Honky Tonk Christmas (30 page)

Holt threw his right arm around Sharlene, tilted her chin up with his left fist, and planted a hard kiss on her right there in God’s presence in the front pew. “I’ve wanted to do that ever since I saw you in the foyer. You are beautiful today. I’ve never seen you in a flowing skirt like that. You look like something meant to sit on a shelf and look at all day long.”

“Holt?” she mumbled into his chest.

He eased his hold. “Bennie wants to form his own company based out of Palo Pinto after we finish Elmer’s barn. He’s got a couple of brothers-in-law who want to go in the business with him. They’re willing to buy enough equipment to get started. And Kent, Chad, and I will have our company. The equipment belongs to me so we’ll take that with us. We’re moving to Corn.”

She shook her head. Now that the words were out, they were even more ominous than they’d been in her mind all during the meal.

“Are you going to say anything?” he asked.

“Did you really say you all were moving to Corn?” she whispered.

“I did,” he murmured into her hair.

She pushed back and jumped to her feet. “Why in the hell would anyone move to Corn, Oklahoma? That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. It’s a dried up farm community. What in the hell is going to support you up here?” Her voice got shriller with each word.

“We are buying four houses inside the city limits. They need lots of work and they are lined up like row houses, all four just alike. Little two-bedroom places like the Bahamas house me and the kids have been living in. We are going to live in them while we remodel and within a year or two we’ll flip them and build something better. Claud has lined up two years of work right here in the community. Barns, decks, houses, garages. Most of it inside the family but word of mouth will travel fast,” he said.

“Four houses?” She frowned.

“One for each of our families and the extra one for Gloria and Loralou to start their day care in. Jenny and Molly have checked around and there’s enough women working in town that need child care to support it. Ten kids will give them a salary and pay the overhead.”

The church walls closed in on Sharlene. Holt wouldn’t be in Mingus or even near there to chase away the nightmares, to hold her, to let their relationship grow into something more. The children would be five hours away. Dorie wouldn’t be half an hour from Holt. Things couldn’t get any worse.

“I can see that you’ve thought this out pretty well,” she whispered.

“I love it up here. The kids do too. They fit in well with your family and they need that. Everyone is happy about the move. Gloria and Loralou are ecstatic. Gloria mentioned a day care and Loralou asked if she could work for her almost before the words were out of her mouth. They both love kids. Kent and Chad say it’s just the right distance from their mother. She’s not too happy about them getting married so quickly. Especially Kent who hasn’t even taken Loralou home to meet her yet.”

“But Corn?” Sharlene frowned. It had to be a nightmare. No one moved to Corn, Oklahoma, because they wanted to. “Isn’t there a small town in Texas where you’d be as happy?”

“If there is I haven’t found it. I fell in love with this place when you brought me up here. I wouldn’t make a decision until Kent and Chad saw it. Claud and I’ve been talking every few days on the phone since I went back. But yesterday when we looked at the town and the possibilities, we all came to the same conclusion. We had found home.”

“Well, I’m damn glad you found home. I found mine in Mingus, Texas, at the Honky Tonk. Now what do we do?” she asked.

“I guess we go on with life,” he said. “You can see the kids on holidays when you come home. I suppose I could bring them down to you for a week in the summer.”

“We sound like two married people about to split the blanket,” she said.

“They’ll miss you. If we were moving anywhere else Judd couldn’t take leaving you. It’s only because she’ll have your family that will make it less traumatic.”

“Promise I can have them a whole week in the summer? I’ll move into the house and get a sitter for when I have to be at the Honky Tonk,” she said.

“You don’t have to do that. They can stay in the apartment and you’ll only be a few feet away,” he said.

Tears began to roll down her cheeks and drop onto her lace blouse. “Nothing works out the way it’s supposed to.”

He put his arms around her. “Sharlene, move back here. I’ll build you a damn beer joint and you can run it every night and write your books in the day just like you are doing in Mingus.”

“I can’t. I couldn’t do that to Momma and Daddy. It’s hard on them already but I’m not up in their face. I can’t do it, Holt. I won’t. Besides, it’s not any old beer joint that I love. It’s the Honky Tonk. The people that come and go. Merle. Amos. Tessa. Luther. Darla. All of them.”

Claud locked the doors to the church and the parking lot cleared out. Food had been divided to take to individual homes for leftover suppers. Sharlene had expected two vehicles to go to the farm that night. Her pink Bug and her father’s ten-year-old pickup truck. But there were five headed that way and she had no idea how in the world she was going to get through the next three days. Now she understood why her mother had been so adamant about making her promise that she wouldn’t go home a day early.

She’d bluffed her way through the afternoon but her heart hadn’t been in it. Most of the time there was this big gaping hole where her heart had been up until the moment that Holt told her he was moving to Corn. The only place in the whole world where she’d vowed she’d never live again.

She parked her car behind her dad’s truck and helped carry leftover food inside the house. The kids bounded out of Holt’s truck and ran toward the porch in the drizzling rain with Holt right behind them. Two travel trailers were in the backyard with long extension cords snaking out across the yard to the house. Kent and Loralou parked their truck beside one and disappeared inside. Chad and Gloria did the same in the other one.

Sharlene wished she had a trailer to hide out in for the next three days. Maybe she should go to the barn and sleep in the tack room. There was an old electric heater out there for when her dad puttered around with the tack during the winter. And when they’d installed a new bathroom in the house, he’d recycled the old toilet and sink to install in a half bath in one corner. She could live quite well if the children would tote out a plate of leftovers a couple of times a day. In three days she could probably have every piece of leather on the ranch cleaned up and ready for spring.

“What are you thinking about?” Molly held the door for Sharlene.

“The tack room,” she said honestly.

“Why on earth would you be thinking about that? Sometimes I don’t know how your mind works,” Molly said.

“I’m going to change into sweats. Where’s Daddy and Holt?”

“They went right out the back door and to the barn to do the chores. I think Kent and Chad are going with them too. And the girls are coming in here soon as they change. Did you and Holt talk?”

“We did.”

“And?”

“I get the kids a week in the summer and I can see them when I come home,” she said.

“What about you two?”

“What about us?”

“I thought you were getting on past friendship into something more. The way he looked at you all day, I would’ve sworn y’all were meant for each other,” Molly said.

“Don’t look like it with him in Corn and me in Mingus.”

Gloria and Loralou giggled through the back door before Molly could ask another question.

Gloria brushed water drops from her black hair. “The weather sure isn’t cooperating for a wedding.”

“Neither one of us runs very gracefully. I’m glad Kent and Chad were gone off to do chores and didn’t see us,” Loralou said.

“Wedding? I don’t think it’ll rain all the way to the last day of the year. That’s four weeks away. And if it did freeze this early in the year, it would thaw long before that,” Sharlene said.

Molly sighed. “I’m going to get into my caftan and then I’ll explain about the wedding. Make a fresh pitcher of iced tea and one of lemonade. Go ahead and get a platter of cold cuts ready and put out some paper plates. I’ll be right back.”

“Where did the kids go?” Sharlene asked.

“They’re holed up in their room with a puzzle. I let them bring home one from church. I’ll take it back Sunday. Oh, by the way, you are teaching their class on Sunday. Miss Mable is off to visit her daughter in Kansas so you are filling in,” Molly said.

Sharlene smiled. “Only in Corn can a bartender come home and teach Sunday school!”

“Better enjoy it. When it gets out about that book, Miss Mable won’t ever leave town again for fear you’ll put the wrong ideas into her precious little class,” Molly said on her way down the hallway.

Sharlene laughed out loud at that remark. “You got that right, Momma.”

“I’ll do the cold cut tray if you’ll make the lemonade. I always get too much sugar in it,” Gloria said.

“So are you moving up here with us?” Loralou asked bluntly.

Sharlene almost dropped the glass pitcher. “No, I am not! Just thinking about coming back to Corn gives me hives and ulcers.”

“If you change your mind, we could use a third partner for our day care,” Loralou said.

“Thank you but if I ever did come back here, I would write books. I love kids but not on a twenty-four-seven basis.”

“Not even Judd and Waylon?” Gloria asked.

“They are like my own. I could keep them forever. But it’s a moot point. I’m not coming back.”

Molly flowed into the room in a floor length caftan with big multicolored flowers printed on a bright pink silk background. “I hope you brought something decent to wear to a wedding. We’re all attending one tomorrow at the church. If you didn’t you can borrow something from Jenny or else wear what you’ve got on now. Family won’t care if you wear it two days in a row and the rest of the congregation didn’t see you.”

Sharlene cut lemons in half and began to squeeze them into the pitcher. “Who’s getting married?”

“Dorie,” Molly said.

Sharlene’s heart dropped through the floorboards, down a thousand miles of hard packed earth, and straight into hell. So that’s the reason the rest of the crew was there. Holt had invited them to his wedding.

He was kissing me in the church and asking me to move up here. Why is he marrying Dorie?

She heard her mother say Dorie and looked in that direction but the whole room was spinning out of control. She dropped the lemon on the floor and grabbed a chair. Nothing made a bit of sense. Holt wasn’t the kind of man to make love to her, then go home and call Dorie.

“Are you okay?” Loralou asked.

A wet cloth appeared in Molly’s hand as if it were magic. It felt cool on her forehead but the tears were steaming hot that ran down her face. If she’d had to speak or die she would have had to crawl up in a casket and cross her arms over her chest.

“Sharlene, what in the hell is the matter with you?” Molly was saying when she came to herself. “You didn’t expect Dorie to stay single forever, did you? Or is it that you had a crush on Wayne?”

“Wayne?” Sharlene whispered around the baseball-sized lump in her throat.

“He is the groom,” Molly said.

“She’s marrying Wayne?” Sharlene asked.

“I told you that they were seeing each other. I know I did,” Molly said.

Sharlene’s tears dried up and the giggles began. “No you didn’t!”

“Well, I meant to but every time we talk we get into a row about something. I swear that Irish blood in you is a blister,” Molly said.

“When did all this come about?”

“Last week. They’ve been seeing each other since Labor Day weekend. After you and Holt left they kind of hit it off and one thing led to another. He proposed last week and she said there wasn’t any need for a long engagement. Their land joins each other on her north side and his south side so they’ll combine two sections of land and Wayne will farm it all. He gave her a diamond half the size of an ice rink and the kids love him and she said she could get a wedding ready in a week.” Molly worked around in the kitchen getting things ready for supper.

Sharlene got the hiccups. “Then why did you tell me all that shit about Holt and her talking on the phone?”

Molly shook a wooden spoon at her. “Watch your language. I wanted to make you jealous. Did it work?”

Sharlene nodded. “I’m not moving to Corn.”

“I’m not asking you to move back here. But I am telling you straight up that Holt is a fine looking man and Dorie isn’t the only available woman in the area. It’s your call, honey. Just don’t be whining to me or fainting in my kitchen when I have to tell you that it’s Holt getting married next. We intend to put him on the top of our list at the Circle. If he’s not married by summer it won’t be because us women folks haven’t set our minds to find him a good decent wife.”

Sharlene went back to work making lemonade. It was her call and she would not give up her life and return to central Oklahoma. Simple as that. She’d cross the bridge with Holt’s name engraved on the sign at the edge of it when she had to. That day she just had to get past the idea of him not being in Mingus past Christmas.

“Honky Tonk Christmas just lost its shine,” she mumbled.

“What’d you say?” Loralou asked.

“Nothing. I was thinking out loud,” Sharlene answered.

***

As luck would have it, Sharlene was seated so close to Holt that every square inch of her skin on her right side was shoved up against him. Waylon sat between Claud and Holt. Judd was on Sharlene’s right, sitting in the outside corner of the pew.

Sharlene wore a long emerald green dress that she’d brought for church on Sunday. The children’s class probably wouldn’t mind that she’d worn it to the wedding on Friday evening. It was an ankle length sheath with gold buttons down the side. Her boots were the same color and she’d put some mousse in her hair to tame the curls.

“Did I tell you today that you are very beautiful?” Holt whispered.

“Three times.” She shivered when his breath kissed her neck as passionately as if it had been his lips.

“Make it four. You look like a model out of one of those fancy women’s magazines.”

“Flattery will get you a trip to the hay barn for more than kisses.” She smiled.

“Will flattery move you back here?”

“Angels walking a tight rope with harps and singing my favorite song couldn’t get that done, darlin’,” she said.

The music started and the groom took his place in the front of the church. Then the pianist struck a chord and everyone stood. Dorie’s children, one on each side, led her down the aisle. She flowed toward Wayne with a smile on her face. Her gown was a cream colored creation with lace, beads, bows, and glittering sequins. She could have put Dolly Parton to shame with a good four inches of cleavage at the top of the sweetheart neckline.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered today to create this family by joining Dorie and Wayne together in holy matrimony. Please bow with me while we go to the Lord and ask his blessing on this union,” the preacher said.

Holt reached for Sharlene’s hand and squeezed.

“What?” Sharlene mouthed as the preacher prayed for the family to be united in love and unity.

“Nothing.” He grinned.

“The answer will always be no.”

“I didn’t ask and I won’t again.”

“Good.”

“Amen!” the preacher said loudly. “You may be seated.”

Sharlene fidgeted worse than Judd. It was the longest wedding she’d ever attended. If a gimmick had ever been used, Dorie had incorporated it in her ceremony. They sifted four small shot glasses of sand into one pile, showing that the four of them would be a complete family.

Sharlene stared at the shot glasses and wished she had one filled to the brim with Jack Daniels. Maybe all four of them, lined up in a neat row and she’d toss them back one at a time then fill them up again for another round. Hell, why dirty up the shot glasses. She’d just drink it straight from the bottle.

The two mothers went forward and lit two candles beside the unity candle. Wayne’s momma had a trouble getting her candle to light from the long match with white satin streamers attached to it. Did that mean that she wasn’t going to like Dorie and the two kids she got with a marriage license rather than a birth certificate? She was a sour looking old girl with a little gray bun knotted up on the top of her head and a navy blue dress that looked like it belonged at a funeral rather than a wedding.

After that Dorie and Wayne used those two candles to light their single candle. It was a carved creation with wedding bells and doves all around the edges and sat on a silver tray with pink roses and baby’s breath circling it. Wayne picked up his mother’s candle and Dorie got a hold on her mother’s. They united the flame into one as their candle took on life and blazed.

The candle’s flame made Sharlene think of how hot she and Holt could get just touching each other. Did Wayne and Dorie have that kind of chemistry or were they marrying to join two farms together? She wondered if Dorie’s honeymoon would be as well planned and drawn out as the wedding ceremony. If so, it might take a whole week just to consummate the damn thing.

“And now the couple have written vows they want to say to each other in front of God and this cloud of witnesses,” the preacher was saying when Sharlene shook the idea of the honeymoon out of her head.

Vows! That was another reason she didn’t intend to get married. What would she say to a man in front of God and a cloud of witnesses?

Let’s see. I knew you were the one when I curled up in your arms drunk as a skunk and didn’t dream about being a sniper in Iraq. I realized I couldn’t live without you when you made wild love to me in my apartment. I cried when you and the children moved and I can’t live without you. Bull shit! I can live without anyone and I’ll get over the nightmares someday.

“And now, Dorie, it’s your turn to tell Wayne your heart’s deepest thoughts,” the preacher smiled.

Crap! I missed Wayne telling her that she was the light of his life.

“Wayne, darling, I knew last summer at the Waverly’s Labor Day party that you were the man for me. I looked across the tables and when you looked at me, I knew that our hearts had united and it was just a matter of time before they would become one,” Dorie said in a soft southern voice.

Oh, please! You were chasing Holt and in heat worse than a momma cat in the springtime. If he believes that crock of crap, he deserves a honeymoon where he don’t get to dive into those big old boobs until he’s toasted you a dozen times with pink champagne and told you how beautiful you were at the wedding for twenty-four straight hours. By the time he gets to take off your bra he’ll be so tired he’ll fall asleep before you get to the good stuff.

“And now the rings,” the preacher said. “These two rings symbolize an unending love that Wayne and Dorie are pledging this day.”