“Of course,” she answered. “But fake boyfriends don’t get to ask how many, and I didn’t hear a word out of your mouth either.”
“I saw a For Sale sign on a fence of some acreage between here and Spanish Fort, and an idea popped into my head.” He got out of the truck and closed the door.
She didn’t wait for him to help her out and had her feeton the ground before he rounded the back of the vehicle. “Want to talk about what this new idea is?”
He took her hand in his. “Not now. I have to do some research. Plus, Tripp is the financial wizard in the family, so I would like to run it by him.”
Knox let go of her hand and opened the door into a small foyer. “Bathrooms are at the end of the hallway, but there’s also one for the hired help in the storage room.” Waves of heat tap-danced up her spine, and his voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a barrel.
“Fat and Famous,” by Ashley McBryde, was playing on the jukebox and seemed to fit right in with her situation. She wished all the people who had teased her and made fun of her could see her with Knox—even if it wasn’t real. She might not be famous, but they would see that she had one good, sexy boyfriend even if she was a giant and boring.
“Hey! You are here,” Bo waved from the back corner.
Knox went to the far corner of the room and started sitting chairs down from the tables. Lottie followed his lead and wished that she could still feel his hand in hers. She reminded herself sternly that she would not fall for him and then have a broken heart when he walked away in six weeks.
“If y’all are going to take care of that job, I’ll go unload the dishwasher and get the peanuts and pretzels on the bar,” Bo said. “And thank you again for helping tonight. I really want Maverick to be well enough for Sunday.”
“If you need me tomorrow night, just holler,” Lottie said. “They tell me we’re all meeting in the dining room to decoratereal eggs and stuff the plastic ones with candy tomorrow morning. But Knox and I can sneak away by the time you open.”
Bo nodded. “You are a lifesaver, and I’ll protect you from Aunt Bernie.”
“Then the thanks go to you,” Lottie set the last chair down and crossed the room to help pour peanuts and pretzels into bowls. “She didn’t scare me when I went to her old bar up in Ratliff City, but with this new matchmaking thing she’s got going, I’ve got a feeling that if Knox and I don’t work out, she’ll be…” She stopped for a breath.
Bo patted her on the back. “Yes, she will be all up in your business, trying to fix you up with every available man in her stable of available guys. But never fear, I’ll run interference for you.”
“And me?” Knox asked.
“Only if you agree to work here tomorrow night too,” Bo said with a wide grin.
“I’ll be here,” Knox said without hesitation. “Are you expecting a crowd tonight?”
“Always on Friday nights,” Bo answered. “We see our usual crowd on weeknights, but weekends are a different matter. Might be a little less crowded tomorrow since some folks will be busy with Easter stuff.”
“Is it like that old television show where everyone knows everyone?” Lottie teased. “Bernie’s bar, the Chicken Coop, might have been where they got the idea for the TV sitcom.”
“You were there?” Bo asked.
“Yep. She poured my first legal drink when I wastwenty-one, and if I hadn’t had a designated driver with me, she would have taken my keys by the time the place closed.” Lottie smiled at the memory, but it faded fast when a vision of hugging the bathroom toilet the next morning flashed through her mind.
Bo pulled her hair up into a ponytail and set the bowls down the bar. “You’ll have to tell us more about her sometime. She has costumes that she wears for holidays. She said that they were what she wore at her bar.”
Lottie finished that job and headed for the jukebox. “You can believe her. Holidays, even the ones she made up, were a blast at the Chicken Coop. Didn’t y’all ever visit her in the Chicken Coop?”
“Nope. She came down here when she could manage the time, but we all left and went to college or university right out of high school. We weren’t old enough to drink, and Mama would have grounded us for eternity plus three days if we’d gone to a bar with a fake ID,” Bo answered. “She supported my dream when I went to Nashville. There were times when I was living on peanuts and pretzels from the bars where I had a gig, and then I’d find a hundred dollars in my checking account. But for the most part, she let me find my own way.”
“I understand,” Lottie said. “My mama didn’t know I had a fake ID. She thought my very first trip to the Chicken Coop was on my twenty-first birthday. Hey, you’ve got some of the older country music in this jukebox. I was raised on these songs.”
“Youarein a Texas bar,” Knox chuckled.
Lottie brought a fistful of coins from her pocket and fed them into the slot. “I’ll get the evening started.”
The first two customers arrived before the second song finished playing. The woman had long, blond hair down to her waist and wore cutoff jeans so short that the pockets hung out from below the hem, and a skintight top that proved she was not wearing a bra. It was also very evident that there was a brisk, cool wind blowing outside.
The guy’s jeans were tucked down into his cowboy boots, and his pearl snap shirt was undone far enough that Lottie could see a few scraggly dark-brown hairs that matched the attempt at growing a beard. Bless his heart! When he got old enough to have some real chest hair, an open shirt might be sexy, but now it looked kind of sad.
Bo pointed to a sign above the bar that read: IDs must be presented.
Lottie would bet tenpenny nails to cow patties that the driver’s licenses they flipped out onto the bar were both fake. Neither of them could possibly be a day over eighteen, and that would be stretching it by a year or two.
