He pulled her to her feet and gave her a warm hug. “You are a great friend, Amelie,” he murmured against her hair.
He felt her stiffen against him. Finally, she relaxed and said, “I consider you a good friend, too, Rusty.”
After that, they decided to cut the evening short. “Do you want me to drop you off at the ranch or at the bar? I suspect you’ve been worried all night about Charmaine.”
Was I that obvious? I guess so. “Drive by the bar and we’ll see.”
When they got to The Horny Bull an hour later, the lot was half-full, but Clarence’s truck was still there. “You don’t have to come in, I’ll hitch a ride back with them,” he told her. He saw the disappointment on her face, but gave her a quick kiss on the mouth and added, “I’ll call you next week and give you an answer, if I can. Thanks for everything, Amelie.”
Despite the smoky dimness of the bar, Raoul was able to locate Linc and Clarence right off. They were sitting with two fortysomething cowgirls; at least they were wearing old-time movie version cowgirl outfits. No Charmaine in sight. Not even on the dance floor, where the crowd was doing a lively Cajun two-step to “Diggy Liggy Lo.”
Raoul’s heart sank. She must have gone off with some guy, was his first thought, but then he chastised himself for the unkindness of that assumption. She was probably in the ladies’ room jazzing up her makeup.
“Where’s Charmaine?” he barked in a more strident voice than he’d intended when he got to the table.
“Well, hello to you, too,” Clarence said.
“Home,” Linc said.
“Home?” His heart sank again. “Who took her home? Jesus H. Christ, what is she thinkin’, goin’ home with some stranger?”
“No one took her home.” Clarence glowered at him. “I swear, boy, when did you fall out of the dumb tree?”
“Huh?”
“She stayed home to begin with,” Linc explained. “Guess she took yer advice about it bein’ too dangerous to come out t’night.”
“Poor thing. She really wanted ta go dancin’, too,” Clarence added. “She was gonna teach me how ta do the shag.”
Oh, yeah? If Charmaine’s gonna shag anyone, it’s gonna be me. Oh, my God! I can’t believe I thought that. I do not want Charmaine to shag me. Well, I might want it, but I wouldn’t let her do it. I mean, I wouldn’t ask her to do it. Aaarrgh!
They both looked at him as if he were some kind of Simon Legree who had wielded a whip over Charmaine. Some image, that!
“I’ll go over to the bar and have a beer until you two are ready to go home. I need to hitch a ride with you.” He glanced pointedly at each of the women, who had been following the conversation with avid interest.
“Girls, I wantcha ta meet Rusty. Rusty, this here is Wanda,” Clarence said, nodding toward a blonde with teased hair and a bimbo cowgirl outfit that would do Charmaine proud. The fringed skirt showed a bit of neon pink thong. She weighed about two hundred pounds.
“And this is Jolene,” Linc said, squeezing the shoulder of a mocha-skinned, similarly attired cowgirl with corn-rows in her long black hair and a ring in her one nostril. She was skinny as a fence rail.
Dale Evans must be turning over in her grave.
“Unless you want me to call Charmaine and ask her to come pick me up,” he offered as an afterthought. Maybe Clarence and Linc had big plans for these babes. It boggled the mind, but stranger things happened, he supposed.
“Nope, we’ll be ready in ’bout fifteen minutes,” Clarence said. “Wanda and Jolene was about to leave anyways. They’s gotta get up early t’morrow fer the Gumbo Queen contest over in Natchitoches.”
As Raoul walked away, he heard the women giggle.
Everything’s just peachy, chère…
The place reeked of peaches when Raoul got home.
He followed the peach scent, first to the bathroom, then out through the kitchen to the porch, where Charmaine rocked back and forth with big fuzzy cow-clad feet propped on the back porch rail, listening to Fiddlin’ Frenchie Bourke belt out “Let’s Go to Big Mamou.” She wore the most hideous, adorable cow pajamas. The St. Jude statue sat in the other rocker, where he’d put it yesterday. Her date for the night.