I Love This Bar (40 page)

   She kissed him long and hard. "That bartender would think she'd just fallen into a gold mine. Now go home and get some sleep and we'll talk about the hypothetical barmaid and cowboy when we aren't both about to drop."

   He gave her another good-night kiss. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Momma and Dad are flying down for dinner tomorrow. They want to see how the house has shaped up."

   "They'll be surprised." She locked the door behind him.

   He left with an extra spring in his step. There was hope.

Daisy was so tired when she slipped between the sheets in her bed and shut her eyes that she figured she'd be snoring like Cathy in five minutes. But she tossed and turned for an hour, checking the clock so often that she wondered if it was ever going to change the minutes.

   Jarod had just given her the best of three worlds. He'd said he wouldn't be ashamed of her working in a beer joint or even owning one. That he'd be honored to have her as the vet for his ranch. But he hadn't proposed. Was he asking her to move to Oklahoma? To live with him? Or to marry him?

   His parents were flying down to see the house? What would they think of Jarod's offer? Or did it even matter what they thought?

   She checked the clock. Ten minutes past four. She didn't want to be in the bed alone. She wanted to be snuggled up against Jarod's side, his arm around her, her leg thrown over his body.

   "I love Jarod," she whispered. "I want to spend the rest of my life with him and I want to be there when he comes in for dinner and for supper every night. I want to wake up with him and spend all my time on the ranch with him. Dear Lord, what am I going to do? I've said time and time again that I'm not ever leaving the Honky Tonk. I wouldn't even let him say the words. What if he's changed his mind?" She fell back on the bed with such force that she bounced.

   
Go tell him,
her heart said.

   "It's the middle of the night," she moaned.

   
Time doesn't mean a thing to me,
her heart reminded her.

   She pulled a kimono-style, red silk robe over her sleep shirt that had Betty Boop on the front, shoved her feet into fluffy orange slippers, and picked up her purse. She couldn't sleep and if she waited until daylight, she'd lose her courage.

   Doubts and fears made her turn around in the Smokestack parking lot. But after a two-minute lecture she drove on toward the ranch.

   "I've got to do it," she whispered.

   When she turned left off Highway 108, she pulled off to the side of the road and bit her nails. Finally she drove on, still arguing back and forth with herself. Should she go back to the Honky Tonk and wait for him to finally to ask her to go to Oklahoma with him, or go full speed ahead and tell him exactly how she felt?

   She drove up into the yard and he met her on the porch.

   "Daisy? What's wrong? I had the window open for the fresh night air and heard the car door. Is Cathy all right? Did Chigger lose the baby? Did Tinker die?"

   "None of the above. I just figured out that I love you and I had to tell you before I could sleep," she said.

   He stopped in his tracks and shook his head as if trying to dislodge water from his ears. "What did you say?"

   She took a deep breath. "After you left I took a shower and I went to bed and I couldn't sleep. I thought it was because your parents were coming and I was dreading facing them, but then I realized I couldn't sleep because—" She ran out of air and sucked up another lung full. "Because I didn't want to be sleeping alone. I wanted to be with you and not just for one night. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to wake up with you and help take care of the ranch. I want to be a vet tech and your wife and I want to go home with you. Right now I don't care about owning a beer joint because I think it'll take all my time to be your wife and your vet for the ranch, but if I want to later, then I'm glad you wouldn't be ashamed of me. Now it's your turn to tell me that I'm a bartender for God's sake and I'm crazy for being out here in the yard dressed like this and talking too fast. All I know is that I love you, Jarod, and I'm scared to death that you have changed your mind because I wouldn't let you say the words, and please say them now."

   Silence prevailed.

   "Well?" she asked.

   "You finished?" he asked.

   She nodded.

   He dropped down on one knee, took her hand in his, and looked up, "I have been waiting for this moment since I first realized I was desperately in love with you. I love you when we are making love, having sex, or just cuddling. I love you when we are dancing in the grass together. I love you when we have just pulled a calf together. I love you when I'm filling Mason jars with beer and you are by my side. Daisy O'Dell, will you marry me?"

   She didn't hesitate a minute but fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around him.

   "Yes, I will," she said.

Two weeks later, they were married on a Sunday afternoon at the Honky Tonk. In spite of the fact that Chigger's momma wanted to dress her in frills and ruffles, Daisy stuck to her guns and chose an ivory brocade sheath with a hem that touched the top of her new off-white boots. Instead of a veil she wore a white Stetson hat with a puffy bow attached to a bit of illusion at the back. She carried a bouquet of white daisies with a very special set of keys tucked into the flowers.

   Amos walked her out of the apartment and across the hardwood floor to the place in front of the bar where Jarod waited. He moved toward her when he saw her and took her hand from Amos' to lead her the rest of the way to the ivy covered arch where Cathy and Chigger waited on one side and Mitch and Stephen on the other.

   "You look like an angel straight from heaven," he whispered.

   She gave him a once-over and said, "You look like sex on a stick."

   He swallowed the laughter.

   "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to unite Jarod and Daisy in holy matrimony," the preacher said.

   Daisy said the vows she'd written.

   Jarod said his.

   There wasn't a dry eye in the place.

   They exchanged plain gold wedding bands and the preacher told Jarod he could kiss his bride.

   He hugged her close to him before he claimed with a kiss that sent shivers all the way to the ends of her toenails.

   The reception was held right there in the beer joint with Jewel and Maria serving the cakes and Chigger pouring punch.

   "I'm surprised Daisy let you cut the groom's cake," Chigger said to Jewel.

   "Not any more than I am," Jewel said.

   "Way I see it is you got a choice, lady. I'll be talking to Daisy right regular and visiting her every few months. You give her any trouble and you will answer to me."

   Jewel looked up at Chigger. "You trying to scare me? I apologized and she forgave me."

   "I'm statin' facts. You'd have to be blind not to see that I'd make two of you and I'm tellin' you just so you know that I'm meaner than a constipated rattlesnake. I'll whip your tiny little ass all over Oklahoma if you are ugly to my friend. Do we have an understandin'? And one other thing, Daisy forgave you. I didn't."

   "I think we have an understanding, all right. But you didn't have to take up for her. I think she could do a fine job of takin' care of herself. She sure did when she came to the reception," Jewel said.

   "Then you be nice," Chigger whispered as Daisy and Jarod got in line to be served first.

   "I think I can manage that," Jewel said.

   Tinker plugged in the old jukebox and pushed the buttons to "Amazed" by Lonestar after the cake cutting ceremony. Jarod removed his black Western cut tux jacket and laid it over a chair. He picked Daisy up and carried her to the middle of the dance floor.

   "You don't work here anymore so I can dance with you, Mrs. McElroy. I love you, lady."

   "And I love you," she said.

   "Don't they look cute? I knew this day was coming the first time I saw the two of them all tangled up together on the bar room floor. I think they both thought for a minute with all those sparks flyin' around them that they'd just had sex," Chigger said.

   "What?" Frankie's brown eyes popped out.

   "It's a story they can tell you later," Chigger said.

   "It couldn't be any better. She's got Jarod and she gave me the Honky Tonk," Cathy said.

   "Gave it to you. I thought you bought it," Chigger said. "Don't tell Billy Bob. He offered her a ton of money for it."

   Cathy shook her head. "She says it was good to her and now it can be good to me."

   When the song ended, Tinker raised a crystal punch cup. "A toast to Daisy and Jarod," he said loud enough that everyone stopped talking and listened. "They were meant for each other from the beginning. Here's to their happiness."

   Daisy hugged him when everyone had tapped cups together and had a sip of punch which Billy Bob had spiked with a healthy dose of Patron. "Come up to Oklahoma and see us," she whispered.

   "I don't think I'd better ride that far. I got to help Cathy keep this place in line. She's mean and she can take care of herself but there might be a time she'll need me," Tinker said.

   Late that afternoon Jarod carried Daisy out to the white truck in a shower of rice. The younger crowd had done a fine job of decorating it with crepe paper, shoe polish, and a hundred feet of beer cans tied to the rear bumper.

   "You ready?" he asked.

   "In one minute," she said.

   He raised a dark eyebrow.

   "Hey, Cathy," she yelled above the din.

   Cathy's head went up.

   "Got something for you," she said.

   Cathy looked up. Daisy had already handed over the keys to a Cadillac and the Honky Tonk. There was no way she was catching that damned bouquet if that's what Daisy was talking about.

   "What?" she asked.

   "I wanted to hug you one more time," Daisy said.

   Cathy crossed the distance in a few long strides and the two cousins wrapped their arms around each other.

   "Thanks for all you've done to make this possible," Daisy said.

   Cathy's eyes welled up with tears. "I love you, Daisy. It's me who should be thanking you. Call me in a couple of days when you get bored in the bedroom."

   "If you wait until then you'll never hear from me again," Daisy laughed.

   Cathy couldn't say anything else without breaking down and sobbing so she headed back to the Honky Tonk to clean up the aftermath.

   "Hey, Cathy?" Daisy yelled again.

   When Cathy turned around it was to see the bouquet coming right at her. On reflex she reached out and caught it.

   "You're next," Daisy yelled.

   "You rat!" Cathy said. "I'm never getting married. And what is this?"

   They were driving out of the lot when Cathy realized that she was holding a set of Harley Davidson motorcycle keys.

   Daisy stuck her head out the window. "You want them?"

   "Hell, yeah!" Cathy grinned from one ear to the other.

Jarod picked Daisy up outside the door and carried her inside the honeymoon suite at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas. The bed was covered in yellow rose petals and a bottle of champagne chilled in a crystal ice bucket. Two fluted glasses waited beside a crystal platter mounded high with fresh fruit and an assortment of fresh cheeses.

   "It's beautiful," Daisy gasped.

   "Not as much as you are," Jarod told her and punched

a button on a CD player.

   "Amazed" by Lonestar played as he laid her on the bed and very slowly began to undress her.

   "I am amazed by you," he whispered.

   "Not as much as I am by you. You made me love you more than anything in the world."

   "And that is just the beginning. Wait until you see the finale," he teased.

   "I don't want to see it until we are both a hundred years old and after we've had our year to repent; I hope we take our last breaths together," she said.

Dear Reader,

There are many, many people who helped make this book possible and I'm eternally grateful to each of them for their part in it. Thank you.

   To my husband, Charles, for taking pictures and driving me through miles and miles of backwoods country while I took notes for the Honky Tonk series. There really is a Mingus, Texas, and a Thurber (population 5) where there is a Smokestack restaurant that serves wonderful chicken fried steak. There really is a Morgan Mill, Texas, with a combination feed store, café, and gathering place for the locals to drink coffee. If you're ever in that area visit both of them. You'll find good food, smiles, and lots of friendly down-home folks.

   To every country music artist mentioned in the book. I cut my teeth on country music and Momma was a happy woman when her radio could pick up the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night. Merle (a character in the book) says that country music tells the story of living and she got that right on the button. A really big thank you to a fellow Okie, Toby Keith: your song helped inspire the writing of this book!

   To my editor, Deb Werksman, and the staff at Sourcebooks who continue to believe in me. And to my agent, Erin Niumata. You are all great people.

   And to each of you readers who continue to read my books and spread the word to your family and friends… here's hoping you fall in love with Daisy and Jarod. Remember it's not over on the last page. There are three more in the Honky Tonk series on the way.