“Great.”
Malcolm got to work digging through the mud to the pipe, which was shallow buried and easy to find. He waved hello to the other ranch hands who passed on their way to daily chores, friendly with everyone who worked here so far. He was wiping his dirty hands on a rag when Jake trotted over.
“Hey, man,” Jake said. “I didn’t expect to see you up here today.”
“Didn’t expect to be here today.”
“How’s Howie doing? Any updates?”
“Not really. Holding on and grumpy about it, but I think he’s happy to have Iggy back in town.”
“That’s right, you picked up his nephew at the airport. What’s he like?”
Malcolm didn’t have the time, and this wasn’t the place to say everything he could say about Iggy Donohue. And Jake didn’t know anything about the full history of Malcolm and Iggy’s high school relationship. “He’s a professional bartender, if you can believe that, and he helped out at the saloon last night.”
“Really?” Jake crossed his arms. “He going to stick around?”
“Dunno.” He had the pipe clear and needed to turn the water back on. Jesse had wandered off to speak to another ranch hand at the far end of the fence, but Malcolm didn’t want to get Jake in trouble if he had other chores to get to. “You got some free time?”
“A little time, yeah.”
“Cool. The main water valve is in the barn. Turn the water on for me, and then I’ll tell you what Iggy can do with a bottle of Malibu.”
Jake tossed him an intrigued look over his shoulder as he turned toward the barn. “Are we talking drink mixers or something kinky?”
“Go hit the valve and you’ll find out.” Malcolm smirked as Jake scooted off, grateful for his friend, but uncertain what he was ready to tell him. Now was not the time or place, especially when he had so much to sort out with Iggy. But he could definitely tell Jake about Iggy’s bottle flipping tricks, which would be making the gossip rounds by noon today anyway.
The rest about Iggy…those were secrets for another day.
Chapter
Six
“You better put on a show, honey, because they aren’t here to see me,” Laurel shouted into Iggy’s ear while Charlie Daniels beat the devil with his fiddle, and a crowd of folks on the dance floor tried to keep up with a fast-footed dance he’d never attempted, not even in his drunkest moments.
Put Iggy on a dance floor with good EDM and he could burn it up with the best of them, but those Coyote Ugly moves were beyond his booted feet’s comprehension.
“The show’s out there,” Iggy shouted back as he poured three Cosmos from his shaker, perfectly filling each glass without spilling a drop.
“Not the dancing, that magic you do with your bottles.” Laurel reached past him for a lime twist garnish. “There’s nothing this town likes better than gossip, and you and Howie are the hot topics right now. People wanna see what you did last night.”
“Yeah, we do,” someone said. Iggy had served the girl a chocolate martini a while ago, after digging up a somewhat dusty bottle of chocolate liqueur. He’d figured out pretty fast last night that the Saddle Up was not known for serving fancy drinks,based on what was in the well, and what was collecting dust on high shelves. Nothing was contaminated or discolored, but he still wanted to compare Uncle Howie’s purchase orders with the inventory to see what needed to be replaced with fresh stock.
So far tonight, a handful of people had asked Iggy to surprise them with a cocktail they’d maybe never heard of, and Iggy had enjoyed digging into his training. He’d save his personal recipes for another time, if Uncle Howie allowed him to do the occasional special. Right now, Iggy was filling in, keeping the money rolling in so they could afford whatever bills the hospital slapped them with. He wasn’t here to change how the place was run.
Didn’t mean he couldn’t bring a little personal flair while he worked.
When a customer ordered a SoCo and lime, Iggy did a few flips with the quarter-full bottle, which earned him some cheers and a hearty tip. The flair always worked best with college students, whose brains were still cooking and absorbing, and who found aerodynamic alcohol the coolest thing ever.
This was not a college crowd, but itwasa generally rural crowd, and he enjoyed showing them something new. Demonstrating that different didn’t mean scary or bad.
It was eight o’clock on a Friday night, and the dining area was still hopping, so Iggy took a turn on the service well, filling orders for folks still eating at tables on the other side of the flowing dance floor. Charlie Daniels had been taken over by Hank Williams, and the dancing had changed a bit, as had some of the dancers. As he placed a pitcher of Coors by its ticket for service, a familiar figure caught his eye.
Malcolm was out on the dance floor, spinning a woman with dark brown hair whose smile would have lit up the room if Malcolm’s wasn’t brighter.
Or maybe Iggy was biased.
The woman seemed familiar, and Malcolm wasn’t dancing intimately, so even if Iggy didn’t know Malcolm was gay, he wouldn’t have pegged them as together. Just dancing and having fun with everyone else out there.
