Lila had started out the month of June in Happy, Texas. That Saturday morning, the first day of July, she was sitting on a beach far away from Texas and the only place she wanted to be was at home in Happy.
She let a hand full of warm sand sift through her fingers. The waves were calm that morning, lapping up on the shore peacefully. Seagulls flew around overhead, their beady little eyes looking for food. Sandpipers darted in and out of the edge of the water, leaving their footprints in the sand.
She got one of those antsy feelings that said someone was close by. Glancing to the right, she caught a glimpse of the motel cat, belly to the ground as it stalked a bird. To the left, a seagull was picking at the sand. Then the black and white cat took off for the sea oats and weeds and the gull flapped its wings and joined its flock high in the air.
She looked over her shoulder and blinked several times. That cowboy silhouetted on the deck looked so much like Brody in the early morning light that it was uncanny. His broad chest and that snowy white T-shirt—it made her ache for Brody. He left the deck and in a few long strides, he covered the distance and sat down beside her. She moved one of her bare feet over to touch his ankle.
He was a real person, not an illusion.
“When you said anytime, I hope you meant it.”
“But I’m leaving in a few minutes,” she whispered, still unsure if she was imagining things.
“Thought I’d hitch a ride and spend time with you, then fly home from Little Rock to Amarillo.”
He was honest to God real, and he was right there beside her. In one fluid motion, she pushed him back and wiggled her way on top of him and then her lips were on his. His arms drew her so close that a grain of sand couldn’t have found its way between them. Everything in her world was suddenly all right. Brody was there. He had come to Florida to spend time with her.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” She ran her fingertips over his face and covered his eyelids with butterfly kisses.
“The welcome was a little delayed but…” He pulled her mouth back to his and rolled to one side for a better angle.
“Get a room,” a voice above them said.
Lila glanced away from Brody into an old guy’s grinning face. “We’ve got a room, thank you very much.”
“Then use it.” He moved on down the beach at the slowest jog she’d ever seen.
With a giggle she sat up and grabbed Brody’s hand, afraid that if she wasn’t touching him he would disappear. “When did you get here? Where did you stay? Do you have a car? Did you really fly?”
He brought her hand to his lips and answered each question as he kissed her knuckles. “I got here about midnight, then took a car service to the hotel behind us. I stayed in room 101. Since it was a one-way ticket, I’m flying on a prayer that you wouldn’t send me packing.”
“Mama warned me about picking up strange men.” She grinned.
“Well, then.” He rubbed his chin. “Would you let just any old cowboy drive your truck?”
“No, I would not,” she answered.
“If you let me drive, that would mean I’m not a stranger, right?”
“Seems that way.” She smiled. “I could hire you to drive for me and maybe Mama wouldn’t get upset.”
He gazed out into the water. “I’ll take that job. What’s the pay?”
“I’m down on my luck, so maybe you’d do it for free meals and a ride to the airport when we get to Conway?”
He pulled his hand free and stuck it out. “Shake on it and it’s a deal.”
Without hesitation, she took his hand. “We are burning daylight, so we’d best herd the cats into their carrier, check out of this place, and get on the road toward Monroe, Louisiana.”
“Is that our first stop?” he asked without letting go of her hand.
She nodded. “It is and then tomorrow morning we’ll go to Conway, get there early, take a look around, and check into a hotel. I have my interview on Monday morning at nine sharp.”
“Plans are set in stone, then.” He stood to his feet and brought her with him. “So we’d better go chase down Duke and Crazy Cora. Which one of those places are they in?”
“Room 102, right next to where you were last night,” she said.
He took the first step across the beach toward the motel. “Only a wall separating us.”
“Story of our lives.” She stopped at the faucet to wash the sand from her feet.
“Maybe it’s time to tear the wall down.” He brushed the sand from his jeans and waited his turn.
“That’d be quite a task. You packed and ready?”
“I stay ready.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“I can’t argue with that,” she laughed. “I’ll get the cats in the carrier and meet you at the truck after I check out. And, Brody, this is beyond amazing.”
“Yes, it is.” He nodded.
The truck bed was loaded with plastic bins in case it rained, and her motorcycle right in the middle of all of it. The backseat held a carrier with two squalling kittens, suitcases, and cardboard boxes. Brody’s duffel bag sat on top of it all and he’d never been happier than that morning as he headed west with Lila sitting beside him.
He wanted to say those three words that his mother said kept her from leaving his dad when things got rough but he wanted it to be a special time. Lila deserved the whole package—flowers, candlelight, and romance—when he finally said that he loved her. She shouldn’t have to hear him say it over the top of whining kittens and the sound of traffic all around them.
“Does your mama know about this?” Lila asked after they were on the highway.
“She’s the one who told me it’s what I should do. She don’t like to see her baby boy hurtin’.”
“The big tough cowboy will always be her baby, won’t he?”
“I hope so. When you have a son, will he always be yours?” Brody made a right-hand turn to head north.
She turned around and stared out the side window for a long time before she answered. “Do you want children, Brody?”
“A dozen wouldn’t be too many for me,” he said. “You?”
“More than one. I hated being an only child. I envied anyone who had siblings—still do.” It was evident by the serious expression on her face that she struggled with the next words. “Do you really think we can make this long-distance thing work?”
“If we keep the lines of communication open, we can make anything work,” he answered. “You can come to Happy once a month for a weekend or longer over holidays. I’ll fly to Arkansas a weekend out of each month and we can talk every night. Easy has never been our portion, has it?”
She laid a hand on his thigh. “What about the ranch? Can you leave it for two or three days at a time?”
“You’re more important to me than Hope Springs, and I can turn some responsibility over to Jace.”
She nodded. “I’ll have a week at Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas.”
“We’ve got an extra bedroom at Hope Springs.”
“You mean I don’t get to sleep in your room?”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the palm. “That’s your decision. My door will always be open.”
She turned on the radio and leaned her head back on the seat with her eyes shut. “Let’s not go to Arkansas or Texas. Let’s spend the rest of our lives in this truck, traveling from one place to the other. I can waitress and you can make a few dollars working on a ranch. Maybe we’ll get one of those tiny little silver trailers to hitch to the truck and live in it.”
“What about all those kids?” he asked.
“When the first one is school age, we’ll settle down. I know it’s crazy and that it’s my wild child talking but let’s pretend just for this day that we never have to say good-bye again. Not even for two weeks or a month,” she said.
“Sounds good to me. I hate being away from you, especially after this past month. Hey, there’s a town not far ahead. Maybe they’ll have a trailer for sale.”
She straightened up so quick that she grabbed her head. “Wow! That gave me a head rush.”
“What? The trailer or making it rock? We should look for one of those signs that says, ‘If this trailer is rockin’, don’t come knockin’,’ shouldn’t we?”
Lila put a finger on her lips and then on his cheek. “Definitely. Or maybe a bumper sticker. We could steal a ‘do not disturb’ sign from a hotel to hang on the door.”
“We do need that trailer for sure. I don’t think there’s room for us to cuddle together in this truck. If we find one sittin’ on the side of the road, then it’s a sign that we need to turn this from pretend into real.”
Brody allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy for a moment. After his long day being a ranch hand, Lila would come home at night and he’d rub the soreness from her feet. They’d shower together in the warm rain and laugh every time they’d bump into each other in the tiny space.
Lila’s imagination went to the only travel trailer she’d ever been inside. The bed took up most of the area on one end and the other was nothing more than a tiny kitchen with a booth for a table. She shut her eyes and visualized Brody’s long leg thrown over her in the hot nights of summer. In the bitter cold winter, they’d pile on more covers and make wild, passionate love to keep warm. He’d come home from a day of ranch work and she’d massage the knots from his shoulders.
“What were you thinkin’ about?” she asked.
“That travel trailer. Everything you say and do makes me want you,” he answered. “You ready for a stop? We just passed a sign that said there’s a rest stop at the next exit.”
“I’m good, but the kitties might need a bit of dirt to dig in,” she said.
He slowed down and parked on the edge of the lot and she bailed out of the truck. She took the carrier with the cats inside to the pet area. She tied the bright red ribbons around each of the cat’s collars before she wrapped the other end around the leg of a picnic bench.
Brody headed toward the building and came back with his arms loaded with vending machine snacks. “I’ll watch the children while you stretch your legs and go to the ladies’ room. I brought breakfast.”
She jogged to the bathroom, where she looked at the reflection in the mirror the whole time she washed her hands. There was Dee, the schoolteacher with black hair and brown eyes, staring back at her. But in those same eyes, she could see Lila, who only came out to play when Brody Dawson was around.
“I don’t want to be away from him,” she whispered. “But there’s nothing for me but him in Happy, so what do I do? I have to work and make a living. I really would be willing to throw everything to the wind and go with him if we found a trailer for sale. But he has a ranch to manage and lives depend on him.”
She dried her hands and stopped at the vending machine for more junk food and two bottles of cold soda pop to keep them going until lunch.
“Hey, I told you that I bought breakfast,” he said.
“We have to keep up our strength.”
“And why would we need to do that?”
When he smiled like that, her heart kicked in an extra beat and her pulse raced. “Because you have to drive all the way to Monroe and I get real bitchy when I’m hungry. I don’t want you to throw me out on the side of the road. And I promised you food for payment if you would drive.”
He corralled the kittens back into the cage and shut the door, picked it up, and headed toward the truck. “Gettin’ to spend time with you is double payment, darlin’. But I am glad you remembered to get us something to drink.”
“I saw a sign back there that says there’s a truck stop ahead about five miles. We should fill the gas tank there,” she said. “And who knows, we might even find a silver trailer for sale.”
He resituated the carrier in the backseat. “Remember when we used to sneak away from everyone else and take my old beat-up truck down through the canyon?”
She crawled into the passenger seat and tossed her stash on the console. “And we’d stop at one of those lanes back to a ranch, eat corn chips, drink root beers if we couldn’t get real beer, and then make out on that quilt.” She ripped open the bag and took a handful out before she handed it to Brody as he drove.
“You do remember.”
“Of course I do,” she said.
At the gas station, Brody was almost finished filling the tank when a silver trailer showed up. A much bigger truck than hers was pulling it and an old guy got out.
“Want me to ask the driver if he’ll sell it?” Brody asked.
“If he’ll take twenty dollars for it, we’ll call it an omen and see if my truck can move it down the road. If we bog down, then it’s a sign that we should stop right here in this place and find jobs,” she teased.
Brody grinned and hollered over the top of the truck. “I’ll gladly buy that trailer from you. How much would you take for it?”
“My wife would skin me alive if I sold this thing. It’s her pride and joy.” The fellow smiled. “She likes to go see the grandkids but she needs her space when it comes nighttime.” He lowered his voice. “And sometimes even in the daytime when they get rowdy. Why would you want this old dinosaur anyway?”
“My woman over there.” Brody nodded toward Lila, who was only a few feet away. “She’s wantin’ an adventure and we only got a hundred dollars to spend on it.”
The guy chuckled. “Son, if me and Mama was your age and we had a few dollars, we’d go rent a cheap hotel, get us a bottle of Tennessee whiskey, and have an adventure that would be a memory maker.”
“Well, thanks for the advice,” Brody said.
“Anytime. You kids be careful wherever you’re movin’ to,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Brody said as he got into the truck. “I tried, sweetheart. Maybe the next feller will be ready to sell.”
Lila giggled. “What did you offer him?”
“I offered a hundred but I would have given him two hundred,” he teased.
She crawled over the console and settled into his lap. “It was too big anyway. You could hide from me in that thing. I want one so small that we can’t cuss Duke and Cora without spittin’ cat hair out of our mouths. But I appreciate you offerin’ him more than the twenty dollars I was willin’ to pay.”
“I’d give him everything I’ve got to make you happy.” Brody cupped her butt in his hands and leaned in for a kiss.
Happy? The town? Her state of mind? What would it take to make her happy? Being with Brody the rest of her life would be a good start and it looked like he was willing to work at a long-distance relationship. Things would be different this time. They’d call every day, text several times, even Skype, so why was her heart so heavy?
Because you want more than that, right? The voice in her head that morning sounded a lot like Kasey.
Yes, I do, she agreed.