The Trouble With Valentine's Day

On the jukebox, Kenny Chesney sang about a big star while a few couples danced in the center of the large room. Kate wasn't a huge fan of country music, but Kenny was a big improvement over Tom. Green shamrock garlands decorated the long bar and several of the red booths. A bulletin board filled with multicolored flyers was nailed to the wall to Kate's right.

Kate hung her backpack over her shoulder and moved toward the bar. She wove through a few tables and found a stool near the neon Coor's light.

'What can I get ya?' the owner of the Buckhorn asked around the cigar stuck in one corner of his mouth.

'Do you have a winter wheat?'

Burley's thick black brows pulled together, and he looked at her as if she'd ordered a Shirley Temple with extra cherries.

'I'll have a Bud Lite,' she amended.

'Good choice,' he said, and a thin plume of smoke followed him as he moved away to the beer spigots.

'Aren't you Stanley's granddaughter?'

She turned her gaze to the man on the stool next to her and instantly recognized Hayden Dean, the inspiration for the Mangy Rat poem.

'Yes. How are you, Mr. Dean?'

'Good.' He reached for his beer, and his shoulder brushed Kate's. She wasn't so sure it was an accident.

Burley returned and set two glasses of green beer in front of her. 'Two-fifty.'

'I only ordered one,' she said as the song on the juke changed and Clint Black poured from the speakers.

He took the cigar out of his mouth and pointed to a sign behind him. 'Wednesday night is twofer night.'

Wow, twofer night. Kate hadn't enjoyed twofer night since college. These days, pounding beer didn't hold the appeal it had in her early twenties, when she'd been a champion keg stander and beer bonger.

'I haven't been in here before,' she said to Hayden as she dug into her Dooney bag and handed Burley a five. She glanced over her left shoulder toward the back of the bar. Through an opening she could see billiard lights hanging over two pool tables.

She raised a beer to her lips and felt something brush her thigh.

'I love the redheads,' Hay den said.

She looked down at his hand on her leg, then back up into his heavily lined face. It figured that the only man to pay attention to her in a year was a creepy old guy with beer breath and a reputation for low standards. 'Take your hand off my thigh, Mr. Dean.'

He smiled, and she noticed that some of his back molars were missing. 'You've got fire. I like that in a woman.'

Kate rolled her eyes. She'd kept up with self-defense classes since she'd first received her PI license, and if she wanted, she could remove Hayden's hand and pin his thumb to his wrist all in one motion. But she didn't want to hurt Mr. Dean. It might make things difficult the next time he came into the M &S for a free cup of coffee. She stood and placed the strap of her backpack on her shoulder. Even though she really didn't want two green beers, she grabbed them off the bar and headed toward the back. As she carefully wove her way through the locals, she sipped out of each glass to keep them from spilling.

In the cramped back room, four players occupied the two tables while several spectators drank beer and loitered under the big No Spitting, No Fighting, No Betting sign.

Within the dusky shadows of the room, Rob Sutter pushed away from the wall and moved to lean over one of the tables. 'Three in the side pocket,' he said over the crack of pool balls from the other table and the sound of George Jones crooning from the juke in the next room.

Kate stood in the doorway and watched him line up the shot. The light hanging directly over the table shone down on his left hand and the silver ring on his middle finger. Blue flannel was rolled up his long arms, exposing the tail of his snake tattoo, and he wore a navy blue ball cap with a fly hook and the words 'Bite me' embroidered on it. He slid the stick between his thumb and first finger and shot. What he lacked in finesse, he made up for in pure muscle. The cue ball hit the solid red ball so hard that it jumped before shooting across the table and falling into the pocket. His gaze followed the ball to the edge of the table, paused for several heartbeats, then continued up the buttons of Kate's coat, passed her chin and mouth to her eyes. Within the shadow of his hat, his gaze met hers, and he simply stared. Then a slight frown pulled at the corners of his mouth. Kate didn't know if he was irritated to see her or bothered because he'd hit the cue so hard that he'd lost control of it. Probably both.

He stood in one smooth motion, and a shadow from the brim of his cap slid to the end of his nose, leaving only his lips, mustache, and soul patch exposed to the dim light of the room. He wore a white T-shirt beneath the unbuttoned blue flannel shirt. The tails hung loose about the hips and the button fly of his Levi's.

While he stood there looking like every girl's fantasy, she figured she looked like a dork clutching her green beers in her hands.

Kate thought about backing out of the room, but if she left now, he'd think she'd left because of him, which would be the truth, but she didn't want him to know it. He bent over the table once more, all long and lean, his firm butt filling out his Levi's. No doubt about it, Rob Sutter was hot. The kind that made a girl tingle in interesting places. Not Kate, though. He didn't make her tingle. She was immune. He drew the cue back and she turned away.

There were no tables or stools, and Kate set her beers on one of the shelves sticking out of the wall. She hung her backpack and coat on a hook behind her. Next table over from Rob, two of the three Worsley brothers were about to wrap up their game. Kate slid three quarters under the cushion of the table, then chose a nineteen-ounce house cue from the rack on one wall. She held it like she was sighting in a rifle. The shaft was a little warped, but it had a nice, hard tip. She set the butt end by her right foot and waited.

Rob missed his next shot, which wasn't surprising, since he again practically shot the cue ball off the table. He straightened, and a bleached blonde with enormous breasts handed him a bottle of Heineken. Her name was Dixie Howe, and she owned the Curl Up and Dye hair salon. She had long red nails and hooked a finger through Rob's belt loop. She gave it a tug and said something next to his ear. Evidently Dixie didn't know that Rob had a real problem with bold women who made the first move and that he was a total waste of male perfection.

Over the past few weeks, she'd thought about investigating Mr. Rob Sutter. Besides being rude and obnoxious, all she really knew about him was that he drove a HUMMER, used to play hockey, and had a knee injury. She assumed the injury had ended his career, but she didn't know that for certain. She could ask her grandfather, but he'd think her interest in Rob was a romantic one. If she wanted to know more, she'd have to drag her laptop out of the box where she'd stored it in her bedroom closet. She knew the license plate number on his vehicle. With a few clicks and a tap, she'd take a look at his driver's license and obtain his date of birth and his Social Security number. After that, she could learn his employment history and if he'd ever been married. She'd discover other tidbits about him too, like if he had a criminal past.

But she didn't do that sort of thing anymore. Not for work. Not even to satisfy her own curiosity.

She took a sip of her beer and looked at him over the bottom of her glass. His head was bent slightly over Dixie's as she spoke, but Kate could feel him looking at her. She couldn't really see his eyes for the shadow of his hat, but she could feel his gaze touch her face and slide down her body. If she hadn't been immune to him, she might have felt her insides catch fire.

The Worsley brothers' game ended and Kate stepped forward to challenge the winner. Peirce Worsley stood five-foot-ten in his custom-made cowboy boots. Like his brothers, he had short, kinky brown hair. All three of them lived and worked at their family's ranch about twenty miles out of Gospel. Their ages ranged from thirty to twenty- five. Kate had met them the few times they'd come into the M &S. They didn't appear to be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but Kate hadn't come to the Buckhorn for intelligent conversation.

Peirce racked the pool balls while Kate tossed a coin to determine who went first. She won and positioned the cue ball near the side rail behind the foot string. She leaned over, slid the stick over the bridge of her thumb, aimed at the second ball, and shot. All fifteen balls separated, and the solid yellow rolled across the green wool and fell into a side pocket. Next she shot the three into the left corner pocket and the seven into the right. She banked the cue off the head cushion and left the solid blue next to a side pocket for a later shot. Four good shots, and she'd almost managed to forget Rob was in the room.

Peirce pushed up the brim of his cowboy hat and looked back across the table at her. He had light blue Helter- Skelter eyes, which should have been her first clue that the evening was going to deteriorate into madness. 'Where you from?' he asked.