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“Yeah, but I’m paying this time,” she demanded.
“Okay, sounds fair.”
She headed off to the bedroom to change out of her dirty t-shirt and the doorbell rang.
“Could you get it?” she called out from behind the closed door. “My purse is on the counter.”
“No problem,” he called out, picking up her purse. He opened it and reached in, but didn’t come up with her wallet on the first try. Instead he found a snub nose .38. He turned it over and examined it. The doorbell rang again. “Just a second!” he called loudly. He put it back, opened her wallet, and took out some cash.
He paid the boy and set the food and the change on the counter. Abby came back out in a new, slightly better fitting shirt. “What did we get this time?” she asked. “It smells awesome!” She laid out a towel on the floor.
Tex brought over the bags. “What do you need a gun for?”
Abby looked up at him. “You didn’t rob the delivery boy with it, did you? Because I love that place and I’m pretty sure they won’t deliver here anymore if you point a gun at them.”
“Nah. I put it back. But why do you need it?”
“I probably don’t here. But Vegas is Vegas and I’m used to carrying it around.”
“You take a class?”
She gave him a pointed look. “Yes, Dad. And I practice every month at a range. And I keep the safety on. And I don’t talk to strangers even when they have candy or puppies, which are two of my really big weaknesses, I’ll have you know. So if a guy has both, I’m fucked.”
Tex laughed and took a bite of Kung Pao. “There’s a good range off Catron boulevard.”
She nodded. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out over the weekend.”
“Do you have a bed?” he asked her suddenly. Her eyes widened in surprised. “I mean, you don’t have anything else and I don’t know if you sleeping on the floor to feed your classic car addiction is going to be a great idea long term.” Frankly, he did find it a little odd that she’d choose a project car over, well, anything.
“Yeah,” she said, shifting a little uncomfortably. “I’m not that crazy. The bedroom’s actually totally done,” she said, sounding a little defensive. “It’s the room I spend the most time in so I started with that one. I just want to finish one room at a time.”
He nodded remembering she was ‘vigilantly organized.’ “Are you gonna paint?”
“No. It’s just a rental. Only for six months. I wanted to get a feel for the city before I chose a permanent neighborhood.”
“Good thinking,” he told her, and it was. It was exactly what he would do. Choose a short term place and look around.
“I don’t want to go crazy buying a bunch of stuff for this place just to move it all out again. Especially since I don’t know the layout of whatever place I might get in the future. I’m just sticking to the basics, here. I only need a bed, a dresser, a couch, and a garage for my car.”
He grinned. “Girl’s gotta have priorities.”
“Exactly.”
Tex dug into his Kung Pao. Abby seemed a little young sometimes, but she was smart and independent and knew exactly what she wanted and how to go about getting it. And she’d been working her ass off for damn near ten years to make it happen. She had a plan for everything and he wondered if she had an idea about bringing a man into her life. She hadn’t mentioned it. He figured she was probably too focused on her career and her hobby.
She was a little too well hidden in her non-descript clothes and he wondered if it was her size that made her self conscious. She wasn’t stick-thin, that was for sure, but she wasn’t fat by any means. She was tall, too, and maybe that intimidated a lot of men. Tex himself was 6’2” so it didn’t bother him. He could tell she had a very decent sized chest and a nice ass, but she never called attention to either of them. He wondered what was underneath all that fabric.
“You should come to Maria’s on Friday night,” he said. “The guys will be there. Slick’ll be there, too, but she’ll be working. You should get out of here once in a while.”
She looked like she was actually considering it. “I might. Thanks.”
“It can get a little rowdy on the weekends,” he told her. “But then again, you’re from Vegas, so somehow I’m pretty confident you can handle it.”
“Yeah,” she said smiling into her House Special Fried Rice. “After the Strip, Friday nights at Maria’s sounds like a day care.”
He smiled. He loved her sense of humor.
CHAPTER FIVE
Friday should have been a work day to look forward to, but Abby was frowning at the check-in screen in front of her. She’d only been at the Custer for a few weeks and she couldn’t possibly have increased its overall performance in such a short amount of time, but neither had she been made aware that the hotel was in such dire straights. Even at off-peak season, this week’s bookings were dismally low. As were last week’s and the week’s before that, according to the reports she’d generated onscreen.
