CHAPTER ONE
At one time, Honky Tonk Heaven had been the most popular bar in Texas. Maybe even the world. Some of the greatest country music stars of all-time had graced its stage: Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson. It was rumored that even Elvis had stopped in and sung a few gospel songs with the band before sneaking out the side door when the crowd got a little too spiritually rowdy.
Of course, rumors couldn’t always be believed.
Especially in Promise Springs, Texas.
But even if Elvis hadn’t made the huge overhead rafters ring with “How Great Thou Art,” Honky-Tonk Heaven was infamous. The large white clapboard building started out as a dancehall in the late eighteen hundreds, hosting dances, cotton festivals, and town meetings. When the town church had burned to the ground after the pastor got drunk and passed out in his office with a lit cigarette in his hand, the townsfolk had slapped a steeple on the pitched roof of the dancehall and used it for their place of worship until the church was rebuilt.
It had taken twenty-three years. By that time, the townsfolk had gotten used to the steeple being on their dancehall, so they decided to keep it . . . and add a stage and a full bar that served more than just beer.
Thus, the name Honky Tonk Heaven was born.
From that point on, until eight years ago when a fire—this time caused by lightning—gutted it, Honky Tonk Heaven had been the place to go to listen to good country music, kick up your heels on the solid oak dance floor, play pool or darts with your friends in the backroom, kiss a pretty country gal under the big oak tree by the river, or just sit at the long mahogany bar and enjoy a beer.
But after the fire, Honky Tonk Heaven had been boarded up tight. No country music legends stopped by to sing a set. No hordes of two-steppers shuffled around the solid oak floors. No lovers kissed beneath the big oak tree . . . or did naughtier things in the backseats of the dusty trucks that had once filled the football field-sized dirt parking lot.
And it just about broke Tallulah Gentry’s little ol’ heart in two.
From the time she was old enough to listen, Tully had heard stories about Honky Tonk Heaven. Not just the rumors that spread around town, but the actual truth of what happened inside those clapboard walls.
And Sheriff Delbert Gentry didn’t lie.
Not that her daddy had told his only child those sordid stories. But Tully’s childhood bedroom had been right above the kitchen. And if she placed her ear on the floor vent exactly right, it hadn’t been hard to hear her daddy relaying the stories of what had taken place that night at Honky Tonk Heaven to her mama.
And, oh, the stories he told . . .
Table-breaking brawls between Longhorn and Aggie football fans. Jealous women’s whiskey-throwing tirades. Betraying-spouses bathroom rendezvouses. Avid country fans’ screaming panty-tossing.
And those were just the nightly happenings.
Occasionally, something really exciting happened.
Like the time Earl Talbot snuck his beer-loving bull into the bar to win a bet. He won the bet, but after drinking six-beers, Budweiser had gone nuts and destroyed a bunch of tables and chairs and sent Earl’s best friend to the emergency room to get his butt stitched up.
Even now, Tully couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of the drunk bull sending tables and chairs . . . and Mickey flying.
Of course, her daddy hadn’t found any of these stories humorous. Probably because he was the one who had to deal with the fallout. He was more than relieved when Honky Tonk Heaven closed down.
But Tully wasn’t.
She had waited all her life to witness the wild happenings at the bar in person. And then before she could turn twenty-one and legally get inside, lightning had struck. Almost as if God were punishing her for her infatuation with a wild country bar.
But that hadn’t stopped her infatuation.
Every time she worked the night patrol, she couldn’t help driving past the bar and fantasizing about what it had been like in its heyday. It was sad to see such a legendary, historical building boarded up and the parking lot completely emp?—
Tully slammed on the brakes of her patrol car so quickly the bag of kettle corn she’d been munching sailed off her lap and spilled all over her boots. She might have been concerned about how to get the popcorn out from under her seat before her daddy’s inspection tomorrow if her mind hadn’t been trying to figure out why a truck, that looked like it should be at a classic car show, was sitting in front of a boarded-up building at close to midnight.
Her first instinct was to reach for the radio receiver hanging on the dash behind the mobile data terminal and call for backup. And if she were a deputy sheriff in some big city with plenty of backup to call, she would have. But she was a deputy for Culvert County, a county that had one sheriff and one deputy. The sheriff was her overprotective daddy who still didn’t think she could handle the night shift alone.
She drew her hand back from the receiver.
Just because a strange truck was parked in front of the old dancehall that didn’t mean something nefarious was going on. Criminals didn’t usually drive pristine classic trucks. The truck had probably broken down. Old trucks broke down all the time. The old Ford truck Tully had inherited from her granddaddy broke down every other week.
Looking at the beautifully restored Chevy in the flood of her SUV’s headlights, Tully couldn’t help feeling guilty about not fixing up Granddaddy Lowell’s gift. She had fond memories of sitting next to her beloved grandfather as they drove down the rutted roads of his small cotton farm. Since the truck only had lap seatbelts, every time he came to a stop, Granddaddy would reach out his weathered, sun spotted arm to hold her back in the seat.
The memory brought the sting of tears and a stubborn flare of determination. She would fix up the old Ford and make it look just as nice as this one. Better. Everyone knew Fords were better than Chevys. And maybe whoever owned this truck would share the name of his, or her, body shop.
