Free Hell, Yeah by Carolyn Brown

shouldn’t be such a bitch even if she had just used up every bit of her compassion on a Hollywood movie.
    “You are welcome to stay here,” she said again.
    He followed her back through the apartment. “Thanks, but I think I’d prefer a warm bed instead of a hard table.”
    “Are you sure?” she tried one more time.
    “Thanks but no thanks,” he said.
    She’d tried three times and he’d refused. If he ran his truck off into a ditch and froze by morning it couldn’t be her fault. Or could it? She hadn’t been friendly and nice when she offered, and she’d been downright rude when she first opened the door. Why did she treat him like a leper anyway? The kiss wasn’t enough to carry a grudge about. It had been damn nice.
    “Thanks again. Stay warm,” he said as he carefully picked his way back across the yard.
    She sat down on the sofa and stared at the wall. It was a control issue. Her last boyfriend had been very nice and romantic right up to the time she crossed him and he started hitting her. If she lost her newfound control and let another man into her life, she might wind up with the same kind of situation. Two or three like that and she’d be one of those women who drew the wrong kind of men to her like flies on fresh cow patties. Even if she was attracted to Travis’s type of cowboy and even if there was a possibility that he wasn’t like Brad Alton, she wasn’t willing to take the chance.
    She sighed and went to bed.
    * * *
    Travis reached up under the body of his truck and felt around until his cold hands landed on the hidden key. He opened the passenger side door and grabbed the flashlight he kept in the glove box. The circular light on the frozen grass did not keep him from slipping and sliding, but it would give him light in the trailer which had as many dangerous spots as the ice.
    He dragged his comforter behind him like a frayed security blanket. The concrete steps were so slippery that he had to hold on to the handrail with both hands to navigate them. The brass door handle had a layer of ice around it and refused to turn until he chipped the ice away with his fingernails. When he was finally inside he made a wide sweep with the flashlight making sure there wasn’t anything to trip him up on the way to the bedroom.
    “Some neighbor Cathy is, anyway. She could have waited to make sure I was safe. I could’ve broke my neck and she wouldn’t have known until morning. I was a fool to move to this godforsaken place. There’s no oil here and if there was, it would be frozen. Texas is supposed to be hot and dry. What in the hell happened?”
    He fussed and fumed all the way to the bedroom. He threw a few things into a duffle bag and reached for his glasses and wallet from the nightstand. He crammed a stocking hat on his head and slipped his cold hands into gloves, put his cell phone in his coat pocket, and found his pickup keys on the bar in the kitchen on his way out the door.
    When he was safely inside his truck he heaved a heavy sigh of relief. In half an hour he would be in a warm room with lights. Damn it all! He’d forgotten to pick up his book and he was wide awake, but he wasn’t about to brave the journey back in to get it.
    He inched along at a snail’s pace past the Smokestack restaurant and out onto the interstate. The road had not been salted or plowed and one semi was already on its side in the median. Police cars and an ambulance lit up the dark night with their red, white, and blue flashing lights. Texans could survive hurricanes, tornadoes, grasshoppers, and blistering summers, but they weren’t too good at driving on ice. Not that Travis was an expert, but he had lived in parts of the country where ice and snow were an everyday thing, so he could navigate fairly well.
    What few cars were out at that ungodly hour were creeping along slower than a snail in molasses. He kept both hands on the steering wheel and wished he’d just slept on the Honky Tonk floor. The shot of