Page 38 of Mother Clucker
“Oh. Sure. Of course.” I’d text, but I’d do it in my own way.
DAVID: Drew wants to know if Lucy is coming.
HEATHER: I knew it! He likes her.
I felt a little bad for throwing him under the bus, but not all that guilty.
DAVID: Seems like.
HEATHER: I’ll text her and see if she can meet us.
And so my business meeting turned into a double date. Ask me if I was upset about that.
“So?” Drew asked.
I tried not to grin too wide as I said, “She’s texting to see if she can come.”
“Good. Good.” Drew nodded, sounding a little nervous about the prospect.
Yup. This was definitely more exciting than sitting on Drew’s sofa watching other people fish.
14
Heather
I sat in the parking lot and stared at the neon-lit building. Grabbing my cell, I typed in a text.
HEATHER: Are you going to be here soon?
It seemed to take forever for her reply. Finally, long after the screen had gone dark again my cell buzzed.
LUCY: No. I had to get dressed and it’s like an hour and a half drive from here! I’ll be there when I can.
Crud. I was going to have to go in alone.
Walking into a strange bar on my own was not high on my list of things I wanted to do, but I was going to do it. I saw Drew’s truck—hard to miss with the Bowman Farm stenciled on the door—so at least I knew he and David were inside.
Not that that made it easier. David had become . . . complicated in my mind.
It had been easy to openly loathe all he stood for even as I privately lusted after the man. But then Anna dropped the bomb about the million-dollar donation to the shelter. And the truck of food. And the astonishing fact he unloaded that truck of donated pet food for the shelter personally.
Then there was his heart-wrenching story. The tragedy with his father. The way he put so many people to work, which no doubt profoundly changed their lives. He probably rejuvenated the entire economy of some of those small towns by reopening those empty factories.
Now that I couldn’t hate him I was starting to have . . . feelings. Complicated feelings. Some of them below my belt . . . if I had been wearing a belt.
But he was leaving soon, so that was definitely good.
I’d help him, hopefully, clean up the Strickland image then he’d go back to his life in Texas.
We’d part as friends.
Good. That was good.
So why was my heart pounding as I walked through the door and scanned the crowd clustered inside watching the band? I’d like to think it was because the video I’d mocked up for Strickland could possibly be the most important piece of PR work I’d ever done.
It felt like I could make a difference, instead of what I usually did. My crisis management usually entailed publicly cleaning up the messes the cast of our unscripted shows got themselves into.
But I had a bad feeling my nerves walking into this bar had nothing to do with the video I was about to present, and everything to do with the tall man standing in the back waving me down.
