Bluebonnet, Texas: Just after New Year's
With shaky hands, Zack Boudreaux clicked his browser shut and sat back with a low, fretful groan at the sound of boots on his front porch.
Today was the first time since he'd placed that damned personal ad that he'd had a chance to check in, and the sight of all those responses filling his inbox had initially put him in a panic. He'd barely worked through a quarter of them before his eldest brother breezed in on a late-afternoon gust, slamming the front door behind him.
Tim always did have lousy timing.
"Where's Rene?" He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in the pocket of his Carhartt work coat.
"In with Travis." Zack pointed a thumb toward the living room where his niece and son had spent the afternoon watching movies. This time of year, it was too cold and wet to do much else.
"I need to get her fed. I got a date tonight." He smiled and waggled his eyebrows.
"When don't you?"
Tim wheeled around, surprise clear on his face. "Well, ain't we feeling sassy today. Jealous?"
"Whoever she is, I doubt she's worth being jealous over," Zack shot back.
"Whatever, man." He rounded up his daughter and then headed home. Zack sighed as he turned back to the task at hand—his email. Tim might have been the poster child for tall, dark and handsome, but his taste in female companions left a lot to be desired. This round definitely went to Zack. Rare, but not unheard of.
His chuckle faded as he tried to make sense of the replies he'd received.
He blamed his bad mood on Marina's Christmas card. Travis's mother had included a photo of his new baby sister—bringing the total to two siblings—and enclosed a letter asking if he was dating and how Travis was. He'd hesitated to write her back because it seemed pointless and cruel. She loved their son but could never be a part of his life. Even so, Zack knew he'd eventually give in and write her back like he always did.
But it was her letter that had given him the idea of placing a personal ad. As if getting married and having more children hadn't crossed his mind, too. Searching close to home for a wife was out of the question. Boudreauxe's in Bluebonnet were like Kennedys in Massachusetts, without all the money and scandal. The last local girl he'd dated, at his mother's less-than-subtle suggestion, had started hinting at moving in on date three. He didn't do bars because he worked in one part time and he didn't get to San Antonio that often.
Fifty-eight replies in four days from married women, tramps who promised to act like virgins, non-virgins who were indignant for a wide variety of reasons, and men. Zack chuckled thinking of the angry notes he'd gotten for even mentioning the "V" word. Feminists had demanded his head and more than one man had demanded his Man Card. He hadn't literally meant a virgin. Even he knew how crazy the idea sounded. And God help him if his mother ever found out he'd placed a personal ad—or anyone else for that matter. Maybe trying to find a nice girl on the internet had been a bad idea.
Or, at least, he'd thought it sounded crazy, he thought as he stared at yet another email. From a virgin no less.
A twenty-six-year-old virgin who lived in Utah. Utah?
Zack groaned again, running his hands through his hair. He had an hour to eat, get changed, drop Travis off and get to the bar. He stretched and read Hope's reply again. She was willing to relocate and she was open to a long-term relationship. He'd just have to write her back later.
He shut down his laptop, then went to check on Travis. His four-year-old son lay sprawled on the living room floor, an oversized pillow between him and the rough wool of a Navaho rug. Thumb firmly seated in his mouth, he lay watching Space Jam—again. Zack chuckled quietly, hopeful and curious about the woman from Utah. Travis deserved more than a slightly-distracted father, busy uncles and a cranky grandmother. He deserved a mother and siblings. Real siblings that he could grow up with.
"Trav," he said softly.
Travis rolled over and grinned up at him, pale green eyes shining. He'd inherited so much of his mother, her eyes, her sable hair and olive skin. Zack didn't have time to be maudlin, though, they needed to get moving. "Dinner in five, young man. Go wash up."
"Yes, sir." Travis nodded, speaking around the thumb still firmly seated in his mouth.
Zack headed for the kitchen. From the smell of it, his tuna noodle casserole was ready.
# # #
"You're late, Oak," Rowdy hollered as Zack headed across the bar's empty dance floor.
"Yeah, yeah."
Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night Rowdy, Zack and his brother, Ty, played at the Bluebonnet Dancehall. Zack enjoyed making music almost as much as art, but didn't care much for the late nights because of Trav. The worst part, though, was Thursday's open mike night.
Stepping up onto the minuscule stage, Zack quirked an eyebrow at Rowdy and set his guitar case on the piano bench. They were nearly the same age and had the same stocky build but Rowdy's extra height made him resemble an oak tree much more than Zack did. "I'll go home...if you want."
"Hell no," Ty piped up from behind his drums. "If we have to suffer, you do too!"
All three men laughed. They'd been playing at his aunt's dancehall on and off since high school. A year ago their female lead had gotten married and pregnant in quick succession and the band had been searching for her replacement ever since—thus the open mike nights. It seemed as if every woman from Waco to the Gulf coast, whoever thought she could give Reba McIntyre a run for her money, would sing. Or something like it. Zack and his bandmates considered it torture, and would have gone to private auditions long ago, but the audience loved it, so Aunt Susie insisted they keep it up.
"Let's get this over with," Rowdy sighed, strapping on his bass.
Aunt Susie bustled around behind the bar that covered most of the far end of the dancehall. Waitresses hustled around setting up barstools around the outside of the dance floor and lifting benches off the long picnic tables. Before the night ended someone would dance with the wrong someone and there'd be a fight—or three. With a sigh of his own, Zack tossed his coat aside and opened his guitar case.
The singers were worse than ever, and that said a lot. There was a redhead from San Antone who thought she could sing like Kelly Clarkson. She couldn't. Then there was Trixie Barnett, a local girl who likened herself to a young Faith Hill. She breathed just fine, it was her singing that fell short. Mandy Johnson did her very own rendition of Any Man of Mine. She hit all the notes, it was the extras she threw in that caused problems. As it was, the band had to contend with the usual boos and good-natured catcalls to go with their aching ears. When Zack announced their last break, the unruly crowd nearly raised the roof.
He skirted the dance floor and waded through the thick crowd to the bar, ready to sit, cool off and pour at least a gallon of water down his throat. With a nod, he accepted a glass from the bartender whose flirtatious smile made him squirm.
He spun around on the stool to face his aunt, who gave him a hard-eyed stare, as if to say, "Well?"
Dressed in jeans and a red pearl snap shirt, with her long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked closer to the bartender's age than her true age of somewhere the other side of forty.
