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“What can I get you?” Her voice held a rasp that Ruby liked, the words cradled in a soft Southern lilt.
“Jack and coke.”
Her perfectly arched eyebrow shot up. “Not diet?”
“Hell no,” Ruby said. “I want the real deal.”
“Okay.” The woman got busy with the drink, and after garnishing it with a lime, she handed over the glass.
“Do I know you?” Ruby asked, curious. The woman looked familiar, but she couldn’t place her. She definitely wasn’t a townie.
She didn’t answer right away, and Ruby got the impression she was mulling over her words, deciding how much information she was going to give. And that made Ruby wonder.
“Honey,” she said after a while, her voice even.
“What?” Ruby was confused.
“My name is Honey.”
“For real?” Ruby blushed as the words fell out of her mouth. “Sorry. That sounded rude. My filter seems to have been lost on the golf course.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Honey replied. “I realized about ten minutes after I arrived in this lovely town that my name was going to confuse you folks.”
“I’m Ruby.” She took a sip from her glass, grateful to have something to take her mind off Travis. “Do you have relatives in town?”
Honey’s head jerked up. “Why do you ask that?”
Ruby swirled the amber liquid in her tumbler. “I guess I was just wondering why you would move here from down South is all. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I don’t have any relatives. I pretty much hopped in my car and ended up here by accident.”
“Oh?”
“My car died.”
“Oh. That sucks.” Ruby studied the woman as she got busy cleaning the bar. There was something about her. Her eyes? The voice? “Do you work for the golf club?”
Honey shook her head. “No. I heard some of the organizers talking about this event a few weeks back, and they needed volunteers. When I found out what they were doing with the money raised, I said I’d help out.”
“That’s big of you,” Ruby replied, truly touched by the
woman’s actions.
“Not really. My mother was an addict, so…” She shrugged and moved a few paces away to serve an elderly gentleman holding two empty glasses of wine. When Honey had served the customer, she nodded to Ruby’s near-empty glass.
“No.” Ruby downed the last bit and set the tumbler on the bar. “I have to be good.”
“Being good is overrated.” Honey half smiled as she reached for Ruby’s glass.
It hit Ruby then. She had seen this woman before. “You work at the Coach House.”
Honey nodded. “I do.”
“I used to go there a lot when I was younger.” An image flashed through her mind. Soft summer rain. Dark parking lot. Travis. Skin on skin. Steel against her back. Lips on her neck. Hands between her legs. Music from inside the Coach House drifting on the air.
“When you were younger.” Honey made a face. “When was that, five years ago?”
“More like ten,” Ruby said slowly, eyes moving over the crowd, searching for the one person she shouldn’t be searching for. She found Travis almost immediately. He was sitting with the Bergens and their little boy. Patrick’s head rested against Travis’s chest, and her breath caught when Travis turned his head, a smile meant for the boy, still on his face. Their eyes caught and held until she looked away, throat tight, heart aching.
