Hot and Bothered (23 page)

History rewritten
, Gideon thought, kissing her, breathing her in, never letting her go.

The first real chapter of their own story.

Kat's mind wasn't an easy one to change, but by some miracle it happened.

She held back a grin that wouldn't quit as Rochelle and Gideon canoodled in the corner of the Rough & Tumble's courtyard on a July night that had the ceiling fans inside working overtime and the jukebox playing lazy country songs. It was near closing, and they'd been helping Kat with cleanup in the courtyard after that damned Jimmy Beetles had gotten into it with a one-percenter outlaw from an out-of-state MC. The bikers had crushed a few chairs outside during their fight, and Kat was sure as shit billing the nomad rider for it. She was also going to charge him for the drinks she could've sold after she'd cleared everyone out of the saloon.

Gideon had helped break up the fight after seeing that Rochelle was safe. Not that Rochelle had stayed away from the brew-ha-ha, because Kat had caught her peeking out of the door like she was taking notes on how to fight for a future novel. But all had ended well. Hell, ever since Rochelle had finished her book tour and bought that mansion in Seven Hills, everything seemed to have a fine ending. Gideon was the happiest cowpoke in the region, and it was all because of l-o-v-e.

And that meant Kat couldn't hate Rochelle. Turned out she wasn't such a bad egg anyway.

Kat tossed a rag at the cuddlebirds, and Gideon caught it, even in midkiss—some peripheral vision
that
was.

“Get a room,” she said.

Rochelle smiled, snuggling against Gideon. “I have a lot of extras at my place, if you should ever need one yourself, Kat.”

Yeah, yeah, more teasing about Isaiah. The assholes in this saloon never seemed to stop when it came to her long-distance boyfriend. But Kat didn't want to talk about it, because he was off on some sociocultural anthropology trip for his graduate degree, and she hadn't been able to afford to go. Rochelle had offered to sponsor her, but Kat couldn't stand the thought of owing anyone anything. Besides, matters had been rocky with Isaiah for a while now—there were things Kat had never told him, mostly about how she'd gotten the knife wound on her ribs that she managed to hide every time Isaiah and she saw each other. How she kept her shirt on with him, she didn't know, but she just kept telling him that they should wait until he graduated to go all the way. His patience was running thin, too.

Kat motioned toward the door. “Thanks for your help, you two, but I've got the rest of cleanup covered. I just need to sweep the courtyard and I'm home for the night.”

“Until you're back here at the break of dawn,” Gideon said. “You gotta slow down, Kat.”

Rochelle kissed him, and he melted into a smile. Love bunnies. Yuck.

“Out,” Kat said.

Rochelle hugged her good night, and after Kat squiggled away from her, she went inside, turned off the jukebox, and headed back to the courtyard with a broom and pan. But on the way out the door, she saw a customer in a dark corner who hadn't been swept out with the rest earlier.

This woman had shoulder-length silver hair held away from her face by a bandana, and in spite of the warm night, a light gray sweater and tidy jeans covered the rest of her. No makeup, no jewelry, she wore wire-rimmed glasses and looked like a local ranch owner or some such, although Kat couldn't place a name to the face.

She did look familiar, though, and throughout the night, as the woman had sipped on nonalcoholic beers and concentrated on her backlit e-reader, Kat had tried to get information about where she came from. Nope. The lady had only kept her nose in whatever she was reading, except while Jimmy Beetles was fighting outside. Even then she hadn't moved from her seat, as if she was used to being around two dipwads kicking the shit out of each other.

Since the woman was reading even now, Kat suspected she hadn't heard her call to clear the place earlier.

“Ma'am,” she said. “I'm afraid it's closing time.”

The woman glanced up from her reader like Kat had yanked her out of another world. “Oh. I'm sorry. I was lost in this book.”

“Don't tell me—
Cherry Red
, right?” Kat gestured toward Cherry's painting above the bar. “Most people come here to look at her picture
after
they've read it, not while they're in the midst.”

That was another reason Kat couldn't be too pissed at Rochelle—the book had been great for business after it became widely known that Cherry's portrait was in the Rough & Tumble.

The woman's face had a glow to it, and Kat wondered if it was just from the e-reader. She just seemed happy on the inside, with tanned, glowing skin and a clearly good life.

“Don't mind me. I'll get out of your hair,” she said, standing. She was tall and slender, just as a showgirl like Liz Hughes would be, and Kat hoped she grew up that way someday.

Hah. Good luck with that.

“It was a pleasure to be here,” the woman said. And as she started to leave, she paused. “A blast from the past, actually.”

She smiled again as Kat thanked her for coming by, then went to the courtyard, eager to get out of here and to her bed. She pretty much put the woman out of her mind as she cleaned, only hesitating when she saw a glimmer out of the corner of her eye and bent down to the fire pit to discover a cigarette lighter wedged in the stones underneath it.

Huh
, she thought. Funny how she hadn't found this before now
.
It was the Bettie Page lighter that used to belong to Cash Campbell, who'd passed it on to Ben Hughes, who'd passed it onto Gideon before Rochelle had lost it.

Kat shrugged, stuffed it into her back pocket, and continued her sweeping. But now that she'd been interrupted, she couldn't concentrate on cleaning so much. That silver-haired woman's face kept coming back to her.

Why did she seem so familiar?

When Kat realized the answer, she dropped her broom.
No way
.

She rushed into the saloon, looking around, finding that the woman definitely wasn't here anymore. Then she stared up at the picture of Cherry Chastain.

She glanced right back at the table where the woman had sat all night, a pleased smile on her face while she read.

Had it been?

Could it have been?

But hadn't Rochelle only been taking fictional liberties when she'd supposed Cherry had escaped that fire?

Mind swimming, Kat moved closer to the portrait: Cherry, with her red hair, her sex-siren smile, her leather getup.

Cherry, then and now . . . ?

Breaking into her own smile, Kat nodded to the old girl, then went back to cleaning, a flicker of hope painting her on the inside, telling her that maybe everyone did have a happy ending after all.

Crystal Green
is a RITA nominated romantic fiction author. She is the author of
Down and Dirty
,
Rough and Tumble
, and the Vampire Babylon urban fantasy series writing as Chris Marie Green.

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