It’s the pictures on the walls—one a drawing of a naked woman lying across a giant cigar and a black-and-white photo of another naked woman, her naughty parts covered by the folds of a giant python—that give me a clue.
I’m wondering if it’s a real snake in the picture or if they faked it—I hope they faked it—when it dawns on me what Calandra means.
Bordellos are legal in Nevada, at least in certain areas of certain counties. This one is way out of the way between the base of the mountains and ski country. Apart from the two pictures, I don’t see anything to indicate the house is anything but a B&B—no disco lights, no raunchy music, no suggestive women in skimpy clothing sidling out to greet the potential customers. All is quiet, except for the howling wind. The guy reading the newspaper doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to race into a bedroom and enjoy himself.
“Can I help you folks?”
The woman who enters from the hall is in her forties, in jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair pulled back into a long ponytail. She has a plump face decorated with bright red lipstick and dark eyeshadow, but she doesn’t look like a madam to me, not that I’ve ever met one.
Before I can think of what to say, Calandra answers. “We’re lost.” She flashes the woman her sweetest smile. “It’s snowing so hard we can’t see our hands in front of our faces.”
“I figured. No other reason for you to come in here.” She thinks about it, and shrugs. “Well, maybe no other reason. It takes all sorts. Milo.” She turns to the man who hasn’t glanced up from his newspaper. “How many times do I have to tell you, no feet on the furniture.”
Milo, without ceasing his reading, elevates his boots three inches off the table.
The woman shakes her head at him and turns back to us. “I’m Maggie. You’re welcome to sit here and warm yourselves, as long as you like. Won’t be getting much business today. This storm is what my dad used to call a humdinger.”
“Thank you,” Calandra says in relief. She flops down into a chair and pulls out her phone. “Still no service.”
“Not in here,” Maggie says. “You can pick it up a few places in town.”
I take the chair nearest Calandra’s, sinking down wearily. “Town?” I ask.
As soon as I hit the soft cushions, my whole body relaxes, and I start to fall asleep. I fight it, but my eyes close on their own.
“It’s called Mountain Vista,” Maggie says. “A dot on the map. Got a convenience store, gas sometimes, a little motel. We’re about two feet from the California state line …”
Maggie says more, but I hear nothing. Darkness eases over me, and I’m gone.
The next thing I know, I’m waking up to brightness. Not daylight but electric light. Maggie has vanished, and Calandra is reading a book on her phone. Our overnight bags are sitting at her feet, so she or Maggie must have gone out to fetch them. A younger woman has opened the back door, letting in a gust of cold, which is probably what woke me.
I wipe off the saliva that had slid from my mouth while I slept and hope I didn’t snore too much.
The young woman carries a paper bag. “I brought you some food,” she says shyly as she hands the bag to Calandra. “Maggie thought you needed something. I’m Cherise.”
The young woman has blond hair with dark roots and wears more makeup than Maggie. She has a pretty face that doesn’t need makeup, but I’m not about to say that.
“Thank you,” Calandra says with gratitude. “I’m Calandra, and this is Ryan. My fiancé.”
“Oh, you’re getting married?” Cherise is delighted. “That’s awesome. Congratulations. You make a cute couple.”
Calandra blushes and peeks into the bags. “This looks wonderful. I’m starving.” She rummages, making no move to hand the bag to me.
Milo has finished reading his newspaper, but remains on the sofa, his feet now on the floor. “What are you doing out here in a snowstorm then?” he asks with a chuckle. “Scoping out places for your honeymoon?”
“Taking a breather,” Calandra answers. She pulls out a plastic box with a sandwich in it plus a bag of chips and a bottle of water before she passes the bag to me. Not the gourmet meal I’d planned for her, but right now anything is appetizing. “Friends and family were driving us crazy plotting our wedding for us. I really mean plotting.”
Maggie walks back in, having heard her. “Yeah, I remember my wedding. Things got real complicated real fast, and I ended up crying most of the time. Should have given me a big clue.” She flutters her left hand, which lacks a wedding ring. “It didn’t work out.”
“Well, I think you two will be just fine,” Cherise says. She glances at Milo. “Haven’t seen you around for a while, Milo.”
“Been busy.” Milo idly lifts another newspaper. “Working my ass off. First time in forever I’ve had a break.”
I notice how Cherise is looking at him. She has the same expression I’ve caught on Calandra’s face when she’s gazing at me like a woman in love, and I know I’m the luckiest man on the planet. I wonder if Milo notices.
I take out a sandwich for myself and say nothing. For a while, we eat, enjoying the luxury of it. The food tastes amazingly good for stale convenience store takeout, but appetite, my dad always says, is the best sauce.
The window behind me is dark, snow smacking against the pane like grains of sand. “You said there’s a motel in the town?”
“A crappy one,” Maggie tells us. She’s busy shutting the drapes and turning on more lights. A neon sign in the outline of a voluptuous woman glows red in the corner.
“Crappy will be fine with me,” Calandra says. “I’m so tired, I won’t notice.”
“Mmm.” Maggie wrinkles her nose. “It has rats. Tell you what. You can stay here. I don’t have room in the main house, but I have a guesthouse out back that’s private, just for me. Big comfortable bed, nice bathroom. You’ll get cold between here and there, but it’s not bad.”
Calandra and I exchange a glance. The last thing I want is to take Calandra to a rat-infested motel, but staying at a bordello is not what I have in mind either.
Calandra shudders. “I think the rats settle it.”
“Good.” Maggie gives her a nod. “I’ll put on fresh sheets and lay out clean towels. You folks rest here for a while. Cherise is cooking, and we’ll have some dinner soon.”
“You’re very kind,” Calandra said.
“Not what you expected, right?” Maggie laughs, and Milo and Cherise join in. “Well, it’s not like the old days. Business isn’t too good anymore. We get tourists who want the experience, and a few regulars, like Milo, but most men are home taking care of their kids. Which is a good thing. If my man had done that, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
Without waiting for an answer, she departs out the back door, sending in swirls of snow.
“I’m making my nine-alarm chili,” Cherise tells us. “Hotter than five-alarm. I hope that’s okay with you. I have some cornbread to cool it down, or I can make you bean soup. That’s about all we have right now.”
“No, don’t go to any trouble,” Calandra says. “I love a good chili.”
Our road trip has turned bizarre, but I’m so tired, I’ve stop caring. Calandra, once she finishes her sandwich, droops against me. I think I’m fine anywhere, anytime, as long as she’s with me.
Calandra
Not long later we’re sitting at a dinner table that looks like anyone else’s supper table. The dining room walls are painted a soft yellow with flowered curtains of red, blue, and yellow at the window. The table and chairs are golden oak, and cheerful placemats and napkins more or less match the curtains.
Milo helps Cherise with her big pot of chili, which Maggie ladles into our bowls. It smells wonderful, and my stomach rumbles. The sandwich and snacks in the car were a stopgap, and I realize I haven’t had a full meal in more than twenty-four hours.
The chili is great. I fan myself and drink water. Ryan bears it manfully, but even he has to take a big gulp of the chilled beer M
aggie brings him. Milo grins as he inhales the chili without stopping.
“Where you folks from?” Maggie asks conversationally.
“Phoenix,” I tell her.
“Really? Did you come up here because you miss snow?”
“Obviously,” Ryan says.
The wind howls in response, sending snow lashing against the outer wall.
“Surprised you made it in that little bitty car,” Milo says. “Roads up here need chains in snow, and four-wheel drive is best.”
“A series of unfortunate events,” Ryan says. “This is supposed to be a romantic weekend.”
Milo starts laughing. Cherise smiles at us and tries not to look at Milo.
As the meal progresses, and we start talking like old friends, I realize I miss nights like this. Before Ryan and I became engaged, I could sit at the table with my family or the McLaughlins and talk about anything. Now we can’t open our mouths without someone going on about the wedding and the latest complicated, insane idea to make it memorable.
Of course it will be memorable. I’m marrying Ryan.
My family and friends are frustrating the hell out of me, and I feel guilty for wanting to get away from them. I love them, and I know they mean well, but I wish they would stop.
“It’s tough,” Maggie says, and I realize I’ve started saying all this out loud. “Those closest to us will mess us up faster than anybody.”
Both Cherise and Milo nod as though reflecting on their own experiences.
“Tell me about it,” Ryan says. “I work in my dad’s business. I get to put up with my obnoxious brothers all day, every day.”
“I haven’t seen my brothers in a long time,” Cherise says sadly. “They’re in the military and deployed, far from home.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. She’s so young, in her early twenties, and I wonder what circumstance brought her here of all places. Probably she needed the money. She didn’t have the wasted look of a drug addict, or the nervousness of an alcoholic. She drank water and coffee with the meal. I told myself she was better off here in a comfortable house with Maggie than selling herself on the streets in Reno or Vegas.
“Why don’t you write to them tonight?” Maggie tells Cherise, compassion in her voice. “That always makes you feel better.”
Cherise brightens. “Good idea. I’ll have something to talk about. Strangers stranded in the storm. The return of Milo. It’s been an eventful day.”
I open my mouth to make a quip that I was glad our weird trip would help someone, when all the lights go out.
Chapter Seven
Calandra
Cherise and I both shriek, and Milo says, “Whoa. Fuse?”
I feel a breath of air as Maggie goes to the window. “No, everything’s gone dark. I can usually see the glow from the town. Nothing. I bet a line blew down or broke.”
Milo scrapes back his chair. “I’ll see if I can get the generator going.”
“I think it’s busted, but you’re welcome to try.” More movement around the room and then a flash of flame. Maggie lights candles she takes from a drawer. Ryan and I get up to help, and Cherise disappears into the kitchen.
“Does this happen a lot?” Ryan asks as he observes the rows of votive candles Maggie sets out.
“Yep. Not usually this late in March, but all winter long, it’s lights on, lights off. The generator might not be busted, just out of fuel. We use it a lot.”
The candles lend a festive air to the room. Ryan and I help light them and place them around the table and on the sideboard. Maggie ducks into the kitchen then she and Cherise return, Maggie with another basket of cornbread and Cherise with a pie.
“Might as well eat these,” Maggie says, setting them down.
Milo returns. “No propane. I’ll drive into town and see if I can scare some up.”
“Finish your supper first,” Maggie tells him, in the exact tone my mother uses with me. “Cherise made apple pie.”
Ryan rubs his hands together. “Yum.”
Milo looks at it and sits down. “Can’t say no to that.”
Cherise blushes, but pretends not to notice the implied compliment.
“It’s like Christmas,” I say as we continue eating. The chili gets devoured as does the second round of cornbread. “Ryan’s family does chili on Christmas Eve, and my family always goes over. I guess it’s a Southwest thing.”
“It’s a ‘my dad’ thing,” Ryan says. He accepts the hunk of pie Cherise dishes out. “As long as I can remember, Dad has brought out the huge pot and started braising chunks of meat a few days before Christmas. We all help out, but it’s his chili.”
“Sounds like you have a good family, Ryan,” Maggie says. Cherise hands me pie, and then Milo, before she dishes out for Maggie and herself.
“They’re great.” Ryan shoves pie into his mouth. “So is this,” he says around chewing.
The pie is wonderful, all cinnamon-y and apple-y, with enough sugar for sweetness but not too much. Cherise smiles when I tell her so.
“She’s always wanted to be a cook,” Maggie says. “Don’t signal me to hush, Cherise. They’re not going to tell anyone.”
“I’m saving to go to cooking school,” Cherise says shyly. “Hotels need chefs, and there’s plenty of those in Nevada.”
Milo chews his pie. “Well, if you make anything this good, I’ll go to your restaurant.”
Cherise blushes again. Milo is a good-looking young man, and he seems to enjoy Cherise’s company. I wonder if they’re lovers or he simply comes here to hang out. Maggie might have other girls working here who didn’t come in today because of the snow, and Milo could have been waiting for one of them.
I hope not. The romantic in me wants Milo and Cherise to pair off, falling in love and being true to each other.
We finish up the pie. I attempt to help clear the table, but Maggie waves me off. I’m a guest and we’re tired, she reminds me.
Milo, to my surprise, leaps up to carry dirty dishes into the kitchen. Then he grabs a big coat from a rack in the front room and departs, saying he’s off to find the fuel. The residual warmth from the central heating is waning, and Ryan and I fetch our coats as well.
Milo climbs into the big pickup outside and revs it to life. His headlights flash in the windows, then he’s gone, inching through the snow toward the road.
Maggie hands Ryan a big lantern flashlight and takes one of her own. We grab our bags and follow her out the back door.
I hunker into my coat and walk close to Ryan, my eyes on the beams of his light and Maggie’s. About ten yards behind the house is another low-roofed building, possibly once a garage or carriage house. Maggie unlocks the door and ushers us inside.
We step into a large room with a sofa and chairs in front of a fireplace, and a wide bed behind a screen. Nothing indicates it’s on the grounds of a bordello—we might be standing in any well-appointed cabin or B&B, with soft furnishings, a bookcase full of books, a television, and a bathroom, which opens off the bedroom.
“I retreat out here when no one comes,” Maggie says. “Kind of my getaway. I’ll start up a fire, but it’s going to be cold. Though I’m sure you two can find some way to stay warm.” She gives us a wink.
Ryan helps Maggie build the fire while I light more votive candles from the top drawer of the dresser. She’s well used to the power outages, apparently.
“How long has Cherise been here?” I ask her conversationally.
“Two years.” Maggie hefts a large log onto the grate after the kindling catches. “I met her in Reno, living with a total bastard who was trying to make as much money off her as he could. You know what I mean. Beat her down if she didn’t bring home enough. I paid him off and said she could work for me. She reminded me of me at that age, but no one helped me out.” Maggie grabs another log from Ryan and drops it heavily on the first.
“She has a thing for Milo,” I say. “I hope she doesn’t get hurt.”
“He’s a good soul, is Milo, and
he likes Cherise fine. I think both of them are too scared to make the first move. I don’t mean with sex—they do that plenty.”
I cough to hide a laugh, or maybe it’s shock that Maggie talks about it so openly. “A relationship in bed and one out of it are different things,” I venture.
Ryan shoots me a look, brows high, and Maggie chuckles. “You got that right,” she says.
She unfolds to her feet, dusting off her hands. “There. That should at least keep you alive. Come on over in the morning, and have breakfast.” Maggie heads for the door, but she turns back at the last minute.
“You two are the real thing,” she says. “I can tell. Don’t ever doubt that.”
She opens and closes the door quickly to keep the cold out. Ryan and I watch through the window as Maggie’s light slices across the yard. A smudge of yellower light shows as she opens the door to the main house, and then it’s gone.
Ryan closes the curtain.
He comes to me where I’ve retreated to the middle of the room. I look at him, and he looks at me.
Then Ryan starts to laugh. I join him. In a few seconds, we’re hanging on each other, laughing hard. My eyes tear up, but I can’t stop.
Ryan holds me, his body warm against mine. Maggie’s right. We don’t need heat—we just need each other.
We fall onto the bed, landing on our backs, kicking off our wet shoes, and keep on laughing.
“Totally not how I meant this weekend to go,” Ryan says, wiping his eyes.
The firelight and candlelight cast wavering shadows over us, and I take his hand. “But we’ll remember it.”
“Yeah, I’ll say we will.” Ryan laughs again, the deep vibrating sound I love.
“What happened to us?” I ask after a time. “We used to be so calm. So together.”
Ryan rolls onto his side to gaze down at me. “No we didn’t. We broke up about a dozen times over the years, remember? On and off, like Maggie’s electricity.”
“We weren’t really broken up,” I say reflectively. “More in a lull. Anytime we were apart, I couldn’t think of anyone but you.”
Give Me One Night (McLaughlin Brothers Book 4) Page 5
