Page 42 of The Wedding Gift
“Does that mean we’re not giving gifts next year?” he asked.
“Hell, no! I still believe in Santa, so he’d better bring me something next year, and I do like my Santa in a Stetson,” she flirted.
He chuckled. “What do you think you’ll give Santa next year?”
“A can of bug spray to start with,” she answered, “and a flyswatter.”
“Sounds good to me.” He set two shot glasses on the bar and poured them full of Jack Daniel’s.
“I’ll be your Santa, darlin’.” One of the cowboys winked and tipped his black cowboy hat toward Jorja. “I’ve got the hat, and I’ll get you a big beautiful present.”
“That’s so sweet, but from that ring on your finger, darlin’,I’d say you better be saving all your pennies to get your wife something big and beautiful,” she told him.
“Busted!” The cowboy laughed.
“Good catch,” Cameron whispered.
Jorja had settled into her new job so effortlessly that she wondered if she hadn’t owned a bar in a past life—if reincarnation even existed. She felt like she’d been right there, working beside Cameron for months, not days. There had to be a logical explanation for it, but she was too busy to give it much thought. She finished up the order she was working on, put it on a tray, and took it out to a table with four young women. They were all dressed in what looked like brand-new blinged-out jeans, cowgirl boots, and western shirts. Their Santa Claus had certainly been good to them that year, and before the night was over, they just might have a little more luck in their lives.
The idea of luck brought Haggard’s song back to her mind, and as fate would have it, someone played it on the jukebox. Jorja had to weave in and out among the people on the crowded dance floor to get back to the bar. Folks must really like that song, she thought. Everyone was dancing except for one blonde who was sitting on a stool with her back turned. She looked vaguely familiar, which meant that she’d probably been in the Honky Tonk earlier in the week. Someday Jorja would be able to put names with faces.
She rounded the end of the bar and turned around. “What can I get you?” she asked without really looking at the woman.
“A suitcase to pack your things in,” Abigail said.
Jorja jerked her head up to see her sister glaring right at her. “Merry Christmas to you too.”
“I’m in no mood for your sass. Mama sent me to bring you home. I got an Uber from the airport and it was a horrible trip, so come out from there, and let’s start packing. I’ll be riding with you in your car on the way back.” Abigail’s mouth was set in a thin line that said she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Jorja flipped two meat patties onto the grill and filled the deep fry basket with onion rings. “You must be hungry.”
“I am starving, but you won’t change my mind with a burger basket. I’m not going home without you,” Abigail declared.
Jorja wouldn’t argue with her sister right there in her place of business, but she wasn’t going anywhere—most of all not back to Hurricane Mills.
She motioned for Cameron to come to her end of the bar. “Need some help?” he called out over the top of the noise.
“Yes, I do.” Jorja tried to let him know with her expression that he was walking into something worse than a whole nest of spiders.
“What can I do?” He stopped right in front of her.
“You can meet my sister, Abigail, who for some crazy reason thinks I’m going to let her drive my car back to Tennessee,” she answered.
“Pleased to meet you.” Cameron nodded toward Abigail and then turned his focus back to Jorja. “Honey, if she needs your car, we’ve still got my pickup. We’ll be fine with one vehicle.”
“She thinks I’m going to be in the car with her, daw…lin’.” Jorja dragged out the endearment like a native of southern Louisiana.
“Oh, well now, that poses a real problem.” Cameron chuckled. “I can’t run this place by myself. You have superpowers and protect me from spiders and make me believe in signs, miracles, and magic.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but Jorja is not going to disgrace the family by owning or working in a place like this. Call it an intervention or a kidnapping or whatever you want, but if I have to hog-tie you and strap you to the top of your car, Iwilltake you home.” Abigail shot daggers by turn at each of them.
Jorja finished making the food and set it in front of Abigail. “Eat this and then go through that door right there and take a nap on my bed. You’ll know which one it is by the look of it. We’ll talk at two o’clock when Cameron and I closeup the place and, honey, the universe has spoken to me. Who am I to refuse to listen when something that big and important tells me this is where I belong.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Abigail bit into a hot onion ring. “I don’t trust you not to go somewhere and hide, and what do you mean, I’ll know your bed? Are you sleeping in the same room with this man?”
“Yes, ma’am, I am, and I think I remember telling you that already,” Jorja answered.
Chigger sat down on the stool right beside Abigail and nudged her with her shoulder. “I’m Chigger and, honey, if she wasn’t sharing the Honky Tonk apartment with Cameron, I’d give my brand-new engagement ring back to Frankie and offer to share more than a room with him. Jorja, darlin’, would you get me and Frankie an order of fries? We done worked up an appetite out there on the dance floor.”