Red's Hot Cowboy(7)

“I’ll be right down.” Pearl sighed.

She gathered up half a dozen towels in case the girls all needed to primp again the next morning, put on her jacket, and braced against the bitter sting of sleet when it hit her face. Digger barked from the other side of the door in room one. Giggles and laughter came from room two. In the next room she heard nagging tones with a bit of pure old bitching thrown in. By the time she got to room five her nose was frozen and there was a fine layer of sleet on top of the stack of towels.

She knocked on the door, yelled “room service,” and grumbled as she waited a full minute before kicking the door with her boot and yelling again.

A teenage girl swung open the door. “It’s the towels,” she singsonged to her cousins.

The oldest one looked up from the middle of the bed and then went back to texting on her cell phone. “Well, shit! I thought it might be that cowboy!”

Pearl laid the towels on the bed. “I brought a few extra in case you need them in the morning.”

“Thanks,” the older one said without taking her eyes from her cell phone where her thumbs were working so fast they were a blur.

“Good night, ladies.” Pearl backed out of the room.

She kept her head down against the blowing sleet and hurried back toward the lobby. If she had to go out again that night she was putting on a heavier jacket, for sure. She didn’t see the boots until she was face-to-face with the cowboy from room one. She came to a halt so fast that it made her woozy. When she looked up into his eyes, she just got dizzier.

“You need to watch where you are going. You came close to plowin’ right into me,” he said.

“You could have stepped to one side and let me keep going rather than stopping me in the middle of a sleet storm,” she snapped.

“I tried calling the office but you weren’t answering. I was on my way to beat on the door. Those little girls in four are calling my room every five minutes. They’re giggling and saying that they think cowboys are sexy. They said if I’d bring beer we’d have a party,” he growled.

“You got a cell phone?” she asked gruffly. Christmas Eve was supposed to be fun and magical, not crazy.

He nodded.

“Then simply unplug the motel phone from the wall and no one can pester you,” she said.

He folded his arms across his chest. The woman was pretty with the sleet sticking to her red hair, but she looked like she had one of them hot tempers to go with her red hair.

The wind was chilling to the bone and the tank top he wore with his flannel pajama bottoms did little to keep out the cold, but he wasn’t about to lose the battle of the stare-down with the pretty motel owner.

“People ought to keep a better handle on their kids. That’s the way trouble starts.”

“You’d better get back inside before you get frostbite.” She let her eyes roam over his broad chest and hunky biceps.

You are one to talk about trouble, cowboy. It oozes out of your pores like sweat on a hot summer day.

He dropped his arms but didn’t look away from her eyes. “I don’t need you to tell me what to do. I can take care of myself.”

Pearl popped her hands on her hips. “Don’t look like you’re doin’ too good a job to me. You’re going to have pneumonia in the morning if you don’t get inside where it’s warm. Even your stupid dog has enough sense to stay in out of this weather and he’s got a fur coat.”

He stepped into his room and slammed the door with a loud bang.

The phone was ringing when she opened the lobby door. Delilah was sitting on the sofa staring at it as if with her evil yellow-eyed glare she could send the noisy thing into room one with that other horrible creature who’d barked at her.

Pearl grabbed it and said, “Longhorn Inn, may I help you?”

“This is Georgiana over in room twenty-three. There’s a spider in my bathroom and I’m terrified of spiders. Send someone to kill it,” she whimpered.

Pearl rolled her eyes and wondered if old Digger would be interested in killing a big, mean spider. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“The door is unlocked. I’m standing in the middle of the bed. I won’t get down until that thing is dead, so come on in,” Georgiana said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Pearl said and hung up.

Pearl picked up a can of bug spray and a flyswat and grumbled the whole way across the parking lot as she made her way between cars and trucks. The sleet had gotten serious. A thin layer covered the parking lot and stuck to the vehicle windshields. She knocked on the door, announced herself as pest control, and opened it to find Georgiana right where she said she’d be.