Daisies in the Canyon(77)

“That’s an old one,” she said. “The way the women are turning around to look at you, I think you might be the trouble who just walked in the door.”

Cooper grabbed her hand and twirled her around right there on the porch. “Tiny Lee keeps a few current ones, but he likes the old stuff best and no one argues with him.”

“Hey, Coop, that don’t look a thing like the redhead you brought in here last night,” the enormous man behind the bar yelled.

“Who was the redhead?” she asked.

“Tiny’s teasing. I was with you eating ice cream on my front porch, remember,” Cooper said.

Tiny Lee motioned them toward the bar. “You bring her on over here and introduce her proper, or else I’ll get the gun out and chase your sorry ass out of my honky-tonk.”

Cooper draped his arm around Abby’s shoulder and led her to the bar. “Tiny Lee, this is Abby Malloy. Abby, meet Tiny Lee, the owner of this fine establishment.”

Tiny Lee extended a hand as big as a ham with fingers like sausages across the bar and shook hands with Abby. “Truth is, Miz Abby, that I’m glad to see Coop with a woman. He’s been runnin’ single too long. And any kid of Ezra’s is welcome in my bar. He was a salty old bastard, but he was honest and paid his bills. He could dance the boot leather off half the women in the canyon without breakin’ a sweat.”

“Thank you,” Abby said.

“First drink is on the house. What will it be? You have to belong to Martha, the first wife, because you look just like her. What’s the other two girls look like?”

“Coors, longneck in the bottle,” she said. “Shiloh and Bonnie seem to look like their mamas, but I understand we all got Ezra’s blue eyes and stubborn streak.”

“God save the canyon.” Tiny Lee rolled his eyes as he wiped the chilly water from a beer and set it on the counter. “And what are you drinkin’, Coop?”

“The same,” he said.

Tiny Lee leaned over the bar and whispered. “He’s a good man, but if you want a man with a steady income who’ll appreciate you, then you need to flirt with me.”

“I’ll remember that.” Abby grinned.

“I see an empty table. Let’s go claim it and then hit the dance floor. And Tiny Lee, you stop trying to beat my time or I’ll take your sorry old ass into the county jail for serving beer to minors,” Cooper said.

Tiny Lee threw back his head and laughed. A man that size should have laughed like a biker or a trucker, but his laughter was as high-pitched as a little girl’s.

Cooper took Abby’s hand and wove his way through the people until they were at an empty table for four. Before they could set their beers down, Nona, Travis, and Waylon joined them. Nona counted chairs and sat down in Travis’s lap.

“Abby, it’s good to see you again. Where’s the other two sisters?”

“Shiloh and Bonnie might be along in a little while. Nice to see you all again,” Abby said. “This cowboy right here has promised me a bunch of dances. Miz Nona, you are welcome to my chair.”

“I kind of like the one I have right here. A cowboy that promises a woman a bunch of dances means he’s gettin’ the brand heated up,” Nona said.

“I hope not,” Abby said.

Luke Bryan’s voice singing “Drunk on You” came through the jukebox and Cooper had not been lying when he said he could dance. But something was wrong. He was executing a fine fast two-step, but he wouldn’t look at her.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“Yes, we do. You go first,” he said.

“We need to talk about protection,” she said.

“I can’t hear you over the music. Did you say election?”

She raised her voice. “Protection.”

“As in a bodyguard or as in mosquito spray or . . .”

The song ended at the same time she blurted out in a loud voice, “As in sex.”

The whole bar went quiet and she could hear Tiny Lee’s girly giggles in the background. Thank goodness no one made a comment, and the next song on the jukebox brought the people onto the floor for a noisy line dance. Her face turned scarlet and she threw her hand up to her mouth.

“Shit!” she muttered.

Cooper picked up her hand and led to the far end of the bar. He twirled the stools around so that they were facing each other, dropped her hand, and stared at her without looking into her eyes. She’d seen amusement, laughter, and a multitude of other emotions in Cooper’s dark brown eyes, but never the anger that flashed right then. With only a little imagination she could see steam coming out his ears.

“I assumed you were on the pill,” he said.

She shook her head. “Prescription ran out a couple of months ago. I knew I was getting out of the service, so I didn’t get another one.”

“Then you could possibly be . . .” The sentence trailed off.

She nodded. “But not likely. I should have been . . .”

He put a finger over her lips. “I would marry you, Abby.”

She didn’t want a man to marry her because she was pregnant and she damn sure didn’t want to marry one who was so mad he couldn’t even look at her. Her mother had raised a child alone and she could do it, too. Today’s world didn’t tar and feather a woman for getting pregnant before she was married.