Page 22 of Midnight Ride

“I might be if you asked me nice.”

“Wait until we get us a booth and I’ll be back.”

I was giggling when Travis said, “Jeeze, Tammy, I’m not sure about this dancing with strangers thing.”

“I’ll be right out there on the dance floor, and you can keep an eye on me from right here.”

“I liked it better when you were too young to have a boyfriend.”

“I was sixteen, Daddy. I wasn’t too young. You just didn’t let me have one.”

Travis laughed. “So true.”

Bobby Ray came back a few minutes later. He stood at the end of our booth and held out his hand for me to come dance with him.

I couldn’t help giggling as he pulled me out onto the crowded floor and held me close to him. He was camping so he didn’t smell fresh from a shower. More like a bit sweaty mixed in with evergreens and gunpowder.

“You shoot something today?”

“Fired a couple of shots at an elk but I missed. Those are fast animals.”

“Second to the cheetah,” I said.

“No shit?”

“None.”

“You didn’t have to go to high school to learn that.”

“Nope.”

“You are so pretty, Miss Tammy. Prettiest girl I’ve seen in Montana.”

“Thanks. You ain’t bad looking yourself, Bobby Ray. You got yourself a girlfriend back there in Arkansas?”

“Kind of. How about you? You must have a boyfriend, you being so beautiful n’all.”

“Not yet. My Daddy keeps a watch on me.”

“That him sitting in y’all’s booth?”

“Yep. He’s the sheriff.”

“Hey, stop pushing, buddy.” Two guys getting into it banged into us and Bobby Ray gave them a shove away.

They stopped dancing and yelled and hollered at each other right out there in the middle of the dance floor.

I stepped away from Bobby Ray and tried to break it up. “Stop it right now. If y’all are gonna get into it, take it outside.”

“Get out of the way, Deputy.” One of the drunks gave me a shove so hard I lost my balance and fell. Bobby Ray came running over to pick me up.

By the time I got to my feet, the guys were throwing punches and I figured Travis was on his way to put a stop to it.

The crowd closed in around the fight and the bouncer for the roadhouse had to fight his way through to break it up.

“Tammy, come on,” said Bobby Ray. “Get away from that. Those boys have knives.”

Bobby Ray was pulling me through the crowd to get us out of the way as one of the two drunk guys spun around with his blade in his hand.

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