Chapter Ten
Austin
I didn’t realize how good her hand would feel in mine again. Holding hands with Alma was the beginning, and yet I’d loved this woman since I knew what love was.
Love was Alma. There was no other way around it.
“I tried to get over you.” She blurted and then hid her face in the crook of her opposite elbow. She had never hidden from me before. Alma and I shared every detail of our lives, nothing spared, no secrets between us.
I had let the night settle between us but not for long. This was a conversation that needed to be had.
“How did you try?”
She didn’t budge. I pulled our interlocked hands to my mouth and kissed hers, thinking I’d lost her to sleep.
“I can’t think straight when you do that. All the memories come flooding back and it drowns me.”
That didn’t sound good.
“You want me to let go?” My fingers spread and I pulled my hand, but she clasped it tighter. Her fingers were small between mine. Her skin so soft in opposition to my rough ranch hands.
“No. Don’t let go of me.”
We both sighed and then laughed at ourselves. I turned to face her. She’d made her nest on the other side of the truck bed like she always did, pillows all around her and blankets that were like the mote to her castle.
“How, Alma? How did you try to get over me?”
I had to hear this. It would be beyond painful to hear about her with anyone other than me, but if this was starting over, it had to be done in complete honesty.
After a few minutes, she turned to face me. Her brown hair was splayed over the blankets. I couldn’t help myself. I broke our hand holding to run the lengths through my fingers.
“I dated a bunch in college. Blind dates, speed dating, online dating. You name it. I went out with almost every guy who asked me out, thinking that if I kept on trying, surely I would find someone to trump you.”
A lump settled in my stomach at the thought of her dating men like most people sample flavors at the Baskin Robbins.
“You were sixteen and I was your first, well, your first everything. You didn’t have much to trump.”
A tear fell down her face. I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket and handed it to her. Dad always said a woman loves a man who keeps a handkerchief. Maybe he was right.
“You were my everything, Austin. You had to have known that.”
Old anger attempted to fill my face with redness, and I pulled away from her at once – a self-defense reaction. No, I was tired of being angry and hurt. All of this had to be said.
“No, I didn’t. I mean, I did. You told me that night that there was more to life than this small town and a cowboy. You said you deserved more. You said I wasn’t enough. The thing is, Alma, you have always been my life.”
Alma made a noise in the back of her throat that sounded a lot like disbelief.
“Look at me, darlin’.” I used the term she once loved best. “Look at me.”
Her closed eyes shut even tighter. “I can’t.”
“Look at me. Alma, I need you to look at me.” I breathed a prayer to the stars that she would. Finally, she opened her eyes and another round of tears blossomed in the corners. “Everything I’ve done in my life was in hopes that someday I would be enough to… that one day I would be enough for you. The ranch, the businesses, the money, the… all of it. I was working on me, hoping it would one day work on you.”
Eyebrows bunched, she sat up, jerking her hand from mine. “How can you say that?”
I snorted. “Think about what you said to me that last night, Alma. Think about it real hard.”
Nausea made me swallow against the memories of that night.
“It was complicated, Austin. I was sixteen.”
“Love at sixteen is still love, Alma.”
She groaned and switched the position of her legs. “Love is love, even at sixteen, Austin. But it doesn’t always mean you are ready for it. I wasn’t ready for it. Yes, my father said some things that night that were harsh but he made some sense too. I needed to grow up. I needed to become my own woman. I needed to love and know myself before I could love and know someone else.”
“You’re right. Everything you’re saying is right. But those aren’t the words you said to me that night, Alma. You, me, and the night know what you said.”
It’s never going to work, Austin. You’re already twenty-three and on a road that goes nowhere. You’re still a farmhand. I haven’t even heard you talk about college. What am I supposed to do? Give up on all my dreams and settle down with you. I’m supposed to be okay with being shackled down when my life is just beginning? Anyway, you know just like I do that this won’t work. We are two people from very different places and very different backgrounds. Find some blonde cowgirl to be your wife.
Anger and resentment polluted the air between us and choked us both into silence.
“Austin?” Alma said, breaking the quiet.
“Hmm?”
“Did those words sound like mine? Had I ever said anything to you like that while we were together?”
I said nothing in return. There was nothing to be said but angry words and I was tired of being mad at the woman who owned my heart.
“No. You talked about college, but I supported that. I wanted you to go to school.”
“Not that part.” Her voice rose an octave. “Did I ever talk about you and me being different?”
It was unspoken between us that we were of different races and different places in life. Back then, we didn’t care. The world probably did, but we were young and oblivious. All I knew was that I loved how her caramel skin glowed in the sun and how her dark brown eyes seemed to pierce me deep inside.
Everything else was just details.
“Just because we didn’t talk about it, doesn’t mean the issues weren’t there. Obviously.”
“You are the most frustrating man I’ve ever met.”
I huffed. “That’s a surprise seeing as you’ve dating a million men, by the sounds of it.”
“Take me home.” She demanded, attempting to get up.
“No. I won’t go another day without you and me settled. You’re telling me you didn’t mean those things? Then why in the hell did you say it?”
Getting on her knees, she leaned in so close that I could smell the strawberry lip gloss on her shiny lips. “I didn’t know how to break your heart, Austin. I didn’t have the words. So, you know what I did? I acted like a coward. I took my father’s orders instead of standing up to him and used those hurtful words that he’d been grinding me down with against you. I used his words to break your heart.” She stayed in my face while the world crashed down on me.
I was so stupid.
She was stupid.
Her dad was stupid.
There must’ve been something in the water that day.
“And now?” I asked and then held my breath for the answer.
“No. I can’t, Austin. I can’t put my heart out there to get stomped on. It’s been caged up too long.”
I took her face in my hands. My thumbs were on either side of her face and my fingers were on her neck. “My heart belongs to you. My love today is the same as it was back then – probably more. But this time, we do things the right way.”
My mouth met hers in a fury that only six years of buildup could explain. She groaned as I pushed my tongue against her lips, begging for her to open for me. Her hands fisted my shirt at the sides like she was hanging on for dear life.
Our raw energy died down and what started as desperation turned into passionate, slow churning. We moved together like we’d never been apart.
Breathless, we broke the kiss. “I missed those lips,” she said laughing.
“You have no idea, darlin’.”