Page 4 of Maid in America

“Maybe.” She shrugged and spun, chunky boot heels clacking out onto the weathered dance floor, ass swaying like a metronome to the lively beat.

Barrett sighed and returned to the bar, trying to shake Aphrodite from his mind as the twang of steel guitars and crooning voices dribbled from the amps.

Soon, a busty woman wearing a fringe skirt breezed past. She winked, drinking in the image of Barrett’s body like water in Saharan sand. His smile was quick to fade. He knew her. They’d been to bed together at some point in the last year. It was all becoming a blur of faces.

Jackson Hole wasn’t the smallest town in Wyoming, but in the decade Barrett had lived there, many faces had stayed the same. In fact, too many for his liking.

His eyes scanned the room. Watching. Assessing. He took a visual inventory of every woman in the establishment, imagining each one as a one-of-a-kind sensual snowflake he could confidently melt with his tongue.

As his gaze wandered, his sight returned to the rainbow-haired beauty, now chatting with another man in aNo FearT-shirt and a mesh trucker’s hat. She pushed the man away playfully, throwing her head back in a hearty laugh.

Something inside squeezed its frustrated claws around Barrett’s gut, wrenching hard at the display.Hewanted to be the one to coax that beautiful sound from her. He watched for a moment as her fingers trailed along the man’s chest, prancing like the graceful feet of a ballet dancer down the front. Every tap of contact pulled at Barrett like a cord, tugging him toward her before he could stop himself. As he wound his way through the crowd in her direction, he was caught by the arm.

“Hey!” squeaked a drunken woman as she hopped off her stool, nearly falling over on dismount. Barrett caught her just in time before she tumbled to the shell-covered floor.

He glanced down at her face, trying desperately to remember her name.

Shauna?

Barbara?

Something with an ‘ah’ at the end…

“Barrett?! What are you doing here? I thought you ssssaid you were done with the bar scene,” she slurred, eyes narrow slits.

“Old habits die hard, I’m afraid.” He gave her a moment to steady herself on her rhinestoned heels.

“These guys are amazing. This is mysong!” she screamed, pointing at the high ceiling.

“I don’t think I’ve heard this band before. Who are they?” Barrett asked, reeling back when the woman -Carla maybe?- spun around with a look of utter shock. Her beautiful, tan face contorted into a mouth-open gape of someone who had just watched him slap a kitten.

“It’sLonesome Creek! How do you not know this band?!”

“I guess I don’t pay much attention to music these days.”

Diana? Her namehadto be Diana.

Probably.

The woman reached up, snatched his shirt collar in her petite hand, and tugged his face toward hers. The overpowering odor of cranberry and gin wafted at him in a boozy gust.

“You should come over. I’ll play some of their music for you.” Her intoxicated attempt at seduction was barely audible above the tune.

Barrett’s hand gently plucked her grip from his shirt. “Maybe another time. You’re drunk.”

“So?!”

“Darlin’, the only thing you need to be suckin’ on in your bed tonight is a big bottle of water.”

She honked out a laugh, and her eyes squinted further. “Party pooper! Rain-check?” She jabbed him in the chest with a pointed finger more forcefully than he’d anticipated.

He grabbed her by the offending hand and placed a soft kiss on the back of it. “We’ll see.”

She waved him away, shrieking like a dying eagle as the DJ played the next song, another recent chart topper.

Barrett shuffled through the crowd and eventually walked up behind Aphrodite. He darted through a too-small pocket of space behind her, intentionally bumping her forward with a jolt. She spilled her drink on the front of the man’s T-shirt, and he jumped back dramatically, arms out like Jesus, face instantly twisted into a look of fury.

“What thefuck?” he snarled, swiping at his soaked clothes.

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