Red Velvet Revenge (8 page)

“Hey!” Angie took that personally. “Take that back!”

“Make me,” the blonde taunted.

Before anyone in the van could react, Angie unbuckled her seat belt and leapt over the back of Oz’s seat and was half out the window, trying to connect her fist to the blonde’s face.

“Marty, a little help here,” Mel said. They each grabbed Angie’s legs and held on.

The blonde, sensing that she was in danger, gave a squeak of fright and jumped off of the road to the curb. Her entourage followed, and Oz punched the gas, leaving the group of protesters behind in a cloud of dirt.

Mel and Marty gave a heave and dragged Angie back over Oz’s seat.

“You okay?” Mel asked.

“Yeah,” Angie said. “Sorry, about that. She hit my hot button and I’m already in a bit of a mood.”

Marty gave Mel a look that said “no kidding,” but he wisely did not say this out loud.

They followed the road’s jutted path until they came to a wooden booth built on the side of the road. Tate handed Oz their vendor permit, and the cowboy monitoring the entrance in his ten-gallon straw hat waved them through.

“You want to head over to the food area,” he said. “When the road splits, go to the right.”

They passed several outdoor pavilions and some outbuildings that Mel imagined were for the contestants.

Oz turned right and they found themselves bumping along a grassy path. There were several food vendors already in place, and a woman with a clipboard, who appeared to be in charge, signaled them into a vacant spot.

They climbed out and the woman hurried over.

“Hi, I’m Estelle. You must be the Scottsdale cupcake people that Slim told me about,” she said. “We’re so excited to have you here.”

Tate stepped forward and made the introductions. Estelle stared at Oz’s lip ring for an extra beat, but she quickly glanced away with a nervous smile.

“I just know you’re going to be a huge hit here at the
rodeo,” she said. “Now, I put you in between the barbecue pit and the beverage cart. I know I like something sweet after some pulled pork, and I think it’ll make you an even bigger draw.”

A billow of smoke plumed toward them, and Angie coughed. They all glanced over at their neighbors and saw a sign that read
BILLY BOB’S BBQ
with a cartoon pig in a chef’s hat grinning at them.

“That’s just wrong,” Oz said. “All around wrong.”

Eight

“Why are they firing up the grill now?” Mel asked. “I thought we weren’t open for business until the rodeo started tomorrow.”

“Oh, that’s just their smoker,” Estelle said. “They’ll smoke the meat all night to make sure it’s nice and tasty tomorrow.”

Estelle hurried over to show Oz where to plug in the truck so that they could run the truck’s refrigerator and freezers on an alternate power source.

Mel and Angie made sure the truck was parked with the service window facing out.

“We need some tables and chairs on the side,” Mel said to Tate and Marty. “People need a place to sit when they’re eating.”

“We’ll go scout some,” Tate said.

He and Marty disappeared while Mel and Angie opened the back of the van and dragged out the sandwich board they used in front of the shop in Scottsdale to advertise the special of the day. Angie was the more artistic of the two of them, and she had drawn a luscious cupcake on the board and then listed the prices below it.

“We should put this out where people walking by can see it,” Mel said.

Together they hauled the sign out to the dirt road and opened it up.

“Cupcakes?” a voice asked. “Someone please tell me that’s a joke—a bad one.”

Mel turned around to see two men standing in front of the barbecue pit with their arms folded over their chests, frowning at her. One was tall and thin, clean-shaven, with thick brown hair and bright blue eyes. He was wearing jeans and a fitted white T-shirt with barbecue sauce stains on it. At least, they looked like barbecue sauce stains. It could have been blood, but she didn’t think so.

The shorter of the two was built sturdy and wore a Harley Davidson T-shirt and a long chain that presumably kept his wallet in his back pocket. She certainly hoped it was attached to a wallet and not something more nefarious, such as a Bowie knife. He had long wiry hair held back in a ponytail, and his chin was covered with a thick long beard. Mel could admit that she would be afraid to meet him in a dark alley, and she figured he probably chose to look like this on purpose, obviously compensating for his lack of height by being flat-out scary.

“It’s no joke,” Mel said. She was pleased that her voice sounded calm. “We own a bakery called Fairy Tale Cupcakes, and Slim invited us to come up and work the rodeo.”

“Darlin’, who do you think is going to buy a cupcake when you are situated next to a booth full of meat?” the taller one asked.

Mel felt Angie stomp around the sign to stand beside her. She glanced at Angie’s face. It was set in lines of seriously unhappy.

“Look, Billy Bob,” Angie snapped, but the short one interrupted.

“I’m Billy,” he said. Then he jerked a thumb at his tall companion. “He’s Bob.”

Mel frowned. She wasn’t sure if he was messing with them or not. The tall one didn’t move, so she assumed he wasn’t. Billy and Bob and barbecue—how original.

“Fairy Tale Cupcakes?” Billy laughed and pranced around in a circle, his chain swinging on his hip. In a voice raised high to sound like a woman’s, he said, “Oh, cupcakes are so cute!”

He then clapped his hands together under his chin and simpered at them, obviously mocking them.

“Why, I ought to…” Angie began, but Mel pinched her right above the elbow. “Ow!”

Mel knew Angie was getting ready to unleash her can of whup-ass, and that would make for a very shaky start to the rodeo. No, it was best to beat these two at their own game.

“I propose a little wager,” Mel said. “If you two are so sure that barbecue beats the cupcake, then why don’t you put your reputation where your mouth is?”

The two men exchanged a look. “What do you mean, like a bet?”

“Total sales,” Mel said. “Whoever racks up the most in
total sales at the end of the rodeo wins—and no price gouging allowed.”

“This is gonna be like shooting fish in a barrel!” Billy laughed.

“What does the loser have to do?” Bob asked.

Mel thought about it for a moment. She turned to Angie. “I think I’d really like to see these two handing out cupcakes at the closing ceremonies, wouldn’t you?”

Angie grinned. “In our pink Fairy Tale Cupcake aprons, no less.”

The two men exchanged a look, and Mel thought she saw a tiny bit of fear register in Billy’s eyes, although it was hard to tell through all of his facial hair.

“Okay, but if we win, then you two work the closing ceremonies pulling a shift in the pit, wearing our girls’ uniforms,” Bob said.

Mel glanced over his shoulder to see three young women in Daisy Duke shorts and red plaid halter tops, helping set up the barbecue pit. Oh, good grief!

Bob gave her a slow smile, as if sensing she was too appalled to take the bet. Huh!

“Deal,” she said. She and Bob shook while Angie and Billy tried to out–junkyard dog each other with matching sneers.

Billy and Bob pounded knuckles while they walked away, laughing at Mel and Angie over their shoulders as they went.

“The liberated woman inside of me will shrivel up and die if we have to do that,” Angie warned.

“Tell me about it,” Mel said. She glanced down at her underwhelming frontal anatomy. At least Angie could fill
out the uniform. Mel was going to look as buxom as a celery stalk. “We have to win.”

“Win what?” Tate asked as he and Marty hauled a large plastic table with chairs on top over to the truck.

Mel and Angie exchanged a look. Angie screwed up her face and shook her head, signaling that the bet should be kept on the down-low from Tate. He rarely approved of that sort of thing.

“We have to win…that hole,” Mel said.

“
Caddyshack
?” Tate plopped his end of the table down, and Marty did the same. “Why are you quoting
Caddyshack
?”

“Angie thought she saw a gopher,” Mel said. “It kind of started a whole thing.”

“Oh.” Tate raised one eyebrow and studied her face. Mel opened her eyes wide and smiled back. He frowned. He knew her too well. He wasn’t buying the innocent act.

“Hey, look over there,” Marty said. He pointed over at the barbecue joint. “I’m not positive, but I think those guys are mocking us.”

Mel glanced over to see Billy and Bob making rude gestures at them. They were miming the curvy outlines of a woman with their hands, laughing, then pointing at Mel and making straight lines like a flight attendant demonstrating the aisle in an airplane. She felt her face burn.

“So mature,” Angie huffed in disgust. “I’m going to barbecue the chubby one’s backside, I swear.”

“I’ll go have a little chat with them,” Tate said. “There’s really no call for that.”

“Um, let’s just let it lie,” Mel said. She grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks. “Probably they’re not cupcake
guys, but once the rodeo opens, we’ll all be too busy to heckle one another. Right, Angie?”

Angie was too busy glowering at Billy, who was pointing to his buxom waitress and then pointing to Angie, slapping his knee, and laughing.

“Right, Angie?” Mel repeated.

“What? Huh, yeah, I guess,” she said.

Tate frowned. “Well, okay for now, but if the yahoos don’t settle down, I’m going to have two words for them—ker pow.”

“Yahoos?” Angie asked.

“The other name I had in mind wasn’t very nice,” he explained.

Angie grinned at him, and Tate looked momentarily stunned. Marty gave a grunt of disgust, looking at Tate like he was too stupid to live.

He moved to stand beside Mel and asked under his breath, “How much longer till Dopey screws up the courage to tell her how he feels?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Mel said. “Come on. Let’s lock up the truck and head back to town. I’m hungry and the parade is going to start soon.”

Oz was very reluctant to leave his baby behind. Mel had to promise him that it would be okay, and Estelle, bless her, gave him a solid pep talk about rodeo security. Finally, they all began to walk the dirt road back to town.

By the time they arrived at the Last Chance, they were hot, thirsty, and hungry. The Last Chance bar served food, so Oz was allowed to go in with them and order dinner, which would be delivered upstairs to their rooms.

As soon as the food and drink arrived, Mel took it out on
the balcony and sat at one of the little tables. Angie shared her table while the boys all sat at the table outside their room, with Oz sitting on the floor, since they were short one seat.

There was a hum of excitement in the air as people who had staked out their spots on the square earlier in the day began to position themselves for the parade. The crowd circled the block and was about ten people thick on both sides, with loads of little kids hoisted up onto grown-ups’ shoulders so they could see over people’s heads.

Vendors pushing carts with balloons and stuffed animals worked the crowd, while parents emptied their pockets to maximize the parade experience for their kids. A red, white, and blue balloon drifted up in front of the balcony, followed by a child’s wail of upset. Tate, to his credit, tried to grab it, but it was too far away.

Mel watched it drift up over the town center and out into the surrounding neighborhood until it was no more than a dot. A glance over the rail and she saw the mother of the child tying a new balloon onto the kid’s wrist. The girl’s tears dried up, and her parade experience was saved.

“How big is this parade?” Angie asked through a bite of her burger.

“I don’t know,” Mel said. “Since it kicks off the rodeo, which is the town’s big moneymaker, I’m betting it’s substantial.”

A dull roar from the crowd below caused them all to look down. A float carrying a bevy of beauties was leading the parade. The banner strung across it pronounced it to be for the contestants for the Juniper Pass Rodeo Queen 2012.

Mel and Angie watched as the wannabe queens tossed
out beads and candies to the kids in the crowd. The pretty girls waved, and the kids waved back. All of the girls wore poufy meringue-type gowns with tiaras and elbow-length gloves.

“It’s the tiara,” Angie said to Mel. “It just sucks a girl right into the crazy. I mean, who doesn’t want to wear a tiara?”

“Too true,” Mel agreed. “I know I’d humiliate myself for some bling on my head.”

After the queens came the cowboys from one of the local ranches; then the rodeo clowns arrived in full dress. They pranked the crowd, throwing buckets of confetti and squirting one another with water before zipping off in their tiny car.

A convertible appeared, and sitting on the back of it and waving to the crowd was one of the most handsome men Mel had ever seen.

“Who is
that
?” Mel asked.

She glanced down the balcony to see if anyone knew and noticed that the men were as riveted as Angie.

Marty squinted and then nodded. “Yep, that’s him. Ty Stokes, the greatest bull rider ever to hit the circuit.”