“Whatever feels good,” Bernie answered. “Will youget the ladder from the storage room and help us put up the garland and ceiling decorations?”
“Absolutely.” Nash closed the door behind him and headed across the room. “Do you do this every year?”
“Yes, I do, and the customers love it. I fix this place up for every holiday, and if things begin to slag or get boring, sometimes I even make up a day for celebration,” Bernie replied. “One year we celebrated the International Day of the Chicken. We didn’t promote compassion and respect for the bird like some folks did since we enjoyed buffalo wings and chicken salad sandwiches that evening, but we had a wonderful time doing the chicken dance. I even have a costume in one of the boxes in the storage room and pictures to prove I’m telling the truth.”
Nash laughed so hard that he had to wipe his eyes with a paper napkin. “What else do you get all fixed up for?”
“On October twenty-eighth, we celebrate the end of Oktoberfest and have a beer-drinking day where all draft beer is buy one, get one free. I have all of the celebrations written down.” She pointed toward a calendar hanging on the wall beside the door leading back to the storage room.
“No wonder this place has been here since Grandpa Hoot was a young man,” Nash said. “It’s not just a bar. It’s a fun place to go.”
Clara snuck a few side-glances toward Nash and visualized him with no shirt. The room got at leasttwenty degrees hotter even though the air conditioner vents were shooting down cold air. She sure wished that she had one of her mother’s church fans with a picture of Jesus on one side and an advertisement for a local funeral home on the other.
Men like Nash had always been her kryptonite, especially those with arms the size of hams and a ripped abdomen that strained at the seams of his snug-fitting knit shirt. He dang sure did not look like a lawyer. He could have posed for the covers of those sexy bodice-ripper romance books that were taboo in the house where she grew up. She mentally gave herself a come-to-Jesus talk. Getting a major hot flash over a man she didn’t even know was ridiculous. Nash probably had a girlfriend, or maybe even a fiancée, waiting in the wings. Worse yet, he could be controlling and jealous like Kent.
If you like a man who looks like Nash, why in the hell were you ever with Kent?The voice inside her head asked.He had thinning blond hair and his shirts hung on his frame like they would on a skinny scarecrow.
“In the beginning, he was funny and sweet. That was what I was looking for, but he turned into a control freak. And besides, it’s not right to compare one person to another,” she muttered.
“What was that?” Bernie asked.
“I was talking to myself.” Clara slid another long look at Nash when he returned with the ladder.
“That’s another way that you are like me. I talk tomyself all the time and solve a lot of problems that way,” Bernie said.
“I’ve done it all my life. Myra and Luke were older than me and didn’t have the time or inclination to listen to what I had to say about anything. What do I do with all these red and blue bowls?”
“Line them up on the bar,” Bernie told her. “We’ll put pretzels and peanuts in them tomorrow just before we open.”
“You were telling me about Luna and Endora,” Clara said as she worked.
“Endora was engaged and found out that her feller was sleeping with her best friend,” Bernie said as she held up the garland for Nash to attach to the wall right below the ceiling. “The woman and Endora’s fiancé both worked at the school where she and Luna worked. It was quite a mess, and Endora isn’t over it even yet. She’s sworn off all men and declares she will be an old-maid aunt and enjoy all her sisters’ kids,” Bernie explained.
“So, some of the girls are married?” Clara asked.
“Nope, not a single one of them. Mary Jane ain’t gettin’ any younger, and she’s ready for grandbabies,” Bernie said as she opened another box.
“Who are Endora and Luna?” Nash asked.
“My cousins that I haven’t seen in years. Aunt Bernie is filling me in on what I’ve missed.” Clara wondered where they would find room to put anything else, but Bernie brought out more garland. Not that Claraminded. Watching Nash up on that ladder was like a trip to the candy store with unlimited finances. Even if he might be in a committed relationship, there was no law against looking.
“Ursula is trying to break into writing romances,” Bernie went on to spill more tea. “Mary Jane has almost got her convinced to come back to the Paradise for a year to work on her first book. If she does, she’ll be home for Thanksgiving.”
Clara opened up three more beers and passed one up to Nash. Their fingers brushed against each other’s in the transfer, and sparks danced around the room like fireworks. She reminded herself in a scolding inner voice that she would be working with this guy, and that her ownrule number onewas that she didn’t mix business and pleasure. Not anymore. Not after the experience with Kent. Besides all that, she would probably be without a job again in six weeks if and when Nash bought the place—unless he hired her to keep working there. That was a possibility, albeit a slim one, that she wouldn’t mind thinking about.
“Where did those women get such strange names?” Nash asked.
“Their mama, my niece, is a famous romance author,” Bernie explained. “She named all seven of her girls after whatever character was in the book she was writing at the time of their birth. So, the first three are Ursula, Ophelia, and Tertia after heroines in historicalromances. She thought she was finished having kids, but then she had twins, Bo and Rae—one was named after a singer and the other one for a cop in a couple of contemporary stories. Then she got a surprise when they were still in diapers and she had another set of twins, Endora and Luna, named after a couple of characters in a paranormal book.”
“And you arejustClara?” Nash asked and locked eyes with her. “Was your mama writing a historical book?”
“My mother worked for the FBI when I was born, and you are right. I’mjust Clara, plain old name that she got from a colleague’s grandmother who brought cookies to the office every couple of weeks,” she answered.
“I like it,” Nash said. “And honey, if anyone ever tells you that you are plain, send them to me and I’ll take them to the eye doctor.”
“That is sweet. Thank you.” There was no fighting the blush that time. She whipped around and tore into the last box, hoping that he didn’t see the fire in her cheeks.
“Just tellin’ it like I see it.”
