Red's Hot Cowboy Page 13

“Whiskey. Jack Black,” Pearl said.

  “Shot for shot? Can I watch?” Austin asked.

  “Sure. You can be the referee,” Pearl said.

  “When?”

  “Tonight. In one of my motel rooms. That way when he passes out he can sleep it off in a room and I can go on to my bed. Colleen says that friends don’t let friends drive drunk.”

  “Oh, no! I’m not leaving my handsome husband’s side to watch you two play king of the shots. Call me tomorrow and tell me how it turns out, and Wil, you have met your match. When it’s over, she’ll be staggering but you’ll be passed out so you won’t know what happened. Pearl, promise me that you won’t paint his toenails while he’s drunk.”

  Pearl frowned. “Ahh, shit, you ain’t supposed to tell what happens if I win.”

  Austin narrowed her eyes into slits. “Promise.”

  “Oh, okay. No blushing pink or red devil fingernail polish. Does that mean I can’t pluck his eyebrows either?”

  Austin nodded. “Or cut his hair or wax your initials in the middle of his chest.”

  “I promise.” Pearl pouted.

  Austin slipped inside the door then poked her head out again, “Or dye his hair?”

  Pearl sighed. “You really must like Wil a lot. You never made me make promises like that before. I promise I will leave him, his body hair, and his fingernails and toenails alone while he is passed out in my motel.”

  How in the world had she gotten herself into a pissing contest with Wil Marshall anyway? She was thirty years old, not twenty-one and barely legal. Come to think of it, that was the last time she got slap drunk and even then she didn’t pass out. She’d rather spend the whole night cuddled up in Wil’s arm under a quilt. Could she change his mind with a few long, sexy kisses?

  Probably not, since the gauntlet had been thrown and Austin even knew about it. Thank God for Lucy! She’d clean the rooms the next morning while Pearl ate aspirin like M&Ms and held her aching head. But she wouldn’t hurt as badly as Wil, and he’d have to go home to the ranch and feed bawling cows, clucking chickens, and listen to Digger howl.

  “You got a bottle of Jack?” he asked.

  “I do. How about you?”

  “I brought one but Rye had one already opened so I left mine in the truck. We can drink it until it’s gone, and if you are still standing then we’ll start on yours.”

  Women who could hold their liquor didn’t appeal to him. He put them in the same basket with low-down trailer trash and pure old hookers. Pearl was neither of those. She was a lady just like her Aunt Pearlita, so why was she acting like that? And had she really, really painted some fool’s toenails while he was passed out? She sounded like a wild party girl instead of the responsible businesswoman who didn’t even want to leave her help in charge of the motel.

  “We don’t have to do this,” he said.

  “You doubting me or you?”

  Deep down she knew better than to play with fire, but suddenly it was imperative that she not stagnate in a world of numbers, classes, and cleaning rooms. She needed the excitement that night of a pissing contest and Wil was not going to win.

  “You think you can win this fight, don’t you?” she asked.

  “I know my ability, but it’s been a long time since I set out to prove that I was better at shots than anyone else, especially a woman. But if you insist on this, I can damn sure show you that I’m the boss,” he said.

  She might have backed down if he hadn’t said “especially a woman.” Those words were like kerosene tossed on an open bonfire. The flash could be seen in her green eyes as clearly as if there had been an explosion right there on the porch swing.

  “I’m thirty years old and tonight I will prove that ‘especially a woman’ is going to make you eat crow.”

  “What in the hell has got your dander up? What did I do wrong?” Wil slid over a few inches. He hadn’t meant to make her angry. Hell, they’d been having a wonderful time until the idea of drinking came up. All the flirting and phone calls had said that she was interested in him, like he was her. Now he was getting mixed signals.

  “You got my dander up, darlin’,” she said sarcastically. Especially a woman, indeed!

  “Don’t call me darlin’ in that tone. It sounds downright dirty. And since you’ve got a burr up your cute little butt, why wait until midnight? Let’s go take care of this right now. Hell, I’ll be home and asleep when the New Year comes in and you’ll be snoring on a bed,” Wil said.

  “Just let me get my coat.”

  “Honey, I’ll get it for you. The dark green one with the gold buttons, right?”

  “Don’t call me honey in that tone. It sounds like you are cussin’ me.”

  Chapter 8

  The parking lot was totally empty when Pearl parked in front of the lobby. Wil nosed his truck in beside her Caddy and waited while she went inside to pick up a room key from Lucy. He should wait until they were in the room, call the whole thing off, and see where a few of those steamy hot kisses would lead.

  She dreaded the contest, but she’d made her brag and now she’d have to pay the fiddler. She had no doubts that she could out-drink Wil Marshall, but she also held no half-assed notions that it would be an easy feat or that tomorrow morning she wouldn’t have a full-fledged head-banging hangover.

  “What are you doin’ home so early? It’s not even nearly midnight yet.” Lucy looked up from the computer. “Guess what? They had a memorial service for me. I’m dead. Cleet had a few words to say about how he couldn’t understand why I’d commit suicide. My sister said it was because I never got over losin’ that baby. Kinda strange, readin’ your own funeral thing from the newspaper.”

  Pearl leaned on the countertop. Whiskey shots could wait a few minutes. “You lost a baby recently?”

  “Not recently. Three months after me and Cleet married. I was sixteen and pregnant. He was twenty. He married me and three months later got drunk and beat me so bad I lost the baby. It was a girl and I was glad she didn’t have to grow up and get whooped on. I made sure there wasn’t no more pregnancies. Cleet didn’t know that I went to the health department and got pills.”

  “You all right?” Pearl asked.

  “I left it all behind me. My family, my momma, all of it. I’m not sorry. Never will be. You want to take over or let me finish up until closing time?”

  “I got a bet goin’ with Wil Marshall. That fool thinks he’s better at shots than I am so we’re going to have a fact-proving test.”

  Lucy’s brow furrowed and she cocked her head to one side. “What are you goin’ to shoot at? Can you do that this close to town? You goin’ to use a rifle or a pistol?”

  Pearl smiled. “Not that kind of shot. Whiskey shots. I told him I’m Irish and I can drink him under the table any day of the week. So I need the key to room two. That way when I get the job done and come on home to my apartment I won’t have to listen to him snoring.”

  “Room two is already full up. We’ve got eight customers in all. They’ve all gone to parties, I guess. They checked in, stayed in their rooms a little while, and then come out and left. I’d take number ten if I was you. It’s on the end and there’s nobody next to it. You really think you can out-drink a man big as him?”

  “I do,” Pearl said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t test your mettle.” Lucy took the number ten key from the pegboard and handed it to Pearl. “Still want me to lock it up?”

  “Yes, and sleep late tomorrow. I’ll help clean rooms since you worked half the night for me.”

  Lucy smiled. “This ain’t work. Cleanin’ rooms ain’t even work. And you are goin’ to have a big headache in the mornin’ even if you do win the bet.”

  Pearl pointed at Lucy. “I’m lucky to have you.”

  Wil got out of the truck when he saw Pearl coming out of the motel lobby. “I was about to go on home. Figured you’d backed out and was just goin’ to leave me sittin’ out here for pure spite.”

  “If I backed out you�
�d win by default. I was talkin’ to Lucy. We’re in room ten. You got the Jack?”

  He held up a brown paper bag, the top twisted around a square bottle. “Never been opened. If we empty this one and you can still stand on your feet, then you can go get yours.”

  “Shot glasses?”

  He held up his left hand. The shot glasses looked tiny in his big hand. “I borrowed two from Austin.”

  She held up the key.

  “Walkin’ or drivin’?” he asked.

  “I reckon we can walk that far. We’ve each only had one beer.” The high heel on her boot slipped off the sidewalk onto the gravel and she had to catch herself on a porch post to keep from falling into him.

  He reached out and grabbed her arm. “You are already a little tipsy on just one beer. I bet you don’t get three shots down before your cute little ass is fried.”

  “Ah, honey, you’ve got a hard lesson to learn,” she whispered.

  All the hair on his neck stood straight up. Her voice was always slightly husky, but when she whispered it was so hot that he wanted to make love to her until dawn rather than drink whiskey with her.

  “Okay then, braggy butt, if you don’t pass out after number three then I’ll take you to dinner next week,” he said.

  She slung the door to the room open and stood to one side. “If I do?”

  “Ladies first.”

  She stepped into the room, peeled off her coat and tossed it on the bed closest to the door, sat down on the other bed, and removed her boots. He put the brown bag and two shot glasses on the small table in the corner and sat down beside her, close enough that she could smell the remnants of Stetson and beer on his breath. He kicked off his boots, removed his coat, and tossed it across hers.

  “If I’m still standing after three shots?” she asked.

  He tipped her chin back and kissed her, teasing her mouth open with his tongue. “Then you can take me to dinner next week.”

  She moved over and sat down in his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and cupped a cheek in each hand. She pulled his lips down to hers in another searing kiss. “If I’m still standing you have to cook dinner for me. Nothing frozen or prepared.”

  “Deal. And if you pass out, you have to cook for me. Nothing frozen. No take-out. From scratch with dessert.” He wrapped his arms around her and slipped a hand under her shirt. Her bare skin was soft as satin sheets and warm on his cold hands.

  She’d never known rough cold hands could cause her skin to sizzle.

  “Deal,” she gasped.

  “Anymore bets or ground rules or do we spit on our knuckles and begin this war?” he asked.

  She kissed him on the cheek as she stood up and straightened her shirt.

  Kissing was finished.

  Battle was beginning.

  She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. “I’ll pour. Only ground rule is that all is fair in chaos and Jack.”

  Wil grinned and took the other chair. “Then let the contest begin. Are we doing doubles or singles?”

  She held up a glass and studied it. “These are made for doubles but let’s do singles. To this line”—she pointed to a rim halfway up the glass with the name of a bar written above it—“should be a single shot. So here goes.”

  She filled the two glasses to the mark and tossed hers back like a gunslinger in an old Western movie. Heat, almost as fiery as what smacked her when she kissed Wil, hit her empty stomach like a blowtorch. The first one was always the hottest. It paved the way for the rest. By the eighth or ninth she wouldn’t even feel the fire.

  Wil threw his back and swallowed. He had an advantage over Pearl that he hadn’t told her. He’d eaten a whole plate full of goodies before she arrived at the party so he was working on a full stomach. Unless she’d eaten half an Angus steer before she left home, she was drinking on an empty stomach. But she’d said all was fair in chaos and Jack so that meant open disclosure wasn’t an issue.

  She refilled the glasses, giving him a few drops more than she put in hers. All was fair in Jack and chaos. His exact words had been to let the contest begin.

  “I’ll drink this one but only if I get to pour from now on. You put a little more in my glass,” he said.

  “All’s fair?”

  “Whoever wins will do it honestly. No cheating.”

  She took the clip out of her hair and let her red ringlets free to fall to shoulder length. “Okay, no cheating is rule one, then. But you didn’t say that in the beginning.”

  His fingers itched to get tangled up in her hair, but more of those kisses in a room with two beds would end the drinking contest and she’d say he cheated. “I’m sayin’ it now.”

  “Then I will not cheat. I don’t break rules. But if there are no rules then I don’t have to follow them. That’s the full mark.” She pointed.

  He nodded and downed his shot. “It’s a shame to be drinkin’ good whiskey like this. Jack is sippin’ whiskey.”

  “Might as well like the taste.”

  She sent her second one down and sure enough, the blazes weren’t nearly as hot. But like always, whiskey had a way of making other things hot; that warm gushy feeling deep down in her gut sent her imagination into overdrive. No fantasy she’d ever come up with while downing shots compared to the real thing called Wil Marshall.

  She poured the third round, making a big show of filling them exactly even, and downed hers before he had time to pick his up. She didn’t feel the fire that time, at least not in her stomach. The rest of her body felt like it was one degree away from combustion, and he didn’t look like he was feeling the liquor at all. She might have met her match after all.

  “Talk to me. Tell me something about yourself. Your momma got red hair like you?” Wil asked.

  “Hell, no! Momma is a blonde and a stereotypical southern belle. I got this red hair from a distant great-grandma. There’s a connection between my dad and some folks up in northern Oklahoma. Little bitty place called Corn. We went there for a couple of family reunions when I was a kid. Have a distant cousin named Sharlene who has red hair just like mine. Kinky curly and unruly. We shared a great-grandma and we were the only two redheads in the bunch.”

  “What happened to her?” Wil asked.

  “She writes romance books and used to own a bar over around Mingus, Texas. That would be east of Mineral Wells. But she fell in love with a carpenter and moved back to Corn. Last I heard she had a couple of kids of her own. The guy she married had custody of a niece and nephew and she adopted them so she’s got a houseful.”

  “She got a temper like yours?”

  “Worse.”

  Wil chuckled and tossed back the next round.

  “Your turn,” Pearl said. “Something about you now?”

  “I like to dance. Want to go over to Mingus to the Honky Tonk sometime for a beer and a dance?”

  “Hey, that’s the place Sharlene owned,” Pearl said.

  “That’s why you look familiar. I saw her one time when me and Ace stopped by there for a cold beer one night after we’d been to a rodeo in Abilene.”

  “Small world,” Pearl said.

  By the eighth round she was still lucid and Wil was getting sexier by the minute. The room got hotter than a hooker in the front row pew of a holiness tent revival in the middle of July in Texas. She removed her lacy shirt.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m not cheatin’. I’m hot,” she said.

  “Liquor, weather, or otherwise?” he asked with a wicked gleam in his eye.

  “All damn three. I think it’s close to time for the countdown on television, ain’t it?” she slurred.

  “Hell, I don’t know. All I know is that you are damn beautiful, Red, and I’d rather be doing something else than showing you I can out-drink you. Let’s have a pissin’ contest that involves sex rather than shots.” His words came out slow and deliberate.

  She grinned. “You are about to lose it, cowboy. That was as romantic as a trip to the outhouse.
”

  He laughed too loudly. “Never was one much for words.”

  She pointed her finger at him. “Don’t tell me that after all the text messages and phone calls. You are getting drunk.”

  “So are you, darlin’. Too bad I don’t take advantage of women when they’re drunk. Pour us another round. Is this nine or ten?” He moved his chair close enough to hers that their shoulders touched.

  “See, you don’t even know how much you’ve had. It’s nine and you’ll be snoring by ten,” she told him.

  He grinned and downed the ninth one, set his glass down with a thump, and took off his shirt, revealing a gauze undershirt and showing muscles she’d only dreamed about. Would she give up before the clock struck midnight and a New Year began? He’d never live it down if he let a woman out-drink him.

  “Ten more bottles of beer on the wall, ten more bottles of beeeer. Take one down, pass it around…” he sang off-key and out of tune.

  It sounded just fine to Pearl. She didn’t care if he sounded like a cross between Alvin of the Chipmunks and a big green bullfrog, as long as he didn’t put his shirt back on. The room was spinning but she wasn’t going to holler calf rope yet. His eyes looked bleary and his head would hit the table before hers did. She eyed the distance to the bathroom and decided she could make it if she was very careful. She’d concentrate on putting one foot ahead of the other and he would not see her stagger. But first they’d have one more round.

  She poured and slopped a little out on the table. “You can have that. I don’t want it.”

  He dipped his finger in it and wiped it on her lips, leaned forward, and licked it off.

  She opened her mouth and grabbed a fist full of dark hair to keep his lips on hers. She was panting when he pulled back.

  He chuckled. “Are you trying to seduce me, lady?”

  “Yes, I am. Is it workin’?” She giggled.

  “Nope. We’ve got a contest here and I can’t be bought.”

  “I’ve got to pee. Is that against the rules?”

  “No, but let’s do one more round and that’ll finish my bottle. You’ll have to get yours, but I’m goin’ with you.”