Free Hell, Yeah by Carolyn Brown Page A

whiskey made him sleepy so he kept his eyes wide open so long between blinks that they ached. What seemed like an eternity later he looked up to see the sign pointing to the exit to the Longhorn Inn. His shoulder muscles felt like he’d just stayed on a bull eight seconds when he pulled up to the office and got out of the vehicle.
    The place was dark, but he hadn’t expected it to be all lit up. He crossed his fingers like a little boy and hoped there was a room available when he hit the black call button beside the door.
    A woman in a big thick robe with a stocking hat on her head opened the door. “We don’t have a vacancy and we have no electricity. People are freezing here just like they would be at home. We won’t be renting anything until the electricity comes back on.” She shut the door in his face and disappeared back into the darkness.
    Grown men do not cry in the freezing drizzling rain. They don’t kick the motel door down. They really do not throw themselves on the frozen grass and scream like a spoiled two-year-old. Travis wanted to do all three. He’d even pay the fine for vandalism if they’d give him his own cell in the county jail—one that had a bed and a wool blanket where he could curl up and go to sleep.
    He stormed back to the truck and started the return trip back to Mingus. He would go to Merle’s house. It wasn’t but a couple of miles from the Honky Tonk and she might cuss and rant about him waking them up in the wee hours of the morning but she’d understand when he told her the problem. He could sleep down in the bunker. It was stocked in case of nuclear attack with everything he’d need and even had a pool table in it so you could bet your sweet ass she’d have a powerful generator.
    When he reached the Smokestack his cell phone vibrated but he was too tense to try to drive with one hand. At the Honky Tonk parking lot he pulled off, rolled a few kinks from his neck, and looked at the phone. He’d missed a call from Angel but she’d left a text message saying that she and Merle were in a hotel in Ranger, Texas. The whole town of Mingus was without electricity. Merle’s generator was out of gas. They’d been lucky enough to get the last motel room in the town.
    Travis looked at the phone as if it were evil. Cathy was not going to be a happy woman when he woke her up. He got ready to beat on the door for five minutes and was surprised when she opened it the moment he hit it the first time.
    She motioned him inside. “No vacancies?”
    Thank the lord you are back. Now maybe I can go to sleep and get some rest without all that guilt trying to smother me. I can be a good neighbor even if I’m not willing for anything more than that.
    Travis stepped into the apartment and shut the door behind him.
    “You know the way into the Honky Tonk,” she said. Guilt might keep her from sleeping, but he was not staying in her apartment. The way he jacked her hormones into overdrive she’d wind up losing more sleep than ever just knowing he was only a few feet away.
    “I didn’t bring a comforter this time,” he said.
    “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Just go to sleep on the sofa. There’s a pillow and a blanket still there. I’m too tired to worry about it or you right now. Sorry, Ruby.” She looked up at the ceiling.
    He wondered who in the devil Ruby was and why she was apologizing to her for him sleeping on her sofa.

Chapter 4
    “Hot damn,” Cathy mumbled as she threw back the quilt on her bed. The electricity was back on. The alarm clock flashed the same numbers over and over. Bright sunlight poured in the bedroom window and she could hear the drip from the roof as the ice melted.
    She hopped out of bed and headed toward the kitchen to make coffee. The first cup took the beast out of her. The second one kept her from biting. After the third one she could pass for human.
    The sofa was empty, so that meant Travis had awakened early, found the electricity working, and gone home. Life was