Picnic in Someday Valley (Honey Creek #2)(2)
“I got a line that never fails.” The stinky guy pushed his chest out as if performing to a crowd.
Marcie smelled cheap liquor on his breath and fish bait on his clothes. She moved an inch closer to Brand. She wasn’t afraid of Joey, but she didn’t want her sins listed again. Some of the bar regulars liked to remind her that she was a jailbird’s girlfriend.
Luckily, Joey was more interested in talking about himself tonight. “I can pick up any gal with just a few words. I walk up to a table of pretty gals and say, ‘Evening, ladies. This is your lucky night. I’m single and here to dance. I’ve got a college education and I know my ABD’s.’ ”
He held up a finger to silence everyone before adding, “Wanna C what I can do?”
The fishing buddies laughed. One slapped Joey on the back. “Don’t waste your lines on Marcie; she’s not interested. She’s sworn off all men since she slept with the bottom of the barrel.”
She didn’t count Brand as a friend, but right now, he was the safest bet in the room. A pack of drunks was never good, and they all appeared to have more than a few bottles of courage in them.
Another fisherman joined in. “Yeah, she was shacking up with a killer. They say a man who thinks about burning folks alive is sick in the head. If you ask me, she knew what he was planning. She don’t deserve to just walk away free when that fire Boone set almost killed four people. Least we should do is give her a spanking.”
The oldest of the group added as he scratched his bald head, “Maybe we should strip her and paint an A on her chest like they did in that old book Mrs. Warren made us read.”
“They stripped a woman in The Scarlet Letter?” Joey’s squeaky voice chimed in. “Maybe I should have read that.”
His buddy added, “There were no pictures, Joey.”
The sound of the bartender racking a shotgun silenced the room. “Closing time. One more drink and I’m turning off the lights.” Nothing in Wayne’s action suggested that he was kidding.
The gang turned their attention to the bar. Marcie had never seen the bartender fire the shotgun, but Wayne had slapped a few drunks senseless with the stock.
The bald guy gave her a wicked look before he joined his buddies.
Brand slid his half-empty beer across the table and stood. “Get your guitar. I’m taking you home.”
Marcie managed to force a smile proving she wasn’t afraid. “Brandon, that won’t be necessary. I live across the street in the trailer park. I can walk home.”
“It’s not a suggestion, it’s a favor, and I told you, I’m not picking you up. That trailer park isn’t safe to walk through in daylight, much less after midnight.”
She looked up and for once she could see his coffee-brown eyes. He looked worried, almost as if he cared. “I’m not your problem.” Marcie laced her fingers without making any move to follow his orders. “I’m no one’s problem. I don’t think you even liked me, so why act like you care now?”
She’d slept with some truck driver a few months after Boone went to jail. The trucker had bragged that she told him all kinds of things about what Boone did in bed and then she claimed the trucker was better. The trucker must have known she wouldn’t say anything when he bragged. If she had, no one would believe her.
She looked up at Brand Rodgers, wondering if he was looking for a story to brag about. No, not quiet Brandon. He seemed to have turned into a six-feet-four tree wearing a Stetson. Silent. Waiting beside the table.
“Oh, all right,” she said as if they’d been arguing. “I’ll let you drive me home.”
A few minutes later as they walked past his pickup, Brand placed her guitar in his truck bed. The black case vanished in the shadows. “I never said I didn’t like you, Marcie. I’m older. You were just a kid.”
“I’m grown-up now.”
“I noticed.”
She thought of telling him they could easily walk to her trailer, but somehow after her day, riding home seemed a treat.
Brand was safe. She’d never heard a bad word about him. Marcie swore under her breath. Thinking Brand was better than most men she knew wasn’t saying much.
She gave him directions to her place back in the tree line near the end of the trailer park. She’d grown up here. Lived with her folks until her mom left when Marcie was seven. Then her dad ran the bar for a while until he got sick. She took over managing the place before she was out of high school. Ordered supplies. Cleaned the bar after closing time. Hired the help. Wayne had been a drunk who needed a job. She’d hired him to bartend with the understanding he wouldn’t drink on the job. He’d kept that rule until he finally bought the place. Now and then Marcie saw the signs he was drinking again, but she doubted the customers noticed.
Once she thought she had a chance of breaking free of Someday Valley. She’d left to make her way with her songs. Three years later she was back. Her dad was dying and her brother had disappeared. The only good news, she guessed, was that Wayne now let her work for him.
Wayne wasn’t a bad boss. He paid fair and she did most of the work while he drank away most of the profits, but he did pay her extra for singing. Twenty an hour and tips. Which tonight had been seven dollars and a quarter.
The lone yellow bulb blinked through the trees as Brand drove toward her ten-by-thirty home. The place didn’t seem so bad when she walked through the trees in the dark and slipped inside. But now, with the headlights blinking on the rusty sides and the broken window glass covered with cardboard, the small trailer looked like something abandoned to decay.