Kinsey finally broke free from Betsy and ran out the front door, her hair a mess and one eye already turning color. One heel had popped off those fancy shoes and had scooted up under a shelf. A long rip up one side of that short skirt that barely covered her ass showed the edge of her panties. Scratches ran down the length of her jawline, and she’d best get out a scoop shovel to apply her makeup the next day to cover that and the black eye. The runs and holes in her black panty hose were icing on the cake. Her cute little sports car sped out of the lot, slinging gravel up on the porch.
Betsy didn’t look much better when she took off after Kinsey. She swiped away the blood from her lip and nose with the back of her hand, and she also had a black eye. At least her jeans and boots hadn’t suffered as much, so she might be the winner of the fight.
“Y’all come on back now, you hear?” Jill called after them.
Chapter 19
Kinsey chose the stool at the far end of the bar on Saturday night. After the grocery-store brawl, the families had retreated to their corners. Makeup couldn’t cover the yellow-looking bruise under Kinsey’s eye or the long fingernail scratch up across her face.
“What can I get you?” Sawyer asked.
“Two sticks of dynamite and a hit man,” she answered.
Sawyer picked up the bottle from the top shelf. “Double shot of Jameson, it is.”
Jill bumped him with her hip. “Here comes trouble.”
Betsy shot a few daggers down the length of the bar before she hopped up on a stool at the other end. “Coors, from the tap, and, Sawyer, I want a cheeseburger basket with extra fries.”
“Jill.” Kinsey crooked her finger. “Tell that hussy at the other end of the bar that we don’t need the preacher comin’ out to River Bend to talk to us. We know the Brennans have gone to talk to him, but we are not burying hatchets any time soon. We are not having a powwow with the Gallaghers, not even in the church. We’d rather kiss the south end of a northbound brood sow as give them the satisfaction of peace.”
“Sawyer,” Betsy said, “tell that bitch that he came to Wild Horse without an invitation, and that we told him that we take care of our vengeance. We don’t even trust God with it. And she might as well kiss a pig’s ass with those lips. They’ve kissed worse.”
Kinsey sipped her whiskey and looked at Betsy in the mirror behind the bar. “Jill, tell her that I beg to disagree. They’ve never kissed a Gallagher.”
Betsy cackled. “She wouldn’t be so lucky. There’s not a Gallagher who’d ever bend so low as to kiss her.”
Kinsey opened her mouth, and Jill slapped the bar with a wet towel. “Stop it, both of you. Either take your bitchin’ outside, or shut up. I’m tired of this constant shit between y’all.”
Sawyer flipped the burger on the grill and checked the basket of fries in the deep fryer. Three women within slapping distance of him. Out of the trio, he would have chosen the tall, willowy blond a few months ago. Two of the others were short redheads, and he’d have given neither of them a second look. But he had flat-out fallen for Jill Cleary. She could do better than a cowboy with barely enough money saved to put a down payment on a very small spread. Hell, she could be sitting pretty over on Wild Horse or River Bend, either one. But Sawyer wanted her like he’d never wanted another woman in his entire life. They were soul mates, and looking back, he had known it from the first time he saw her standing in the doorway of the bunkhouse. Even then, in her anger, he’d seen something that had attracted him to her.
“Do you understand me?” Jill asked. “If so, nod.”
The two women on the other side of the bar had just tried to kill each other with dirty looks and barbed, hateful remarks, but they both nodded and went back to their drinks.
“Thank you,” Jill said.
Sawyer put the burger together and set it in front of Betsy. She picked it up in one hand and her drink in the other and, with a ramrod-straight back, headed to the table the Gallaghers always chose. Leaving food and beer on the table, she went to the jukebox, fished a few coins from her pocket, and plunked them in.
On her return to the table, she tipped an imaginary hat at Kinsey. Loretta Lynn’s voice filled the bar with “You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man.” Betsy made sure she was staring holes in Kinsey when the words said that women like her were a dime a dozen and could be found anywhere.
“So tonight the battleground is in the jukebox. Hope we have enough quarters,” Jill whispered to Sawyer.
The next song was another Loretta song called “Fist City.” Sawyer could almost see the steam coming out of Kinsey’s ears when Betsy held up her beer in a salute. When the words said that if she didn’t want to go to fist city she’d better get out of her town, Betsy raised her fist and shook it at Kinsey.
“Would you take some woman to fist city?” Sawyer whispered in Jill’s ear.
“Damn straight! I’d tear a woman to pieces to protect what’s mine,” Jill answered. “I wonder if this is going to go on all night.”
“Looks like she’s about to have her say one way or the other. Is the shotgun loaded?” Sawyer asked.
“It stays ready.”
Several people pushed inside and claimed tables, Gallaghers sitting with Betsy, the Brennans finding their own spot, and the folks who didn’t care about the feud taking up the rest of the empty tables. Kinsey tossed back the rest of her whiskey and, without taking her eyes off Betsy, headed toward the jukebox.
Betsy’s last choice brought folks out to the dance floor for a line dance, with her leading the pack. Alan Jackson sang “Good Time,” which surprised Sawyer. He was ready for another fighting song from Loretta or maybe Tammy Wynette. But Gallaghers, Brennans, and folks that neither Jill nor Sawyer knew filled up the dance floor.
* * *
“That hussy knew exactly when her backup troops would arrive,” Jill said. “Uh-oh!”
“What?”
“Keep an eye on what’s about to happen,” Jill said.
On one shake of the hip, Betsy bumped Kinsey so hard that she had to grab the jukebox to keep her balance. Betsy mouthed “oops,” moved away, and kept on dancing with the crowd.
Kinsey headed for the jukebox and nodded toward the door.
“If Betsy does that again, Kinsey is taking her outside,” Jill said.
“Long as they don’t dent my truck, I don’t care if they kill each other,” Sawyer said.
Tyrell left the line dancers and yelled on his way across the floor, “Hey, Sawyer, we need ten cheeseburger baskets, and, Jill darlin’, if you could draw us up four pitchers of beer and give us about a dozen cups, we’d be some happy Gallaghers.”
Quaid propped a hip on the stool closest to the door. “Double that order, only put poison in theirs.”
“No can do,” Jill said. “Poison has to be done outside the bar.”
“Did you see what Betsy did to Kinsey? Of course you did, and I heard you didn’t do a thing to help my sister.” Quaid accused as much with his eyes as with his words.
“It was their fight, not mine,” Jill said.
Tyrell stopped dancing and swaggered over to the bar. “Betsy didn’t need any help. She put that Brennan bitch on the run.”
“Like I told the ladies, the fight stops at the door. You want to feud, take it outside,” Jill said.
The noise level in the bar went from rock band noisy to eerie quiet when the song stopped. Every eye in the place was on Quaid and Tyrell, and dollar bills started flying out of pockets to land on the tables. Quaid slid off the stool, and Tyrell did the same. They looked at the door, but then set their eyes ahead on the tables where their families were and circled away from each other.
“Like a couple of wiry old tomcats,” Jill said as she drew up eight pitchers of beer and evened them out on opposite ends of the bar.