the safe and let all the stored-up tears come out and gush forth like the dam held together by one or two dikes. It was a good thing she held the tears as Beau’s heavy footsteps could be heard coming into the bedroom. Khloe kept her eyes closed, pretending to be sleep as he adjusted the covers around the legs.
He’d slept beside her last night and didn’t make a move to touch or be intimate. Based on the current state of her brain cells, she must have been drunk. In her Army days, a drunk woman in bed with you would be taken as consent. Even as his wife, he didn’t take advantage. For that alone, he’d earned her respect.
“I’ve put a couple of headache tabs on the nightstand with a glass of water. Sleep as long as you need to and Katy Mae is going to spend the day with you until I get home,” he said. “Pap dirtied his bandage to come back to have coffee with you this morning. Of course, Jethro showed up to take you for a morning ride.”
Strong fingers ran down the side of her face. Taking a moment to rest on the soft cheek, loving the feel of warm, dark flesh under the tip of his finger. He felt the dampness on her skin, wiping away the wetness.
“It seems as if your wishes are coming true, little lady, although I’m not sure which one you want to label as the drooling maggot, but they must all think you are cool as fuck,” he told her. “Sleep it off, and we will start our weekend when I get home.”
A feathery light kiss went to her forehead. The warmth of his hand nested inside the limp one on the bed. Khloe fingers closed over his hand, giving a slight squeeze. Beau didn’t think now was the time to address the tears and left her alone to process the emotions flooding through her
.
He needed to deal with his own as well. His wife was indeed a formidable lady and he was one drooling maggot who couldn’t wait to get home to hang out with the woman. In his eyes, she was cool as fuck.
Chapter Eleven – The Past is a Present
The hour was well after five when Khloe began to feel human and rolled her aching body out of the bed to take a shower. She washed from her head to down between her toes and everything in between at least twice. The stench of aged moonshine in her pores permeated her nose like an offensive body lacking access to water and soap. Finally satisfied and remembering Beau’s warning about making the showers brief, she exited the shower, toweling dry and putting on a light sleeveless sundress with a matching mini cardigan. The evenings had begun to cool considerably in the last few days and a shopping trip would be required sooner rather than later.
Entering the main living space, Khloe spotted Beau bending over the stove, taking a pan of biscuits out of the oven. Remaining quiet, just watching him in the kitchen prepare a meal for the two of them, made her feel some kind of way. Gently, he cut the tomatoes, carrots, and cucumbers for a green salad. Moving from the island to the stove, he stirred a pot of what she assumed, based on the smell, was a stew.
“Whatever it is, it smells heavenly and I could eat a horse at this point,” she said, walking all the way into the kitchen to greet her man. On her tiptoes, she leaned upward to kiss his cheek, but he turned his face, his lips briefly meeting hers, sending sparks down her spine.
“I was about to come and wake you, but then I heard the shower,” he said. “Dinner is almost done. Will you please set the table?”
“Dinner. Certainly,” she said absently collecting two of the four plates he owned, as well as two of the four forks. “I am grabbing spoons as well. Beau, did I hear people here today?”
“That was yesterday. You have been asleep for nearly two days,” he said, pointing at the two-salad bowls he possessed. “Katy Mae said you only had a teaspoon full of that brown brain buster of hers.”
“Katy Mae didn’t bother to mention how many teaspoons she gave me,” Khloe said. “I’m not a drinker, you know. Erica, my mother, was an alcoholic, which makes me only have an occasional drink to steady my nerves. Drinking to get hammered, I avoid like the plague. Drinking something a fermented as that moonshine was a dumb thing to do, but man, is your sister a lot of fun, even sober.”
“Well, that shit has fermented alright,” he said. “Moonshine is not brown. You and Katy Mae had a bonding moment through the experience. She’s been longing for a friend. So, tag, you’re it.”
“I guess we’re bound to be friends after you help a woman use the toilet and wipe her honeypot,” she said, finding the desire to want to smile.
“Honeypot?”
“Erica was an OB nurse. She looked at vaginas all day and referred to them as honeypots,” Khloe said, taking a seat at the table. “It was dinner conversation after work. ‘That girl’s honeypot has seen too many bees. That honeypot has fermented and turned sour’. Those kinds of weirds conversations stuck with me, so I ended up calling it a honeypot as well.”
“Only if it tastes sweet,” he said, furrowing his brow. “Sorry, that just slipped out.”
“As long as your tongue accidentally slips in,” she said with a wink.
Beau brought the food to the table, uncovering the pot of thick, hearty stew. Khloe wanted to eat it, but after watching Pa Montgomery decapitate a rattler to take home for dinner; stew wasn’t on the top of her list of things to eat, especially since she didn’t see the shape and bones of the animal going into said pot.
“Relax, it’s chicken gumbo,” he said. “After dinner, I was thinking we could spend some time in the hot tub, maybe make out a little, let me find a few of those buttons to push.”
“You only need to know where the main one is, rub it, push it, and kiss it,” she said with her lips curling at the corners.
“Woman, you keep talking like that and the honeymoon is going to get real fun, real fast,” he said, grinning at her. His eyes went to her breasts to see if he could, in fact, witness a reaction in her breasts to being called woman.
Khloe said nothing as she picked up one of the biscuits and ripped it apart. She shoved a corner of the breaded delight in her mouth, chewing slowly, wanting to counter his flirting but afraid of it going too far too fast. Years ago gave her a hardbound copy of Eat That Frog, a book on how to stop procrastinating. He was procrastinating on making love to her and she appreciated the attempt to create intimacy between them before making their connection be based mainly on sex. Her husband was a lot of frog; a plan of attack had to be figured out before trying to eat it.
With a Mona Lisa smile, they ate in silence, enjoying the company of sharing a meal, saying everything with no words at all.
THE TEMPERATURE OF the hot tub hovered just under perfect as cooler evening air swirled over Beau’s sore shoulders and aching back from stooping, bending, and squatting while running fiber optic lines. The kids would be in the modern age but his back felt as if he’d been Hebrewing loads of mud and clay to build Pharaoh’s temples. A cold beer in his hand was almost as satisfying as watching the long, dark legs step into the water to join him.
“Sit next to me, Wife.”
“Not sure if I want to do that,” she said. “I’m uncertain about your intentions.”
“I intend to get to know you a little better, and you need to get to know me as well,” he said. “How about we start with a kiss?”
“How about no?” she said to him, slapping the water. “Tell me, Beauregard Montgomery, you have a way with women, what made you place an ad for a mail order wife?”
“I don’t have a way with women, I just have come across too many that are fragmented,” he said. “A few by their own design, others by bad choices around immature men.”
“Surely you can’t believe that women are at fault for men being assholes and taking advantage of situations,” she said, sitting closer than she’d planned. The water warmed her entire body until sweat beads started to roll down her back between the shoulder blades.
“There are circumstances, Khloe, that can be out of a woman’s control, but there are times when the situations for victimization are created by the woman herself,” he said, touching a wayward curl of her hair. His eyes, twinkling as his hand came out of the water, interlacing with her own.
“Explain yourself, husband,” she said, squeezing the fingers intertwined in hers.
“When I was in college, at UT, there were always these frat parties. I can’t tell you how many times a young lady would walk through the door and a random dude handed her a drink,” he told her. “If you don’t know the man, don’t take the drink.”
“That part I understand,” she replied. “My first year in the Army was like a daily walk down a dick gauntlet. Every corn husker from any corner of the world thought I was easy pickings. A lot of the young women from small towns found themselves the subject of Monday morning gossip around the water cooler. Even when they were warned to conduct themselves properly in foreign countries, late at night the moans of passion could be heard crawling across the desert sands.”
She touched the hairs on his chest, her fingers toying with the strands, sliding down the broad expanse of muscles, touching the belly button. Beau grabbed her hand before she could take it any lower.
“I need to know what makes you tick before I get too wrapped up in ticking you,” he said.
“You are an odd man.”
“No, I learned the hard way that eight out of ten women have been hurt in one form or another,” he said. “I found a few that were obvious. You know the easy ones. Coming from a mountain community, we had access to the girls who would let you as well as the ones you knew not to touch, but you kinda did anyway. Yet, living in Knoxville for a couple of years, working for a Fortune 500, I came in contact with the other kind.”
“The other kind?”
“Women who are beyond
your reach and refuse to go get help. Those you find out about the hard way,” he said. “Case in point: Laqueta. I found the darkness she hid her truth inside of one night after a football game. I came up behind her, all sexy like, to kiss her neck and bobble a boob, to be met with a butcher knife to my throat. Turns out her stepfather liked to do that to her as well.”
“The way you speak, you talk as if there has been more than just one Laqueta,” she said.
“Oh, don’t get me started,” he said. “Not that I was a man whore, but I am drawn to the broken-winged birds as if I can heal them and make them whole. Standing over your lady’s bed at night, that’s a no. A reach around for a little warm up, that’s a hell no. So, I stopped dating.”
It was the way he gazed at Khloe that said it was her turn to spill the beans. She obliged his inquiry by taking a quick jog down the memory of her past roads less traveled.
“My career came first, then saving the lives of soldiers,” she confessed. “Most of the higher ranking or equivalent ranking officers were already married, or had girlfriends, or were married with girlfriends. I just didn’t want to spend my evening with a man whom I worked with all day, talking Army talk.”
“You did 20 years in the Army, correct?”
“Yes, 20 long years working with men with inflated egos and misogynistic views on women, and then, in my brilliance, I kind of dated a boy child who liked to travel the country playing poker,” she said. “He dumped me on the same day I landed on Coraline’s doorstep.”
“And now you’re on mine,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her. “Living with you is going to be easy. I suspect that loving you won’t be a hard thing to do either.”
“Coming home each day to you is going to be nice as well,” she said. “I think you are cool as fuck.”
“I’m a big mufucka, too, with a gentle touch,” he said with a grin. “I have a gift for you.”
The Tennessee Mountain Man Page 11
