Page 25 of The Wedding Gift
Jorja took over the job of putting the Christmas tree together, while Frankie and Cameron situated the beer in the right spots. She had sorted all the limbs by the color on their tips when she heard Cameron call out to her.
“Hey, business lady, where’s the checkbook?” he asked.
“In the office,” she answered.
“Where would that be?”
She laid down the limbs she was holding and headed across the floor. Merle had sent her a hand-drawn map of the place. Too bad she didn’t have an eye for size. From the drawing, Jorja had figured the apartment would be twice the size it turned out to be. The office could be anywhere from the size of a broom closet to as big as the entire Honky Tonk.
When she swung open the door, she found a nice-sized room, but it made the apartment look like a five-star hotel suite. Papers, invoices, and unopened junk mail covered the top of a huge oak desk. The antique chair pushed up under the kneehole was stacked high with newspapers and magazines.
“Hallelujah!” Jorja shouted when she saw the checkbook lying on the top of a four-drawer file cabinet in the corner. She latched onto it like it was a lifeline and carried it out to the bar. Frankie handed her the invoice for the beer, and she wrote out the first check that had both her name and Cameron’s on it.
“That’s why the checkbook was on the top,” she muttered.
“What was that?” Frankie was busy tugging his coveralls up over his beer belly.
She handed him the check. “Nothing, just thinking out loud.”
“Thanks, honey. Me and Chigger will be in soon as this weather clears up a little. We don’t mind drivin’ when the snow is on the ground, but Chigger don’t like to get out in it when it’s blowin’ her hair every which way.” He tugged his stocking hat down over his head, waved, and rolled the dolly out of the bar.
“We’ll look forward to seeing you,” Cameron said before Frankie closed the door.
“What was that squeal I heard out of you when you went into the office?” Cameron asked.
“Go look for yourself,” she told him as she headed back toward the Christmas tree. “Since I cleaned up the apartment, it’s only fair that you do that room.”
“Holy crap!” he gasped when he peeked inside. “I wouldn’t even know where to start, and besides, you’re the one with the business degree. You’ll know what to keep and what to throw away.”
She shot a smile his way. “But you’ve managed a bar for years. You’ll know what’s important.”
“How about we tackle it together?” he suggested as he shook his head. “But where do we even start?”
“I suggest that we get these decorations up and worry about that mess tomorrow,” she told him.
He eased the door shut and nodded. “Great idea. Youwanted me to hang some garland over the bar, right? I’d rather do that than face off with cleaning that desk on our first day. Which box do you figure it’s in?”
“I can’t know. Just start opening them,” she answered. “The only one I’m sure about is the tree. The others just sayChristmas decorations. I was lucky enough to find the lights in the first one I opened.”
He reached into a front pocket of his jeans and brought out a pocketknife. The first box was strings of lights that needed bulbs, the next held strings of bulbs that had the big old-fashioned lights in them, and the third one was filled with garland—red, blue, silver, gold, and even pink. Right there, on the top of the garland like they were in a nest, two cute little white doves were sitting inside a silver circle.
“Which color?” he asked, holding fistfuls of garland up. “Do you reckon this is for the top of the tree?”
She turned from the tree and said, “Blue and silver roped together for the bar. I’ll use the gold and red on the tree. And that’s not for the top of the tree. It’s going right above the bar with garland coming out from both sides. I wonder where they used that pink stuff.”
“Probably in the bathroom.” He chuckled.
“Great idea!” She smiled. “We’ll drape it over the mirrorin the ladies’ room, and if there’s any left, I’ll use it in our apartment bathroom to spruce it up for the holidays.”
“You can’t be serious,” he groaned.
“Of course, I’m not.” She turned back toward the tree. “Pink wouldn’t match the shower curtain. If we have any red left over, I’ll use it.”
If Cameron Walsh thought he could get ahead of her, then he wasn’t nearly as smart as he was sexy.
Chapter 3
Cameron rolled up his sleeves, plugged five dollars into the jukebox to get the music started, and opened the doors at exactly six o’clock. He fully well expected the parking lot to be empty, even if the blizzard-like conditions earlier that day had moved on toward the east. Six inches of snow covered the ground. The state folks would make sure Interstate 20 was graded, but Palo Pinto County wouldn’t have the resources to clear off all the back roads around Mingus and Thurber.