Chapter Four
Austin
She can’t do this to me. She can’t just walk into my life and start ordering around my dog and petting my pigs as if she never left.
Technically, it wasn’t my pig. It was hers. I bought it for her from a 4-H kid after a fair one year. She nearly hyperventilated over the heart on its rump.
On the way back to the house, I saw Butch. He was my best friend, but from time to time he’d stop by and lend a hand on the ranch. He didn’t have to, but I appreciated it all the same.
“Hey, did I just see who I thought I saw coming out of your house or did I finally lose all of my marbles?”
He had lost his marbles but I decided to play with him a little bit.
“Who did you think you saw? I hope it was Wonder Woman. She’s hot.”
He squinted. “Wonder Woman is hot. I like the way she... wait... I was talking about Alma.”
“Alma? She’s not Wonder Woman. She’s not even an actress. What’s wrong with you?”
“No, she’s not an actress. She had scrubs on like a nurse.”
This was getting good. The look of utter confusion on his face was priceless.
“Wonder Woman isn’t some kind of nurse. Were you drunk when we saw that movie? I swear you can’t stay sober for one second.”
“What? No, she came from the house.”
I rolled my eyes. “Wonder Woman came from my house? Get ahold of yourself, man. It’s just a movie.”
Butch raised the shovel he was holding in a stance that looked like he was ready to strike. “Quit being a jerk. Alma, your old flame was coming out the front of your house just now when I passed. Hell, even Hewitt tried to get in the car with her. I know what I saw. Stop talking about Wonder Woman.”
“She was? Maybe it was a ghost.”
He seriously considered the chance that she was a ghost for a second and then righted himself.
“It wasn’t a ghost. She said hello to me and everything.”
“She’s helping to get Dad back to walking. That’s all. You act like the queen just left here or something.”
He laughed. “She was the prom queen.”
“Anyway, she’s helping Dad walk again. That’s all.”
“You said that already.”
“Well, I’m saying it again just in case you were getting other ideas in your head.”
Butch shook his head and got back to work.
“I do have one idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s go to Duke’s tonight.”
“That’s the best thing you’ve said all day.”
I’d sat at the bar about ten minutes tops before she walked in. She had a one-shoulder teal dress on that made her look curvier than she was in reality, which was saying something. I knew every curve on that girl and they’d never looked as good as they did in that dress.
I pulled down my hat a little over my forehead and slunk into the darkness of the place, moving to a corner booth. She was a magnet. There wasn’t a man in the place, taken or not, who didn’t have their gaze trained on her.
Alma was hypnotizing.
She was tired. That much I could tell. She worked her jaw back and forth while she waited for the bartender to deliver. I’d expected some kind of frou-frou drink, but then when I saw him put down a frosty beer in a bottle, I smiled, knowing I should’ve known better.
You’d never take the country out of that girl.
I watched on as I drank my beer. Man after man approached her. Even the bartender paid her special attention.
She denied them all – one by one.
At the table next to me, the men were making bets about which one of them could ask her to dance, get her number, and get her to go home with them.
They had no idea.
“Just you watch how it’s done, boys.” One of them boasted before approaching her. She laughed and politely engaged in conversation but when he asked her to dance she tipped her bottle at him and with a shake of her head and some words I couldn’t decipher denied him.
She was a single woman. Why would she deny every man in this place?
Maybe she thought she was too good for all of them.
That certainly would’ve proven her father right after all this time.
“My turn, boys. And I’m man enough not to take no for an answer.” The cowboy was burly with a mustache that held remnants of the peanut he’d been gorging on. If Alma did have one man she would dance with – it wouldn’t be him.
I watched on again as she did the polite thing and denied him, asking the bartender instead for another cold one.
But this guy wasn’t taking it lightly.
I put down my beer and leaned forward, hoping she could take care of herself. I knew she could. I’d seen her knee Butch in the groin just for making a perverted comment once in high school.
Everything turned to red when I saw him put his hand on her arm.
“Hey, the lady said she didn’t want to dance,” I said, stepping in between them so that his hold was broken. Out of instinct or fear or something else, I reached behind me and held her hand. She squeezed back.
“I didn’t really ask you. All I wanted was one dance. She’s being a…”
Before he could finish the sentence that would surely get him cracked in the jaw, I put a stop to it.
“She’s already taken. Now step aside so I can dance with my girl.”
The stare down lasted less than two minutes.
The jukebox agreed, changing to “The Chair” by George Strait.
“She doesn’t want to dance with you either. She hasn’t even gotten up from the bar.”
Behind me, I heard the squeal of barstool legs across the wood floor. Good girl, play along for your own safety.
“Come on, Austin, you promised me the rest of the dances.”
Alma came around to face the man and with my hand still in hers, she tugged on it, leading me to the crowded dance floor.
“Yes, ma’am.”
With a shit-eating grin, we moved to the center of the floor and took our places like we’d been dancing together for decades.
We should’ve been.
My hand went around her waist as the other held hers. She ruffled the back of my hair with her fingers and moved in closer. Alma was just a few inches shorter than me but with those heels on, she was just the right height. Her lips were right in line with mine. I was so completely mesmerized by them that I almost missed what she’d said.
“Thank you. I was about to walk out. Can’t a girl get a drink around here without being harassed?”
I chuckled and rubbed her back, right in the center. There had always been a heat that came from her, and I could feel it coming toward me in waves.
“You know better. You’ve been gone a while, beautiful. You’re like fresh meat to sharks. Sharks that have forgotten their manners.”
“Except you, Austin. Looks like you kept your manners and your dance skills. I bet the girls around here love that.”
Heat rushed to my face. I had dated a few women since Alma but nothing that ever went past the second or third date. That’s when I usually realized there was nothing in them that would ever remotely resemble Alma.
She was the standard by which I would always judge all women.
“Not many women around here I would date.”
She nodded. “Tell me some things. Make me forget that it’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”
“Things have changed,” I said.
“Like what? Come on, Austin, we can be friends if nothing else, right?”
Friends.
“Well, our land holdings have tripled since you last saw them. I bought out the Williams’ and the Wheats’ lands. Dad doesn’t have to work another job anymore and neither do I. We even take care of some steers for other people. We’ve got all kinds of animals and have invested in some local companies like this bar.”
“Duke’s?”
“Yep. Dad’s technically the owner, but I settled the deal. They were about to go under and we helped them stay in business.”
“But what about you? All you’re telling me is about the farm and business. You never married?”
I spun her around once and stopped for the end of the song but someone must’ve rigged the jukebox to play another slow song because as soon as we were separated, we were swaying to the music in each other’s arms – again.
I looked down at her. Even in this dingy place, she was a once in a lifetime find. Her hair fell in waves down her back, and I ran my fingers through the ends, hoping she didn’t notice and if she did, wouldn’t say anything.
“I never married, Alma.”
“Why not?”
She was touching the back of my hair again, and it caused a thousand hairs to stand up on end. I swallowed against all the things I wanted to say to her that were now stuck, wanting to come out.
Then I made the biggest mistake of them all. A mistake that had my heart pounding against my sternum and my breath about to hitch in my lungs.
It was like the first time I’d seen her all over again.
I pulled her closer where her lips were a mere inch from mine, full and plump and begging me to cover her mouth with mine. “Come on, Alma, how could I?”