“Come on out, girl. The coast is clear and we’ve only got one empty room. I’m going to turn on the NO VACANCY light and we’re going to get a good night’s sleep. We’ll need it tomorrow when we start stripping beds and doing laundry,” Pearl said.
Delilah leaped up on the counter and flopped down on her chubby belly, long yellow hair fluffing out like a halo around her body. She was seven years old and spoiled to that fancy cat food in the little cans. If she’d had her way it would have been served up on crystal, but Pearl figured making her eat from a plastic cat dish kept her from getting too egotistical.
Pearl pushed all the guest cards to one side and rubbed Delilah’s soft fur. “The worst of it is over until tomorrow when we have to clean all those rooms.”
The rumble of a pickup truck overpowered the noise of the north wind slinging sleet pellets against the glass door. It came to a halt right outside the lobby door, the lights glowing through the glass window.
Pearl pulled out a guest card and laid it on the counter beside Delilah. “Hope they don’t mind newlyweds in the next room, and I damn sure hope they aren’t noisy since they’ll be right next to us.”
One of Aunt Pearlita’s favorite sayings was, “Life is faith, hope, and chaos.” The chaos factor had taken center stage when the lights went out in Henrietta. It really put on a show when the lobby door opened and a Catahoula cow dog rushed inside. Delilah was on her feet growling, every long yellow hair bristled and every claw ready for battle. She’d put up with a lot but not a dog in her territory, and no slobbering dog had rights in her lobby.
The dog took one look at the cat, raised up on the counter, and bayed like he’d treed a raccoon. Delilah reached out and swiped a claw across his nose, which set him into a barking frenzy. That’s when she jumped on his back, all claws bared. Her yowls matched his howls, and the two of them set out on an earsplitting war. The dog threw his head around and tried to bite the varmint tattooing his back with its vicious claws, but the cat hung on with tenacity and fierce anger.
Pearl plowed into the melee, grabbed at Delilah, and missed every time. The dog howled like it was dying. The cat sent out high-pitched wails that would rival a fire siren. Pearl yelled, but neither animal paid a bit of attention to her. They just kept on running in circles and creating enough noise to make the dead raise up out of their graves in preparation for the rapture. She caught a blur of cowboy boots and jeans and heard a man’s deep drawl, loud and clear, when he yelled at her to get her damn cat off his dog.
“What?” she yelled.
“I said for you to get your damn cat off Digger!”
Pearl reached for Delilah again, only to miss in the flurry of noise and fur. “Get your damn dog out of here!”
Delilah chose that minute to bail off the dog, bounce across the counter, and shoot through the door into the apartment. The dog followed in leaping bounds with Pearl right beside him. She slammed the door so quickly that the dog’s nose took a hit and it howled one more time.
The man grabbed the dog and hauled back on his collar. “What in the hell happened?”
“That your dog?” she asked breathlessly.
He was panting from the fuss of trying to get his dog under control and ending the commotion. “I opened the door and the wind blew it shut before I could get inside. Next thing I knew fur was flying and it sounded like poor old Digger was dying. Why did your cat attack him? He lives with cats out at the ranch. He wouldn’t hurt one.”
“Tell that to Delilah, and you are on the wrong side of the counter, cowboy,” Pearl snapped. The adrenaline rush over, she looked at more than boot heels and jeans. The cowboy had a scowl on his face, jet-black hair all tousled from the cat and dog fight, and brown eyes with flecks of pure gold floating in them like a bottle of good schnapps. The whole effect sang “Bad boy. Bad boy. Whatcha goin’ do?” in Pearl’s ears. She shook her head to get the chanting to stop, but it didn’t do a bit of good.
The cowboy took two steps and pushed through the swinging doors at the end of the counter. “All I want is a room, Red.”
“You call me Red again, Mister, and you won’t need one. What you’ll need is a pine box and a preacher to read about you lyin’ down in green pastures,” she said.
He smiled and suddenly there was a whole orchestra behind the singer chanting about bad boys in Pearl’s head. He was bundled up in a worn leather bomber jacket with fleece lining that made his broad shoulders even wider and ended at a narrow waist, faded jeans that hugged a right fine butt that would’ve had her drooling if she hadn’t been so damn mad, and scuffed boots that made him a real cowboy and not the drugstore variety that was all hat and no cattle. His dog was sitting obediently beside him, looking up pitifully as if tattling on that abominable creature that had attacked him.