Sweet Vidalia Brand Read Free Page B

entrance was no longer where it had been or it would’ve been in front her nose. She shone the light up and down the siding, and realized by its gleam that it wasn’t wood at all. It was some kind of plastic made to look like slab wood. Didn’t that just figure? Make believe wood for a make believe saloon, if her theory panned out.
    She moved the flashlight further until it gleamed on a great big window a few feet away. So she edged that way, thinking that from the outside she must look like a giant tick on a barn-sized hound dog.
    There, now she was in front of the big window. She cupped her hands around either side of her face and tried to see inside, then had to cup the flashlight in one fist and press it flush against the glass to light the inside a little bit. But its beam didn’t go far enough.
    She was frowning, squinting, and frustrated, when she heard the distinct sound of a shotgun working a shell into the chamber. Pump-action, if she wasn’t mistaken. And she wasn’t.
    “All right, Mister, I’ve got you in my sights,” Bobby said. “You come on out from behind that canvas nice and slow. And put your hands up just as quick as you can manage. Understood?”
    “Yeah,” she said. And she didn’t waste a lot of time obeying.
    She lifted the tarp and poked her head out from underneath it, and before she even got upright, was blinded by a flashlight beam.
    “Vidalia? Is that you?”
    She pressed her lips. “Yeah, Bobby, it’s me. Put the light down, will you? Shotgun too, if the barrel’s still pointed my way.”
    “Son of a–”
    “Watch the language, Bobby.”
    The flashlight moved away, but the damage was done. She was blinking like a mole as his long, tall silhouette strode across the street toward her. Bastard was wearing a duster, of all things. A duster and that Stetson from earlier. He couldn’t have a little mercy? She was ashamed but wasn’t about to hang her head because of it. God knew she’d done worse things. That was the problem.
    She kept her chin high, looked him right in the eyes when she could finally see them.
    “You care to tell me what you’re doin’, sneakin’ around my place in the middle of the night, Vidalia?”
    He’d never called her Vi. Always Vidalia. She’d loved that about him. “You just answered your own question.”
    “Huh?” The light came up again. She blocked her eyes with a hand and he lowered it.
    “What am I doin’? I’m sneaking around your place in the middle of the night.”
    “Don’t be a smartass.”
    She shrugged. “I figured out what you were up to as soon as you left the Corral and my head stopped spinning.”
    His even, white smile appeared so suddenly she thought he’d turned the flashlight back on. “I made your head spin?”
    “Don’t change the subject. I know what you’re up to, Bobby. I just came out here to make sure. Figured I should give you the benefit of the doubt till I’d seen proof.”
    “So this is you giving me the benefit of the doubt.”
    She nodded, standing her ground. Her ridiculous-sounding, but utterly true ground.
    “You could’ve just asked me what I was doing in town, you know.”
    “I asked you. Twice. You gave me a non-answer both times.” She shrugged and reached the spot where he stood, looking up into the rain and into his eyes.
    He took off his Stetson and put it on her head. “Ask me again.”
    “What are you doing in town?”
    He took his time about looking at her face before he finally nodded, twice, slow. “Didn’t you see?”
    “Nope. You started bellering at me just as I got a good look through that window. Scared me so bad I almost dropped my flashlight.” She looked at him, looked close, just as he’d done to her. Her eyes had finally adjusted, so she could see the cut of his jaw. It was a really nice jaw, wide and square, although at the moment it was set a little tightly for her taste.
    “Can I buy you a drink, Vidalia Brand?”
    “Corral’s closed.”
    “I know.” He took