Kathleen Creighton - One More Knight

Then suddenly she laughed, a light, false-sounding ripple, pure Alabama belle. “My, my, you are full of surprises. I’d have taken you for a country boy, for sure.”

“Hell, I like country,” Troy said, keeping it light, too, since that seemed to be the way she wanted it. Keeping it easy. “Don’t know anybody that doesn‘t-exceptin’ maybe Mirabella, and she’s comin’ around. But this-” he made a smacking sound with his lips and waved a hand at the now silent tape deck “-this is the music of my youth.”

She exhaled softly, all traces of lightness gone. “Yeah, mine, too.”

“Brings back a lot of memories, though, doesn’t it?”

He could feel her turn her head toward him, but she didn’t speak. And when he looked over at her a moment later, she’d turned away and was staring out the window again.

He thought about pursuing the conversation anyway but didn’t. He was starting to get an inkling that maybe it was memories that were the crux of her problem.

As late as it was, B.B.’s Barn was still jumping, judging from the number of cars and pickup trucks and assorted characters gathered around and the country beat pumping out into the parking lot. Which, according to some signs plastered on the front of the building was Live! on Friday and Saturday nights. A hand-lettered sign tacked up on the door identified tonight’s featured attraction as Mudcat Casey’s Band, The Pride Of Chattanooga!

“We use to call this place the Beer an’ Boogie,” Charly said out of the side of her mouth as she passed under the arm Troy was using to hold the door with. “Doesn’t look like it’s changed all that much.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You knew the place well, did you?”

She made that snorting sound again, and he suddenly realized it must be her version of laughter. “You kidding? I was underage. Plus, my father would have skinned me alive.”

Which confirmed what he’d already guessed-she’d spent at least part of her growing-up years in this town. At the same time, one thing she’d said did surprise him. He thought Charly Phelps might be the first Southern-raised woman he’d ever met that didn’t refer to her male parent as “Daddy.”

Strange, Charly thought as she crossed the dimly lighted vestibule, listening to the music thumping out a country two-step and breathing in the smell of tobacco smoke, beer and sweat In all the years she’d lived in this town, after all the talk, the jokes, the rumors and wild stories about this place, it was the first time she’d ever been inside. B.B.’s had been the forbidden zone, the hangout of the “fast” crowd, the sort of no-account trash no daughter of Judge Charles Phelps would ever be caught dead associating with. Which was probably why, in the years since she’d left Mourning Spring, she’d seen the inside of a lot of places just like it. It had a familiar feel to it, even though it had been years now since those troubled, searching times. There was something womblike about the warm, smoky darkness, the throbbing beat of the music, the crush of bodies, the muffled voices and laughter.

Quite a few people were up and dancing, making it hard to tell which tables were occupied and which weren’t, but Charly spotted a small one that hadn’t yet acquired an overflowing ashtray and a collection of beer bottles. She made for it, leaving her all-American Boy Scout rescuer to follow if he chose to.

He was getting on her nerves in ways she couldn’t quite figure out. For instance, as soon as she dropped into a chair she found herself immediately twisting and turning, making a big deal out of looking for a waitress, just because she didn’t want to have to watch the man pull out the chair across from her and lower himself into it. Because he was too damn good to watch, and in the reckless mood she was in, she didn’t trust herself.

She was feeling too damn strange. As if all the wires in her system were crossed, hissing and spitting and in imminent danger of short-circuiting. And maybe she wouldn’t care all that much if they did.

“Hey, how you folks doin’ this evenin’? My name’s Lori. What can I getcha?”

A cocktail waitress wearing skin tight Levi’s and a tank top had appeared at Troy’s elbow, balancing her tray on one perky hip. She had frizzy blond hair pulled up in a stubby little ponytail and was chewing gum. Charly squinted at her for a moment but decided she was too young to be anybody she ought to know.

“Well, Lori, tell you what, we’re kind of hungry. You got anything left back there to eat?” Troy was smiling up at the waitress, Charly thought, as if his teeth had been set with diamonds and he was offering them for sale.

And she was obviously ready to buy. Charly watched in a restless state somewhere between amusement and annoyance as Lori stuck out her hip even more, making sure it brushed up against Troy’s arm. “Kitchen’s closed.” She cracked her gum, lowered her eyelashes to half-mast and smiled. “But I think we still got hot dogs and nachos.”

“Okay, why don’t you bring me a couple of those hot dogs?” Troy looked at Charly, who shrugged. “Make that two more over there.”

Lori took time out from flirting just long enough to spare Charly a speculative glance. “That be all the way?”

All the way . Oh, my. It had been twenty years since Charly had heard those words in that context, which in the South meant the works, including onions and the brown glop they called chili.

“All the way,” Troy confirmed, beaming.

Charly seconded it, which was a waste of time since Lori had already taken Troy’s answer for both of them. “Okay,” she chirped, cracking gum, “that’s four all the way. Now, what can I get y’all to drink?”

“Black Jack on the rocks,” Charly snapped.

Lori looked as if she thought she might be in the company of aliens-at least one. She edged a little closer to Troy, if that were possible, and said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but this here’s a dry county.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, ma’am. We’re only allowed to serve beer.”

Good ol’ Troy cheerfully ordered a light beer. Charly moodily seconded it, and waited until the waitress had given her cute little wiggle and departed before she shook her head and muttered, “I can’t believe this town.”

Troy leaned back in his chair and drawled, “Ah, hell, that’s not too unusual. There’s lots of dry counties in the South.”

Charly all but ground her teeth. “Tell me about it. And right now I’d about give my left-” she could see by the anticipatory glint in his eyes that he knew exactly which part of her anatomy she was about to barter, and just to aggravate him, changed it at the last second “- toe for a shot of good old Tennessee bourbon.”

For a minute there it looked like he might go ahead and smile. Then he looked down at his hands, folded together on the tabletop, and his eyes vanished behind lashes any woman would pay money for. “Maybe it’s none of my business, but isn’t that what got you into this mess in the first place?” The lashes rose suddenly, his blue-eyed gaze skewering her like spear points.

She stared back at him, bitterness and resentment building inside her until she could feel its vibration in her teeth. She clamped them together and said softly, “What gave you that idea?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it seemed like the most likely explanation for why somebody’ d be in the drunk tank after runnin’ a car into a tree, instead of, say, in a hospital.” Now his smile was friendly, designed to disarm.

She resisted it with every ounce of her strength, and offered a stony, unforgiving stare. “Yeah, that’s what the cops thought, too. You’re probably not going to believe me, either, but the last drop of alcohol I had was in a strawberry margarita at Acapulco’s in Brentwood, California. That was…Tuesday. The blood test they gave me at the hospital confirmed it-you can read the arrest report if you don’t believe me.”