Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
MIRABETH
My social battery is close to sputtering out by the time we’re seated outside at two wooden picnic tables that have been butted up against each other at Big Hart’s—a dance hall riding the county line.
Between the prison outreach program, Conrad’s welcome home party, and now this night out with Conrad’s boss and coworkers, I’ve met and chatted with easily five times the number of strangers than I had in all of last year combined.
I look forlornly across the concrete patio at my Beetle parked in the lot while live country western music spills out of the hall’s open garage-style doors.
It’s not that Sam, Jorge, Keagan, and the five other coworkers, plus all their spouses, aren’t good company.
They are, with their boisterous laughter as they poke fun at Conrad’s hand, trading stories of “good times” they had that ended with a trip to urgent care or the ER with their own injuries since getting into the carpentry business, showing off their scars or, gruesomely, pictures.
I grimace.
Ok, so it’s not exactly fun, per se, but they’re a happy, lively crowd.
It’s just that I’m running on empty as I wait for our waitress, Mckinley, to come back to our tables with another two iced buckets of beer.
And when she does, I perk up a little when I lift my drained pint glass to get her attention.
“Another Dr. Pepper?” Mckinley asks, tucking a face-framing piece of her long, dark magenta dyed hair behind her ear.
Something gnaws at my stomach when I slide a look to Conrad, wondering if he’s checking out the tall, pretty waitress wearing teeny, tiny black jean shorts and thigh-high black western boots.
Her itty-bitty, cropped uniform T-shirt shows off the kind of curves I’ve always been envious of.
Conrad and I haven’t even been married a full two weeks, and it’s not like this is a real marriage, so really, I’d have no reason to care if he was.
None at all. Absolutely nada…Or so I keep telling myself, afraid I’m getting too attached to a man who’s leaving in a few short years.
But Conrad isn’t looking at Mckinley, and I try not to think about how much that pleases me.
He simply pops the cap on his second bottle of beer while listening to Jorge tell the story of the time he accidentally electrocuted himself while fiddling with the furniture warehouse’s breaker box.
Wonderful. Something to look forward to.
“Can I please get a frozen margarita?” I ask Mckinley. I need to let loose a little if I have any hope of rejoining the conversation.
“Sure thing, hon,” she says, clearing the empty bottles and pint glasses from the table, about to walk off.
Conrad snaps his head up to Mckinley. “Make that a non-alcoholic margarita.”
I frown. “Uh, no, I want a regular one.”
Conrad lays his hand on my thigh under the table and gives me an imploring look. “Probably not a good idea, princess.”
“Why?” But then I shake my head. “Don’t care. One regular frozen margarita, please,” I tell Mckinley. “And make it strong.”
Conrad bounces his knee when Mckinley walks away after having raised her brow at his presumptuousness.
I lean in to ask, “What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t think you should be drinking alcohol in your condition.”
“What condition?” I ask, bewildered.
“You could be pregnant.” Conrad squeezes me into his side on the bench seat with an arm around my back, snaking his re-bandaged hand around to rest it on my stomach.
Though we’d only been exchanging whispers, a few of the guys give us nosy looks, most notably, Sam, when I rear my head back and say too loudly, “Pregnant? I’m on the pill!”
“Which isn’t effective yet. And like you said, my pull-out game is weak.” He looks smug about it, too, though he quickly tries to hide it.
Sam coughs to cover a laugh, then asks me, “What’s your last name again?”
“Perkins,” I answer at the same time as Conrad says, “O’Byrne.”
“Really?” Sam clicks his tongue. “Small world.”
“Don’t tell me you know my mom too,” I groan.
Conrad tilts his head at Sam, and they seem to have a silent conversation—one that ends with Conrad’s grin turning downright wicked. Weirdo.
I pinch my lips, trying to peel Conrad’s hand off my stomach without injuring him further, and I tap the toe of my pointy brown cowgirl boots that Conrad picked out for me tonight.
Conrad snatches my margarita as soon as Mckinley sets it on the table in front of me, and he gives the drink a long sniff. His brow darkens when he hands it back to Mckinley and tells her, “She’s not drinking tonight.”
It’s my turn to be smug when Mckinley hands it straight to me and tells Conrad, “That shi–oot won’t fly around here.”
“What won’t?” Conrad asks.
“Thinking you can tell your woman what she can and can’t do.” She nods toward the back of the patio, where a motley group of women has just stepped out onto the patio.
The group stares daggers our way, all either crossing their arms or raising their brows. Just behind them lurks a group of giant men that could be mistaken for bears if it weren’t for their flannel shirts and work boots.
And would you look at that? A little of my energy comes back, and I sit up straighter, wiggling my fingers at them. “Hey, ladies.” I search their faces, looking for the one I’m most familiar with. “Is Aunt Faye with you?”
“She’s working tonight,” one of Aunt Faye’s best friends, Dolly, says. She flips her long, dark blonde hair behind her shoulder and takes a seat at the only available picnic table across from us at the corner of the patio.
“We’ll tell her you said ‘hi’ when we see her tomorrow, Mirabeth,” says Goldie, another of Aunt Faye’s besties.
“How do you know them?” Conrad asks as the rest of the women sit with Dolly and Goldie, still keeping an eye on us.
“My Aunt Faye—she’s actually my mom’s cousin—has worked with most of them at Granny’s Diner.
” The gray double-wide trailer where the diner is located is one of those that you’d miss if you didn’t know it was there, tucked away on a back road, with only a small banner that says GRANNY’S.
It’s a county gem where Mom, Dad, and I used to have breakfast every Saturday until he passed.
Now it’s just the two of us—when Mom isn’t hiding from me, of course. “Remind me to take you there sometime.”
“Already been, once or twice. Best pancakes ever,” Conrad says, giving the Granny’s Girls a nod that they don’t return.
“One hundred percent,” I say, then lick the salty rim of my margarita glass. Yum.
“Princess,” Conrad growls, not at all concerned about the menacing group. “Don’t you dare.”
The largest, scariest of the men, Elliott, with a silver beard and tattoos creeping up his neck and over his brows, suddenly steps out of the darkest shadow beneath a broken exterior floodlight.
I hadn’t known he was there, and an icy shiver runs down my spine.
He’s the one I’m least familiar with, but he has a reputation that leaves everyone, including me, wary of him and his rumored collection of shovels and hellhounds.
Conrad’s body language doesn’t change as he eyes the silver giant.
My husband might be a little shorter and much leaner than Elliott, but he’s stacked with muscles and has been to prison.
He could probably hold his own in a fight if things were to turn ugly.
But I only say probably, because Elliott has been to prison, too, and it certainly wasn’t as cozy as the one where Conrad and my dad did their time.
Thankfully, I don’t have to worry, since the woman with raven-black hair and platform combat boots steps in front of Elliott, redirecting her husband’s cold, predatory gaze.
There’s a vibe about his wife, Teagan, that scares me more than Elliott, despite her being the shortest and newest of all the group.
Elliott visibly softens, bending almost entirely in half to kiss her. Mission accomplished.
Several of my group’s jaws drop with shock, considering Elliott looks like he’s old enough to be his wife’s father, if not older.
“I’ve heard some crazy rumors about those big boys down at Berenson Trucking,” Keagan says, flicking his gaze to the terrifying giant and back again.
Conrad nods and cracks his neck. “So have I.”
“So you know not to get on their bad side,” Keagan warns. “Heard their wives are just as bad, if not worse.”
“Yep, so you need to behave,” I tell Conrad with a smirk.
I tip my glass to take the first sip of my margarita, only to freeze before the alcohol ever touches my tongue.
Conrad got into my head, and now I can’t enjoy my drink because, what if, by some freakish miracle, I am pregnant?
“Godfreakingdammit, Conrad, you bossy, geriatric—”
“Geriatric,” Conrad interrupts with a snort.
“Son of a biscuit and royal pain in my ass,” I finish saying, setting my margarita down hard on the table, crossing my arms, and sulking.
One of the bears with a bushy brown beard, Wyatt, booms with laughter, and Dolly giggles even as she covers her mouth, gently slapping her husband’s large stomach with the back of her hand.
“Whew, she’s got a mouth on her,” Jorge’s wife, Carmel, says, her two long, dark brown Dutch braids swinging forward as she leans toward me from across the table. “I knew I liked you the minute we met, girly.”
“Me too,” Conrad says, pushing my drink away, squeezing me extra tight to kiss my temple. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, well, I—” I start to say I don’t like you, but that would be a lie, even if I am miffed that I’ve ended up in this position, married and possibly impregnated by a total stranger who’s somehow even bossier than Merlin. Frickin’ gingers.