Austin
When did bar bands get so danged loud?”
“Dude, lighten up. You’re about as fun as a dislocated shoulder.” Shane smacks the back of my head.
“Well, bail then. By the way, that hottie at the table against the wall is checking out your ass.”
“Where?” He whips around to face the room. “Oh. Nice. She’s bound to be more fun than you. Later, bud.” He threads between crowded tables.
I throw back the shot of Johnny, and watch Shane in the mirror over the bar. He leans over, whispers in her ear, and they make their winding way to the dance floor. The crowd is packed in, the band so loud I can feel the bass thump in my chest. I signal the bartender for another, and she nods as she shakes a martini. And I do mean shake. The tied-up T-shirt with the collar cut to cleavage is a lazy man’s dream—no imagination necessary. And her Daisy Dukes have more than one guy at the bar wiping his mouth.
I shouldn’t have come. Shane and I make some extra cash working stock for a rough-stock supplier out of Portales when we’re in the area. I should be back at the bunkhouse, repairing tack. I’m not in the mood for any of this.
“You’re Austin Davis, aren’t you?” The bartender pours, then sets the bottle beside my glass.
“Yes’m.”
She looks me over like I’m a sirloin in the H-E-B meat case. “I’m Daisy.”
Of course you are. “Howdy.” She has blond hair that looks like it got rumpled in somebody’s bedsheets. She’s tiny, with big blue eyes and a chest that Mother Nature had only a small hand in.
“They say you’re a great rider.” The edges of her mouth curl in a grin that tells me she’s not talking about livestock.
She’d know better than to ask, if she knew me. I’m a one-woman man. Or I have been up ’til now.
She drops her chin to look at me through those long eyelashes. “Wanna help me close up tonight?”
I throw back a shot, and she pours another. “Well, that’s a serious proposition. Can I take some time to give it proper consideration?”
“I sure do hope you take your time, cowboy.” She gives me a naughty wink and walks away.
Something tells me she knows the bottom of her cheeks are flirting with the edge of her shorts.
Well, why the hell shouldn’t I sample the local wares? I’m a single guy, even if it was never a status I aspired to.
That night in the truck has taken up way too much of my head lately. Now I know why Carly didn’t remind me to use protection like she usually does. Did. She may not have done it on purpose, but the fact that she didn’t even think about me that night, made me finally understand how she’s changed. How far apart we are. The old Carly never would have done that. She always thought of other people’s feelings.
Even if I could find a way past that—somehow—there’s the baby.
Carly and I are not only broken up; we’re blown to hell.
So why not take a little comfort where I can get it? I watch Shane slow dancing with the brunette whose name he’s probably forgotten already. That doesn’t keep him from practically making out with her on the dance floor. All the unmarried cowboys do it; new town, new bar, new babe. And I’ve got nothing to stay true to anymore.
Still, something in my chest squirms at the thought of hooking up with a stranger. How weird would it be having that little blonde beneath me, instead of Carly? Well, there’s no reason not to find out. It’s gotta happen sometime. Why not tonight? I throw back another shot, fill my glass, and wave the barkeep over.
Three hours, two band sets, and uncounted shots later, Daisy locks the door behind the last bleary straggler. Shane, with the brunette pinned to his hip, shot me a thumbs-up on his way out.
After the hours of jangling noise, the silence echoes in my head. Or maybe it’s the booze. I wobble when I step off the barstool. I should’a stopped a while ago.
Slow it down. Pay attention.
My chute-procedure mantra calms, and it makes me smile to think about using it in this situation. I take a deep breath and walk over to where…um…Daisy-as-in-Dukes is counting out the till.
“Hey.”
“Shhhh.” Her lips move, counting.
She is pretty, in a young, cheap kind of way. “You’re over eighteen, right?”
She bands a stack of ones, then her eyes roll. “Hello. I’m a bartender. You gotta be twenty-one to do that.” She tips her head and squints at me. “Not the quickest horse in the race, are ya?” She bends and drops the cash in a safe, giving me a shot of her butt cleavage, closes the door, and spins the combination lock.
Never thought about the fact that she’d be sizing me up, too. My ears get hot. “Never knew anyone who got smarter, drinking Johnny Walker.”
“Now that is a nat’ral fact.” She smiles and sidles around the bar, and into my arms. There must be risers back there, because the top of her head barely reaches my armpit. She looks up at me, vampire-red lipstick gaudy in the neon light. She inhales deeply. “Damn, you smell good.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Her breasts are even more impressive, smashed against my waist. Below my belt buckle, interest peaks. I lower my head to kiss her, but can’t reach. “Hold on a sec.” I put my hands around her tiny waist and lift her to the barstool. That’s about right. Just about as tall as Carly—Shut up. Not now. “There. That’s better.” I bend to kiss her, and just before our lips meet, I think about getting that lipstick all over my face.
She sucks me in. Big, sloppy kisses. I mean, she’s all over me, breathing heavy, her legs wrapping around the back of my thighs to pull me closer. I can’t breathe. I back up. “Whoa there. We got all night.”
“Maybe you do. I’ve gotta get home and let the babysitter go.” She shucks the T-shirt over her head. No bra. Yep, implants. I’ve got to know. Guys talk, but…whoa. They’re not hard, but they’re not…right.
She’s all over me again. I put my hands on the sides of her face, to try to control her mouth. I feel like I’m being eaten alive. Her hands fumble at the buttons of my Wranglers. My cock is ready, but the thought of putting it…I get a visual of a shark’s mouth with rows of razor sharp teeth, and I stumble back. No. Nuh-huh. I can’t do this.
“What’s the problem, big man?”
“You’re ’mazing, Maisy. It’s not you. It’s—”
“Maisy? It’s Daisy, you hick.” Her face is painted with disgust. And lipstick smears. “You should’a told me this was your first time.”
I snort. “It’s not. I just—”
“Like I said, I don’t have time. I gotta get home.” She snatches her T-shirt from the bar and shrugs it on, pulling at it until she’s sure her doctor’s artwork is displayed. She hops off the barstool, walks behind the bar, grabs a buckskin purse, and heads for the door.
Her lightning shift of mood has me on my heels.
She’s holding the door, frowning. “Let’s go. I gotta lock up.”
Two minutes later, I’m standing outside the bar, watching her old Camry peel out of the parking lot, wiping my mouth on a cocktail napkin. Is this how women feel after a one-night stand? Is this how Carly felt?
Dirty. Used.
But unlike Carly, I dodged that bullet. I taste the bitterness that rises with the Johnny Walker in the back of my throat.
* * *
Carly
I open my eyes to the crack in the ceiling that’s been over my bed since I was a little girl. I kind of like that crack. I lock my fingers behind my head and look around my room in the barely dawn light.
It’s well used and nothing fancy or special, but it’s home. Where I’ve always belonged.
The frilly white little-girl dresser that Nana’s been trying to get me to let go of since junior high is covered in tatted lace, jewelry boxes, and perfume bottles. My tiny closet, with clothes jammed so tight some stick out, and my shoes stuffed in a hanging rack on the door. The school desk where I did every bit of my thirteen years of homework. The bulletin board above it, with rodeo ribbons, mementos, and photos. So many photos. Austin and me, on the homecoming float in the parade. Me, in Nana’s lap in the mine-now office at the diner. Both of us are smiling. I’m missing a front tooth. Me and Austin, riding his favorite horse, my arms around him, my head on his shoulder. Austin’s senior picture.
I couldn’t even look at that board before I left. Now, it’s time. I slip out of bed and cross the room. One by one, I unpin the Austin photos, then go to the dresser and pull the ones stuck into the edges of the mirror. I don’t stop to study them. I don’t need to—I know every fold in his shirt, the tilt of his hat, every smile. When I’m done, I have a handful of memories. The Old Carly’s memories. I stop and look around the room again. It seems different now. Like a time capsule, when I step into it, and I’m the little-girl Carly. The Homecoming Queen Carly. The C in C&A.
But I also know, outside this room, the other Carly waits. The one I’m not comfortable with, because I don’t know what she’ll do next. Last night, when I got home, I slipped into this room, and the old Carly, like a cozy pair of slippers. But this morning, the slippers don’t quite fit.
Maybe because they’re the size I was back then—not now.
I look down at the photos of that Carly’s life. I can’t throw them away. It’d be like erasing the past. My heart thuds, slow and sad. I love my past. I wish I were still living my past.
No, that’s wrong. I was ignorant in my past. I was in love with a dream man I made up in my head, not the real thing.
The new Carly urges me to hurry up. We have things to do.
The closet. I go on tiptoe, take down a shoebox already stuffed with memories, put the photos in, mash down the top, and put it away. My stomach growls. Loud. I put my hand over the small bulge. “Hang on, Bean. I’ll get you something—”
“Coffee’s on, missy. Daylight’s burnin’!” Papaw’s gruff wake-up call from the kitchen has been the same my whole life, too.
Thank you, Lord, for bringing us home safe. Someday, I’m sure I’ll appreciate the lessons of this summer, but that day is a long way off.
At least I have Nevada to show for it. We’re friends, whether she wants to admit it or not. Note to self: Call Nevada and Cora today.
I step into my moccasin slippers and shuffle to the bathroom, kissing my fingers and touching my parents’ photo on my way by. Thanks for letting me borrow your jacket, Dad.
When I step into the kitchen, Nana is stirring oatmeal on the stove and Papaw is reading The Patriot. I wonder if it’s ever occurred to anyone else that The Unforgiven Patriot was an unfortunate name for our local paper. Unless there’s a part of town history that I don’t know about.
“Mornin’.” I kiss Nana’s cheek.
“Morning, hon.” She puts the spoon down to hug me. “Good to have my girl back home.”
“Not as good as it is to be home. About a week in, all I wanted to do was click the heels of my ruby slippers, but I forgot to pack them.” I pour coffee from the ancient percolator and sit at the table. “Any new news, Papaw?”
The paper crinkles when he lays it aside. “Same old, same old. Looks like Tractor Supply has a special on chicks. You still want some, Momma?”
“Be good for Sunday dinners.”
I don’t believe it for a minute; Nana’s last batch of chickens died of old age.
“’Sides, I miss having the little peckers around the place.”
Coffee shoots up my nose, and I cough into my paper towel. Man, I missed this. How could I have ever thought leaving home would be the answer to anything?
Nana sets her chipped blue bowls of oatmeal in front of us.
Distance has made me aware of how precious home is. How much I have. Their dear, lined faces, heads bowed for grace. They’ve worked hard their whole lives. I’m acutely aware that I’m a Trojan Horse. What I have inside is going to disrupt their staid lives. How can I ask them to accept a baby, when for weeks, I wasn’t sure I could? How do I tell them that Austin isn’t the father…?
Stop it. Doesn’t matter how. I just must do it. “Um. Y’all have any plans tonight? I thought we could sit and catch up.”
“You know where I’ll be.”
Yeah, Papaw, in the La-Z-Boy, in front of the TV, as always.
“I’ve got Bingo at noon, so I’ll be home.” Nana sips her coffee. “I want to hear all about your trip. Oh, and I’m making your favorite for dinner tonight.”
“Meatloaf? Can’t wait. I’ve eaten enough rodeo dogs to last me the rest of my life.” I force-feed myself oatmeal. When Bean is satisfied, I take all our dishes to the sink. “Gotta get ready for work. See you at supper.”
They nod, their faces in the paper. Such a normal morning. And yet, today, I see how precious normal is. I step to the table and put a hand on each shoulder.
They look up, startled.
“You know how much I love you, right?”
Papaw just grunts. Nana smiles and pats my hand. “And we love you, child. Now go get ready, before those hungry bastards call here, looking for you.”
An hour later, I unlock the front door and step into my second home.
“Carly.” Lorelei runs across the floor to hug me. “God, I’m glad you’re back.”
“Looks like you held the fort—the place is still standing.”
“Pure luck, I’m telling you. Moss threatened to boycott until you got back, and that danged greengrocer tried to raise prices on me.”
“And yet, the building still stands.” I smile and pull her into a hug. “Thank you. I didn’t even know how much I needed a vacation.”
She lets out a huge sigh. “Thanks. I’m just so glad to see you. You make running this place look easy, but I can testify, it’s not.”
“I think that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.” I put my hand on her back. Time to do the next thing I think I can’t. “Now, come on back to my office. I need to talk to you.”
Her shoulder tenses.
We push through the swinging door to find Fish, sprawled on the floor, digging paper goods from under the counter.
“What in the world are you doing?”
His head pops up. “Hey, Carly. Inventory. It’s good to have you back.” He goes back to counting.
I close my hanging jaw, grab Lorelei by the bicep, and march for my office. When we’re behind a closed door, I ask. “I’ve been trying to get him to help with inventory forever. How the heck did you do it?” I take catalogs from the guest chair, and indicate she should sit.
“I told him I’d buy him a TOP CHEF apron and one of those tall white cook hats.”
“Wow, that’s it? I’da thought—”
“And that I’d clean the grill, for two weeks in a row.” Her lips pull back from her teeth in disgust. “And the deep fryer.”
The two smelliest, greasiest, back-breakingest jobs in the kitchen. “Ugh. You took one for the team, there.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. I ruined a pair of jeans last night.”
“I know a couple of high school band kids who are trying to raise money to do a march-in at Disneyland in September. I’ll get them to do it.”
“No, I promised.”
“Lorelei. I owe you big-time. This is the very least I can do.” I hit the button to fire up the computer.
“Then I’m not going to argue.” She leans forward and parks her elbows on the desk. “Now, tell me everything. You were awfully cryptic when you called to check in. Was it great? Did you run into Austin a bunch? What happened?”
“You may be sorry you asked.” I check the clock. We’ve got a half hour before we open. I can trust Lorelei. And she needs to know. “Do you remember when we talked about going to the bar, after I broke up with Austin?”
Her brows draw together. “Yeah, but what’s that got to do with your trip?”
“Only everything.”
I give her the short version.
She grabs my hand when I wind down. “Jeez, Carly. I don’t know what to say.” She dabs at her eyes. “You thought you had a lot of drama before. And now…What are you going to tell your family? What are you going to tell the town? I mean you can hide it for a while, but not forever.” Her gaze targets my not-quite-flat stomach.
I take a breath and remind myself this Carly needs to be courageous. “Well, I told you. That’s a step, right? I’m talking to Nana and Papaw tonight. I haven’t decided about the town, yet. I’m only tackling one thing at a time.” I grab her hands. “But Lorelei, I’m going to have a baby.” Joy bubbles up and I squeeze. “Do you know what a blessed miracle that is?”
She smiles back.
“Now, let’s get it together. We’ve got hungry Unforgivians to feed.”
The day flies by. Customers stop me every few minutes to chat, asking where I’ve been, how I’m doing, what Austin’s up to. I tell them about riding the open road on my bike—the food truck and other distractions, so they don’t notice I ignored their last question.
A month ago, their nosiness would have bothered me. Today, it feels like being neighborly. Well, except when Quad Reynolds asks me out. I let him down easy.
Before I’m ready for it, it’s time to go home. I linger, cleaning the counters and stacking coffee setups, until Lorelei shoos me out.
Maybe I could take the long way home. Via Phoenix.
What if the old adage is wrong, and home isn’t the place where, when you go there, they have to let you in? Losing Austin meant losing my future. I never considered I could lose more. My grandparents’ respect means everything.
I’ve never given them reason to be disappointed in me. Well, there was that D in algebra. Austin tutored me after that, so there was never a repeat performance, but the memory of their faces is scratched on the basement wall of my brain.
And that disappointment is cookie-stealing compared to this.
As if sensing my mood shift, El Fartito slows. “Nope. I’m going home. For good or bad. This won’t be really real until I tell them.” I put my foot in it, and the engine whines a protest. “Yeah, me too, Bud. Me too.”
The day that flew by slows. Dinner takes forever, and Nana wants to know why I just pick at my favorite meal. By the time I’m done washing dishes, Nana and Papaw are settled in the living room, glued to Pat and Vanna, and the spinning of that danged wheel is wearing through my last nerve.
My muscles are tight to the point of humming by the time I put down the dishtowel, walk to the living room, and snap off the wheel, mid-spin.
Papaw frowns. “Hey, I was fixin’ to solve that puppy.”
“I’m sorry, but I need to talk to you.”
Nana pats the couch cushion beside her. “You’ve been like a mouse in a snake cage since you walked in the door. Come tell us.”
I step to the couch, but sink down to the floor, pull up my knees, and wrap my arms around them. You know, in case I have to protect my guts. There’s no way to ease into this. “I have to tell you something that…You’re going to…First, I want to say…”
“Spit it out, missy.”
Papaw’s gruff voice turns my words to ice cubes in my throat. I have instant brain-freeze.
Nana touches my shoulder. “Stop it, Leroy. Can’t you see she’s shaking like a leaf? What’sa matter, darlin’? You know you can tell us anything.”
“I don’t know if I can. I only know that I have to.” I try to pull air into my locked lungs. “I’m going to have a baby.”
Silence falls like an anvil.
I can see a muscle working through Papaw’s silvered whiskers. “And why isn’t that Davis boy here, asking for your hand?”
“It’s not—” I inhale saliva. I choke, and for a few terrified seconds I’m afraid I’m going to pass out. Nana slams her fist into my back and surprise gets my lungs working again.
Papaw takes a step toward the mantel, for the double-barrel shottie that hangs above it.
I wanted to break the news easy, but only shock is going to get through his anger. “The baby is not Austin’s.” I saw a show once, about what happens to the balloons after the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. Like them, Papaw deflates, folds over, and drops onto the couch.
In the not-so-distant past, being pregnant with Austin’s child would have been the worst scenario I could imagine. Now, it would be the best. “I wish it weren’t true, but Austin isn’t the father.”
There it is. That dreaded disappointment. But this is much worse than an algebraic D. They’re older. And aging as I watch. Nana’s shoulders hunch, and the hand that reaches for Papaw’s is shaking.
His angry eyes laser into me. “I think you’d better tell us what the Sam Hill is going on, missy.”
“Nana, remember the weekend I went to Albuquerque to visit Paige, from high school?”
She nods.
“I didn’t. I mean, I went to Albuquerque, but I rented a hotel room.” I’m determined to be as gentle as I can, but I’m not weaseling out of my own culpability. “No one took me seriously that Austin and I were broken up. I was frustrated. I was hurting. And I just wanted to get away from people who knew me so well. To be someone else, just for a night.”
They sit, faces frozen in seriousness, looking like that painting of that farmer couple with the pitchfork. It hurts to hold their stares, but I owe them that.
“I went to a bar. I met a guy who’d broken up with his wife. I only wanted to talk. That’s all he said he wanted.” I bite down on my lip to make it stop wobbling. “But I was drinking, and…” I drop my head to avoid his gaze. The new Carly may be brave, but no one is brave enough to look their grandfather in the eye and tell him she…has needs. “The next thing I know, it’s morning and he’s gone.”
“What?” Papaw jerks to his feet.
I hold up a hand. “Wait. Let me get it all out. Then you can…” I don’t want to know what words come after that. I’m afraid to even think them, for fear they’ll become real. “I had myself tested. I don’t have any diseases.”
Nana’s hand covers her heart. Her skin is corpselike.
“But I am going to have a baby.”
Papaw’s butt hits the couch again. “Who is this…person? What does he have to say for him—”
“Leroy.” Nana pats his hand. “Let the girl talk.”
Papaw’s jaw snaps closed. He’s taken on all the color that drained from Nana; his face is flushed an unhealthy, dusky red.
“I don’t know where he is.” Hell, I don’t know who he is, but brand me for a coward, I’m not telling my Papaw that. “I drove around for hours, trying to figure out how I could come home and face you.” I sniff. “I finally convinced myself that I could put it behind me, and it would all just go away.”
I wrap my arms around my waist, as if to keep Bean from hearing. “I thought about an abortion—”
Nana’s gasp forces me to look up. Tears are sheeting down her face, and her mouth is open in a rictus of pain. “Nana…I’m sorry,” I wail, and throw myself against her legs and wrap my arms around them. “I’m so, so, so sorry.”
The pressure of her hand on the crown of my head soothes my pain enough to go on. “Y’all hadn’t even planned on raising me. You should be relaxing and enjoying your retirement, not listening to a baby crying at two a.m.” I force my shoulders down. Almost done. “I’ll move into town. There’s space for rent over The Civic—”
“You will not.” Papaw’s soft words are spoken hard. “You are our blood. A Beauchamp.”
I feel like I can breathe for the first time since I walked in the door. Nana talks game, but Papaw is the one who makes the rules around here.
“You don’t owe us nothing, missy.” He’s looking past me, his head moving side to side. “I always hoped you’d set up the diner to run on its own, then move on. Go to school. Do…whatever you wanted with your life. Pick out your own shoes and walk in ’em—not just step into your parents’.” His gaze drops to me. His eyes are tired, world-weary, and sad. “Have you told Austin yet?”
“Yeah, I did. It didn’t go well.”
“Never mind. You will have this baby, and we will live as we always have. I’ll hear no more about it.” He stands and steps past me. “Come on in the kitchen. I’ll make coffee, and we’ll figure this out.”
Nana watches him go, her eyes shining. “That’s why I fell in love with that man.”
Then she looks down at me. “C’m’ere, sugar.”
I rise to my knees and have to stop myself from crawling into her lap. Her arms come around me, and I drop my head to her shoulder. She pats my hair. “It’s all gonna work out fine, Carly-girl. You’ll see.”
“Fine” is beyond my ability to imagine. But I’m so happy that my baby will get to know these amazing people who raised me. I have huge shoes to fill. I’ll do my best to not look like a little girl, playing dress-up in Nana’s heels.