Red’s Hot Honky-Tonk Bar Read Online Free PDF Page B

parking lots.” He damped his index finger on his tongue and held it up in the air. “I’d say it’s only ninety-three, maybe ninety-four. Perfect San Antonio weather.”
    Red wanted to argue, but the kids were already rushing out to the sidewalk.
    “Don’t get so far ahead that I can’t see you,” Red called out. “And wait at the corner.”
    If Olivia thought those were baby rules, at least she didn’t say so.
    Red and Cam followed at a good pace as they made their way southward on Avenue B past the autobody shop, a plumbing warehouse and a couple of vacant lots. She was surprised when he took her hand.
    “What?” he asked at her startled expression. “Do you think this will embarrass the kids? Or will it embarrass you?”
    She didn’t answer that, she just changed the subject.
    “I know we need to talk about…about all this and whereour relationship goes from here and all that,” Red said. “But can we just skip it? Now you know how old I am. That I have a grown daughter with kids of her own. You can either opt out or don’t, but I’d just as soon not talk about it.”
    Cam made a slightly affirmative sound and kept moving ahead, thoughtfully.
    “Did you think that I didn’t know how old you are?” he asked.
    “Well, of course I knew that you knew that I’m older than you,” she answered. “But having grandkids? I’m pretty sure that guys like you don’t date women with grandkids.”
    “Is that why you didn’t mention it?”
    “That’s a reason. There are several others, just as good,” she answered.
    “One of those being that it’s none of my business,” Cam said, quoting her earlier comment.
    Red didn’t answer that, but merely shrugged.
    Up ahead, Olivia and Daniel had stopped at the corner, dutifully waiting for them.
    “So, where’s their mother?” Cam asked.
    “Afghanistan,” Red answered. “When she’s deployed they usually stay with their other grandmother, but she had a stroke last night.”
    “Wow, tough break.”
    “Yeah.”
    He turned to give her a slight grin. “I meant for them, not for you.”
    “I meant them, too!” Red insisted.
    “What about their dad?”
    “He and my daughter are divorced,” she answered. “But he’ll be here in San Antonio in a day or two and take them off my hands.”
    They caught up to the kids and turned the corner to cross the narrow river bridge. Daniel leaned against the railing, content to watch the flow of the water. Both sides of the river were marked with bright orange flags and areas taped off. The boy seemed inordinately interested in the marking. Olivia urged him on down the street, her eagerness to get to the library apparent.
    “So your daughter’s name is…?”
    “Bridge. Bridge Lujan.”
    “Bridge is short for Bridget?”
    “No,” Red answered. “Just Bridge. It was…it was just something I thought up when she was born. She was like my bridge from my old life to my new one.”
    Cam eyed her curiously as if expecting her to say more.
    She was hesitant to say too much. “You know how teenagers are,” she explained, forcing a chuckle that wasn’t completely sincere. “I was very dramatic and my world was full of meaning.”
    Red continued quickly, unwilling to give him a chance to delve any further in those things she didn’t want to remember.
    “Bridge is an operating-room specialist,” she said. “She supervises other soldiers and they make sure that the surgical areas are safe and sterile. Most of the time she works here, at BAMC, the army hospital. But this is her second deployment to the Middle East.”
    “Are you worried about her?”
    “Well, certainly. I am human, you know,” Red told him. “But Bridge can really take care of herself. She always has.”
    At St. Mary’s Street they turned south again, past the U-PiK-It grocery that was crammed into a vintage 1920s gasoline station. There were more buildings on the streets to see now. Small hotels, a television station, the