Honky Tonk Christmas (28 page)

The gravy and the omelet turned out perfect and the biscuits fluffed up just right. They helped their plates right off the stove and sat down together at the small kitchen table, him in the turquoise chair, her in the hot pink one.

“Tell me about Holt Jackson,” she said.

He laid his fork down. “I was the high school football star at Mineral Wells. I could’ve gone to high school at Strawn or Gordon but my dad had retired by then and wanted me in the bigger school system. Later, he wished he’d have sent me to Gordon but it had nothing to do with me. If I’d been in Gordon then Callie would have gone there and that would have separated her and Ray and things wouldn’t have happened the way they did. Ray’s parents moved that summer and I was a senior so I could take Callie with me every day. It was the easy way but not necessarily the good way looking back on it.”

“College?” she asked.

“Couple of years but not because I wanted to go. Dad and Mother wanted me to have a degree so I was appeasing them. I’d taken some carpentry classes in high school and loved the work so I concentrated on drafting in college. Got an associate’s degree in two years but by then Chad and Kent and I were already working summers on small jobs. We met Bennie on one of those jobs and the four of us formed a loose knit company. Then Mother and Dad died and left me and Callie a little inheritance. Not much, but enough to buy some equipment and we went into business for ourselves.”

“What did Callie do with hers?”

“Bought a brand new car. Blew the rest on God knows what and before the year ended it was all gone.”

“I hear bitterness,” she said.

“You’ve got that right. I’m raising her kids. Much as I love them, it’s not what I had in mind for my life at this age.”

She slathered a biscuit with butter and orange marmalade. “What did you have in mind?”

“At almost thirty? Maybe a serious relationship that could go somewhere. A house of my own with some property to raise a few head of cattle on the side. Time to date a beautiful woman when I want instead of just seeing her when I can fit in a few minutes every few weeks or when she shows up on my porch,” he said.

She smiled. “Want to buy my house and get the kids the goats they asked Santa to bring them? It’s a big lot with a garden spot already in place and room for a goat pen out behind the tool shed. I’ll make you a great deal on it if you promise not to paint it some old dull color like white or gray.”

He shook his head. “No thanks. I couldn’t sign a contract unless it had a codicil that said you’d paint it within thirty days of payment. And you’d have to dig up Waylon and bury him somewhere else. I wouldn’t buy something with a cemetery attached to it.”

“You are a cold hearted SOB, Holt Jackson.” She yawned.

“Let’s get these dishes washed up. I get first shower,” he said.

“Let’s pile these in the sink until morning and I get first shower.”

“Thank you for breakfast. You go wash the smoke off and I’ll load the dishwasher. You’ll be asleep by the time I get done and I’ll lock up behind myself,” he said.

She looked up at him. “Stay. Please.”

They locked gazes across the table. His heart raced. His palms went all sweaty. “You sure?”

She nodded. “The invitation is for sleep only, though.”

“I didn’t bring my jammies.” He smiled.

“Hank left a pair of flannel bottoms when he stayed over with Larissa. Meant to take them back to him but keep forgetting. I’ll put them in the bathroom. You can borrow them tonight. And I won’t be asleep when you get to bed.”

“Okay, but don’t wake up in the middle of the morning and attack me in my sleep,” he teased.

“I won’t if you don’t,” she sing-songed on her way to the bathroom.

He was on his way down the hall when she came out of the bathroom, a towel around her body and a separate one around her hair.

“Love the outfit,” he said.

“I’m so glad. I picked it out of the towel stack just for you,” she said.

He kissed her lips hard before she could say anything else. “Goodnight. Sweet dreams.”

“Goodnight, Holt.”

He took a long time in the shower, letting the hot water beat down on his tired muscles and wash the tiredness and smoke from his body. Sharlene might sleep but he wouldn’t. No way could he even nap with her that close. He turned off the water, stepped out of the small shower, dried off, put on the soft flannel pajama bottoms, and padded quietly down the hall.

Sharlene was curled up on her side with her arm thrown up over her head. She was whimpering and muttering with urgency in her voice. He crawled between the sheets and gathered her up in his arms.

“Shhh, it’s all right. I’m here. I’ll keep the monsters at bay,” he whispered.

She stretched out beside him, every part of her body pressed hard against him as if she were trying to melt her skin into his. He kissed her still damp red hair and rubbed her back until all the tension left her muscles. She mumbled something and wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing his mouth down to hers for a long, lingering kiss.

One minute the dream was there, the next it was gone and she was kissing Holt. He deepened the kiss, making love to her lips and mouth with his tongue. She moaned and melted tighter against him. He slipped a hand under her nightshirt and made wide lazy circles on her back with his fingertips. When he moved his hand around to the front to cup a breast, she shifted her position to accommodate him.

“Thought you were tired,” she mumbled.

He kissed the soft erotic part of her neck. Shivers danced all the way from her toes to the top of her head.

“My body is tired. My heart and soul have a different opinion,” he whispered.

Her arms were wrapped around his neck and her lips were on his but she opened one eye a narrow slit to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. They were about to make wild passionate love and she wanted to be fully awake.

She reached down and tugged the drawstring on his pajama bottoms.

He slipped the nightshirt over her head in one fluid movement. “You are so beautiful, Sharlene. So soft that I want to touch all of you at once.” He savored every inch of her body as his eyes tried to take her in by the light of the moon filtering through the window.

“Me too.” She skimmed his pajamas down over his hips and covered his body with slow, hot kisses. When she stretched back out on top of him he moaned. She nibbled on his earlobe and he wrapped his arms around her slim body.

“Oh no, cowboy, keep your hands laced together up over your head. It’s not your turn yet,” she whispered as she left his mouth after another hard passionate kiss that created a hurricane of desire in both of them.

He shut his eyes and everything but the touch of her soft skin and kisses disappeared. Nothing existed but the deep desire to please one another. After several minutes, he flipped her over and hung a thumb under her bikini underpants, slowly slipping them down over her hips and legs. They landed on his pajama bottoms when he tossed them out of the way and kissed each toe individually before he started back up.

She writhed but didn’t want it to end. She’d had sex before but no one had ever made long-drawn-out love to her body like Holt was doing. “God, that’s wonderful.”

“Darlin’, God doesn’t have anything to do with this,” he said.

“Then hot damn! That feels so good!” she said when he reached that soft skin right under her breast. She’d known about erotic zones and how a touch or a kiss could set her on fire, but Holt had found places that she never knew could make such intense heat. The inside of her thigh, the soft place under her breast, her wrist right where her pulse pounded, all of those virgin places now belonged to Holt Jackson.

“Yes, ma’am, you sure do feel good,” he drawled huskily as he found another spot on her neck that fanned the blazing fire, making it even hotter.

She gave her body, heart, and soul totally over to Holt and let him make all three hum. He strung kisses from her neck, across her cheeks, her eyes, the tip of her nose, and ended with eternally slow kisses on her lips until the only thing running through her mind was a continuous loop of his name and the word
please
.

“Now, Sharlene?” he asked.

“Two hours ago,” she said.

He moved on top of her and began a long, easy rhythm that erased every word from her vocabulary. Sex was sex. This was love making taken to new heights.

Like a good country song, the crescendo built to a final drum roll of breathlessness so intense that neither of them could utter a word when the final thrust sent them over the top at the exact same moment. The sweet warm afterglow hung over them when Holt rolled to one side and continued to hold her tightly, his face buried in her hair.

“I wonder if they heard me moaning all the way up to Mingus?” she asked when she could speak again.

“No, but they probably see the embers of the fire still glowing out here and think the Tonk is on fire,” he said softly. “I could hold you like this until morning and never let you go.”

“Please do. It’s only when you hold me that the nightmares disappear.”

He wrapped his lean muscular body around hers and they both slept.

***

One minute she was on a hill looking down at a road where a suicide bomber waited beside an old jeep with a flat tire and the hood up. They’d gotten intel that the enemy would be setting up shop to stop a bus load of new troops coming into the city. She hadn’t expected it to be a teenage boy.

They’d gotten the information late in the day and dispatched her and Jonah in a hurry. He took stock of the wind, the distance and made calculations on his notebook. She adjusted as he whispered. They were so far away that the kid couldn’t hear them but protocol said they’d be as quiet as possible. He whispered frantically that he could see the bus and it was not more than two city blocks away. She had to take the shot now or they’d be so close that the effects could be disastrous.

She pulled the trigger and he let go of the pressure switch in his hand when he dropped. They barely heard the blast. The bus didn’t even stop. No doubt their orders had been that the threat had been eradicated, and to proceed with caution.

But then someone touched her on the shoulder and she knew she’d been discovered. She and her spotter would be captured and tortured for information. She shut her eyes and practiced saying name, rank, and number over and over as she felt the cold metal of the gun barrel against her cheek.

She looked up at the movement above her to find Holt Jackson floating down from the sky with a finger over his lips. The gun barrel flew away from her cheek and the soldier holding it ran away into the brush and sand behind her.

Holt held her and said, “I’ll keep the monsters at bay.”

And she believed him.

A slow cold drizzle came down outside her window when Sharlene awoke. She looked at the clock and stretched. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept until three thirty in the afternoon. Twelve hours of sleep without waking with the taste of sand in her mouth and the sound of gunfire in her ears. Without seeing haunting faces of suicide bombers, maimed children in the hospital, soldiers without arms and legs, or Jonah with the life gone from his eyes.

She rolled over to find one pillow propped at her back and a note pinned to the other one. She removed it and sat up, wiping the sleep from her eyes as she did.

She read aloud: “Kids will be home at five. Can’t grill the chicken and burgers outside in the rain so I’m going to make lasagna in the oven. It’s still a date even if we don’t barbecue outside. Expecting you to bring dessert. We eat at six. Signed, Holt.”

She laid it on the nightstand beside the clock. “My first love letter and it’s so not romantic! But after last night it could be written on Charmin and it would still be wonderful. I slept all night without dreams. Can I have your body every night, Holt Jackson?”

She had two hours to make a dessert. That left out cinnamon rolls from scratch. Not even putting a rush on the dough by putting it into a warm oven to rise could get them ready in two hours. Pecan pie needed an hour to bake and an hour to cool. It wasn’t completely out of the question. But then she remembered her mother’s old recipe for gooey cake. She hopped out of bed and trotted off to the kitchen to check ingredients.

“One white cake mix. One stick of butter. Four eggs, cream cheese, powdered sugar.” She talked as she set them on the cabinet. It only took thirty-five minutes to bake so that would give it plenty of time to cool to the proper temperature before she left.

She picked up an egg to crack against the mixing bowl and the phone rang. She jumped and dropped the egg on the floor. The phone continued to howl and she stepped in the slimy egg when she ran to fetch it from her purse.

“Hello, dammit!” she said.

“That’s not a nice way to answer the phone,” Molly scolded.

“I dropped an egg and stepped in it. I’ve got goo on my foot.” She walked on her heel to the bathroom where she propped her leg on the vanity and washed the sticky egg from between her toes. She talked with the phone propped on her shoulder and had to pick it up twice when it fell.

“Are you just now making breakfast? Lord, Sharlene, a woman wasn’t meant to work all night and sleep all day. I bet you didn’t even do that in the army, did you?” Molly bombarded her with questions.

“Good afternoon, Momma. I’m making gooey cake for dessert tonight. I’m having supper at Holt’s,” she said.

“Well, the kids will love it. You kids always did. I called to check on you and to make sure you’re coming home for Thanksgiving next week,” Molly said.

“I’m fine and I’ll be there Thursday in time for dinner and stay over until Monday. Tessa and Darla are going to run the Tonk for me on Friday and Saturday night so I can have a long weekend with y’all.”

“You’ll want pumpkin bread?” Molly asked.

Sharlene could hear the smile in Molly’s voice. She always made one favorite thing for each of her children on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Molly had shipped pumpkin bread to Iraq both Thanksgiving days that she wasn’t home with her family.

“Of course, and pumpkin pie and pumpkin roll and pumpkin pancakes for breakfast the day after,” Sharlene laughed.

“Now tell me about this date? I thought he and Dorie were all hot and heavy into phone talking. She was sitting in church with Wayne last Sunday though so maybe she’s decided to go for the man with stability. I would have sworn she and Holt would have made a better couple than you and him. No way would he ever marry a bartender and Dorie has that farm that would be wonderful to raise up four kids on,” Molly went on and on.

Sharlene’s mood got worse with each sentence. “Mother, I’ve got to make dessert so can I call you back tomorrow and hear more about Dorie?”

“Don’t you take that tone with me, young lady. I don’t agree with what you are doing one little bit. Just because I didn’t pitch a big fit in front of the whole family doesn’t mean I’m on your side. I had to keep my temper in check because if I got all fired up then your dad would too, and I’m not losing him with a heart attack because of your unwise decisions.” Molly’s voice was not smiling anymore.

Sharlene sighed. “Momma, you don’t have to be on my side. I wasn’t expecting you to like what I do or even support me in it. I was surprised as hell that you took it as well as you did. I don’t need your blessing any more than I needed it to join the army. I do need you to be my mother and love me and stop trying to hook me up with every available man in Oklahoma.”

“What makes you think I’ve limited my search to one state? I’m determined that you aren’t going to die a lonely old maid. We’ll talk more about this next week. I’ll have all your pumpkin goodies ready. Just promise me you’ll be here,” Molly said.

“I wouldn’t miss Thanksgiving with all the family for anything,” Sharlene assured her.

“Not even that abominable beer joint?”

Sharlene laughed. “Not even the Honky Tonk could keep me away from your pumpkin bread. See you next week on Thursday in plenty of time for dinner.”

“And you’ll really stay until Monday, no matter what?”

“You’ve got my word on it,” Sharlene said.

“Okay. I’ll get your room ready and the bread made. I still don’t like you driving all alone that far.”

“Momma, it’s five hours. I’m not crossing the desert on a motorcycle,” she said.

“Promise me you’ll be careful and you’ll stay until Monday,” Molly said.

“I told you I would. Now good-bye. I’ve got a gooey cake to make.” Sharlene flipped the phone shut before Molly could make any more demands.

What did her mother have up her sleeve anyway to make her promise to stay that long? Was Wayne still on the top of the bachelor list down at the Ladies Circle? Did the women plan some kind of magical voodoo to make the two of them fall in love so Sharlene would move back to Corn?

Well, it wasn’t happening. The temperature in hell hadn’t dropped that far yet.

***

Judd threw open the back door of the multicolored house before Sharlene could knock. “I been watchin’ for you forever. Come in and see my book about the ice thing last night. You should’ve seen it, Sharlene. It was so pretty. I’m going to grow up and skate on ice and Waylon is going to run one of them big old ice machines that sweep all the lines out of the ice. And Uncle Holt is in the kitchen with Chad and Gloria and they’re making us some supper and is that a cake? What kind? It’s not lemon, is it? I don’t like lemon.”

Chad poked his head through the archway into the living room. “Okay, magpie, give Sharlene time to bring the dessert in here and then you can show her the book.”

Judd crossed her arms over her chest and stuck out her lower lip. “Well ddd… dang!”

“Good girl,” Sharlene whispered.

“It ain’t easy, not sayin’ bad words,” Judd said.

Chad took the cake from Sharlene and set it on the cabinet. “I want to introduce you to Gloria.”

“Hello,” Sharlene said. She was surprised when she finally saw the woman she’d heard so much about. Gloria had thick jet-black hair and a round face. Her Hispanic heritage showed up in slightly toasted skin and big dark brown eyes. She wore jeans that nipped in at a small waist between rounded hips and big breasts.

“This is Gloria Green,” Chad said. “And this is Sharlene Waverly.”

“I’m glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you from the children,” Gloria said.

“Likewise,” Sharlene said. “They talk so much about you and Chad that I was beginning to get jealous.”

Gloria laughed. “Holt told us that he was afraid we were going to have a custody battle with you.”

“What’s a testofee battle?” Judd asked.

“Cus-to-dy,” Sharlene drew the word out by syllables. “It means who gets to keep you and Waylon the most. But we were just joking. Your Uncle Holt has real custody of you and Waylon.”

Judd ran to Holt and wrapped her arms around his leg. “I love all of you but Uncle Holt is my daddy. We done signed the ’doption papers yesterday at the courthouse and now he can’t even call me Judd Mendoza no more. Now I’m Judd Jackson. But we’re not going to tell it at school right now acause it would ’fuse the teacher so we’re goin’ to wait until we move and then I’ll be really Judd Jackson. And guess what, we got a ’prise next week. Daddy is going to take us somewhere special for Thanksgiving.”

“Okay, enough,” Holt said hoarsely. “Cake looks good. What kind?”

“Gooey cake. My momma makes them. Lots of cream cheese and butter,” Sharlene said. “She got the recipe from Dorie’s mother years ago.”

Holt turned back to the oven. He wanted to go to her and kiss her on the forehead, to show everyone that they’d moved from friendship to relationship but Sharlene looked severely pissed when she handed him the cake.

Sharlene pulled out a chair and sat down at the end of the table. “Why didn’t you tell me you were doing the adoption yesterday? We would have had a celebration.”

“It was supposed to be next week but they got the papers done early so we ran in and out and got it finished,” he said. Was that what had her dander up? That she wasn’t asked to go along? In his mind, the whole thing was a formality. Judd and Waylon had been his since the day he took custody of them.

“I see,” Sharlene said and turned to Gloria. “So I hear there’s a wedding in the works?”

“Last day of December,” Gloria said. “You’ll get your invitation after Thanksgiving. Judd said that you had to come and see her all dressed up like Cinderella. She wanted to know if she could ride a white horse up to the church.”

Judd crawled up in Gloria’s lap and another bout of jealousy turned Sharlene bullfrog green. Dorie had been making phone calls behind her back. Holt hadn’t even mentioned that he’d talked to her on a regular basis. Now Gloria had stolen Judd.

Waylon meandered into the kitchen from his bedroom and laid a hand on Sharlene’s shoulder.

“I’m going to grow up and drive an ice ’chine,” he said.

His innocent touch and sweet little voice made Sharlene smile. She patted his hand. “I bet you’d be a good ice ’chine driver.”

“I have to wear gloves. It’s a cold job but Judd’s skates will make lines in the ice and I’ll have to fix it for her,” he said seriously.

“You don’t want to skate with her?” Sharlene asked.

He shook his head and shivered. “Too fast for me.”

“You ever been ice skating?” Sharlene asked.

He shook his head again.

Judd jumped off Gloria’s lap. “Have you been ice skating, Sharlene?”

“I don’t reckon they had ice skating in Corn or Iraq, did they?” Holt asked.

“You were in Iraq?” Gloria asked.

She nodded. “I was there for two tours during my army career. And to answer your question, Holt, no they don’t have ice skating at either place. But I happen to know where they do.”

“Oh, I forgot about Frisco. Hey, Chad, can we take the kids skating next Sunday?” Gloria said quickly.

“Can’t,” Holt said.

“Why?”

“Next week is Thanksgiving. We’ve got plans from Wednesday through Sunday. If you want to take them the next week that’s fine. Where is this Frisco place?” Holt pulled the pan of lasagna from the oven and set it on a hot pad to cool.

“At the Frisco mall. They’ve got a rink on the bottom floor. I went there a few years ago,” Gloria said.

“You want to take a chance like that? What if you sprained an ankle or broke something that close to wedding time?” Sharlene asked.

Gloria shuddered. “You got a good point. You take them.”

“Take us where?” Judd and Waylon both danced around the kitchen.

“Ice skating. But it’ll have to wait until after Christmas, kids. We’ve got plans for this weekend. The next weekend your grandparents have asked for you on Sunday afternoon and the one after that too, for their family holiday. They always do it in between the two big holidays so everyone can come home,” he explained.

“Ahhh, shucks!” Judd said.

“That’s a good girl,” Sharlene said. “You didn’t say a bad word.”

Judd snorted. “But I wanted to.”

Holt frowned.

Sharlene shot him a look.

“What’d Holt do?” Gloria asked.

“Long story,” Sharlene said.

“Mr. Perfect has a fault. Tell me, please,” she begged from behind her hand.

“He’s not Mr. Perfect, darlin’,” Sharlene said.

Holt tilted his head to one side. “Oh?”

Chad moved his chair over closer to Gloria. “What are you two talking about?”

“Recipes,” Sharlene said.

“They were talking about me not being perfect,” Holt said. Had he been too blunt in his note? Should he have signed it “love or like” rather than just his name?

“Well, it took a long time but the light finally dawned. Don’t weep and have a gnashing of teeth because you found out Holt wasn’t perfect. Save that for when you figure out I have a tiny flaw in my character,” Chad laughed.

“Oh, really?” Gloria eyed him up and down. “Maybe we’d better put off the wedding date until I figure out where this flaw is. I might not want a man who’s got stuff wrong with him.”

“What’s a flawed?” Judd asked.

“It’s something that makes someone or something not perfect,” Sharlene explained.

“Waylon, you got a flawed. I think you might have to go to the doctor and get a shot for it,” Judd said.

“I do not have a flawed. I don’t even have a sore throat and I ain’t gettin’ no shot,” he yelled.

“Are too,” Judd said.

“Stop arguing or take it to your room,” Holt said.

They marched into their room and shut the door. The argument was muted and the word “flawed” was used repeatedly, but they could hear it. All four of them held a hand over their mouths to keep the laughter down.

“What have you been doing all day besides making a cake?” Holt finally asked when he could talk without chuckling.

She watched his expression closely. “I talked to Momma.”

A nervous twitch made his eyebrow dance. “Are they getting geared up for the holiday out on the farm?”