Wrangled and Tangled (14 page)

Tilda seemed really impressed with Vivien’s date. Tierney wondered how long it’d been since Tilda had a date.

Maybe you should think about how long it’s been since
you’ve
had a date.

“At least somebody’s dating. I don’t remember the last time I saw a live penis,” Garnet complained.

Maybelle whapped Garnet on the knee again. “You saw several last week when we went to the ‘Crash with the Past’ all male revue in Casper, smarty.” Maybelle confessed in a loud whisper, “It was research for an article I’m writing for the
Gazette
.”

Tierney grinned.

“Oh, them penises don’t count,” Garnet scoffed. “Them penises were in captivity. I was guaranteed to see at least one when we shelled out for the show. That’s not like finding a penis out there in the wild. Where at the end of the night when that zipper comes down you discover if he’s hung like a horse or just dangling a worm.”

“I’ll bet Tierney dates a lot,” Pearl said, interrupting Garnet’s musings on penises.

“Not a single date in the time I’ve been here.”

“But you’ve been asked out, right?” Maybelle pressed.

She shook her head.

Silence. Exchanged looks. More silence.

Great. These seventy- and eighty-something women pitied her.
Her.
A woman in the prime of her dating life. A woman who’d seen exactly one live penis out of captivity in her twenty-six years—and only recently by accident.

Now she pitied herself too.

“Girl,
you
oughta start askin’ guys out. Hit Buckeye Joe’s. Flirt a little. Dance a little. Drink a little. Have some fun!”

Vivien squeezed Tierney’s knee. “Don’t put off living the life you want, waiting for the ‘right time’—the right time is now.”

Garnet added, “I bet if you loosened up you’d get to see a lot of different penises.”

“Garnet, can you head to the dryers?” Bernice called out.

Tilda tottered by, snagging a silver fox fur coat from a rack that’d been fashioned out of animal horns. After Tilda paid and admired her hairdo in the big mirror behind the cash register, she turned and addressed Pearl, Maybelle and Vivien. “You’re coming over at five?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for nothin’,” Pearl replied. “Don’t forget the nondairy whipped cream for the pie. Milk gives me gas.”

Bernice shut the cash drawer and stopped in front of Tierney. “You’re next.”

“But what about her?” Garnet’s mouth hung open and she appeared to already be asleep beneath the hair dryer. “Is she okay?”

“The white noise resets her brain, and after the penis discussion, we all needed our brains reset.”

Tierney ditched her glasses and followed Bernice to the rinse bowl, allowing herself to relax as her head was massaged.

Back in the chair, Bernice combed out her wet locks. “So just a trim?”

“Yes, please.”

Bernice paused. “Look, Tierney, I don’t know you, and maybe it’s none of my business, but how long have you worn your hair in this style?”

“Since . . . well, since always. Why? Do I have split ends?”

“No, sugar, you have such pretty hair. Usually this beautiful sable color only comes out of a bottle. I’d like to showcase it in a style that is more age appropriate.”

She didn’t know what to say. Her hair was brown. It’d always been . . . just boring brown. “But I don’t have time to fuss with my hair. I keep it one length because it’s easy.”

“If I could give you a style that’s easy, but will make you look like the hot, young executive you are, would you be willing to try it?”

“It’d still need to be long enough to pull back in a ponytail.”

“I was thinking long layers.”

“Nothing I’d have to straighten or curl?” she asked skeptically.

“I have a cut in mind that’ll allow you to go right from the shower, to putting product in, to a little finger fluffing and . . . hello gorgeous.”

Tierney squinted at herself in the mirror, not that she could see anything without her glasses. It was only hair, right? And if Bernice did a hack job, well, she could wear it back and no one would probably notice. She inhaled a deep breath. “Let’s do it.”

Snip snip snip
. Chunks of dark hair started to fall around her. She closed her eyes and mentally chanted,
it’s just hair
.

An eternity later, Bernice said, “Put your glasses on and have a look-see.”

Quelling her nerves, Tierney slowly lifted her head. Her mouth dropped open. Holy cow. The person staring back at her in the mirror . . . looked like her. But a better version of her. Hipper. Younger, yet more polished.

“Well? You like it?” Bernice prompted.

“I love it!” She angled her face side to side. Her hair was so swingy. So shiny. So . . . cool.

“Check out the back.” Bernice spun her and handed her a small mirror.

It even looked great from behind. “It’s perfect. Thank you so much!”

“My pleasure. I will caution you this type of precision cut requires maintenance. You’ll need to come in for a trim every four weeks.”

“On top of being a magician, you’re a shrewd business woman. I admire that.”

Bernice grinned. “I haven’t even pitched the styling products you’ll need yet.”

“I’ll buy them all if I can look this good every day.”

As soon as Bernice swept up the hair, Vivien, Pearl, and Maybelle surrounded her.

“You look fabulous,” Vivien gushed.

“Sophisticated,” Maybelle added. “Perfect for a financial overseer.”

“Girl, you look hot,” Garnet yelled. “You’d better slip on sexy duds to match your smokin’ new look, because when the men in this town get an eyeful of you? You’ll have more penises to choose from than you can shake a stick at.”

Tierney laughed. “And to think I’m finally getting what I always wanted—a plethora of penises.”

She decided to take their advice as soon as she got back to her cabin, taking her time to get ready and playing with her new look.

Her eyes watered like a fountain and she blinked repeatedly at the reminder of why she rarely wore contact lenses. She smudged black eyeliner along her top and bottom lashes. A shiny berry-colored stain gave her lips the illusion of plumpness. A darker shade of blush emphasized her cheekbones. She used concealer to cover up the dents on her nose from her glasses. She adjusted the low-cut peasant blouse with swirls of orange and brown. Harper insisted the vivid pattern would showcase Tierney’s coloring, and once again, she’d been dead on. Turning sideways, she scrutinized her new Western jeans. The dark denim was tighter than she normally wore. Hopefully she could hook a cowboy and entice him into taking her for a ride.

Don’t you mean take you on your maiden voyage?

Tierney shoved that niggling thought aside, refusing to put pressure on herself tonight. It’d happen when it happened. Still, she checked the expiration date on her unopened box of condoms just in case. She slipped on the four-inch lace-up half boots, grabbed her keys, and went honky-tonking.

Whatever that meant.

Chapter Thirteen

R
enner flicked a glance at the brunette as she breezed past him. He’d hidden in the corner at Buckeye Joe’s with a Crown and water, which sat mostly untouched. Not in the mood to drink, he’d just needed a break from the resort for a little while.

He snorted. Resort. Even he’d started calling it that, instead of the term “ranch” he preferred.

Just another thing he blamed on Tierney.

Her perfectly polite smackdown still stung.
Dividing is not conquering, Renner. All we’re doing is pitting our employees against each other by expecting them to choose sides between you and me. Can’t we just try to get along for the greater good? Managerial infighting isn’t the way to do that.

And what words of wisdom had he lobbed back at her?

He’d insulted her. Talk about mature. Now here he was, brooding in the corner. He let his hat shadow his face, trying to look like just another anonymous cowboy drowning his sorrows.

His wishful thinking lasted about five minutes.

“Jackson? What’re you doin’ here?”

Sheriff Bullard’s belt was at Renner’s eye level. He glanced at the sidearm strapped on the right side, and his eyes traveled up Bullard’s rotund torso. The gray-haired man had been the law around here for over twenty years and had that “fess up” vibe down pat. “You cruising through hopin’ to bust underage drinkers?”

“Yep. Susan is good at tossing them sneaky suckers out, but she don’t got eyes in the back of her head. I’m just doin’ a run-through ’fore I get on home.”

“I’ll buy you a drink if you’re off the clock.”

Bullard waggled the Styrofoam coffee cup. “Got mine right here. But I’ll join ya for a bit, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Have a seat.”

The sheriff pulled out the chair, tossed his hat on the table and swallowed a slug of coffee before he spoke. “How’re things up at the Split Rock?”

Renner shrugged. “Good. I’d be happier if all the rooms were full every night, but we still don’t have the staff to handle that, so I’m grateful for what we’ve got.”

“Slow and steady wins the race, eh?”

“I suppose so.” Renner sipped his drink. “Any complaints from the locals?”

“Nah. You must have a good crew ’cause I’ve heard no grumbling at all.”

“That would be Janie Fitzhugh’s doing.”

Bullard frowned again. “She’s Abe Lawson’s ex-wife.”

Renner knew that term grated on Janie. “Any new information on the vehicle that ran her off the road?”

“None. It’s the damndest thing. Stuff like that don’t happen around here.”

“Unless it was someone who’d been drinking and didn’t wanna face the music.”

The sheriff harrumphed. “Abe’s just damn lucky he came upon the accident so fast on that remote section of road. Coulda been a whole lot worse.”

“True.” Rather than make idle chitchat, Renner seized the opportunity to talk to Bullard without an audience. “When I was talkin’ to Abe last year, he mentioned something about the tract of land I purchased bein’ bad luck land.”

“You’re talkin’ about the section that used to belong to your grandparents?”

Renner nodded. “Without sounding all woo-woo and shit, Janie’s accident happened alongside that land. And Willie, our jack-of-all-trades, says he gets a bad vibe.”

“And?”

“And I understand some nasty stuff has gone down with people who’ve bought that land over the years. It’s changed hands, what, half a dozen times since my grandparents owned it?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So, no one in my family has ever told me what happened when my grandfather died. I’ve heard ‘accident’ and the subject was changed. I understand them not telling me the truth when I was a boy, but them days are long gone.”

Bullard eased back and stretched his arm along the back of the chair beside him. “You asking me what happened?”

Renner met the man’s hard gaze head on. “Yes. I am.”

“Why don’t you tell me what your family has told you.”

“Grandpa was out checking cattle. His horse threw him, and he broke his neck. By the time Grandma found him, he was dead.” He paused. “No disrespect to my late grandma, but the hushed tone whenever this was brought up, gave me the feeling family members suspected she’d somehow... killed him.”

Bullard’s frown morphed into a smile. “Son, is that what’s been eatin’ at you? The fear that sweet Rona Harking might’ve offed her husband?”

“Maybe.”

“We had considered that angle, given the circumstances. But I suspect your family didn’t talk about it simply because it upset your grandma. She got a mite . . . hysterical after she found your granddad. Took a tranq to calm her down after we loaded the body for transport. Anyway, the coroner ruled it ‘death by misadventure’ which comes back to your original question of it bein’ bad luck land.”

“Do you believe it is?”

“Yep. But I’m Crow Indian, so I believe a lot of stuff others don’t.”

Almost word for word what Willie had said, but neither had given him a concrete way to deal with it. “Great. I don’t suppose you have any Crow Indian good luck charms I could borrow to ward off bad juju?”

“Nope. But there are options when you’re ready to hear them.” Bullard jammed his hat on his head and stood. Pointed at Renner’s drink. “I don’t gotta remind you about finding a DD if you decide to have more of those, do I?”

“No, sir.”

“Good enough. See ya around, Jackson.”

Renner was melancholy after Sheriff Bullard left. Lost in thoughts about destiny. Loneliness. Luck. Signs. Family.

The summer he and his dad moved to Kansas, Renner had started working for his dad’s oldest friend, Bostwick “Boz” Sheffield, as a hired hand in Boz’s livestock business. Renner had been a scrawny twelve-year-old, a wannabe cowboy who’d honed his charm simply because he knew it worked on girls, teachers, coaches, friends.