Let It Bree: Let It Bree / Can't Buy Me Louie. Colleen Collins

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СКАЧАТЬ about Kirk and some flying princess fur, but even more than that, Bree was worried sick that someone from the “big city” would have seen her face splashed on TV. Maybe funky mountain people didn’t watch TV, or maybe they thought splashing faces on TV was a groovy sixties thing, but Princess Alicia, after finding her man with another woman, might do something very unprincess-like and turn Bree and Val over to the police.

      Which was a wild card, because Bree still wasn’t absolutely certain that there were no “bad cops” in on the bull scam. Surely no Nederland police were…but if they called in “the girl and the bull” over some network-wide police radio…and some bad cops heard about it and pinpointed their location in this mountain town…

      “So,” she said, fighting the urge to give in to an utterly un-Bree-like hysterical moment, “let’s you and me cut a deal. Give me ten minutes in a bar. If I don’t have gas money after that, you can call Alicia.”

      Kirk flashed her a no-way look.

      “Ten minutes!” she urged, “could mean money for gas, a drive to Denver where your pal will give me a lift to Chugwater. And ta da! I’m out of your hair and you’re at the rehearsal dinner. Easy. Simple.”

      Bree looked around outside. “Plus, this is a pretty little mountain community, not some hole-in-the-wall. And it’s barely, what, ten in the morning? Sleazy types don’t go into bars at this time in the morning—”

      “How do you know?”

      “I’m from Chugwater, population two hundred. Well, almost. What you find in a small-town bar at this time in the morning are some wholesome, good ol’ boy cowboys who’re drinking coffee, a beer maybe, and they’d have one hell of a fun time throwing a few bills at a good ol’ country girl kicking up some hotcha.”

      Kirk frowned, assimilating the string of words into some kind of sensible statement. After a moment, he repeated slowly, “…one hell of a fun time…throwing a few bills…at a good ol’ country girl kicking up some hotcha?”

      “Heck, this whole stripping thing is more a joke than a problem. And best of all, Princess Alicia would never know you’d spent the night before your wedding rehearsal dinner sleeping in a motel room with another woman.”

      Kirk leveled her a look. “That’s low.”

      “But truthful.”

      “You’re blackmailing me.”

      “Yep, guess I am.”

      He stared out his driver’s-side window at a gas station attendant dressed in a tie-dyed shirt with the words Buy Hemp, Be Free written in loopy purple script across the back.

      “Could be there aren’t even cowboys in this town,” Kirk murmured. “You might be stripping for some hemp-loving Dead Heads.”

      “What?”

      Kirk stared off into the distance, imagining the days, weeks, months of listening to Alicia whine about his “Nederland fling” with another woman.

      “Okay,” he finally said, sounding anything but okay. “You can attempt this cockamamy strip thing for ten minutes tops on the condition I’m sitting front row, right where I can protect you.”

      Bree’s heart swelled a little at the thought of Kirk playing the protector. At six foot, she’d never had any guy play protector. If anything, guys made jokes about her height or how she could protect them.

      But not Kirk Dunmore. It was as though he ignored the obvious and saw right through to her true self. That she was a little scared, a little ballsy and willing to take a risk. And suddenly she felt even braver, knowing he’d be right there, watching out for her.

      “Sure,” she said softly. “You can sit front row.”

      “And nobody touches you.”

      She nodded her head in agreement.

      “And you only strip down to…” His eyes grazed over her body, his face turning that ruddy color again. “…to, uh, your pink undies and T-shirt.”

      She took a moment to ponder that. “Undies.”

      “And T-shirt.”

      “No, T-shirt goes, too.”

      “Stays. You don’t wear a bra under that thing.”

      She fought the urge to smile. “So you noticed?”

      “T-shirt stays,” he repeated emphatically.

      “Goes,” she said authoritatively, defying him to one-up her again. “If I haven’t made at least twenty bucks by that point.”

      He stared at the sky as though the answer lay somewhere in the clouds. “Deal,” he finally muttered, adding something under his breath about not believing he’d just negotiated a stripping contract.

      TEN MINUTES LATER, they walked to the front door of a wooden storefront building that advertised pool, grub and beer. Mainly beer. A wooden sign, hung crookedly over the front door, said Neder-Brewsky’s.

      “This is it,” said Bree.

      “I know,” mumbled Kirk, who’d picked this bar after doing a quick reconnaissance around the area surrounding the gas station. He’d thought just he and Bree would jog down the back alley from the gas station to this bar, slip in the back door, but no. She’d insisted they slip Val down the alley, too, because she didn’t want him cooped up in the van close to a busy street.

      Kirk had reminded her this was only going to be ten minutes.

      Bree had countered, in that authoritative voice she got when determined to get her way, that if a group of Harley partyers roared into town, Val might get spooked and kick his way out of a certain superfancy van.

      So, just as she’d won the T-shirt argument, she won this Val argument, too.

      After they’d safely tied Val to a fence behind Neder-Brewsky’s, where the bull was nicely concealed, Kirk and Bree entered the bar.

      It was mostly dark with some hanging lights positioned over several pool tables. More light was emitted by a variety of neon beer signs placed randomly around the room. A group of people, all wearing cowboy hats, sat at the end of the bar. Some guy with braids, wearing what Kirk had decided was the regulation Nederland tie-dyed T-shirt, was wiping glasses behind the bar.

      “Be right back,” Bree whispered.

      Kirk grabbed her forearm before she took off, images of her wildly ripping off her clothes tearing through his mind. “First, tell me exactly what you’re doing.” He closed his eyes, then reopened them. “Okay, okay, I know what you’re doing, but can we please discuss the plan?” Did this girl ever weigh options, prioritize her actions?

      “Plan?” She sighed heavily and brushed his gripping hand off her forearm. “I’m gonna tell the bartender what I’m up to, offer him a kickback—”

      “Kickback? Good God, we’re sounding like goons doing a shady deal.”

      Bree rolled her eyes. “You СКАЧАТЬ