Red's Hot Cowboy by Carolyn Brown Page A

from Wil Marshall.
    Raylen was the pretty boy. Cash said that God made it up to him because he was the shortest one of the lot. He had dark hair that turned chestnut red when he got out in the sun and the prettiest blue eyes this side of heaven. His voice was deep and resonant and eyelashes so long and sexy that one wink would cause a virgin’s underpants to slide down toward her ankles. But he’d never caused Pearl to need to change her underpants, not like Wil Marshall had done.
    “It’s what I get for letting that man get under my skin,” she said as she kicked off her shoes and heard a vehicle motor at the same time. She looked up half hoping that Wil had remembered something else and she’d get one more look at him or maybe another searing kiss. But it wasn’t Wil and the car didn’t stay. It backed up in the parking lot and the red taillights disappeared out onto the highway. Then a woman slipped inside the lobby and stopped midway across the floor.
    “May I help you?” Pearl asked.
    “The lady that brought me here said you might be needin’ help,” the woman said softly. She wore a stained gray hooded sweatshirt with the hood up, shading most of her face. Her jeans were white at the knees and not in a fashionable way. They hung on her slim hips like a flapping towel out on the clothesline.
    “Who brought you here?” Pearl asked.
    “Rosa. She said that I was to come in here and tell you that I’m lookin’ for work,” she said in a deep southern accent. Pearl was very familiar with a Georgia accent since her mother was born and raised there and Texas had not taken a bit of it away from her in the past thirty-three years. But this skinny woman sounded more like she came from backwoods Tennessee.
    She pushed the hood away from her face and Pearl gasped. It was a motley green and purple mess of bruises. One eye had started to heal, but it was still sporting a mouse under it half the size of Pearl’s fist. Her crystal clear blue eyes looked everywhere but at Pearl. Her limp brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her delicate face looked like an amateur artist’s dirty palette.
    “It don’t hurt like it did at first,” the woman said. “I just need a job. I’ll do anything, ma’am.”
    “Who are you?”
    “My name is Lucy Fontaine. I come from up in the Kentucky hills. Little bitty town you wouldn’t even know. I used every dime I had to get this far away from there and my husband. I got a ride from Gainesville with a nice lady. She said you might be needin’ some help because she used to work here.”
    “What happened to you?”
    “Husband whooped me for the last time. I been savin’ for five years and figured if I didn’t leave, the next time he’d plumb kill me. I can clean rooms for a place to stay and some food.”
    “Have you eaten lately?” Pearl asked. She couldn’t turn anyone away on Christmas.
    “I ain’t here for a handout. I got some crackers left in my purse. What I need is a job.”
    The phone rang before Pearl could tell her that a frozen dinner was going to waste in the kitchen. “Longhorn Inn. May I help you?”
    “This is Rosa. I dumped a stray puppy on your doorstep. Hire her. You need help. She needs a place to heal and work.”
    “But what if—” Pearl started to argue valid points.
    “She’s broke. If you are anything like your aunt, you’ll help fix her.”
    “You sure?” Pearl asked.
    “Yes, I’m sure. Put her on for a month. She’ll work hard and heal slow. Check the books. You’re going to have a very busy season during duck hunting season. You can’t run it by yourself. If Wil Marshall hadn’t got his ass in a bind, you’d have still been cleaning rooms tonight, and you’d have missed out on Maddie O’Donnell’s Christmas supper.”
    Pearl gasped. “How’d you know about that?”
    “Honey, whatever happens in Henrietta is all over town before the clock strikes the next hour. So?”
    “Okay, okay!”
    “Feed