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He took off his Stetson and put it on her head. “Ask me again.”
“What are you doing in town?”
He took his time about looking at her face before he finally nodded, twice, slow. “Didn’t you see?”
“Nope. You started bellering at me just as I got a good look through that window. Scared me so bad I almost dropped my flashlight.” She looked at him, looked close, just as he’d done to her. Her eyes had finally adjusted, so she could see the cut of his jaw. It was a really nice jaw, wide and square, although at the moment it was set a little tightly for her taste.
“Can I buy you a drink, Vidalia Brand?”
“Corral’s closed.”
“I know.” He took her by the elbow and led her toward the front of the place. Then he unzipped a doorway in the canvas and led her through, and then through a great big set of double arching doors behind it.
The entryway was huge, with coatracks and benches, and dead center, a set of batwing doors that put her own to shame, their wood all tooled and then the cuts painted gold. Some would call it elaborate. She would call it gaudy.
That was when she knew she’d been right. And he left her for a moment, and went through them. Flipping a switch, he flooded the place with light.
Vidalia pushed through the swinging doors and took a long, slow look around. There were round tables, antiqued to look old. There were chandeliers made out of elk racks. There was a three sided hardwood bar three times as long as the one in the OK Corral, with high standing saddle shaped seats all the way around. It was backed by a mirror the entire length of it, behind racks and shelves for bottles and glasses and pitchers. There was a pizza slice shaped stage at the front right corner of the place, a dance floor the size of a basketball court. Half of one anyway. And the coolest mechanical bull over in the corner.
And beside the stage, a player piano. It looked like an antique, not a replica. Wow.
She didn’t know whether to tell him how amazing the place was or kick the man where he would know he’d been kicked.
Instead, she turned and looked up and right into his eyes, put her hands on her hips and tapped one foot, awaiting his explanation.
* * *
Bobby couldn’t think straight with Vidalia’s big brown eyes looking up into his. Her expression was probably supposed to be fierce, but all he wanted to do was kiss it right off her pretty face. God, he’d missed her, ached for her, though he’d buried it so deep it had just become a vague sense of dissatisfaction with everything in his life. His marriage, his sons, his wealth. No matter how much he did, it was never enough to fill the hole she’d left in his heart.
“It’s...a saloon,” he said.
“I canseeit’s a saloon,” she replied. “Of sorts.”
“I’m calling it The Long Branch.”
“No one under fifty even remembersGunsmokeanymore, Bobby.”
“That makes it even better. A little obscure. The kind of thing the kids will Google.”
“It’s a second saloon in a one-saloon town. You came here to put me out of business.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Hell, come ‘ere.” He walked her across the big dance floor toward the stage. There were red velvet curtains on either side of it, held back by golden cords. “The OK Corral is a place for the locals, where they can relax and drink and get some bar food at great prices. You agree with that description?”
She pursed her lips, lowered her head, saying nothing, not giving him an inch.
“The Long Branch is more of a tourist attraction.”
“We don’t have tourism in Big Falls. Has it really been so long you don’t know that?”
“They have tourism in Tucker Lake, and that’s only a few miles east. And there are a half dozen Ghost Towns within a seventy-mile radius, all of them doing steady business. This is gonna become a regular stop for those same tourists. It’ll bring business to everyone in Big Falls, you included. We’re gonna have floor shows, waitresses dressed as saloon girls. Every now and then we’ll have some actors come in and shoot the place up, then be rounded up and arrested by a Marshall Dillon type. Lots of special effects to make it seem real. You know how some places do mystery dinners? We’ll be doing Dime Novel dinners. And I mean full dinners, with a well-staffed kitchen and one of the best chefs in the state. Here, take a look at the menu.” He took hold of her arm, but she tugged it away as he led her back to the bar. He walked around behind it, plucked a menu from a stack, and set it, open, in front of her.
She sighed, but slid up onto a saddle shaped barstool and looked down at the menu. Then she blinked slow and looked up at him again. “I can’t really–”
“Here. Use mine.” He’d already had his bifocals in hand, and he set them on top of the menu.
She picked them up, red in the cheeks—which was a good look on her, he thought. Then she put them on and looked at the menu. He did too. And he didn’t need his glasses, because he knew it by heart. Cowboy burgers. Six-gun steaks. Great big racks of ribs with the sweetest, tangiest barbecue sauce he’d ever tasted. Fried chicken. Mashed potatoes and gravy. It was old fashioned food, stick to the ribs food. Cowboy food. Food they didn’t serve far and wide anymore. But prepared by a gourmet chef with prices befitting his skill.
She shifted her eyes a little, then they widened. “Your prices are on the uppity side, don’t you think?”
