Cal squinted back down the bar. “Always a first time.”
“Indeed there is.” Wonder nodded, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “Oh this is going to brighten up the summer no end. I’m opening the book on this one today. What do you say, Terrell? I’ll give you five to one Ms. Kent won’t give Idaho the time of day.”
“Stuck-up bitch won’t give nobody the time of day,” Biedermeier mumbled.
At the other end of the bar, Docia tried for a better look at the most gorgeous man in Texas without attracting too much attention. She leaned forward slightly, tipping back her head, and checked the mirror again.
Lordy, he was big! At least six-three, probably more, given the way he towered over the people around him. Brown hair just long enough to curl over his collar. Short beard and moustache. Shoulders that looked too big for his denim shirt. She’d bet anything he had on boots too.
Boots. Over a year since she’d had boots underneath her bed.
Docia took a deep breath, balling her hands into fists.
Get a grip.
Getting horny over a perfect stranger was pathetic. Besides, they never turned out to be as good as they looked, did they? Particularly not if they were interested in her. Probably just some jerk from Dallas with a cowboy complex.
“Janie,” she murmured, “who’s the guy at the end of the bar?”
Beside her, Janie’s body shifted. “No, don’t look!” Docia hissed. “Use the mirror.”
Aw, hell, now she’d been magically transported to high school.
Janie peered beyond her into the mirror. “You mean Doc Kleinschmidt?”
“No—” Docia nodded toward Gorgeous, “—the one next to him. Kris Kristofferson, circa 1976.”
Janie grinned. “You mean when he was in
A Star is Born
? Personally, I like the way he looked in
Songwriter
better. You know, when he had that little white streak in his beard…”
Docia gritted her teeth. “Janie, just tell me who the guy is, okay?”
Janie leaned forward again. In the mirror, Docia could see Gorgeous talking to Kleinschmidt. For a moment she could swear he looked her way. Quickly, she picked up her margarita, dropping her gaze. “Well?”
“Holy crap, he’s a big one, isn’t he?” Janie straightened again and sipped her wine. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“So he’s a tourist?” A jerk from Dallas just as she’d thought. Another Mr. Wrong. Not worth the trouble. Docia fought down a faint tang of disappointment.
Better this way.
“No, I think I know who he is.” Janie’s brow furrowed in thought. “He’s probably Doc Rankin’s new partner. The new vet.”
A vet. Well, hauling large animals around would certainly explain the body.
“You’re interested, aren’t you?” Janie peeked back down the bar. “Wanna go down there and introduce ourselves?”
“In front of Kleinschmidt?” Docia shook her head. “Don’t think so.”
“What’s wrong with Wonder Dentist?”
Docia grimaced. “He reminds me of my macroeconomics professor. The one who wrote ‘pathetic’ across the top of my term paper.”
Just another Konigsburger who found her not quite up to the town’s standards.
She chanced another glance at the end of the bar. Even if he was a local, Dr. Gorgeous could still be a jerk.
Would she know what to do with him if he wasn’t? Did she even remember? And, of course, there was no guarantee he’d be interested in her.
“So what do you want to do?” Janie’s brow furrowed. “I could try luring Wonder away, but then I’d feel funny the next time I needed my teeth cleaned.”
“Don’t do anything.” Docia massaged her neck again. “I’m not interested in introducing myself to a complete stranger.”
Why today? Why couldn’t she have been wearing that gauze shirt she bought yesterday at the Lucky Lady? Why couldn’t she have washed her hair last night instead of waiting until tonight? Why couldn’t they have sat at a table instead of bellying up to the end of the bar like a pair of biker chicks?
She was dirty. She’d been moving boxes all afternoon. She smelled. This was not the day to meet Mr. Right. Assuming Mr. Right existed anywhere except an alternate universe, which, given her luck, wasn’t likely.
Hell, damn, stink!
Cal’s brain stumbled through a series of increasingly desperate scenarios. He could try one of the pick-up lines his brother Pete used, except Pete struck out about as often as he hit and Cal didn’t feel like risking it. He could try the old head across the room, spill the drink, oops, sorry bit, but then she might think he was an asshole.
He could walk up, introduce himself and offer to buy her a drink. And watch her nose wrinkle when she got a whiff of goat.
“You coming up with anything there, Idaho? Looks like your brain’s about to overheat.” Wonder grinned at him.
A bar fight. He’d take a punch at Wonder and then let Wonder deck him and then she’d come down the bar and hold his head in her lap…
Cal shook his head. “Not a goddamn thing.”
“Cheer up. She’s not going anywhere and neither are you.” Wonder squinted at Cal as he got up from his bar stool. “You’re not going anywhere, right?”
“In the long run, no. Right now I’m going back home.” Cal tossed down the last of his Dos Equis. “To regroup.”
Wonder nodded. “Right. Go back to the old campfire and figure out that flanking maneuver.” He detoured around Biedermeier’s protruding rear end. “Terrell, it’s been a pleasure, as always.”
Cal peered one more time down at the other end of the bar. Was Venus looking at him in the mirror? He turned quickly, but she’d picked up her margarita again.
Docia took a deep breath. Kleinschmidt was leaving. Biedermeier was only faintly conscious. If she was going to do anything it would have to be now.
Was she going to do anything? And if so, what?
She glanced back into the mirror again, only to see Gorgeous heading for the door. Janie was watching him. Now that she checked, Docia realized every female in the bar was watching him. Wonderful. Of course she wouldn’t be the only one to notice Dr. Gorgeous. He probably had a brigade of women already volunteering to do his bidding. One more reason not to get involved.
“What’s Plan B?” Janie said beside her. “Maybe you could borrow your neighbor kid’s iguana and drop by the animal hospital. It looks sickly.”
Docia massaged the back of her neck again, willing the headache to go away. “Iguanas always look sickly. It’s part of being an iguana.”
Janie pushed her empty wine glass back across the bar toward Ingstrom. “Well then, why don’t you take your cat in for shots?”
Docia sighed. “Right. Even assuming I could wrestle him into the cat carrier, that’d be a great way to get the vet’s attention. Bring in the Konigsburg Devil. There is no Plan B, Janie. There wasn’t even a Plan A. Guys who look like that never turn out to be as good as they look. And they never work out. Believe me, I should know.”
“For a hard-headed businesswoman, you sure give up easily.” Janie grinned and patted Docia’s shoulder. “Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett.”
In the doorway, Cal turned to look back at Venus one more time. She still leaned against the bar, her rosy hair shining in the dim light above the cash register.
For a brief moment, he could swear their gazes connected. He felt a quick jolt of pure adrenaline. Then Venus looked back down at her margarita.
He heard it then, deep inside, so soft he might have missed it.
Zing!
Chapter Two
Docia brought her breakfast coffee into the bookstore at nine the next morning. She’d managed to banish all thoughts of gorgeous vets from her mind, if you didn’t count that dream about chasing the neighbor kid’s iguana through a particularly long, dark tunnel.
Opening time wasn’t until ten, but she needed to do several things before then, including figuring out what to do with the offending CD rack in the back. It looked to be around an inch too wide for the space where she’d originally planned to put it.
Nico twined himself around her ankles, purring, his yellow eyes glowing against his sleek, black fur. He mewed, plaintively.
Docia kept walking. “You’ve been fed. I can’t help it if you’ve forgotten already.” Nico’s short-term memory—or lack thereof—was a continual trial.
She scanned the interior of the shop on the off chance some ideal spot for the CD rack might reveal itself. The front was already full of promotional displays and tables with Konigsburg-related books.
Nico hopped from a table onto the checkout counter, batting aside a pile of brochures for the Liddy Brenner Festival.
Docia caught them as they slid toward the edge of the counter, raising an eyebrow at the cat. “Don’t you have lizards to catch?” she asked.
Nico glanced at her without much interest, then curled into a loose ball against the cash register, closing his eyes against the bright morning sunlight flooding the front of the shop.
Docia considered the back wall. Right now, she had two small bookcases setting off the antique wallpaper that could be seen above them.
She was particularly proud of that paper. It was the one original idea she’d managed to slip by the professional she’d hired to lay out the shop. She’d found the stack of antique newspapers, magazines, advertising flyers and road maps when she’d moved into the building, and turning it into vintage wallpaper had been a full-time job. Now it covered most of the back wall and part of the sides, rising above the brown-and-tan mesquite paneling.
The gray, pressed-tin ceiling in the dimness above her was original construction, although she’d had to patch it and find a few tin pieces to fill in. All in all, the shop looked just like she wanted it—old, warm, lived in. She sighed. Now if she could only get a few Konigsburgers to wander in and check it out along with the tourists.
The townspeople didn’t exactly seem hostile to her, except for a few like Margaret Hastings. They just seemed…cool. Like Docia still had a ways to go to prove herself.
Maybe she could put the CD rack against the back wall and move one of the small bookcases alongside the antique dry goods display cabinet at the side. All she had in the cabinet was collectible Texana, and only a handful of people ever looked at her puny collection.
A sharp tapping brought her head up. Docia glanced at the front door and jumped, spilling coffee onto her hand. Someone was leaning against the glass panel, peering in.
Next to the cash register, Nico jerked upright, yellow eyes wide.
“We’re not open yet,” Docia called, grabbing a paper towel to sop up the coffee.
“Aw, now, Ms. Kent,” the door-leaner called back, “you ain’t gonna make me wait here for an hour, are you?”
Docia sighed and started toward the door. Dub Tyler. And he
would
stand there for an hour if she didn’t let him in, probably smearing up the glass while he did. “Just a minute, Dub.”
She clicked the lock back, opening the door so that Dub could slip inside.
One of the town police cruisers was idling across the street. Clete Morris stuck his head out the window. “Everything okay there, Ms. Kent?”
“Yes, thanks. No problems.” Docia closed the door again, locking it.
“Don’t worry.” Dub grinned. “I won’t tell anybody. Wouldn’t want people thinkin’ they could get in here all hours of the day and night, now, would you?”
“No, I certainly wouldn’t,” Docia snapped. “What can I do for you, Dub?”
Dub scratched his bald spot, his slightly faded blue gaze darting around the shop. He wore the same washed-out plaid shirt and rumpled khaki slacks as usual. Docia wondered if he bought them in bulk.
She had no idea how old he was, but she’d guess on the far side of seventy. She probably outweighed him by thirty pounds, and she was at least six inches taller.
Which didn’t make him a fragile old man. Just her luck the one long-time Konigsburger who’d been willing to visit the shop had the ethics of an Enron executive.
Dub’s expression changed to something resembling Foxy Grampa. Whatever he was going to come up with, Docia knew she wouldn’t like it.
“Got a proposition for you. Need you to hold a package for a while. I’ll give you a five percent commission when I sell it.” Dub rubbed a hand across the silvery stubble on his chin.
“What kind of package?” Docia put her hands on her hips. “What exactly are we talking about here?”
Dub shook his head. “Not unless you agree to hold on to it for me. Then I’ll tell you. Maybe.”
Docia exhaled an annoyed breath and started back toward the front counter. “What is this—Pirates of the Caribbean? A map to buried treasure? Why not just keep it at your place?”
“Security.” Dub smiled blandly, walking alongside her, his boot heels clicking. “Don’t have enough security around my house. You got good locks here, right?”
“So buy some security,” Docia snapped. “God knows you can afford it with all the stuff you sell. You’re one of the biggest Texana dealers in the state.” She scooted Nico out of the way so that she could lean against the counter again. Nico muttered something that sounded uncomplimentary.