Chapter 13
LAUREN
“M atthew! Look out!” My warning about the man approaching him from behind was drowned out by the noise in the bar. Blood pumping, I tried running to him but my chaperone shepherded me away from the melee as I strained against him.
“Stay here,” he commanded, ushering me into a space against the wall.
Then he hurried off toward the action. Fists were flying, and I looked on in horror with no clue how to help.
I couldn’t even see Matthew anymore, much less assist him.
There was a pool stick on the floor near my feet, and I grabbed it because it seemed like the wise thing to do.
Then I swung my head around, searching for a familiar face, finding none in sight.
Right as I was considering calling the police to stop the violence, Chef scrambled toward me with Dwight in hot pursuit.
There was no time to think before I acted, letting Chef pass by then holding out the pool stick at ankle height to catch Dwight unaware.
As soon as he tripped and went flying forward, I dropped the stick and scooted out of there.
As I hurried toward the front of the bar, Ella, the petite bartender, appeared out of nowhere and hopped onto the pool table with a fire extinguisher in one hand and an air horn in the other.
The air horn got the place silent, except for the dulcet tones of Rosanne Cash singing through the speakers, and Ella dropped it onto the pool table.
Then she waved the fire extinguisher at the crowd.
“Cut it out or I’m aiming for you,” she warned. “This thing will blow a man clear across the room, as you’ve witnessed before.”
My sister’s boyfriend, Nick, the retired fire captain, had told me the same thing about a blast from a fire extinguisher. He’d said to keep one under the bed “in case fires and intruders.”
She aimed the nozzle at Dwight. “Clear out of here.”
“He owes me money, Ella,” Dwight whined.
“And you know there’s no gambling in The Marmot,” she shot back. “But if you leave now, I’ll let you come back again to play pool and drink beer. How about that?”
She was seriously impressive, and Dwight must have thought so too, because he headed toward the door. His departure immediately ratcheted down the tension in the room since the major cause of conflict had been, for lack of a better word, extinguished.
Ella hopped off the pool table, and we both went to check on Chef, who had taken on a greenish pallor as he leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.
“You alright?” she asked.
He nodded as he swayed backwards. The tall guy, the one protecting me, moved in to catch him before he hit the ground.
“Drunk as a skunk,” he pronounced as he held onto Chef around his middle. “Probably a little light-headed from the excitement, too.”
“I’m fine.” Chef briefly opened his eyes before shutting them and going silent.
Matthew stalked over to us, and, thank goodness, he wasn’t bleeding or limping, although there was a red area on his cheekbone that was starting to swell.
“I’ll get him home, Ella,” he said. “I’m sorry for disturbing the peace tonight.”
“It’s never peaceful here on weekends,” she said briskly, tucking a wayward curl back into the bun on her head. “Seems like people are angrier and drunker lately. I think I need a new business plan.”
Matthew guided Chef toward the door, and Ella and I followed behind them. The noise in the bar resumed, customers picked up chairs that had been knocked over, and life at The Mangy Marmot went on like nothing had ever happened.
“Can I get some ice?” I asked.
Her hazel eyes softened. “Are you hurt?”
“No, it’s for Matthew. I think his cheek is going to bruise. I noticed some swelling.”
She pressed her mouth closed as if trying to hide a smile. “Sure thing. We wouldn’t want to mar that pretty face of his.”
While Ella went behind the bar and filled a plastic bag with ice, I pondered whether she’d been teasing me about Matthew’s good looks because she knew I had a crush on him. Was it that obvious?
“Here you go.” She leaned over the bar and handed me the ice pack. That’s when I noticed the animal behind her—a taxidermied furry thing about the size and color of a groundhog, posed on a stump of wood.
“What is that?” I asked, pointing to him.
“That’s The Dude, our mascot. Don’t worry. He died of natural causes.”
“Is he a marmot?” I studied him and he stared back. “He looks disturbingly alive.”
“Yeah, they’re pretty adorable, honestly. You might see one around, if you stay long enough.”
“Fabulous.” At least they were smaller than cows.
I said goodnight to Ella and went outside to help Matthew take Chef Damon to the Suburban, which was parked in the street not far from where we’d left the pickup truck.
He was compliant, but also on the verge of passing out.
We managed to buckle him in before he slumped over, drunk as a skunk or, perhaps, a marmot.
“What’s going on over here?” It was Sam calling to us as he crossed the street, looking freshly showered and handsome. “Are you two going to The Marmot for a drink?”
“We just left there,” Matthew said grimly. “Chef got drunk and laid down a pool bet he couldn’t make good on. Then a fight broke out. Now we’re headed home. The end.”
“I saw your truck,” Sam said. “Who drove the Suburban?”
“Chef took it.” Matthew didn’t sound angry, only exhausted and fed up. “I drove the pickup when I came looking for him. I’m too tired to talk about it right now, Sam. I’ll be back for the truck tomorrow.”
“I can drive it over to the ranch. Then Tyler can take me back to town. I need to hear the long version of this story.” Sam turned away, then looked back over his shoulder. “Ella is okay, right?”
“Are you kidding?” Matthew said. “She stopped the fight.”
Sam grinned with admiration. “That’s my girl.”
* * *
“What do you mean, we can’t get through the gate?” I asked.
Matthew and I were sitting in the front seat of the Suburban, facing the ranch’s entry gate, which, according to him, had been padlocked by Walt.
“It’s for safety,” Matthew said. “It’s Walt’s job to lock the gate every night, and he goes to bed pretty early, so guests and employees have to tell him if they’re coming home after ten. Most of our guests don’t rent a car, so it’s not usually an issue.”
“I thought there was no one out here, so you didn’t need locks. And why don’t you have a key? You usually have that massive keychain with you.” My voice had taken on an edge because I was tired and frustrated.
“It’s back at the house. I jumped into the truck and there was a key in there already.” Matthew rubbed his forehead. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Let’s call Walt then. Or Tyler?” It was just after midnight.
We’d stopped twice on the way home—once for Chef to be sick on the side of the road and the second time because there was a pronghorn lying in our lane.
Matthew could have gone around it, but he wanted to make sure the animal wasn’t still alive and suffering.
Fortunately, it had already passed away because I could only assume he would have had to shoot it with a gun that was hidden somewhere inside this vehicle, and I did not want to witness that.
I had traveled far, far outside of my comfort zone.
“Pull out your phone.” Matthew waited for me to get it out of my purse. “No reception, right?”
He was correct. No bars. My stomach sank as reality set in. The adrenaline rush of the bar fight was gone, leaving me weary and weak-limbed, and all I wanted to do was climb into a soft bed and fall asleep.
“So, do we walk back?” We could pretty easily climb over the main gate, which was only about four feet tall.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. “Four miles feels longer in the dark, and you could twist an ankle in a rut.”
“We also can’t leave Chef here alone.” He was currently snoring loudly in the backseat, dead to the world.
“Why can’t we leave him?” Matthew glanced over his shoulder with a look of disgust. “He earned it.”
“Because he could vomit in his sleep, and his death would be on our hands. That’s how Jimi Hendrix died, you know.”
Matthew raised his eyebrows at me, and something about his expression made me throw my head back and laugh at the absurdity of our situation.
“I don’t want him to go all Jimi Hendrix on us,” Matthew said, smiling for the first time since the bar fight. “I guess we need to spend the night out here. Do you want to sleep in the back row of the Suburban? I’m going to sleep outside.”
“Outside?” He looked serious, but I laughed again anyway. “Please tell me you’re joking. We don’t have a tent or sleeping bags.” Camping sounded fun, theoretically, like after we’d done careful planning and preparation, not because someone locked a gate and left us stranded on the roadside.
“I’ve got a couple sleeping bags in the back,” he said, “and you can have both of them and make yourself as cozy as possible.”
“So I’d sleep in here with Chef and you’d be outside?” A nasty burp resounded in the seat behind us, and I wrinkled my nose. “I think I’ll sleep out there with you.”
* * *
Setting up camp hadn’t taken much time at all because all we had to do was roll out two sleeping bags on the ground. I let Matthew give me his fleece jacket to use as a pillow, and then we lay down next to each other, about twenty feet from the Suburban.
“Oof.” I sat up again to extricate a rock that had been poking into my right shoulder from under my sleeping bag.
“I’m so sorry about this, Lauren,” Matthew said. “I feel terrible, making you sleep out here.”
“It’s not your fault. I forced myself on you tonight.” I heard what I’d just said and blushed as I snuggled back down into my sleeping bag. “You know what I mean.”
“Still, I shouldn’t have let you come with me. I know The Marmot can get wild on weekends, and I should have thought about the gate being locked.”