Coming Home to Paradise (Sisters in Paradise #3)

Chapter 4

“Some things never change,” Bo muttered as she glanced around the Saint Jo square that Saturday morning.

“Except that some of the time we didn’t even need a jacket, and this year, we should have worn thermal long underwear under our jeans. This cold wind hasn’t let up in days and days,” Rae said.

“But the atmosphere is still the same as when we were kids,” Bo answered. “The vendors might be different, but there’s cotton candy and hot dogs. Those were the two most important things back then.”

“Along with all the excitement when Santa came riding into town on the fire truck.” Rae nodded. “Do you realize that twenty years ago, we thought the folks that are our age were just plumb old?”

“And the ones over sixty were downright ancient,” Bo said.

Rae patted her sister on the shoulder. “You got that right, but time sure changed that attitude, didn’t it?”

Endora and Parker waved from a few feet away and weaved their way through the crowd toward Bo and Rae. “Hey, what are y’all going to do first?” Endora asked when they reached Rae and Bo.

“I only have a couple of hours,” Bo answered. “I’m going to get two hot dogs and sit on a bench and eat them.”

“I thought that thing tonight wasn’t until seven,” Rae said.

“It’s not, but Aunt Bernie rented the bar from noon to give me time to get the place decorated. Believe me, when I get it all done, Whiskey Bent will run the Paradise some competition. The event is over at nine, but the bar is open to the public until sometime after midnight,” Bo explained.

Rae’s mouth set in a firm line, and her brow furrowed in a frown. “ You have gotten old if it’s going to take you seven hours to get ready for a meet and greet. What do you have to do? Throw a few tablecloths on and set a few centerpieces out. I could plan Endora’s entire wedding in that length of time.”

“Okay then, smarty-pants, I’ll stick around until the parade at one o’clock, and maybe all of us girls can gather around Santa for a picture. But I’ll only do that if you go with me and help all afternoon and evening,” Bo smarted off.

“You’ll have to leave before noon then because I’m not going to help decorate,” Rae declared.

Before Bo could argue, two little girls ran up to Endora and wrapped their arms around her waist. Dressed alike in jeans and red sweatshirts with Rudolph printed on the fronts, they even had identical backpacks slung over their left shoulders.

“Miz Dora,” one of them stepped back and frowned.

“And Preacher Parker,” the other finished, and also took a step back.

“What are y’all doing here?” the first one asked.

“We’re waiting on Santa, just like you are,” Parker answered.

“I’m glad you are here,” Endora said. “I want you to meet your new Sunday school teacher. This is my sister Rae, and she’ll be taking over your class for the next few weeks.”

Both little girls turned their frowns and gazes toward Rae. Bo bit back a giggle when she noticed the look on her twin sister’s face.

“I’m Heather,” the one with a freckle in front of her left ear said.

The other one popped her hands on her hips. “I’m Daisy, and Rae is a boy’s name.”

“Daisy, that is rude.” The crowd parted and a tall man stood behind the girls. His hair was as dark as the girls’, but his eyes were mossy green.

“Sorry.” Daisy kicked at the dirt and then whispered, “But it’s the truth.”

“I’m Gunner Watson, and these are my daughters.” The man stuck out his hand toward Rae. “I understand you worked on the police force up in Oklahoma. I have a position open in the Nocona Police Department and would be glad to send you an application.”

She shook hands with him. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m taking some time off to decide what I want to do next, but I know it’s not police work.”

“Well, if you change your mind…” Gunner said. “And it’s good to meet you. If these girls give you any trouble in Sunday school, just…”

“Daddy!” the girls both said in unison.

Gunner looked down at them. “You two might fool some folks, but I know both of you and guessing what you might do does not tax my imagination one bit.”

“Can we go get a pretzel with cheese?” Heather asked in a sweet voice.

“And a hot chocolate?” Daisy smiled innocently at her father.

“They seem like two sweet little girls,” Rae said when they were out of hearing distance.

Bo giggled aloud. “Don’t let those blue eyes fool you.”

“Bo is right,” Endora added. “And remember, a tornado just looks like a black funnel until it hits. Parker and I are on our way to the hotel for a cup of hot chocolate. Y’all want to join us?”

“We’re going for hot dogs,” Bo said. “But thanks for asking.”

“See y’all tomorrow in Sunday school,” Rae called out before the twins were completely swallowed up in the crowd.

Both girls turned back and smiled.

“They don’t look so bad to me,” Rae said.

“Darlin’ sister, those were let’s-see-what-you’ve-got smiles, not sweet ones,” Bo said with a giggle. “We’ll agree to disagree.”

“I can live with that,” Rae said.

***

A picture of the bar chased through Bo’s mind as she drove from Saint Jo to Nocona. Set on the east side of town, the place was only two years old. She had only been there one time, when she had gone with Bernie to make arrangements.

“I won’t be here that evening,” Dave, the owner, had told them when they signed the contract that day. “I’m taking my wife on a cruise for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. But I’ve hired a new manager, and he will take good care of you. His name is Maverick Gibson. You will need to be out by nine. I don’t expect a lot of traffic since it’s a holiday weekend, but I’d hate to close up on a Saturday night. That would be bad business for my regulars.”

“And there might be a few stragglers who are tired of so much family being around for the Thanksgiving holiday. I owned a bar up in Ratliff City, Oklahoma, for many years. I know how folks are,” Bernie said.

“Fish and visitors…” Dave grinned.

“Stink after three days,” she said, finishing the old adage for him.

Bo had made flyers to advertise the Sixty-and-Over meet and greet event, and she and her aunt had put them up all over the county. Bernie had had Bo create a graphic to put on the Aunt Bernie’s Advice to the Lovelorn blog that she ran on the internet.

“I’m glad that she figured out there was too much competition for her to make it in the online matchmaking business,” Bo muttered as she pulled into the gravel parking lot of the bar, with a neon sign above the door that read WHISKEY BENT BAR. Painted deep green, the building seemed to blend right in with all the huge trees surrounding it.

She parked as close to the front door as she could, got out of her SUV, popped the back hatch open, and groaned at all the boxes she had to carry inside. Thank goodness Dave had agreed—and even seemed happy—to let her leave all the decorations up. That would save hours and hours of taking them all down.

“Hey, I’ve been looking out for you,” a deep voice called out. “I’ll help unload all that stuff.”

“Thanks,” she said before she turned around.

The guy stepped around her and stuck out his hand. “You must be Bo. I’m Maverick.”

Bo had pictured Maverick as an older man, maybe with a bald head like the bartender in the last movie she had watched. She couldn’t have been more wrong. The man gripping her hand was well over six feet tall and had light-brown hair that hung to his shoulders and dark-green eyes with gold flecks in them. The combination was totally breathtaking. Especially when added to his snug-fitting blue jeans, his scuffed-up cowboy boots, and the plaid shirt showing from under his denim duster. All in all, he looked like he should be on the cover of a romance novel—one that came with a free handheld fan—or maybe one of the country singers in Nashville. He had the whole package for either one.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said and dropped his hand.

“Likewise,” he said, picked up two boxes and headed toward the bar.

“Wow!” Bo mumbled under her breath.

No, no, no! Aunt Bernie’s voice yelled inside her head. Dave said that Maverick is not the kind to put down roots. He’s not for you.

“Shhh,” Bo shushed her and carried a box toward the bar. “Let me enjoy the moment, and you go on and have a good time on your cruise. Find someone who will appreciate that red lace teddy.”

The inside of the place was bigger than Bo would have thought. She set her box on one of the tables for four that were set up all around the floor. Maverick followed her lead and then headed back outside.

He stopped halfway across the floor and turned back. “How many folks are you expecting tonight?”

She took a couple of steps toward him. “One hundred people paid for tickets. About seventy-five women, and the rest were men.”

Maverick chuckled. “I have twenty tables on the floor, and five up on the stage, so we should be good.”

Bo glanced over her shoulder at the stage area where an old upright piano had been pushed back against the wall. A desire to hear the tinkle of a piano, the whine of a fiddle, and the beat of the drums swept over her. She’d left the dream behind—or so she thought—but even after six months, she still yearned for the feeling that she got every time she picked up a microphone. “Do you ever have live bands?”

“Not very often, but we do have piano music sometimes,” Maverick answered and continued to take long strides toward the door.

Bo followed him and mentally tallied up the profit Bernie would make at the event. The tickets to get through the door were fifty dollars each. All of the decorations came from holiday leftovers that had been stored in the barn, and Bernie had talked Dave into giving her a healthy discount on the free beer that would be served in exchange for leaving the decorations up for the season. Considering all that, Bernie was making a nice little profit on this venture.

“I’ve never been a part of an event like this.” Maverick hefted two more boxes up on his shoulders. “My first gig as a bartender was several years ago in Deadwood, South Dakota. I was worried that I wouldn’t know how to mix all those fancy cocktails, but the guys mostly ordered whiskey, neat or on the rocks, and the ladies wanted wine.”

“Have you learned to make the cocktails since then?” Bo asked.

He chuckled. “No, but I’ve got a really good app on my phone that tells me exactly how to fix them. What did you do before you became an event planner with your aunt? Dave says she is quite a character.”

“I spent ten years in Nashville chasing the dream of becoming a country music singer,” Bo answered and opened the door for him.

“What made you give up on your dream?” Maverick asked.

“Disappointment, boredom, missing family—any one or all of the above,” she answered. “What made you leave Deadwood?”

Maverick set the two heavy boxes on a table and pulled out a chair. “I get antsy after a few months in one place. Might as well sit down and catch your breath before we start unloading all this stuff. Want a drink or a bottle of water?”

“I’d love a beer,” Bo said. “I’m not particular about what kind as long as it’s cold.”

“Coming right up,” Maverick said, and brought two longneck bottles to the table. “I’m judging from all these boxes that you intend to do some serious decorating this afternoon.”

“Aunt Bernie left all kinds of orders about what to use and where to put it, so it will take a few hours,” she answered and then turned up the bottle and had a couple of long drinks.

Maverick took a sip and set his bottle on the table. “Well, darlin’, I’m all yours until after the party is over, but I’ve got a question.”

“Shoot,” Bo said.

“You’re going to shut down the party at nine, and I’m opening the place up to the public at that time. What do you intend to do with all the decorations?” he asked. “Taking them all down and packing them with people all around will be even more trouble than putting them up in an empty room.”

Bo took another drink of her beer. “Didn’t Dave tell you about the deal that he and Aunt Bernie made?”

Maverick shook his head. “No, he was in such a hurry to get out of here that he must have forgotten.”

“Instead of Aunt Bernie paying full price for the beer, the decorations all stay. That way you’ve got everything all fancy through the holidays,” she told him.

“That’s a pretty good deal,” Maverick said.

“Aunt Bernie is a wheeler-dealer,” Bo said with half a giggle. “After she made that deal, she asked my mama for all her leftover decorations. Mama never throws out a single thing, and there’s always too much for the families and the Paradise.”

“Families? Paradise?” Maverick’s brow furrowed in a frown.

“I have six sisters. Four of them are married, hence families . One is engaged to the preacher in the only church in Spanish Fort—another family plus the church. The Paradise is the name of the house where all of us girls grew up. It was a brothel back in the cattle-run days,” she explained as she stood up and ripped the tape from a box marked GARLAND.

“Seven girls?” Maverick shook his head again. “I can’t imagine having that many siblings, much less sisters. What are their names?”

“Ursula, Ophelia, Tertia, Luna, and Endora, and then there’s me and Rae. There are two sets of twins in the mix. Rae is my twin, but we are not identical. Luna and Endora are the youngest in the family, and not many folks can tell them apart.”

“Where did your mama find such unusual names?”

“She named us from characters in whatever book she was writing at the time. She is a famous romance author. My character was a lady spy slash singer in an old-time honky-tonk. Rae’s was a policewoman in a romantic suspense story. We’re the only two that grew up to follow our namesakes.”

She brought out a piece of paper with instructions on where everything was to be hung or placed. “We start with garland and put it up there.” She pointed toward the area between the shelves of liquor and the ceiling. “I’m supposed to weave three strands together—two red and one gold—and once it’s up, we string twinkle lights all through them. I hope you have a ladder, but can I ask you a question? Where did you get your name?”

“My grandmother liked the movie Top Gun , and Mama let her name me since I was a surprise baby,” he answered. “I’ll get the ladder from the storage room.”

Bo fanned her face with her hand. Aunt Bernie was right about not getting involved with a bartender who never stayed in one place for long, but her hormones were sure enough ignoring the warnings. “But…” she muttered, “just because Aunt Bernie says I can’t have that particular piece of man candy doesn’t mean I can’t look through the window of the store.”

Just keep the glass between you and the displays so you aren’t tempted to reach out and have only one tiny little sample. Aunt Bernie was back in her head.

“I promise,” Bo whispered with a long sigh.

“Did you say something to me?” Maverick asked as he carried an old wooden ladder with green paint spatter all over the rungs into the room.

“No, I was just mumbling about getting all this done.” She crossed her fingers behind her back the way she had done when she was a child and had told a white lie.

“We’ve got more than three hours,” Maverick reminded her. “We could decorate your Paradise place in that length of time.”

Bo laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny? I used to help my mama get the Christmas tree ready and put the lights up outside in a couple of hours.”

“It takes at least three days to get the Paradise ready for the holidays,” she answered. “You should drive up to Spanish Fort sometime between now and New Year’s and see the place.”

“Just how big is this house?” Maverick asked as he set the ladder up.

“I have no idea.” Bo took out the garland and began to weave it together. “It has seven bedrooms upstairs—one for each of the original ladies who lived there—and one downstairs for Madam Raven, who owned the place. The size is why Mama bought it and then had it remodeled for us girls. We all had our own space that way, and the downstairs room and office belong to her. She’s a pretty famous novelist.”

Maverick unplugged the neon sign hanging up near the ceiling, took it down, and laid it on the bar. “We’ll have to be super careful with this. It’s been here since Dave opened the bar. A beer company gave it to him at his grand opening. He hung it up there because a plug-in wasn’t far away.”

“Then you take it somewhere. If it gets broken, it won’t be my fault.” Bo glanced down at the piece of paper Bernie left for her as she worked on the garland. The next job was to hang fake cedar around the edge of the bar and string more twinkling lights in it. She peeled the tape off the right box and brought out greenery that had been wrapped around squares of cardboard.

“Do you like working as a bartender?” she asked.

“Bartender slash manager,” he corrected her, “and yes, right now I do enjoy it. I like this area, and the folks here in Nocona are friendly. Plus, I get a free apartment at the back of the bar, so I can save a lot of money.”

“For your next journey?” she asked.

Maverick picked up the neon sign. “That’s right. I’ll take this to the storage room.” He left with the sign and returned in a few minutes. “I never know where I’m going until something either comes up or, like you said, boredom or disappointment sets in.”

“Or homesickness?” she asked.

“Don’t have a home. My father and his fourth wife live in Thailand, or maybe it’s Japan this month. I can’t keep up with them any more than they can me. My mother left us when I was too young to remember her. My grandmother is in a nursing home in Houston and doesn’t even know me anymore,” Maverick said.

She heard a note of sadness mixed with a little yearning in his voice. She couldn’t imagine not having a big family, especially with the holidays coming up. “I’m sorry. I was prying, and I shouldn’t have asked so many questions.”

His smile could have put the sun to shame on a bright day in July. “You weren’t being nosy. That’s just the way folks get to know each other, and if we’re going to work together, even just for today, it’s called conversation. So, you and your twin aren’t identical?”

“Nope, and our personalities are different. Mama always said Rae was the introverted twin, and I was the extroverted one. That might not seem strange to you, but Rae worked for the police force, so you’d think she was the outgoing one. But I don’t have a problem speaking my mind.”

“I like a woman who isn’t afraid to speak up, and I like your southern accent,” Maverick said. “Did you pick that up in Nashville?”

“Thanks again, but I probably got most of it from being raised here in Texas and then living in Nashville for ten years,” Bo answered. “I’ve got this part ready to hang up there. You want to climb the ladder or feed it up to me?”

“How are we going to get it to stay up?” he asked.

She held up a whole card of thumbtacks. “With these. It’s not very heavy, so they should work, and they are green, so they’ll be hidden in the garland.” She would rather learn more about him than talk about decorations.