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Tiff, who’d driven Rose, pushed her half-full glass Rose’s way. “Finish that if you want it. I need a quick minute and then we’re outta here.” She got up and went to the ladies’ room, past the stage and down the hall.
Rose looked into the depths of Tiffany’s unfinished drink and then up at Phoebe. “I took the whole day off. Come on over to my place for a while. Give yourself a damn break for a change. It is your birthday.”
Phoebe considered, but decided against it. “Thanks. No.” She swept out an arm, indicating the mostly empty room and the lone biker down at the end of the bar. He wasn’t looking their way. Instead, he stared straight ahead at the rows of bottles on the mirrored back wall, as if pondering the mysteries of the universe. “Who’ll handle all these customers if I take off?”
Rose forced a chuckle, then asked doubtfully, “You sure?”
“Positive. And Bernard’ll be in at six.” Bernard, one of Phoebe’s two full-time bartenders besides herself, had the closing shift that day. “If things stay slow, I’ll go home when he gets here. Put my feet up. Call my mother. Floss my teeth…”
Rose groaned. “Pheeb, you need to watch yourself.”
“Oh? And why’s that?”
“Lately, your life is becoming downright boring.”
“And you know what? I like it that way.”
“But a girl needs a thrill now and then.”
“I’ve had enough thrills to last me a lifetime—and then some.”
Peruvian earrings dancing against her white neck under the soft waves of her blond hair, Tiffany emerged from the back hallway. “Y’ all ready to go?”
Rose took a long pull off Tiff’s abandoned drink and set the glass down with finality. “Ready.”
Phoebe followed them to the door, answered their duet of goodbyes and happy birthdays, and moved to the wide window to watch them as they got into Tiff’s ancient, perfectly maintained Volvo sedan, which Ralphie had presented to her two years ago when her rattletrap compact car finally gave up the ghost. They hooked their seat belts and Tiff backed onto the street.
The gorgeous old car slid out—and slammed to a stop as a Mustang came roaring down Western and almost plowed into it. Honking ensued, from both vehicles. The guy in the Mustang swung around the Volvo, yelling something rude as he went by. Rose stuck her arm out the passenger window, middle finger raised high.
Phoebe shook her head. Rose had the attitude, always had.
The Volvo rolled forward, made the light onto Thirty-Sixth Street and disappeared the same way the Mustang had gone. Phoebe leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window and shut her burning eyes.
She missed the Queens already, though five minutes ago she couldn’t wait to see them gone. The song on the jukebox ended. It whirred for a moment and then it was quiet.
Quiet enough to hear the rubber hit the road out on Western and the faint cries of four starlings on a wire above the furniture store across the street. She could even hear the damn ice machine dripping, back there behind the bar. And the balls of her feet were sore. She lifted her left foot and slid off her sandal. Heaven. She took off the other one. The cool, scuffed boards of the floor felt so good against her bare feet. Sandals in hand, she turned for the bar.
The biker had turned, too. He sat facing her, watching her through those black, black eyes.
Phoebe let a naughty little thrill shimmer through her—and then shrugged and swung the sandals over her shoulder to dangle by a finger. “Don’t tell me. You’re the new health inspector.” It was a bad joke and it fell flat.
He shrugged. “Not me.”
“Ready for another shot?”
“Two’s my limit.”
“Smart man.”
They shared a look. It lasted a second or two longer than it should have. Then he tipped his dark head at the empty stool beside him.
Better not, she thought. But what do you know? Her bare feet ambled on over there anyway, carrying her with them. She hopped up on the stool, facing out as he was, tugging lightly on her skirt so it didn’t slide too far up her thighs.
Dropping the sandals to the floor, she eased around his way and stuck out her hand. “I’m Phoebe Jacks.”
After a slight hesitation, he took it. His big, warm, rough hand swallowed hers and she felt that thrill again, that heated excitement searing upward along her arm, spreading all through her.
Lust at first sight, she thought, trying to be philosophical, reminding herself, again, that it was just a bad day for her and she would not follow through on her urge to rip off her sundress and jump into his lap. Maybe once upon a time she would have. But not anymore. She was older and wiser now. She’d lived through a marriage to Ralphie and after that, through a definite weakness for bad boys in black leather. She was done with all that now.
They shook.
She prompted, “And you are?”
“Rio,” he said. “Rio Navarro.”
Phoebe’s heart stopped dead, and then started racing. Carefully, she pulled her hand away. “My new partner.” Her tone was level. Absolutely calm. Just as if she were polishing the glassware.
“That’s right.”
“Ralphie’s dead,” she said, as if he didn’t already know.
“So I heard.”
She looked at Rio Navarro and she wondered how this—how any of it—could possibly have happened. Ralphie gone forever. Darla crying all the time. This black-eyed, sexy stranger showing up out of nowhere on her birthday and turning out to be the man who owned half of her livelihood.
It was too much, all of it, just too damn much.
“Excuse me,” she said, and had to pause to gulp hard. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Phoebe jumped from the stool, scooped up her sandals and raced around the end of bar, headed for the swinging door that led to the prep and storage areas in back.
Though it took every ounce of pride and self-respect she possessed, she didn’t burst into tears until after the door swung shut behind her.
CHAPTER TWO
A Prairie Queen has a sparkling comeback for every bad pick-up line.
Example: Man: Haven’t I seen you someplace before?
Prairie Queen: Yes, that’s why I don’t go there anymore.”
—from The Prairie Queen’s Guide to Life, by Goddess Jacks
RIO WAITED FOUR AND A half minutes for Ralphie’s former wife to reappear through the swinging door with the round window in the top of it.
When she did, her eyes and nose were red. She’d also put on some flat-heeled black shoes. She pushed through that door with her dark head high and marched right over to him—keeping to her side of the bar so that the long oak surface stood between them.
She met Rio’s eyes dead on, no sniffling, and he thought of what Ralphie had always said of her: Phoebe’s a stand-up gal. A rock. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem.” He knew she wouldn’t want his concern, but he found himself leaning closer and asking anyway, “You okay?”
“I am just fine.” Each word was strong and final, even with the Oklahoma lilt adding a twang to the vowels. Her gaze shifted away, and then back. “So. You come all the way from California on that big bike out there?”
“That’s right.”
“You travel light.”
“I’ve got a pack and a helmet. I left them at the motel.”
She kind of squinted at him, leaning in. He got a whiff of her perfume. Tempting. Like the rest of her. Then she backed off again and braced a hand on the bar. “Not meanin’ to insult you or anything, but I wonder if you wouldn’t mind showing me some ID.”
Her request didn’t surprise him. When you met someone through Ralphie Styles, it was always a good idea to ask for ID. “Right here.” He eased his wallet from an inside pocket of his leather vest and flipped it open, holding it across the bar to her so she could get a look at his driver’s license.
She craned her dark head close to examine it. He stared at the vulnerable crown of her head and breathed in more of the seductive smell of her. When she straightened, he still saw doubt in those red-rimmed green eyes. “I’ll bet a good forger could make one of those look just like the real thing.”
Rio turned it around so his private investigator’s ID in the opposite window was right-side up. She peered at that one for even longer than she had his driver’s license. Finally, with a weary little sigh, she waved it away. He tucked the wallet back inside his vest.
“So. You’re a private detective?”
He nodded. “I also work for a bail bondsman now and then, bringing home the bad guys.”
She looked at him sideways. “Like a bounty hunter?”
“You got it.”
“Well,” she said, “and now you’re half owner of my bar.” She put a slight extra emphasis on the word my. Her mouth had a pursed look. “We missed you at the funeral.” A definite dig.
“When was it?”
She blinked and her mouth loosened, even trembled a little. “You didn’t know.”
“Not till last week, when I got the will and the letter telling me that Ralphie was dead.”
“I’m sorry.” He saw real regret in her eyes then. “Ralphie didn’t talk a lot about his friends from out of town. But he did mention you, now and then. I guess I should have thought to try and get a hold of you.”
Rio had never cared much for funerals anyway. “Not a big deal.”
“Well, the times he talked about you, he said good things.”
Okay, he was curious. “Like what?”
She waved a hand. “General things. How he could always count on you. Once, when he took off for California, he said something about staying with you. How you were like family. How someday he was going to talk you into coming to Oklahoma, at least for a visit. And then, when he and Darla decided to get married, he said something about inviting you to the wedding.”
Ralphie had invited him. “He gave me a call. Would have made it if I could.” There had been that job in Mexico. He hadn’t wanted to pass that one up. Rio found himself wishing what men always wished when it was too late: that he’d chosen his friend over paying the rent.
She said, “You knew Ralphie a long time, huh?”
Sadness scraped at the back of his throat. He swallowed it down. “Yeah. We went way back.”
Her eyes got a little wetter. She cleared her throat. “He died on tax day, do you believe that?”
He shook his head. “Ralphie. Always filed his taxes…”
She was smiling, a misty kind of smile. “He hated to do it, but he’d say—”
“‘I’ve seen a lot of highflyers brought low,’” He faked Ralphie’s whisky-and-nicotine drawl. “‘And all because they didn’t bother to do their time with a 1099.’”
She turned slightly away, swiped at her eyes, and then faced him again. “I keep expecting to look up and see him comin’ through that door, heading straight for the jukebox.”
“Let me guess. ‘Home Sweet Oklahoma.’”
“That would be the one.” It came out tight. Emotion under strict rein. She swallowed. “Ralphie did love his Leon Russell. No matter where his big dreams took him, he always came home to Oklahoma.”
“Which is why Woody Guthrie would do in a pinch.”
“So true.” Her eyes shone at him, full of memories and the growing awareness that Rio had a few memories of his own.
There was a silence. In it were all the things Rio might have said, but didn’t. Bad idea, he thought, to let himself go tripping too far down memory lane. He’d just met this woman. No need to make a business meeting into a wake.
Ralphie’s ex let her gaze drop to the bar. “So what are your plans?” She was getting down to it.
Stalling, he asked for clarification he didn’t need. “You mean about this place?”
She nodded, drawing herself up, suggesting grimly, “Thinking you want to get into the bar business?”
He should have answered simply, no. But things were starting to seem a long way from simple. “You’re leading up to offering to buy me out, right?”
She raised her slim hands and pressed her fingertips gently to the tear-puffy skin under her eyes. Her bare shoulders gleamed, pearly, in the dim light from above. “Yeah.” She let her hands drop. “Yeah, I am.”
It was exactly what he’d hoped she might say—or it had been. Until he’d heard those friends of hers discussing the way Ralphie had checked out.
And then there was the little problem of Ralphie’s very pregnant bride.
Things weren’t adding up. If the dead man had been anyone else, Rio probably would have just let it go. But Ralphie Styles, with all his faults, had been the best friend Rio Navarro ever had. Rio was ten when they’d met, Ralphie in his mid thirties. Rio still remembered the first advice Ralphie Styles had ever given him.
“Keep your head up, kid. And never let any sumbitch see you sweat.”
The woman across the bar prompted, “So what do you think?”
Rio ordered his mind back to the present—and stalled some more. “You got the cash to buy me out?”
“Not right now. But I can get it eventually. In the meantime, you’d get Ralphie’s share, half of what we make here—after operating expenses.”
“I’ll need some time to think it over.”
“Think what over? What do you want with a half-interest in an Oklahoma City bar? Let me buy you out.”
He let a few beats elapse before replying, “I think I’ll just keep my options open for a while. If that’s all right with you.”
She was getting that strung-tight look again, the one she’d been wearing just before she fled to the back room. “It’s not all right with me. None of it. Not a thing. And excuse me, but did you know?”
