Honky Tonk Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A

stopped on his way to the truck. “I wanted to measure one more thing. All right if I stop by the bar?”
    “It’s locked. I’m finished here. I’ll follow you,” she said.
    “What about the kids?” he asked.
    “They’re not twenty-one but then the bar doesn’t open until eight so I don’t think the cops will come and take them away,” she said.
    “I don’t want to go away with the cops,” Waylon whined.
    The little girl rolled her dark brown eyes and sighed. “They don’t take you away unless you are twenty-one. Damn, Waylon, we ain’t but six.”
    “You better not say that word, Judd, or you’ll get in big trouble. We won’t get to watch television if you say bad words.”
    Judd popped a fist on her hip. “He likes cartoons in the afternoon because he don’t like to be outside when it’s hot. He’s the smart one. I’m the mean one. Uncle Holt says we’re playing at your house. Can we watch television there?”
    Sharlene laughed again. “There’s one in the bar and you can watch it all day if you want.”
    “Then let’s go see this place where my Uncle Holt is going to work. I don’t have to drink beer, do I, Uncle Holt? I can still have juice packs and peanut butter sandwiches, can’t I?” Judd snarled her nose.
    Waylon tilted his head up and looked down his nose at his sister. “I like beer.”
    “When did you drink beer?” Holt asked him.
    “Momma left some in a bottle and I tasted it. I liked it. Judd made an awful face and tried to puke when she tasted it so she ain’t so mean.”
    She shook her fist at him. “Am too!”
    “Mean girls could drink beer,” Waylon said.
    “Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Holt said.
    Sharlene touched Waylon’s tombstone one more time and walked away listening to Waylon, the boy, and Judd, the girl, argue.
    She smiled for the first time that day.

Chapter 2
    “So who’s the new family moving into your hideous house?” Merle Avery set her custom made cue stick case on the bar and motioned for a pint of Coors.
    Merle had seen customers come and go in the Tonk for more than forty years. She and her best friend, Ruby Lee, had blown into Palo Pinto County at the same time. Ruby built a beer joint and Merle got rich designing western shirts for women. She was past seventy, still shot a mean game of pool, could hold her liquor, and spoke her mind. She wore her dyed black hair ratted and piled high; her jeans snug, and her boots were always polished. She was part of the fixtures at the Honky Tonk and anyone who could whip her at the pool table had something to go home and brag about.
    “That would be Holt Jackson and two kids,” Sharlene said.
    “The carpenter, Holt Jackson? The one you’ve been trying to hire for weeks?”
    Sharlene blushed. “Yes, that’s the one. He needed a house and no one was living in mine. Rent is his bonus if he finishes my job by his deadline. He says it’ll be a piece of cake with his crew. Tell the truth, I don’t care if he nails up every board single-handedly or if he gets a hundred people to work for him. I just want it finished in time for the holidays. Did you see all those pink strings and little yellow plastic flags? The flags mark the electric and telephone buried wires. The string is where the foundation will be.”
    “I didn’t know he was married, much less had two kids,” Merle said.
    Sharlene looked down the bar to make sure no one needed anything. “It’s his niece and nephew. I thought they were his kids when he mentioned them but they call him Uncle Holt. I don’t know the story behind why he’s got them. Don’t really matter to me, long as he gets the job done.”
    “So who’s keeping them while he works?”
    Sharlene wiped the already clean bar. “He is going to bring them with him. Today they stayed with some friends up in Palo Pinto because he and his crew had to get the equipment down here. Tomorrow they start coming here.”
    Merle frowned. “He’s the best carpenter in the area and