Judd popped a fist on her hip. “He likes cartoons in the afternoon because he don’t like to be outside when it’s hot. He’s the smart one. I’m the mean one. Uncle Holt says we’re playing at your house. Can we watch television there?”
Sharlene laughed again. “There’s one in the bar, and you can watch it all day if you want.”
“Then let’s go see this place where my Uncle Holt is going to work. I don’t have to drink beer, do I, Uncle Holt? I can still have juice packs and peanut butter sandwiches, can’t I?” Judd snarled her nose.
Waylon tilted his head up and looked down his nose at his sister. “I like beer.”
“When did you drink beer?” Holt asked him.
“Momma left some in a bottle and I tasted it. I liked it. Judd made an awful face and tried to puke when she tasted it so she ain’t so mean.”
She shook her fist at him. “Am too!”
“Mean girls could drink beer,” Waylon said.
“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Holt said.
Sharlene touched Waylon’s tombstone one more time and walked away listening to Waylon, the boy, and Judd, the girl, argue.
She smiled for the first time that day.
Chapter 2
“So who’s the new family moving into your hideous house?” Merle Avery set her custom-made cue-stick case on the bar and motioned for a pint of Coors.
Merle had seen customers come and go in the Tonk for more than forty years. She and her best friend, Ruby Lee, had blown into Palo Pinto County at the same time. Ruby built a beer joint, and Merle got rich designing western shirts for women. She was past seventy, still shot a mean game of pool, could hold her liquor, and spoke her mind. She wore her dyed-black hair ratted and piled high, her jeans snug, and her boots were always polished. She was part of the fixtures at the Honky Tonk, and anyone who could whip her at the pool table had something to go home and brag about.
“That would be Holt Jackson and two kids,” Sharlene said.
“The carpenter, Holt Jackson? The one you’ve been trying to hire for weeks?”
Sharlene blushed. “Yes, that’s the one. He needed a house and no one was living in mine. Rent is his bonus if he finishes my job by his deadline. He says it’ll be a piece of cake with his crew. Tell the truth, I don’t care if he nails up every board single-handedly or if he gets a hundred people to work for him. I just want it finished in time for the holidays. Did you see all those pink strings and little yellow plastic flags? The flags mark the electric and telephone buried wires. The string is where the foundation will be.”
“I didn’t know he was married, much less had two kids,” Merle said.
Sharlene looked down the bar to make sure no one needed anything. “It’s his niece and nephew. I thought they were his kids when he mentioned them, but they call him Uncle Holt. I don’t know the story behind why he’s got them. Don’t really matter to me, long as he gets the job done.”
“So who’s keeping them while he works?”
Sharlene wiped the already clean bar. “He is going to bring them with him. Today they stayed with some friends up in Palo Pinto because he and his crew had to get the equipment down here. Tomorrow they start coming here.”
Merle frowned. “He’s the best carpenter in the area, and from what I hear he’s damn fine looking, but he’s not that good or that pretty.”
“What does that mean?” Sharlene asked.
“You will figure it out the first time two little kids wake you up before noon. There’s Tessa. Ask her what she thinks of that situation. And hot damn! There’s Amos. He’ll give me some competition tonight.” She picked up her beer and cue case and nodded at Amos. He headed in the same direction and they reached the pool table at the same time.
“Ask me what?” Tessa asked.
Larissa hired Tessa back when she owned the joint, and Sharlene kept her on when she inherited the place. Tessa and Luther, the bouncer, lived together out on a ranch between Gordon and Mingus. Someday they’d get married and the Honky Tonk could add another notch on one of the porch posts out front.
Sharlene pulled clean mason jars from the dishwasher as she explained. “Holt Jackson is willing to put the addition onto the Honky Tonk. He needed a house so I threw in my Bahamas Mama house for free rent if he will get the work done by mid-December. Only thing is he’s raising a niece and nephew and they will come to work with him.”
“So?” Tessa asked.
“Merle thinks that’s going to be a big problem.”
“I disagree with Merle. I used to go to work with my dad. He ran a bulldozer and dug farm ponds for folks. We played and he worked. Don’t remember it causing a problem,” Tessa said.
A customer called from the end of the bar, “Hey lady, could we get six pints of Bud and a pitcher of tequila sunrise down here?”
Sharlene looked at the tray where Tessa already had six pint jars and a pitcher of tequila sunrise waiting. Her eyebrows rose and she cocked her head to one side.
“How’d you know what they’d order?”
“I’m not blessed with ESP, believe me. I heard them talking when I was on that end of the bar a while ago. They couldn’t decide whether they wanted tequila sunrise or margaritas with their six beers. They’d made up their mind about the mixed drinks and were deciding whether they needed five or six beers. We’ll just get these filled and it’ll be ready.” Tessa laughed.
Tessa was taller than Sharlene’s five feet three inches, standing five feet eight in her stocking feet. Add boots to that and it pushed her up another two inches. Her nose was a little too big for her face,
