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paying attention to her, so it didn’t matter if she stared, she decided.
    Blakeley was a big man, at least six-foot-three, she figured. He wore highly polished cowboy boots, tight jeans, and a sport shirt that strained across his broad shoulders. The sleeves of the shirt had been rolled up to expose his bulging biceps. His upper arms bore tattoos, but from this distance, Wanda Nell couldn’t make out the designs. He had jet black hair, and when he turned in her direction and looked right at her, Wanda Nell discovered he had the coldest eyes she had ever seen.
    He examined her for a moment, his lower lip twisting in a knowing smirk, before he turned back to talk to the men around him.
    Wanda Nell shivered. Now that she’d had a good look at the man’s face, she had no trouble believing the stories about him.
    â€œPipe down,” someone yelled. The person yelled again, and suddenly the noise faded away.
    The man who had called for quiet was Dixon Vance, Wanda Nell noted. He was good looking, she decided, and she could see why Mayrene was attracted to him.
    â€œTime for a toast,” Vance said. “Ol’ Travis here’s about to get hitched, and I reckon we better party while we can. After next Sunday, he’s gonna be too busy with that young wife of his to wanna spend any time with us.”
    Wanda Nell did her best to block out the lewd words and suggestions that followed Vance’s little speech. Men could be such pigs, especially when the booze had been flowing as freely as it had so far tonight.
    The men raised their glasses to Travis Blakeley and drank. Blakeley stood there smirking. So far, Wanda Nell hadn’t seen him drink anything.
    â€œCome on, now, Travis,” someone called out. “Speech!”
    Blakeley smirked a bit more. He stepped over to a nearby table and picked up a glass, full of what looked like bourbon. “Y’all have seen Tiffany,” he said, “so I reckon you know what I’ll be doing on the honeymoon.” He made a few very explicit remarks, and some of the men laughed with him. Wanda Nell could feel her face burning.
    Of the ones who didn’t laugh, one was the young man who seemed familiar to Wanda Nell. Another was the older man she didn’t know, who still talking to the younger one. Even Dixon Vance, who had started it all, looked a little taken aback at Travis Blakeley’s crudity. While she watched, the young man pushed his way to the front of the group to stand in front of Blakeley.
    â€œDon’t talk like that about her.” His voice was loud and slurred. “She’s a nice girl, and you talk like she’s some slut.”
    â€œAll women are, once you start giving them what they want,” Blakeley said, with a derisory laugh. “Man like me, they start begging for it. It ain’t my fault, Gerald, you ain’t got what it takes.”
    The young man launched himself at Blakeley and managed to get in a punch to the bigger man’s gut before Blakeley could react. The blow didn’t appear to faze him that much, Wanda Nell noticed. She wished the younger man had knocked him cold. The name Gerald finally registered with her. He was Gerald Blakeley, and he must be Travis’s brother.
    Blakeley just shook his head at the younger man, now being held back by two of the cops. “Little man, you don’t want me to pound you into the floor like I did when we were kids. Take a chill pill, or get your ass out of here.”
    The two cops hustled Gerald into a chair several feet away from his brother, and he slumped into it, muttering and holding his head.
    Wanda Nell shook her head. Men never changed. Or, at least, most of them. She couldn’t imagine Jack acting like this.
    The men started laughing and talking again, and after a moment, Gerald Blakeley got up from his chair and went to the bar. Wanda Nell watched him with concern. Maybe she ought to talk to him, try to get him out of