When Roses Collide

Chapter Fourteen

"One Diet Coke with a twist of lime." The perky blonde waitress set down Harley's drink of choice in front of her with a flourish along with a bowl of freshly cut limes next to it. "With a side of lime for that extra pucker." The waitress looked over at Harley's lunch date and said with a smile, "Skootch your buns over, I want in on this girl talk."

Harley giggled as her two friends wiggled themselves into the booth. Rebecca Lakes worked the breakfast through lunch shift at the Dawg Day's Café. A rather oddly named diner with the best velvety chocolate cream pie she had ever wrapped her lips around. Harley's fierce and loyal love of all things chocolate, had her coming here on a regular basis to get her fix and soon becoming fast friends with the cute blonde with the killer baby blues.

Rebecca, or Becca for short, had one of those types of personalities you couldn't resist. Harley liked to think of her as cross between the obnoxious cheerleader and the preacher's daughter. Becca was constantly cheerful despite having to deal with grouchy ranch owners and cowboys who would tap away at a Saints patients with their bad south paw behavior.

Not to mention her surly boss, Hank, who took great pride in never stating anything unless he could yell it at high decibels. Becca took it all in stride and kept that beaming smile on her face through it all. There was no way Harley couldn't be friends with her, it would be like trying to avoid petting a puppy. Just impossible.

As bright and cheerful as Becca was, Desi Louvain was not. Squeezing a couple extra lime wedges into her drink and swirling it around with the straw, she contemplated her other companion across the booth. Taking a sweet bubbly sip of her Diet Coke, Harley looked over at the purple spiked gothic disaster who was one of her best friends.

True to form, the spikes surrounded her head in an impressive representation of a porcupine, dark black make-up charcoaled around her sandy brown eyes with enough flair to give Cleopatra a run for her money and her delicate neck was wrapped in a thick, sterling silver, spiked dog collar. Off the collar hung a beautiful silver heart with the name MAX engraved across the face.

Harley watched Desi reach up her hand to play with the little tag, one of her favorite pastimes. As she softly stroked a finger across the engraving with the tip of one of her short black painted nails, a smile worked its way across her lips as it usually did when she thought of her husband whose name she proudly displayed around her neck.

Where Becca was short, roundish and a bubble of hyperactive cheer, Desi was the polar opposite. Tall, well...taller than Harley which wasn't difficult and she was built more on the willowy side. Unlike Becca's unwavering happy demure, Desi leaned more towards the sarcastic, grouchy and mischievous end of the personality pool.

Desi considered nothing off topic or too taboo and took great delight in the power of shock appeal. Despite her rough exterior, she was a true friend through and through with a heart as big as the Montana sky. She smiled at her beautiful, yet scary, friend. Desi and her husband Max, who owned the local bar called the Longhorn, had been the first people to extend a warm greeting to her when she moved into this back ass town. Small towns aren't known to be overly welcoming, but this one took it to a whole new level and Harley would be always grateful for their friendship.

"So, tell us!" Becca fairly bounced in her seat.

"Tell you what?" Harley innocently asked as she continued to sip on her drink after squeezing a couple of more limes into it.

"Humph!" Desi snorted indelicately. "Come on Harley. The whole town knows that you had a rather handsome and clodhopping visitor at your place. One, rumor has it, that you didn't exactly send away with a load of buckshot in his hunky britches." Desi raised a dark eyebrow, giving her a wicked grin with a little wink.