Where There's Smoke

“They’re hurting each other!” As Key ushered her toward the door, she tried to dig in her heels. He ignored her attempts and moved inexorably toward the exit, pausing only long enough to hand Bobby a twenty-dollar bill. “Still up to standard. Thanks.”

“Sure thing. Y’all come back.”

Bobby didn’t take his eyes off the fight, which had intensified. The fighters were throwing vicious punches and shockingly obscene insults at each other.

“I should stay,” Lara protested. “They’ll need medical attention. I could help.”

Key gave the fighters an indifferent backward glance as he pushed her through the door. “They wouldn’t welcome your help, believe me. Especially those two. They don’t appreciate others poking their noses into family affairs.”

“They’re related?” Lara asked, aghast.

“Brothers-in-law.” By now they were in the car, pulling out of the parking lot onto the highway. “Lem and Scoony have always been best friends. A few years back, Scoony’s little sister started looking real good to Lem. They began dating. That didn’t set too well with Scoony, having seen Lem in action with other girls. Scoony warned him that if he knocked up his sister he’d beat the shit out of him.”

He concentrated on passing a loaded logging truck.

Impatiently Lara asked, “Well, what happened?”

“Lem knocked her up, and Scoony beat the shit out of him.”

“And they’ve been enemies ever since?”

“No, they’re still best friends. Missy, that’s Scoony’s sister, heard that Scoony was out to throttle Lem. She tracked them down—at The Palm, I believe it was—and joined the fracas. Kicked them both where they’re most vulnerable.

“By the time the sheriff got there, both boys were in tears, cradling their privates, and blubbering like babies. Missy told Lem he could either marry her or she’d permanently emasculate him and told Scoony that if he didn’t like it he could… Well, Missy never has been known for her ladylike language. Anyway, Lem and Missy got married, had a little boy, and everybody was happy.”

“Happy?” Lara exclaimed. “What about tonight?”

“Oh, hell, that was nothing. They were just blowing off steam. By now they’re probably buying each other a drink.”

Lara shook her head in dismay. “This place. These people. I always thought tales of Texas were exaggerations to perpetuate the state’s mystique. Like Barbecue Bobby. What you told me is really the way it happened, isn’t it? A bull rider named Little Pete Pauley set fire to his house, his hair got singed, and that’s how he got his nickname.”

He looked surprised. “Did you think I was lying?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

She gazed through the windshield as if viewing the landscape of an alien planet. Although she would never admit it to him, she felt bewildered and overwhelmed. Would she ever fit in? Had she been deluding herself that she could? Eden Pass was as peculiar and at times as intimidating as a foreign country.

“It’s so different here,” she said lamely.

“True enough. Different for you, anyway.” He pointed through the windshield at the approaching lights of town. “For every person living in Eden Pass, there’s a story. I could spend all night with you and still not get around to all of them.”

She reacted, turning her head quickly. His choice of words had been calculated. She could tell that by the way he was looking at her.

In a sexy voice he added, “But I don’t guess we’ll be spending any nights together, will we, Doc?”

“No, we won’t.”

“Because you and I don’t have a damn thing in common, do we?”

“Only one thing. Clark. We have Clark in common.”

At the mention of his brother’s name, his sultry gaze instantly turned cold. His expression changed completely.

“Well, he and I didn’t have much in common except our two parents and a home address. We loved each other, even liked each other. But Clark obeyed all the rules. I broke them. I grudgingly respected him for being good all the time, and I think he harbored a secret envy for my ability not to give a damn. We were as different as brothers could be and still be kin.” His eyes moved over her. “Where we really differed was our taste in women.”

“I doubt the two of you would appeal to the same woman,” she said stiffly.

“Right. It would either be one of us or the other. For instance, if Clark had taken you to dinner tonight, you wouldn’t have had the pleasure of Barbecue Bobby’s. You’d have dressed up fit to kill and gone to the country club. You’d have rubbed elbows with the upper crust, the social climbers, pillars of the community.