Go right in,” Mona had said.

“She’ll need a little prodding to wake up,” Mona had said. Though some particularly hot memories of that fact were probably not what Mona had in mind.

Nat stood inside Mona’s trailer, hat in hand, as unable to decide where to look as a priest in a whorehouse. On a white sheet spread across the bench seat, January lay asleep on her belly, shirt ridden halfway up her tanned back, her ripe and round and cheeky ass decorated with cherry-emblazoned panties. Her legs were sprawled, no doubt from the dawn’s humidity, leaving him with morning glory that had nothing to do with Mona’s vines out front.

Nat held his hat over his fly, wiped his sweaty hand on his jeans, and reached for her shoulder.

“J?”

His slight jiggle of her lithe body had no effect. Except on him.

Nat glanced around for a way to wake her that didn’t involve his skin and her skin in direct contact. He spotted a pail of cans to be recycled by the door and nudged it over with his boot toe.

The aluminum cacophony had January scrambling off the couch like he’d caught the cushions on fire, which made his conundrum all the more uncomfortable. Her off-the-shoulder shirt dipped wide and low enough that he glimpsed clear to her navel with the most perfect orbs as scenery along the way.

“Nat…what the hell?” Her words came out in breathy gusts. She put a palm over her heart, effectively concealing his view. In typical January fashion, she sported a morning sleepy-scowl in total contradiction to a familiar flush of cheeks and untamed hair.

He did a crisp about-face that would have made Wes proud.

“I’m sorry. Mona said to come wake you.”

“With beer cans?”

He had no answer, so he moved on. “Willie has some work up at the house for you. Some calves that need grooming—washing, oiling up their coat, hair clipped.”

“You wake every girl up with sweet talk like this?” She had on her best stink face—he heard it in her voice.

Again, he had no answer, so he moved on. Nat could count the women he’d been with on one hand. One hand where most fingers had been taken off by a rogue saw blade.

“Be up at the house as soon as you can.” Nat headed toward the trailer door.

“Wait. I’ll get dressed. You can give me a ride.”

Perfect. Just what Nat needed in a tiny trailer with no privacy—to watch the love of his life wrestle herself into a bra and jeans. In his quest to remain a gentleman, he searched the place for a diversion, saw nothing but the inside of the hump trailer, and headed for the morning sun.

“Stay, Nat. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Her request had him at a stop. Dead stop.

Behind him, the zipping of bags and rustle of clothes weakened his knees. He closed in on the world map to give his eyes somewhere to go beside her creamy surplus of skin.

Nat remembered the Christmas morning January’s father gave her the map. She talked of little else, mostly because her old man wove a spectacular tale about treasure hunting in Mozambique on a scuba expedition. That spring, on their way back from a guy’s camping weekend, Nat witnessed her father unable to go with him into floodwaters to save a stranded motorist. Lying son-of-a-bitch had a ball-shriveling fear of water. Nat came close to telling January. Twice. But her eyes? Goddamned but they lit up when she poked pins in the map and talked about her future. About her father.

His eyes locked in on a lush, green, three-word place in Vietnam he couldn’t pronounce. He’d have bet his entire herd that January could fill up an hour with nonstop facts and stories from the far-off place. All he could fill an hour with was a list of attributes that made for good breeding stock. January may have been six feet away, but in terms of worldliness, it may as well have been galaxies between them. Nat felt like a dumb hick, the realization as heavy on his shoulders as a raincoat in a sauna.

“So, where are you headed next?” He didn’t want to know, really. Unless it was down to the community bulletin board at Dairy Mart to find a permanent place to stay in Close Call.

“Nepal. Hopefully.”

“What’s in Nepal?” The destination lay on his tongue like sushi.

“Prayer flags…Annapurna mountain peaks…rickshaws in Thamel…The Garden of Dreams in Kathmandu.”

She went on about something that sounded like dull bat—rice and lentils and a handful of other things a cattle rancher from Texas would never eat. Hadn’t even been there yet, and already her tone carried reverence. Mostly, he sank into the energy and life of her voice—fuel to burn memories during the chilly nights to come.

He had nothing to say in response to those things. Didn’t even understand them. But the sound of crisp denim making its way over her bare legs left him scrambling for a connection, leverage, something that made him feel less like a two thousand-pound bull in quicksand.

“Cowboy church out past the Reynold’s place put up a prayer garden. Well, mostly a handful of geraniums and a bench made out of a Ford tailgate.”

The space behind him quieted.

“Probably nothing like Kathmandu, but I suppose someone could dream there if the mosquitoes didn’t eat them alive.” Nat laughed, more of a shudder that sounded like someone had tapped their size-twelve boot sole up against his voice box. This time, when he retreated, he was hell-bent on making it to the cab of his truck before he died of inadequacy right there on Mona’s green shag carpet.

“You want a ride up to the house, you got one minute,” he called over his shoulder. “Already behind on chores.”

He climbed behind the wheel. The breeze through the open window cooled his heated neck. January joined him like a five-alarm drill: one boot on, one in her hand; an apple from Mona’s fruit bowl wedged in her bite; the fly on her Levi’s half-fastened and buttons on a yellow shirt askew. She handed him the bitten apple as she climbed up in his cab and set a hairbrush on his dashboard. Golden curls cascaded from the nylon bristles and past his hazard button—so comfortable, so familiar, he nearly lost all intent to hightail it back to the house and off-load her on Willie so she would stay out of Nat’s way all day.

Transmission in gear, he orchestrated a three-point turn in record time. January bounced on the seat beside him like eight seconds in an Amarillo arena. She reached for the Jesus bar above the window.

“Jesus, Nat.”

Thus re-enforcing the handle’s nickname.

“Beauty shop to a bunch of bovines, huh?”

Her dull-edged excitement piqued him even more. Meier land wasn’t the Annapurna mountain range, but the vistas looking south during bluebonnet time damn near took a man’s breath away. She didn’t get the draw of this place; she never would.

Best January Rose clear out to her rickshaws and dull bats before the urge to sit on that Ford tailgate, smell the geraniums, and unearth old dreams came on too strong to fight.

* * *

Dietrich’s had been a Saturday night custom in Close Call since the Rose family breezed through town fourteen years ago and Mona had picked up enough odd repair jobs to stick around. Back then, ice chips rode glass bottles of soda, not alcohol—at least not when adults were around. A honky-tonk in small-town Texas wasn’t exactly an anomaly. One that welcomed entire families with a live country band and a dance floor constructed under the stars?

Nowhere else on earth.

The night was mild, the crowd thick and friendly. January sat beside Mona atop a picnic table under the trees. Oak branches that normally functioned as primo shade from the day’s heat provided structure to simple yellow bulbs strung across the dance floor at night. The singer’s imperfect but genuine baritone notes landed deep in her chest.

God, she missed this. Dietrich’s was responsible for some of her best memories, ever, and not only for what happened on the dance floor. Someone their senior year became convinced that the legend about passing under the train trestle in a boat and glimpsing your true love was real, and the entire class spent every Saturday night trying to prove it, one way or the other. She never did spot the face of her true love, but she supposed that was because Nat was always in the rowboat with her.

Mona nudged January’s elbow at the rather ambitious opening fiddle strains of a stripped-down “Cotton Eye Joe,” a favorite group dance of the kid-set because it was the only time their Bible-hugging parents allowed them to say bullshit. Scream it, really.

“I’m good,” said January. “You go.”

Mona shot to her feet and linked shoulders with those already in formation.

As if Mona needed her permission. Her mother had been especially clingy since they bonded over styling MooDonna’s tuft of white hair that afternoon. The cow snorted, the women giggled, and all three of them considered a rather brazen coat of quick-dry Making Whoopee purple on her hooves until Willie broke up the girl party. January smiled at the recent memory.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re enjoying your time in Close Call.” Nat said from a spot near the tree trunk.

Stumbling dance lines and howls of laughter provided the perfect cover for her newfound contentment.

Nat took Mona’s place. He folded his long cowboy legs on the bench in front of them like a giraffe styled in a starched button-down shirt and Wranglers. His cologne didn’t hit her like the others that had wafted her direction that night—peppery, in-your-face excuses for masculinity. Nat wore his scent to perfection. Aged leather. Woodsy, like the balsam fir in a Christmas candle. Virile without trying.

“Forget the steps?” He motioned his longneck Shiner bottle toward the dancers.

“I needed time to pop my shoulder back into alignment. Bud might have mistaken my arm for a tire pump.”

Nat tossed his head back, his laughter throaty and warm. “Old Man Goff never dances. He’s a little out of practice since his wife died.”

“He’s sweet.”

“He’s not the only one.” Nat pulled a swig of his beer and took his time swallowing. “I’ve seen you out there, dancing with old toughies and widowed women who never get asked and red-haired twelve-year-olds with freckles and bad teeth.”

“That kid’s going to be a looker. Give him a handful of years.”

The band eased from the rollicking folk tune to a slow number.

A guy sporting a Texas-flag snap-button shirt and reptile boots approached. Apart from his questionable fashion sense, he was a dead ringer for Superman—the recent Hollywood version she’d caught on a flight from Sydney to London a few years back. He had spun every other eligible female on Dietrich’s dance floor like a pennant caught in a hurricane.

“Would you like to dance?” he said.

Beside her, Nat straightened. May have even stopped breathing.

January grabbed Nat’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she told Superman. “He asked first.”

She tugged Nat toward the dance floor, a little like a giraffe hesitant to enter a limbo contest. But they fell into an easy rhythm, a forgotten alliance, a soft place. His body picked up the beat and telegraphed it to hers through their joined hands, the slight pressure of his touch at the curve of her spine, his close proximity.

“What was that?”

January shrugged.

“That was Eric Pickford.”

“Should that name mean something?”

“Cousin to our beloved banker, Austin, and sole heir to the Dyed And Gone to Heaven chain of hair salons?”

“The one that used to be the gas station on Main, with the wigs on the pumps?”

“And the one in Hickory that used to be a funeral home. It’s a three-county empire.”

“Nathaniel James Meier, you sat there and watched me turn down a shot at marrying into a pedigree. Shame on you.”

His chuckle resonated between them. A warm buzz danced along the nerves in her neck and arms, sans alcohol. She had forgotten the single most pleasurable part of being around Nat—making him laugh. At first, a challenge. Then, as he opened up and let her in, a salve when her parents’ marriage festered, when her father left, when her mother struggled with two mouths to feed. Leaving had been the only relief January could think to give her.

“Seems everyone wants to dance with the world traveler,” said Nat.

“What about you, cowboy? You’ve been here long enough to keep tabs on my dance card.”

He orchestrated a braiding of their arms and a complex turning maneuver, likely to keep from answering. January closed her eyes to the cool wind lifting her hair, the heady spin of being in his arms again. She felt…safe. Nat was that rare specimen of man able to suppress instincts and exalt the wellbeing of others. Muscles beneath his crisp shirt were larger, firmer, more defined than she remembered, no doubt due to the hours beyond ranching that he spent volunteering for the Marin County Fire Department. He has saved seven folks in that capacity—not that anyone is counting, wrote Mona in one of her letters. For January, after being solely responsible for her safety for so long, shifting the burden to another, even for the duration of a dance, felt liberating.

“Thank you...” said Nat, “for today. Cows looked good going up on the auction site. Should bring a higher starting bid.”

Until now, January assumed her day’s chore held little importance beyond keeping her off a horse and away from herding. Probably a good thing Mona talked her out of the Making Whoopee nail polish.

“You’re welcome.”

The polite between-space Nat had held onto as a gentleman at the dance’s opening all but disappeared. His freshly shaven jaw teased her temple.

“I’m surprised you’re here, with so much to do on the ranch,” she said.

“Willie threatened to quit if I didn’t show.”

“He does like to dance.” She recalled Willie’s instructions on her first dance of the night: I’ll bring the moves, you steer the car. Moves wasn’t quite what she would call them. He had perfected the perfect blend of the Texas two-step and the jitterbug, all with an infectious smile. If Willie started a religion, January would be his first disciple.

“Willie’s good for you. Keeps you light and spontaneous. The way you used to be.”

Their easy rhythm broke. Nat ended the dance before the band.

“When your decisions support ten families and a hundred years of family history, light and spontaneous doesn’t cut it.” Nat’s face flushed beneath his brim, nothing at all to do with the heat they had generated together. “We can’t all chase dreams, J. Some of us live in the real world.”

He mumbled out something close to an excuse me and headed for the trees. Even angry, Nat found his manners.

Her chest felt bruised. She shouldn’t have come. To Dietrich’s. To Close Call. All she ever seemed to do was spread hurt.

The song ended. Another up-tempo one began. Superman swooped in with a second offer.

January glanced at the tree line that had swallowed Nat.

“Knew I’d find you here.”

Where a tiny tributary of the Brazos River, barely more than a trickle most seasons, joined an oasis of cypress trees, grassy knolls, and sixty-eight-degree spring-fed water, Nat sat on a cluster of boulders known as Tull’s Teabags. Affectionately named after Colonel Ulysses Tull, who discovered the spot to water his volunteer Army-Corp-come-late-to-the-Texas-revolution, the rocks were smooth and abundant, which raised questions that rarely held January’s attention long enough to find out anything further about anomalies in the male anatomy or history. Or maybe—just maybe—the Colonel had a fondness for the hot beverage.

Knowing the locals of Close Call, not likely.

Nat didn’t answer her. He tended to stew, hold things inside, his granite, cowboy exterior on full display. She remembered that about him. Mostly, she remembered the best way to knock him loose was a strategic kiss to his neck. Her rabbit libido scampered down that fantasy trail before her turtle common sense kicked in. By the time she sat beside him on the rock, the air was the least of the dampness clinging to her skin.

“Eric Pickford isn’t used to being turned down. Twice, no less. I told him I have back problems that don’t allow me to dance with short men.”

Though the full brilliance of the moon had come and gone the previous night, enough light reflected off the water for her to see the corner of Nat’s lips threaten a smile.

“I’m sorry, Nat. I didn’t mean anything—”

“It’s okay.”

Water beneath the rocks gurgled through their silence.

“You should really stop doing that,” said January.

“What?”

“Being so nice all the time. Filtering out what you really want to say.”

“Because hurting people is so much easier?”

This time, the bruise spread to her whole body. “I deserve that. Worse, really. But at least honesty gives people something real.”

She slipped out of her boots and socks and reclined on the rock, fingers linked behind her head. Stars blinked. Crickets spoke. Her sundress inched up her thighs. The night was welcome there.

“Take, for instance, a column in the paper I read over breakfast. Mom said it was all the buzz—runs in all the small-town papers. It was different from any other advice column I’d ever read. This columnist—Agnes? She dug deep. No one or two liners of you-should-do-this talk. Sounded young but with an old soul. She was honest and real—a little conservative in her advice—but it all came from a place of genuine concern for complete strangers. Made you want to tell her everything, you know?”

Nat shifted but settled in the same spot, same position.

“She had a way with words, like poetry and life all twisted together—hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Then she said, ‘never look down on anyone unless you’re helping them up,’ which is weird because someone else I know says that all the time.”

“That so?” His voice held disinterest, distance, like he aimed to let the conversation die right there.

“You’re Agnes, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

A squeal of delight slipped free of January’s lips. She knew it.

“Agnes is more your mother than me.”

“I don’t know. She can drop advice six ways to Sunday, and it doesn’t sound like that.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re on the receiving end.”

“Maybe. So how did you become a granny ghostwriter?”

“As a favor to Clayton Stokes when he took over the paper from his father. He needed someone. I needed extra money for my double major. Told him I’d help him for a while. When other papers picked up the column, he asked me to stay on.”

Their voices matched in softness, in the place of confidences and secrets.

“What was your double major?”

“English. I never finished that degree, either.”

“You were always an amazing writer. That story you wrote in high school about the group of friends who got on the wrong train and learned they were in a parallel universe when the train was held up by outlaws? God, I loved that story.”

Perhaps it had been his ultimatum: the next chapter if—and only if—she was in his arms. Preferably naked.

“Why can’t you be as honest with me as you are in your column?” she asked.

For a long stretch, she believed he wouldn’t answer, that truthfulness would remain the great unanswered question of their relationship, then and now. Mona always said, “still waters run deep.” Except where his writing uncovered hidden truths, Nat Meier was the Marianas Trench.

“Because hurting you the way you hurt me would be easy.”

Her nose stung. Constellations swam. She had walked right into that trench. Asked for it. In the spirit of honesty, she pulled him into the depths alongside her.

“I’m sorry, Nat, for the way I left. It was a shit-coward thing to do, leaving you waiting in that field, headlights on, radio playing low. I tried, for thirty minutes, I tried to walk out into the clearing, but I knew if I climbed up on that blanket in the truck bed beside you, I’d never have the courage to leave.”

“Not even a note, J. Not one fucking word for years. Jesus, I thought you were dead.”

A rogue tear slipped loose, lashes to temple. January swiped it away before more followed.

“Mona should have…”

“You should have.”

“I know. I’m sorry for not writing. I’m sorry for the way I left, but I’m not sorry I left. At eighteen, all I wanted was the freedom my father had, to not be a burden to anyone.”

“And now?”

She didn’t know. Her desires were one Texas-sized blank, at a crossroads between navigating her dreams and being unable to recall why those dreams belonged to her. The past and future weren’t here. Not this night. All she knew was the present.

January stood, swiped the moisture from her cheeks, and mustered all the brightness she could into her voice. “Let’s go swimming.”

“What?”

“Like we used to. It’ll be…”

“Light and spontaneous?” This time, the two words had lost their bite.

January grinned, her mood buoyed by his snappy response. “I was going to say therapeutic. You can pry yourself out of those jeans before you’re sterile, and I can pretend I didn’t become Dear Agnes’s latest subject matter.”

“J—”

“Come on. I’ve been in a hundred different watering holes, all over the world, but this one is still the best.”

“One condition.”

“Anything.”

“You stop trying to work the ranch. Stay out of the way, here on out.”

She weighed this against the promise she’d made Mona. Nat was the boss. How could Mona argue with that?

January grabbed her hem with crossed arms, wiggled the cotton dress over her head, and draped the garment across her boots.

Everything but Nat’s eyes turned back to granite.

She jumped rock to rock until she reached the spring’s pool and dove in. Water sluiced warm along her scalp and embraced her with a familiarity she had craved for so long. When she surfaced, she blinked to clear the dampness from her eyelashes and glanced up at Tull’s Teabags.

Nat’s boots and hat already stood out in sharp relief against the moon-drenched rocks.

A grin nearly split January in half.

“Mona has a crowbar in her truck,” she called out to him.

“They’re not that tight,” Nat said as he nearly toppled removing his pants.

“Those put Dwight Yoakam to shame.” Not that she was complaining. Not one bit.