Page 29 of The Wedding Gift
“Why are you whispering?” he asked.
“I don’t want to scare them away until I have that scene memorized,” she answered.
Cameron started humming the tune to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Star” as he drew her into his arms and two-stepped from the window all the way to her bed. “This cowboy just wanted to dance with you under the stars.” He took a step back and brought her hand to his lips. “Sleep tight, partner.”
Jorja sat down on the bed with a thud. Twenty-four hours ago, she hadn’t even known her new co-owner was a guy, and he’d come close to sweeping her right off her feet in the last thirty minutes. She stood up and crawled beneath the covers. From her bed she had a clear picture out the window of twinkling stars dancing around the moon. She was humming the Merle Haggard tune as she drifted off to asleep.
Chapter 4
Jorja awoke on Tuesday morning to the smell of coffee and the sound of sizzling bacon drifting across the room. She heard laughter and voices outside, and when she opened her eyes, she saw tree limbs sparkling with diamonds. She blinked a few times before she realized that she was looking out the window across the room at the sun shining on the bare branches of a big pecan tree covered in ice. She threw back the covers, sat up in bed, and stretched.
“Good mornin’.” Cameron crossed the room in a couple of long strides and offered her a mug full of steaming-hot coffee. “I tried to be quiet, but a couple of kids out there in the parking lot are building a snowman, and they don’t understand that we didn’t go to bed until after two o’clock.”
She took the coffee from his hands. Two of everything—it had to be an omen. “I thought Mingus was a ghost town.”
“Not quite. There’s still a bank and a post office and even a church north of town. Didn’t you do your research before you signed that deed?” He sat down on the end of the bed.
She shot a dirty look his way, but he didn’t budge. “And all that means kids in the parking lot?”
“Yep, and it means folks can still get their mail. They have a bank for their business, and a church to pray for a crop failure, which they might need, thanks to us.” He grinned.
She took a sip of the coffee, black as sin and strong enough to heat up Lucifer’s pitchfork—just the way she liked it. “What do you mean by ‘thanks to us’? We don’t plant crops.”
“No, but we provide the products for all the folks in this county and the one south of us that tend to make couples careless when they sow their wild oats on Saturday nights. They need a church to attend on Sunday so they can pray for a crop failure.” He chuckled, but she still wasn’t sure she understood.
“Where is this church?” she asked.
“North of town,” he answered.
She giggled. “Sounds about right. They come ‘down’”—she put air quotes around the last word—“here south of town to sow those wild oats and go up”—she pointed towardthe ceiling—“to the church to do their praying. My mama and daddy would be so proud of me if I attended services on Sunday.”
“You’re funny”—he chuckled again—“but why would that make your parents proud of you? They do know you are now half owner of a bar, don’t they?”
“Daddy is a preacher. Mama plays the piano for the services, and my sister, Abigail, teaches Sunday school.” She set her coffee on the floor and kicked free of the covers. “And no, they don’t know anything about the Honky Tonk. I’m not real sure how to tell them.”
“Holy smokin’ crap!” Cameron gasped. “Should I expect your dad to show up here with a shotgun?”
“I hope not.” She stood up and headed toward the bathroom. “If he does, I bet I outrun you, but you don’t have to worry for a little while. I have to tell them before Daddy’s anger melts all the snow and ice from Hurricane Mills to here.”
“I didn’t think preachers had a temper.” He stood up and headed back to the kitchen area. “I’m making breakfast burritos. Want one?”
“Nope,” she said from the bathroom doorway. “I want two. I’m starving.”
She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and stared ather reflection in the mirror above the sink. Her curly hair was a fright. Every freckle seemed to shine, and her blue eyes looked as pale as her skin. Her mother, Paula, would be aghast at the very idea of Jorja letting anyone, including the stranger guy she was living with, see her looking like that. Not even Eli, the youth director she had been in a serious relationship with, had ever seen her looking so rugged.
“I said two burritos,” she said. “Good God! What is the universe trying to tell me?” Again, she shrugged off the notion of omens and thought about Eli.
He had been a good man, but he believed too strongly that a woman’s place was in the home and that the husband was the absolute head of the household. He had let her know that he might discuss things with his wife, but his decisions were final and not to be questioned. She kept hoping he would change and figured he was praying hard that she would see the light—his light of course. Neither happened so they’d split up, much to her parents’ dismay.
“Now I have to tell them I’m living with a bartender and own half of the Honky Tonk,” she muttered. “That ought to send them into shock. I just hope they don’t bring Eli and Abigail out here to do an intervention.”
“Breakfast is ready,” Cameron called out.
She took a deep breath, swung the bathroom door open,and crossed the floor to one of the chairs set at the small round table. “Thanks for cooking this morning. This looks good and smells even better.”
“Peppers, onions, and a little salsa spice up the bacon and eggs. Just for the record, my parents are CEO Christians—that stands for Christmas and Easter Only—and they know that I’m the co-owner of this place. They were happy for me, but Dad still hopes that I’ll get into ranchin’ since that’s what both sides of my family do.” He sat down in the other chair and poured orange juice. “I’m glad Merle left the refrigerator and freezer in the bar stocked. We’ll have to buy food sometime this week for in here, but for now, we can live on what we can scrounge up.”
She’d taken the first bite of her food when her phone rang, and the ringtone told her that it was her sister, Abigail, calling. She chewed fast, swallowed on her way to the chest of drawers where the phone was, and answered it on the fourth ring.