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Kate didn’t miss a beat. “Because I’m horny for some country boy ass, and your hoo-ha is so decrepit bats are starting to fly out of it.” That was Kate - subtle and about as ladylike as a sumo wrestler.
She took a deep breath and prepared to enter the bar. She might as well do this so that Kate could get her fix, Maggie could go back to the hotel, and everyone would be happy. She had a crucial meeting on Monday, and she needed to make sure that she was ready. The last place that she wanted to be was at a country and western bar on the outskirts of Ocala, Florida two days before the most important interview of her life.
Maggie r
olled her eyes, but the action was lost on her companion. Kate grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled her into a wide entryway. They stopped again, she dropped Maggie’s arm, put her hands on her hips, and looked around speculatively.
“As Maverick would say, Goose, this is a target-rich environment.” Kate’s voice didn’t lose any of its volume. “Shall we break into song?”
Maggie pinched the inside of Kate’s upper arm like she used to do in church with Mark. “Don’t you even think it.” She hissed.
There was a lull as Dierks woke up in the airport, and Kate’s voice rang in the entryway. Several heads turned and several male faces grinned. Kate had that effect. There were more than likely several not-so-friendly looks sent their way from the female occupants. Unfortunately, Kate tended to have that effect as well.
Maggie looked around. If it was empty, the room would be cavernous. The ceiling was towering, with exposed pipes and beams, neon signs hanging everywhere. The entire back half of the building was taken up with a bandstand, a dance floor that was close to the size of a basketball court, and a roped-off area with, of all things, a mechanical bull. A curved wooden bar with ladder back stools ran the length of one wall to the dance floor, the wall behind it covered with mirrors and shelves of bottles. High top tables with more stools dotted the remainder of the floor. A vintage jukebox that to Maggie's antique-loving eye must have been worth a small fortune was against the front wall next to the double wood entry doors.
She thought back to Tennessee and the bars that littered every town, large and small. Outside of Nashville, none of them looked like this. She followed Kate, who headed to one of the few empty tables in an alcove close to the dance floor. They hadn’t even settled on the high-backed stools before a waitress was there. She plopped a bowl of popcorn on the table, took their drink orders without writing anything down, and turned toward the bar.
To say that Maggie Robertson did not want to be where she was could be the understatement of the year. Nothing about bars or nightclubs or dating sites appealed to her in the least. She was nearly forty years old, and she would rather be alone than participate in the combination feeding frenzy and cattle call that was modern dating. She was a widow with a twenty-one-year-old son and had been a single mother since she was twenty-six. With a child to support and raise she hadn’t had the time nor the inclination to deal with male games and male egos.
She had slept with precisely two men since her husband was killed in Afghanistan. Both had been nice men with nice moves and nice manners. Neither had given her an orgasm or a reason to keep up the relationships. Now she lived as she liked and paid little attention to the opposite gender. If all went well, she would be starting a new chapter very soon. When loneliness did manage to break through her efforts, she watched a movie or read a book and lost herself in the lives of people who were luckier in romance.
A tall man in jeans that were creased down the front and a cowboy hat that had never seen the light of the sun had Kate out on the dance floor before their drinks arrived. He didn’t even spare Maggie a glance. She knew, based on previous experience, that she was not likely to be fending them off until much nearer to closing time. Her brown hair, average body, and pleasant but unremarkable face was not the dude magnet that her friend’s bombshell vibe was, and for that she was thankful. There were worse things in life. She settled in with a bottle of Corona that she would nurse for a couple of hours and prayed that no Hank Williams Jr. was on the jukebox or the band’s playlist.
She was forty-five minutes in, and Kate had returned to the table exactly once to chug half of her beer when he walked in.
Christ, he hated bachelor parties.
Even low-key ones like this trip with four of the men who worked with him. Logan Pressley was not a social creature. People, in general, irritated the fuck out of him, and drunk people were some of the worst. In his forty-five years on the planet, he had grown up with rich ones and fought alongside poor ones. In his profession, he had born witness to the depravity in which they could all exist. He had a front-row seat to the hate they made no effort to control, and he was simply tired of most of them.
There were a small few that he did care about, though, and these four men were part of that group. He knew each of them well, trusted them, and respected them. The fact that he would soon be their boss had no real bearing on the outing tonight. One of them had found happiness and in the general clusterfuck of life, that should be celebrated.
He had been to The Barn before, so he knew pretty much what to expect. Thank God none of the men were the strip club type. Of course, if they were, they wouldn’t have been in this group. He would get a beer or two, shoot a game or three of pool, then pour them into his extended cab and call it a night. If he was lucky, no buzzed-up Florida cowgirl would become a nuisance and he wouldn’t have to be a dick. Just because he knew how to dance did not mean that he did dance and accepting a female’s advances when he had no intention of following up was never wise.
By silent agreement, they stopped at the end of the bar. Jasper, the groom-to-be, paid for a round of bottles and Logan told the bartender to start a tab for them in his name. They headed further into the space toward an empty table in a corner. The stools that had most likely started four to a table were by now scattered and the table they headed toward had only three stools pulled up to it. Logan looked around. The table closest to theirs had several empty chairs but only one woman seated there and only one bottle on the table. He took a step towards it.
He didn’t want to give off the wrong vibe, so he spoke before he stopped moving. “Mind if I take a couple of these?” He indicated the stools, then raised his gaze to the woman.
First impression was that she seemed relieved that his question had been about the stools. He looked into her eyes and held them for longer than was warranted. He saw relief and a faint smile cross her face before she spoke. She had a dimple in each cheek. Cute. Damn cute.
“Sure. Take them both.” She smiled again and the dimples made a longer appearance. He took his time moving the stools, swinging them around, one in each hand. He returned the smile without considering what he might be inviting because those damn dimples were ridiculously cute.
“Thanks.” They held eyes for more seconds than was necessary. He couldn’t tell the color of hers, but they looked dark. He liked the way her hair fell in straight sheets past her shoulders.
Okay, time to stop ogling the woman. He needed to get out more if a smile and some eye contact was going to have that much of an effect on him. She smiled at him again, a small smile, and dropped her eyes from his. A dismissal, of sorts, he surmised. He should be relieved. He wasn’t, exactly, but he should be. He didn't question why he took the seat nearest to the woman's table, so near that he could have reached out an arm and touched her.
Twenty minutes later, a tall blonde meandered to the table where the woman sat. Logan had been letting the noise in the bar go over his head. The band had taken an extended break. The decibel level had dropped significantly with the jukebox becoming the source of music in the large space. The dance floor was still crowded, but more people surrounded the tables and the bar, and conversation and laughter filled the area.
Logan nearly choked on a swallow of beer when the blonde spoke, her voice high and clear in the somewhat secluded area.
“Jesus Christ, Maggie, there is a veritable smorgasbord of men able and willing to fuck your brains out here. Why are you still sitting here with that sad, warm beer that I know you haven’t touched?”
Logan was alone at his table for the moment, the others playing pool in the attached area that was indicated by a sign hanging from one of the pipes in the ceiling. He coughed and looked toward the pretty woman with the dimples. Maggie. Her name was Maggie. She looked at him and grimaced.
“I’m sorry. My friend has only been out of the asylum for one day and doesn’t know how to behave in public.” Her grimace turned into a half-smile that held embarrassment and her eyes flicked away from him.
Before Logan could come up with a response, the blonde turned to face him.
“That is a tissue of lies this woman has made up to stop herself from climbing up specimens such as yourself. Please take pity on the poor, dried up thing and dance with her.”
