Which Desperado’s has got going on, much to my relief. When my buddy Wyatt asked me to come out with him tonight and be his wingman, I’d resigned myself to an evening of boredom, fending off passes from too-drunk women who want nothing of me and everything of my body.
But line dancing and two stepping and swing dancing and waltzing to some Charlie Daniels and Gretchen Wilson? I love it, and never get enough chances to flex my dance moves.
Unfortunately, right now Wyatt’s got his arm slung around my shoulder as he talks up a couple of blondes perched on stools on his other side. The music’s calling, but I’m here for my friend. I hope he makes up his mind fast about which blonde he wants, because then I’ll get to make a beeline for the buzzing dance floor.
Normally I wouldn’t have come out. Not to help my buddy pick up women, at least.
But Wyatt’s been having a rough time lately. His father recently went into kidney failure, his brother and sister-in-law had a miscarriage, and Wyatt himself had a cancer scare that, thankfully, turned out to be nothing more than a frightening few weeks.
So when he asked me to accompany him for a night of letting loose, I couldn’t say no. He’s my friend, and he deserves the chance to blow off some of life’s stresses.
And, hopefully, once he’s found someone who wants a one night stand as much as he does, I can let loose myself — on the dance floor. It’ll be nice to dust off the rusty skills I learned from watching my dad whirl my mom around our family room when they thought all of us kids were in bed.
Wyatt makes some joke that causes the two blondes to dissolve in drunken laughter. I smile, but my mind is on my parents.
Growing up, I thought relationships like theirs were the norm. My mother and father were wholly in love with each other, and still are to this day. They met in a bar not unlike the one I’m in. The way they tell it, their eyes met across the room, and that was that. My dad stood up and strode to my mom’s side. The band kicked up with a new song, and he swept her onto the dance floor — and off her feet. They haven’t spent many days apart since.
It wasn’t until I grew to manhood that I realized that my parents are damned lucky — love like theirs isn’t as common as we’d all like to believe.
That’s my one regret in life. I love my job, love my family, love living in Montana’s big sky country.
I just wish I had someone to share it all with. Someone to fall head over heels in love with and stay that way until we’re gray and wrinkled and surrounded by grandchildren.
Life is too beautiful to walk through it alone. And while I have good friends and family, it doesn’t quite feel like enough.
I want that one special woman to share it with. I want someone to lay down with and wake up next to. I want someone to have and to hold, to grow a family with, to laugh and sob with until death do us part.
With parents like mine, I thought it would have happened for me young. But I’m thirty one years old and still very much alone.
Which is better than the alternative — to be yoked with someone that I don’t love would be far worse. I want real love, gritty and honest, passionate and true, and nothing else will do.
Still, sometimes I wish my standards weren’t so damned high. I wish I could be like Wyatt and bed a willing woman just for fun.
That’s not me, though.
And the right woman? I know that she’ll be more than worth the wait.
Amelia
I wanted to come here. I needed to. Getting left at the altar makes you ready to get a little wild. Maybe even really wild.
But as soon as we cross Desperado’s vestibule and push through the bar’s swinging saloon-style inner doors, all my bravado seems to shrivel and grow cold.
The bar’s atmosphere is hot and heavy with music, the salty scent of the dancers mixing with the aroma of spilled beer.
And I know that it must be due at least in part to my imagination, but everyone in here seems so fucking happy. The people on the wood-plank dance floor, the musicians, the patrons crowding up to the bar — hell, even the bartenders look pleased enough.
I hate it. I want to scream at them, to tell them today that my heart got ripped out and stomped on in front of all the people I cared about.
“You okay?” Hattie says, breaking through my reverie. I realize that I’m standing frozen just inside the swinging doors. “It’s not too late to go find Randall and slash his tires,” she continues, and I know that she’s not joking.
With a smile that feels more like a grimace, I shake my head. “Let’s get some drinks.” I don’t really want to be here. But I want to be home even less. Because home is where I lived with the man who apparently cared so little for me that he couldn’t even be bothered to break up with me in private, before we dropped thousands on a wedding he didn’t want to have.
I need a fresh start.
But I know that’ll take some time and figuring out. So for tonight, I’m choosing a change of scenery as a pale substitute.
“I’m buying,” says Kate. “What do you want?”
I wave my hand in dismissal. “Anything that has alcohol in it.”
Hattie snorts, but Kate nods as if I’ve just intoned words of wisdom. “Understood.”
She takes Hattie’s and Emmy’s orders, then dives into the throng of people waiting to order drinks. I turn away to watch the dancers.
The thing that I love about western bars is that they somehow attract the most amazing dancers. As if by magic, skilled two steppers materialize on the dance floor, expertly whirling and twirling around each other until the small hours of the morning. It never fails, no matter how small the town or how divey the bar — they always show up in spades.
And tonight Desperado’s is no exception. Hattie and Emmy can’t help but watch with wide eyes, exclaiming every so often at some daring dip or a toss gone more right than any of us expect.
I watch, too. But I can’t take my usual enjoyment from the lively scene. Which makes sense, for obvious reasons.
The last time I was here, it was on Randall’s arm. And while he wasn’t exactly the most enthusiastic dancer, he’d allow me to turn him around the floor a few times after he’d gotten a few beers in him.
Which maybe was a sign that he wasn’t as into me as I’d thought — that our foundation wasn’t all that solid if he could hardly bear to dance with his future wife.
I want a man that I don’t have to beg to put his hands on me, a man to take me in his arms and move our bodies as one to a single rhythm.
I thought Randall had been that man.
But clearly, I was dead wrong.
The wispy hairs at the nape of my neck that earlier today had refused to stay swept into my chignon stand to attention. I stiffen, goose pimples running over my shoulders and down my spine.
Emmy’s eyes are on me in an instant, full of concern. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “Yes, just felt a chill for a sec.”
She offers a sweet half smile that’s full of sympathy and turns back to watch the dancers, who have now moved onto a lively line dance.
But I didn’t feel a chill.
I felt — and feel — watched.
Someone’s eyes are on me.
When I turn my head to scan the room behind me, I try to sweep my gaze as if I’m looking for someone specific, someone that I know. I don’t want whoever’s watching me to know that I’m onto them.