The windshield wipers knocked back and forth as she waited for the reprieve in the rain that wasn’t coming for a while. She got out of the truck and made a run for it, up to the metal awning outside the bar. The front door was open, spilling cold air out onto the sidewalk, a couple of men standing outside smoking cigarettes. They checked her out, taking sideways glances at her ass as she passed. One of them asking her, “Baby, where you been all my life?”

It was cool inside, damn-near cold, the light dim and neon-soaked, a dozen or so folks toughing out the storm with bottles of Bud and Coors and shots of Beam and Jose Cuervo. The bar had opened when she’d been up in Memphis, and most of the time since she’d been home, she’d had little use for it. Caddy Colson did her best to stay out of places like that. They called to her. She could smell the whiskey and cigarettes, the jukebox blasting in the corner, playing a song about voodoo queen Marie Laveau.

She spotted Boom at the end of the bar, his big head down resting on his huge left forearm.

Caddy shook her head and took a deep breath, hands in her jeans pockets, walking toward him.

“Caddy?” a woman asked behind her. Caddy turned and saw Tashi Coleman and that other girl she’d met at the Barn. What was her name again? Vanessa? Jessica? Something like that. A couple of Yankee girls trying to soak up some local culture down in Tibbehah County.

“Can we buy you a drink?” Tashi Coleman asked.

“I don’t drink.”

Tashi looked confused, and much younger than when they’d first met. She had her black hair pulled into a ponytail and she’d ditched the funny-looking glasses she had on the other day. She wore jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt, showing off a spindly little tattoo on her forearm. Authentic hipster shit.

“Want to join us?”

“I’m not staying.”

“Did you hear about the tornado warning?” Tashi said, smiling. “The bartender said this is the safest place in the whole county with all this brick.”

“He would say that,” Caddy said. “I guess it’s safe until the place falls in on you. Sorry. I’ve got to go.”

“Maybe next week, then?” Tashi asked. “We need to talk.”

Caddy pushed on past the shorter woman and headed on over to Boom, shoving his shoulder, trying to get him awake. Boom’s muscles thick in her hands as she rocked him back and forth, a half-dozen shot glasses in front of him. The bartender, a man named Cooney who used to run a barbecue joint when she was in high school, smiled at her. “What’s your poison?”

“You served him?”

“Sure,” Cooney said. “Is that against the law?”

“You know who this is?”