Let It Bree: Let It Bree / Can't Buy Me Louie

They were sweetly hidden in the night gloom. And, between two Dumpsters lined up between the lots like some kinda green metal barricade, they had a clear sight of the parked Nederlander Highlander truck.

Louis breathed a small prayer to Saint Anthony for the strategically placed streetlamp that acted like a spotlight on the truck.

“Why’d he stop there?” asked Shorty, fidgeting with the pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket.

“Look at the frickin’ flashin’ neon sign.” Over the back door of the brick building that Mr. Nederlander Highlander would probably soon be entering was an orange-and-purple neon sign flashing Ned Head Ed’s with a dancing beer bottle.

“Ned Head Ed’s?” repeated Shorty, squinting at the sign. “What’s a Ned Head?”

“Ned’s an abbreviation for Nederland. If you’d been looking as I was drivin’, you’d have seen Ned-this and Ned-that on almost every frickin’ store we passed.”

“But Ned Head?”

Louie blew out a gust of air. “Ain’t you ever heard of the Dead Heads? Jerry Garcia? The Grateful Dead?”

Shorty was quiet for a long moment. “Oh!” he finally said. “It’s a play on da words Dead Head. Ned Head. Hey, dat’s kinda cute.”

This gig better end soon. Two more days with Shorty and Louis would remarry wifey number three, who not only applied less guilt and asked fewer questions, but figured stuff out faster.

“Dere he is!” Shorty pointed at the ponytailed guy shutting the driver’s door of the yellow truck. With his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets, the guy slouched casually toward Ned Head Ed’s back door and disappeared inside the bar.

The truck sat unattended.

“Go check if there’s a bull in there,” ordered Louie, flicking the overhead switch so the dome light wouldn’t go on when they opened their doors.

“Me and what army? Did you see the size of that mother back at the stock show?”

“Just sneak up and look in the truck’s back window.”

“It’s butt-freezin’ cold out.”

“You gotta coat on.”

“So do you. Leather, too.”

Louie’d known this topic would come up sooner or later. A week ago, when they’d got this gig, he’d had to do some fast shopping for Colorado winter weather. Shorty bought some butt-ugly wool and canvas coat, while Louie went for a fur-lined leather jacket. After they’d got to Colorado and put on their coats, Shorty kept flashing little jealous looks at Louie’s jacket.

But Louie’d been accustomed to such looks all his life. Dudes givin’ him those little jealous glances over his clothes, his cars, his dames…hey, it wasn’t easy being a classy guy.

“I’m drivin’,” Louie said, “You’re sittin’. Now go!” He fisted his hand, ready to smack.

Shorty made a disgruntled sound and hopped out. Hunching over like some kind of chubby troll, he skittered through the opening between the Dumpsters. Just as Shorty reached the yellow truck, the back door of Ned Head Ed’s reopened. The driver and several guys carrying boxes headed toward the truck.

Shorty, about ten feet from the truck, halted midstep as though stung by an invisible cattle prod. Slowly, he straightened, then began whistling and sauntering as though he were out for an evening stroll. Which might be convincing if it wasn’t colder than a meat locker outside.

Louis sighed heavily. “You coulda acted like a wino or hidden behind a Dumpster,” he said out loud, “but no, you act like you’re out taking a frickin’ stroll in a frickin’ parking lot on a frickin’ freezin’ evening.” He slammed his fist against the steering wheel, wishing it were Shorty’s thick skull.

Fortunately, none of the people exiting the building seemed to notice Shorty’s nonchalant strolling act. They opened wide the truck’s back doors.

Louie strained to the left, peering into the back of the truck.

No bull.

He smacked the steering wheel again. “Frickin’ A. We fly all the way out to bohunk Colorado, rent this frickin’ bull-size trailer piece of junk, only to lose what we had stole, clean and clear!” That girl had balls. Stealing back the bull by mounting it and riding it out of the stadium like some kind of rodeo bull queen. And that was the last time Louie paid off a few cops for their “support”—they’d watched, bug-eyed, as she rode away.

Shorty had navigated an elaborate U-turn and was whistling as he sauntered past the truck, heading back to Louie. “Are you frickin’ crazy?” Louie muttered. “Walking right past the people we’re tailin’? Like they need extra help to ID us?”

A few minutes later, the passenger door opened and Shorty hoisted his chunky frame inside. “No bull.”

“No kiddin’.”

“How’d you know?”

“I was sittin’ here, looking at the truck as they opened the back doors. I was also lookin’ at you—” he shook his fist “—walkin’ past them not once, but twice! Why didn’t ya just yell ‘hi there’ and introduce yourself?”

“They didn’t notice me, Lou.” Shorty’s voice was getting all whiney again.

Wifey number three was looking better and better. Louie hunkered down, watching the people stash the boxes in the back of the truck. “We’ll sit here, wait for the guy’s buddies to leave and then we’ll have a little chat with our ponytail friend.”

“What for? There’s no bull.” A match sizzled as Shorty lit his cigarette, carefully hiding the flame behind his cupped hand.

“He might not have the animal in the truck at this very moment, but he knows where he dropped our Mr. Money Bull.”

“Mr. Money Bull,” Shorty repeated, blowing out a stream of smoke.

Louie grinned, enjoying a whiff of secondhand smoke. Enjoying even more the word money. Oh yeah, once this gig was up, life was gonna be sweet.

A few minutes passed as boxes were loaded in the back of the Nederlander Highlander truck, then the guys, except for the ponytailed one, returned to Ned Head Ed’s bar.

“He’s alone.” Shorty made a great show of stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray.

“Let’s go have us a little chat,” said Louie, tugging the collar of his leather jacket up around his ears.

“You carryin’?” asked Shorty.

Louie shook his head no. “Don’t need no gun to convince Mr. Nederlander that all we need is a little information. I have a feelin’ he’ll sing with very little persuasion. Just like a little canary.”

“Tweet tweet,” said Shorty, opening his door.

KIRK YAWNED and blinked open his eyes.

In front of him, like two burnished columns, were a pair of bare legs.

Long.

Shapely.

Sleepily, he gazed up those legs, past the thighs, daring to look farther…

She moved and a blast of sunlight hit him smack in the face.

He squinted, his eyes aching from the white brightness.

She moved again, her body shadowing his face.

He dared to open one eye, then the other, and stared at a very curvy bottom in a pair of creamy pink undies.

She bent over and the very curvy bottom widened provocatively, stretching those creamy pink cotton undies until the pink became sheer…so sheer, the color looked more fleshy than pink.

Kirk licked his suddenly dry lips as his pulse kicked up a notch. That was no fleshy color.

That was flesh.

His stomach muscles bunched. His face flamed hot.

Kirk blinked rapidly, amazed at the physical reactions he was having. He, who prided himself on his intellect. Dr. Dunmore, global expert on the late Cretaceous period, recipient of prestigious paleobotany awards, the discoverer of the new dinosaur species Saurexallopus lovei…

Was suffering from libido fever.

Struggling to breathe, Kirk watched as Bree pulled a pair of jeans over that tan, pink-clad rump.

“Checking me out?”

Caught.

He jerked up his gaze. “No, I, uh, was, uh, watching the sun coming up.” Hell, he was getting married in less than forty-eight hours. Whoever named pre-wedding jitters “cold feet” was too subtle. This was out-and-out body freeze.

She turned and faced him, her hands on her ample jean-clad hips. “You really are from another planet, aren’t you?”

With great effort, he maintained eye contact and whispered hoarsely, “Gor.”

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “Gor, the counter-Earth planet.” Which was pretty much the truth because Kirk Dunmore sure didn’t conform to most of the stupid guy-stuff on Earth. He didn’t play pool, swig beer and had long ago decided “nailing” a woman was despicable and demeaning for both the woman and the man.

So if Gor was good enough for Tarl Cabot, it was good enough for Kirk Dunmore.

Bree flashed him a quizzical look. “Is Gor where you paleo-paleo-whatever-you-guys-are visit to dig up fossils?”

“No, it’s what we paleobotanists say to cover moments when we’re caught gawking at a woman’s body parts. Very lovely body parts, may I add.”

Was she blushing?

His gut did that funny clench again and he wondered for one insane moment, if maybe, just maybe she felt the same things he was feeling.

With a swivel, Bree turned and headed back to the bed where she sat down and began pulling on her socks and boots. “I know we’ve been playing a bit with each other, but the fact is, you’re almost a married man, Kirk,” she said quietly.

Almost married. Kirk could feel that damn body freeze creep from the tips of his hair all the way down to his toes. Okay, okay, his best buddy George, who was blissfully married and had two great kids, had admitted even he’d had a bad case of cold feet right up until the moment he said “I do” five years ago.

Kirk expelled a slow breath. That’s all this is. A little cold feet, or in my case, a complete body freeze.

He reflected on why and how he’d fallen for Alicia in the first place. At the time, his dating life was more in danger of becoming extinct than the dinosaurs he researched. And when he’d talked to her about his recent discovery of the five-lobed Macginitiea leaf from the Tertiary period nearly forty-five million years ago, he’d loved how her cobalt-blue eyes stayed glued on him, immensely fascinated.

And when she’d murmured that she’d always wanted a smart, prestigious man in her life, he figured this Cherry Creek trophy number was hot for him.

After a few dates, when they were discussing their mutual desire to settle down, have roots, family and children, he did the first spontaneous thing he’d ever done in his life.

He asked her to marry him.

And when she said yes, it wiped out his years of growing up as a lonely kid, moving from town to town, calling at least six different men Dad. Finally, Kirk Dunmore was on the verge of having what he’d always wanted—roots, family, children.

And that had all seemed well and fine until…

Well, until meeting Bree.

Waking up in the room with her this morning, looking at Bree’s freshly scrubbed face, and her “naked confidence” as she strode around in those pink cotton thingies, shook him up like he’d never been shaken before.

He didn’t remember ever feeling that shaken up with Alicia. Maybe if she wasn’t always slathering goop on her face or talking on a cell phone that seemed permanently wedged next to her ear, maybe he’d feel more shaken up.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with goop or phones. Maybe it was simply that Alicia didn’t seem to give a hoot about his research anymore. Months ago, he’d chalked it up to her being preoccupied with the wedding plans, but he sometimes wondered what she’d be preoccupied with after the wedding…

“I’m gonna check on Val,” said Bree, interrupting Kirk’s thoughts.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll join you after I think through a few jigsaw pieces.”

Ignoring her questioning look before she exited, he rubbed his eyes. He had a lot on his plate today.

First, he needed to get gas.

Second, he needed to get back to Denver.

Third, he needed to contact George, ask him to give Bree and Val a ride to Chugwater. He’d call George now, but knew George and his family did their shopping on Saturday mornings, so Kirk would wait to phone.

Then there was the dreaded rehearsal dinner at Alicia’s family’s tony Cherry Creek estate. Monkey suits and small talk. Had Alicia said four or five o’clock? Well, one of those times should work. The family never expected Kirk to be punctual, blaming his absentmindedness on his being a scientist. Whether he was late, lost or just plain forgetful, they cooed and excused the “famous scientist.”

He dragged himself off the sofa and staggered into the bathroom where he splashed cold water on his face. Somehow, in the midst of today’s activities, he needed also to check the I-25 excavation site. He sensed he was close to unearthing some rare fossils there. Plus he’d accidentally dug up that strange, exotic engraved stone last week…very unusual, at least two thousand years old. He couldn’t wait to show it to George.

“Hey!” Bree yelled from outside the bathroom. “You comin’ out, or are you gonna primp in there all day?”

He grinned. Kirk, primp? Sounded like something he’d say to Alicia.

A few minutes later, he walked around the back of the lodge to where Val was tethered to a pine tree. The animal had a cozy spot, hidden from prying eyes, between Bree’s lodge room and the back of the forest. Plus Val had plenty of grass and brush to munch on.

Bree was scratching Val’s head, which looked as big as Bree’s whole torso, while she talked to the animal.

“It’s gonna be okay, Hot Stuff. You ’n’ me, we’re gonna get back home today. Maybe I didn’t get to Europe, but that’ll come in time.” She rubbed the bull’s back. “After what you’ve been through, we need to get you home where you can eat all the oats and grass you want in Mr. Connors’s field. Meanwhile, I’ll contact Bovine Best, clear up any confusion over the ’implied contract’ fracas, see if they’re still interested in purchasing you…” She sniffed.

Bree, crying?

Kirk stood, unsure what to do. Should he leave? Let her spend a few moments alone with her animal?

But just as he half turned to go, Bree said sweetly, “Mornin’.”

He turned back. “Good morning.” He observed how the sunlight played tricks with her hair, highlighting strands of gold and maroon in those rich brown curls. Just like Bree, he thought, seeming so solid and strong on the outside, yet inside, harboring such sweet, tender secrets.

“Val, lookee who’s visiting. Our hero, Kirk,” she said in that velvety tone that twisted Kirk’s heart. “Remember how he picked us up last night? Thanks to him, you had this safe, comfortable spot to sleep…and I had a safe, comfortable bed. Come on, let’s say ‘thank you’ to this nice man.”

“Oh, that’s quite all right,” Kirk said, holding up both hands.

But Bree just giggled, a fun, girlish sound that sent a crazy thrill zigzagging through him. “Come on,” she coaxed, “let Val thank you.” She crooked her finger at Kirk in a come-here gesture, those dimples in her cheeks turning him to putty.

He stepped forward, ready to do her bidding.

“Scratch him here,” Bree said softly, taking Kirk’s hand and placing it on a section of coarse fur between Val’s horns.

Kirk tried to concentrate on the scratching, but he was far more aware of the warmth and softness of Bree’s hands. And her fingers. So long, they didn’t just interlace with his fingers, they coiled around them. Even better, he liked how their fingers moved in tandem. So natural, as though they’d done this a hundred times before.

For the next few minutes, he and Bree stood side by side, scratching and stroking Val’s head. Feeling and stroking each other’s hands, accidentally of course.

After a few minutes of bull-loving, Kirk turned to Bree. “I told Alicia I’d call her this morning, let her know when I expected to be in—”

“She must be worried about you, running out of gas ’n’ all.”

“Actually, Alicia doesn’t worry about things like that.” She worried if Kirk would be late. Or not dressed properly. Or had lost his way.

Bree looked at Kirk, her eyes filled with something he couldn’t decipher.

He meant to turn and go, but he wanted a few more moments to see what sunlight did to Bree’s hair, how her skin glowed in the fresh air, the way her lips curved when she spoke. And if he was lucky, maybe he’d get another flash of those killer dimples.

They stood so close, he could almost sense her heat, almost hear her beating heart. And he ached to know how it would feel to take her into his arms, hold her close, mold her body to his…

Something nudged him from behind.

He looked over his shoulder at Val’s massive head, rubbing against his back.

“He likes you,” said Bree.

“Maybe he does, but I’m worried about those horns of his…”

Bree giggled. “Trust me. He wouldn’t hurt you with those. He’s just nudging you with his nose, checking you out.”

“Gotta call Alicia,” Kirk said quickly, backing off. He didn’t mind scratching a bull, but being nudged by one was a far different matter. Even Tarl Cabot would agree, Kirk was sure of it.

A few minutes later, Bree walked back into her room to find Kirk on the phone. It occurred to her he could have used the phone in his room, but no big deal. Nobody in Chugwater locked their doors, so people were always coming in and out of each other’s houses…finding Kirk here was almost like being home.

And for a moment, she missed being home. Home, the very place she swore she was so anxious to escape. How many times had she said she wanted to split Chugwater and see the big world? Yet sometimes…at crazy moments like this…she couldn’t help but wonder again if fulfilling one’s dreams was worth losing one’s roots.

“Yes, dear, I’ll call you from the gas station so you’ll know when I’m leaving,” Kirk said. “No, I won’t be late.”

Wow. Does his fiancée always need to know his every move? Maybe most married people were like that. Just another reason why Bree had zero desire to settle down. She wanted the free life, no constraints, not having to answer to anyone.

“What?” Kirk suddenly said, straightening. “Oh, no.” He dropped his head in his hand. “Poor Robbie. What happened?” Pause. “Broke his what?” Pause. “That’s called a femur, not a female bone. Alicia, stop fretting. So my best man is holed up in an L.A. hospital and can’t make the wedding. Worse things in the world have happened. What’s important is that Robbie is okay.” He looked up at Bree. “Look, I need to go.” Pause. “Me, too. Yes, dear.” He hung up.

“Sorry to hear about your best man,” said Bree.

“Broke his leg doing some fool stunt at a Raiders game.” Kirk looked at Bree. “Thanks for your good wishes. I suppose Alicia feels bad about Robbie’s health, too, but she’s more concerned with the wedding plans…” His voice trailed off.

“Well,” said Bree, trying to alleviate the gloom that had suddenly settled over the room. “It’s almost nine. If we get gas now, we can get to Denver by ten or eleven, then you said your friend George can help Val and me get to Chugwater—which means we’ll be out of your hair and you can proceed to do all that fun getting-married stuff!”

Kirk stood, giving her a look that seemed almost sad.

“No need to check if the coast is clear,” he finally said. “Even if someone sees us walking a bull, they’ll just think they’re having a sixties flashback.”

“But it’s the twenty-first century.”

“Not in Nederland. Here, the sixties live eternal. Let me get my keys…”

He pulled them out of his shirt pocket. “Let me check how much cash I have for gas…” He patted his back jeans pocket. “Funny, my wallet’s missing…” He looked around the room. “See it anywhere?”

Bree jerked her gaze out the window, fighting a rush of dread. “Val,” she whispered.

“What?” said Kirk.

“Val was nudging you.”

“Yes. And?”

“And…” Bree swallowed, hard. “He may have nudged things out of your pocket and…”

“And…what?”

“And…snacked on them.”

Kirk stared at her, realization dawning in his eyes. “You mean…your bull…might have eaten what was in my back pocket?” Kirk shook his head slowly, back and forth. “My wallet, my credit cards, my cash…”

Bree blinked rapidly. “I’m sorry. Really, really, sorry.”

Kirk held up a hand, palm out. “Let’s look at the problem, put together the pieces.” He stared into the distance for a moment. “We can coast into town because the road is downhill into Nederland, but I’ll have to call Alicia and ask her to wire money or maybe contact one of her wealthy friends in the area who can give us a loan…”

“Sounds like a plan,” Bree said encouragingly.

“Yes, a plan that includes Alicia getting royally…” He groaned again. “If Alicia finds out I spent the night with…” He flashed Bree a look.

“Are you upset because Alicia will think we slept together?”

He nodded.

“So it’s in your better interest if we can get money without Alicia knowing,” said Bree. She mulled it over for a moment. “Would thirty, maybe forty dollars be enough to fill that gas tank?”

“To get to Denver, we could maybe do it on fifteen, twenty.”

“Great!” Bree’s eyes twinkled. “I have the solution!” She rolled back her shoulders, a big proud smile creasing her face. “We’ll coast into town, find a bar and…”

Kirk waited. “And…what?”

Bree grinned gleefully. “I’ll strip!”

5

“STRIP?”

It was the first word Kirk had said after his and Bree’s trek, with Val in tow, down the road from the Sundance Lodge to where they’d left the van the night before. He hadn’t talked the entire time, not even as they helped Val into the back of the van. But now that he and Bree were again sitting in the front seat, about to coast into Nederland, he was ready again to broach the subject of stripping.

“Yes, strip,” Bree said sweetly, as though she were talking about butterflies fluttering about flowers and not naked bodies gyrating on tabletops. “Heck, my best girlfriend did it in a coffee shop outside Butte, Montana, last summer and made a fast twenty dollars…enough to buy a bus ticket home.”

“Coffee shop? I thought places like that served coffee and doughnuts, not naked bodies.”

Naked. He shouldn’t have gone there. His mind started reeling with the sneak peek he’d gotten through those overstretched, ultrasheer pink undies.

Bree made an exasperated sound. “You know, being naked is not a big deal, not to a country girl anyway. When you think about it, we all strip every single night of our lives. So, that’s all I’m going to do. Strip like I would for bed. Well, with a little dancing thrown in.”

“Stripping,” he said, his voice cracking, “is a…sexual act.”

“Sexual?” She mulled that over. “Yeah, under the right circumstances, you’re correct. But nobody’s going to touch me. Well, except to shove money down my—”

“This conversation is officially over.” Kirk thrust the gearshift into neutral. Avoiding eye contact with Bree, he more or less announced to Val, whose head hung partially over the front seat, “I’m going to jump out, get this baby rolling, then we’ll coast into Nederland and figure out…”

Hell, he didn’t know what to figure out. He had a wanna-be stripper, a buddy bull and a de-gassed van on his hands and no time to properly disassemble and analyze this problem to see the big picture.

This was a Tarl Cabot moment. Time for action, not thoughts and words.

He opened his door, hopped out, and holding onto the door, jogged a few feet to give the van some momentum. As the vehicle began rolling downhill, Kirk leaped back inside, slammed shut his door, and held the thought that at least the humans in the van were still clothed, for the time being…

Ten minutes later, after a very silent ride downhill on the narrow mountain highway 119, the van slowly coasted into a gas station in Nederland.

Kirk glided across the asphalt to a phone booth and stepped on the brakes. The van stopped. There was no way they’d start again without a tow truck or gasoline…and at the moment, he had no means to obtain either.

“Well,” he said, shoving the gear into Park, “time to call the princess.” He started to open his door when Bree grabbed his arm.