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

“Look,” she said, not sure exactly what to say, but his calling Alicia didn’t seem the better of any options. “Let’s talk for just a minute, okay?”

Kirk shot her a glum look. “One minute.”

“Remember last night when I walked in front of you in my undies and T-shirt?”

He made a strangled sound, his face turning a ruddy color.

“Well,” continued Bree, talking faster, not wanting to waste even a second of her minute. “That’s more than I wear when I go swimming at Mr. Connors’s lake.”

Kirk made another strangled sound.

“I’m not hung up on being natural.”

“Stripping isn’t natural,” he said in a strained voice.

“It isn’t? Then what do you call it when you take off your clothes at night?”

He cleared his throat. “We’ve already had this discussion.”

“Humor me. What do you call it?”

“I call it taking off my clothes.”

“Same thing.”

Kirk released a tormented breath. “No, it’s not. When I take off my clothes at night, I don’t do it to entice women.”

“Not even Alicia?”

He shot Bree a look. “That’s personal, but for the sake of argument, I don’t strip to entice my fiancée.”

“What a shame…”

“Minute’s up!” Kirk started to get out.

“Wait!”

He looked over his shoulder at Bree, cocking an eyebrow.

“Look,” she said, pleading, “I don’t want Alicia driving up here and finding you with me and Val.” Bree was worried about Kirk and some flying princess fur, but even more than that, Bree was worried sick that someone from the “big city” would have seen her face splashed on TV. Maybe funky mountain people didn’t watch TV, or maybe they thought splashing faces on TV was a groovy sixties thing, but Princess Alicia, after finding her man with another woman, might do something very unprincess-like and turn Bree and Val over to the police.

Which was a wild card, because Bree still wasn’t absolutely certain that there were no “bad cops” in on the bull scam. Surely no Nederland police were…but if they called in “the girl and the bull” over some network-wide police radio…and some bad cops heard about it and pinpointed their location in this mountain town…

“So,” she said, fighting the urge to give in to an utterly un-Bree-like hysterical moment, “let’s you and me cut a deal. Give me ten minutes in a bar. If I don’t have gas money after that, you can call Alicia.”

Kirk flashed her a no-way look.

“Ten minutes!” she urged, “could mean money for gas, a drive to Denver where your pal will give me a lift to Chugwater. And ta da! I’m out of your hair and you’re at the rehearsal dinner. Easy. Simple.”

Bree looked around outside. “Plus, this is a pretty little mountain community, not some hole-in-the-wall. And it’s barely, what, ten in the morning? Sleazy types don’t go into bars at this time in the morning—”

“How do you know?”

“I’m from Chugwater, population two hundred. Well, almost. What you find in a small-town bar at this time in the morning are some wholesome, good ol’ boy cowboys who’re drinking coffee, a beer maybe, and they’d have one hell of a fun time throwing a few bills at a good ol’ country girl kicking up some hotcha.”

Kirk frowned, assimilating the string of words into some kind of sensible statement. After a moment, he repeated slowly, “…one hell of a fun time…throwing a few bills…at a good ol’ country girl kicking up some hotcha?”

“Heck, this whole stripping thing is more a joke than a problem. And best of all, Princess Alicia would never know you’d spent the night before your wedding rehearsal dinner sleeping in a motel room with another woman.”

Kirk leveled her a look. “That’s low.”

“But truthful.”

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“Yep, guess I am.”

He stared out his driver’s-side window at a gas station attendant dressed in a tie-dyed shirt with the words Buy Hemp, Be Free written in loopy purple script across the back.

“Could be there aren’t even cowboys in this town,” Kirk murmured. “You might be stripping for some hemp-loving Dead Heads.”

“What?”

Kirk stared off into the distance, imagining the days, weeks, months of listening to Alicia whine about his “Nederland fling” with another woman.

“Okay,” he finally said, sounding anything but okay. “You can attempt this cockamamy strip thing for ten minutes tops on the condition I’m sitting front row, right where I can protect you.”

Bree’s heart swelled a little at the thought of Kirk playing the protector. At six foot, she’d never had any guy play protector. If anything, guys made jokes about her height or how she could protect them.

But not Kirk Dunmore. It was as though he ignored the obvious and saw right through to her true self. That she was a little scared, a little ballsy and willing to take a risk. And suddenly she felt even braver, knowing he’d be right there, watching out for her.

“Sure,” she said softly. “You can sit front row.”

“And nobody touches you.”

She nodded her head in agreement.

“And you only strip down to…” His eyes grazed over her body, his face turning that ruddy color again. “…to, uh, your pink undies and T-shirt.”

She took a moment to ponder that. “Undies.”

“And T-shirt.”

“No, T-shirt goes, too.”

“Stays. You don’t wear a bra under that thing.”

She fought the urge to smile. “So you noticed?”

“T-shirt stays,” he repeated emphatically.

“Goes,” she said authoritatively, defying him to one-up her again. “If I haven’t made at least twenty bucks by that point.”

He stared at the sky as though the answer lay somewhere in the clouds. “Deal,” he finally muttered, adding something under his breath about not believing he’d just negotiated a stripping contract.

TEN MINUTES LATER, they walked to the front door of a wooden storefront building that advertised pool, grub and beer. Mainly beer. A wooden sign, hung crookedly over the front door, said Neder-Brewsky’s.

“This is it,” said Bree.

“I know,” mumbled Kirk, who’d picked this bar after doing a quick reconnaissance around the area surrounding the gas station. He’d thought just he and Bree would jog down the back alley from the gas station to this bar, slip in the back door, but no. She’d insisted they slip Val down the alley, too, because she didn’t want him cooped up in the van close to a busy street.

Kirk had reminded her this was only going to be ten minutes.

Bree had countered, in that authoritative voice she got when determined to get her way, that if a group of Harley partyers roared into town, Val might get spooked and kick his way out of a certain superfancy van.

So, just as she’d won the T-shirt argument, she won this Val argument, too.

After they’d safely tied Val to a fence behind Neder-Brewsky’s, where the bull was nicely concealed, Kirk and Bree entered the bar.

It was mostly dark with some hanging lights positioned over several pool tables. More light was emitted by a variety of neon beer signs placed randomly around the room. A group of people, all wearing cowboy hats, sat at the end of the bar. Some guy with braids, wearing what Kirk had decided was the regulation Nederland tie-dyed T-shirt, was wiping glasses behind the bar.

“Be right back,” Bree whispered.

Kirk grabbed her forearm before she took off, images of her wildly ripping off her clothes tearing through his mind. “First, tell me exactly what you’re doing.” He closed his eyes, then reopened them. “Okay, okay, I know what you’re doing, but can we please discuss the plan?” Did this girl ever weigh options, prioritize her actions?

“Plan?” She sighed heavily and brushed his gripping hand off her forearm. “I’m gonna tell the bartender what I’m up to, offer him a kickback—”

“Kickback? Good God, we’re sounding like goons doing a shady deal.”

Bree rolled her eyes. “You are such a worrywart. Do you do that with your fossils, too?”

“Fossils are a lot different than stripping.”

“Don’t you dust them off, check them out, put them on display?” Observing Kirk’s openmouthed, silent response, Bree winked and whispered, “Be right back.”

He remained standing in place, his feet bolted to the floor, stunned by Bree’s comment…and her determination to play stripper. He’d had plenty of buddies crow about their trips to Vegas and how they threw wads of bills at strippers and lap dancers as though doing so earned them macho badges of honor. Kirk had always thought it ludicrous to pay a woman to expose herself…and told his buddies in so many words that only Neanderthals—or in this case, Nederthalls—paid for false love or lust. Real men never paid because they earned a lady’s gifts.

Yet here he was, damn near playing pimp for a sweet country girl!

He took a step forward, ready to tell Bree to can the plan, but she was already leaning way over the bar, her firm, blue-jeaned bottom seductively outlined in neon red from one of the beer signs, while she whispered something to the bartender.

The bartender looked over at Kirk, back to Bree, and nodded.

Good God. She’d just negotiated herself a gig as a ten-minute stripper. This woman could probably negotiate anything.

Bree waved Kirk over.

He strode toward her, a hundred thoughts crowding his mind. Okay, okay, she was doing it, but looking around, there were only a few cowboys at the bar, some drinking coffee, some beer—just as Bree had said. And this early in the morning, he seriously doubted anyone would be soused and do something stupid.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. But if they did, Kirk would deck the sorry sonofa—

Bree was grinning like a schoolgirl, twiddling her fingers at Kirk as though this were some kind of talent show tryout. She pointed to a stool, indicating he should sit there.

He straddled it, glaring at the backs of the cowboys sitting several feet away.

“You want somethin’ to drink?” the bartender asked.

“Yeah,” Kirk answered in a low, mean voice he didn’t even recognize. “Cola. With lots of ice in case I need to toss it at someone and cool them down.”

The bartender did a double take. “Whatever, dude.”

The bartender set the drink in front of Kirk, then put on some tearjerky country song with a guy crooning forlornly about the beautiful girl he’d left behind.

Kirk tried not to listen to the words—but they seeped through his brain and settled right on his heart. As the guy bemoaned losing the girl of his dreams, analytical, pragmatic—and since he’d walked into this place, badass macho—Kirk Dunmore realized he was getting a little choked up.

Because the words made him think of Bree.

Soon she’d be part of his past, just the memory of a naturally beautiful girl he left behind…and in his gut, he knew he’d always think of her, always wonder about her, always hope her life had turned out happy…

His thoughts ground to a halt when Bree jumped up on the bar and started doing what he could only describe as a hopping dance step.

Hopping?

He winced as she did a little turn in those boots, half clog, half bunny hop, while yanking and tugging her blue-and-white checkered shirt out of the waistband of her jeans.

Is this how she undressed at night? It looked more like a battle than an unveiling.

Someone laughed.

A vein throbbed in his temple. It was one thing for him to wince at Bree’s bunny hop, but no man was going to make fun of her!

Another laugh. But this one sounded more like a raspy giggle.

Kirk felt the hairs bristle on the back of his neck as he realized that raspy giggle was…female laughter.

He squinted at the group gathered at the end of the bar. When he’d first walked in, before his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, he’d assumed the group to be cowboys.

But now that he could see better, he recognized them to be…

Five or six crusty old cowgirls.

One of them looked over her shoulder, her face tan and weathered. Wisps of white hair fluttered from underneath a Stetson that had a peacock feather stuck in the headband.

She smiled; one of her teeth was missing.

Being a polite sort of guy, he smiled back.

She winked. And nudged one of her cronies, who looked over at Kirk.

Bree, oblivious to the little drama taking place beneath her on the bar stools, was hopping her heart out on the bar, struggling to get her partially unbuttoned shirt over her head, though it seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere between her chin and her nose.

The only person watching her was the bartender, who was shaking his head as he wiped his glasses.

Meanwhile, the entire group of toughened cowgirls were eyeing Kirk as though he were a side of steak. The one who’d first eyed him reached deep into her well-worn jeans pocket and extracted something. Grinning that missing-tooth grin, she waved a bill at him.

Another pulled out a bill, tonguing a toothpick between her lips. “I’ll add a five to her five, sugar boy,” she said in a gravelly voice, “if you’ll get up there instead.”

Sugar boy?

Bree, who’d finally wrestled the shirt off and could see what was happening, stopped her hopping. “Get the hell up here!” she yelled at Kirk. “We’re up to ten dollars and counting!”

The group of cowgirls whistled and clapped, more of them waving bills at him.

Kirk looked at Bree, giving his head a shake. He was a scientist, not a stripper, and was about to say as much when Bree gave him the evil eye and mouthed “Princess Alicia.”

He stomach plummeted. He looked again at the senior-citizen cowgirls, who were waving so much money, he could almost feel the breeze.

Bree, in her jeans and pink T-shirt, with that blue-and-white checkered shirt tossed boldly over one shoulder, stood wide-legged on the bar and gestured broadly to Kirk. “Ladies,” she said loudly, “may I introduce Doctor ‘Feelgood’ Kirk, whose moves can cure your ills for just a few bills.”

If Bree hadn’t stunned him before, she did now. At what point did she evolve from good ol’ country girl to stripper-carnival-barker?

The cowgirls started whooping even louder. “I wanna feel real good, Dr. Feelgood!” one yelled.

Another stood and did an up-and-down shoulder-shimmy, exposing a flash of massive cleavage that put the fear of God into Kirk.

Over the din of hollering cowgirls, Bree yelled at the bartender, “Put on some music! This man’s gonna get down!”

Get down?

Next thing he knew, the frenzied mass of senior citizens had half pushed, half lifted him onto the bar. Damn, who would have thought women that age were so strong?

Soothing, soulful music began playing. A Beatles tune about times of trouble.

Oh, Kirk could relate to the words of “Let It Be.” Odd the tie-dyed bartender hadn’t put on “Truckin”’ or some other Grateful Dead song. Maybe there were rival factions in Nederland between lovers of the Dead and of the Beatles.

“Hell, no!” yelled a wizened cowgirl. “Put on some hot Wynonna!”

The bartender, looking bored, ambled over to the CD player while Paul crooned, “Let it be, let it be.”

Let it Bree, thought Kirk, wondering how in the hell she’d gotten him into this mess. New music started playing. A woman’s husky, sultry voice oozing heat and sin. Had to be Wynonna, whoever she was. But if he didn’t know, these old gals certainly did. They began thumping the bar in time to the music, whistling and whooping at him to strut his stuff.

He glanced at Bree. She had to put a stop to this nonsense.

But no, she was now straddling the same bar stool he’d just been at, thumping and whistling and whooping just like the rest of the tribe.

Traitor.

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