by A. J. Pine
Brody opened his mouth to say something but a young woman who was probably right out of high school pushed her way between them and motioned toward the bartender. Evidently he knew what she drank because he grabbed two mugs and began to fill them with beer. While she waited, she turned her face toward Brody and flashed a brilliant smile. “Hey, there. Want to dance?”
“Not tonight. I’m with this lady right here.”
“This old gal”—she eyed Lila up and down—“is way below your league.”
“No, thanks,” he said. “And don’t talk about my…my…”
“Your mother?” the woman giggled.
Lila would bet that her ID was fake and she wasn’t a day over eighteen. The joke about her age wasn’t what lit a fire under her anger—it was that nasty little remark about her being way below his league.
“I’m not his mother, darlin’,” Lila said.
“Sister, mother, friend, neighbor. It don’t matter.” She worked a quarter from her skintight jeans and laid it on the counter in front of Lila. “Here you go. Go call the senior citizens’ van to take you home.”
“What did you just say to me?” Lila’s temper flared as she tucked a leg behind the woman’s knee and gave a slight kick. The girl crumpled to the floor in a heap.
“You bitch,” she said as she tried to regain her footing.
Lila hopped off the stool and pulled her up. Then she leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “If you want to play with the big dogs, you’d best get your rabies shots.”
“I was just teasin’ and havin’ a little fun. My friends dared me to get him to dance with me,” she whimpered.
“Be careful who you insult next time you want to have a little fun,” Lila said.
“God, I’ve missed you,” Brody laughed as the girl limped away. “She thought she was tough.”
“She’s just a kid out with her friends.” Lila could remember acting just like that more than once, but it hadn’t been her girlfriends she’d wanted to impress—it’d been Brody Dawson.
“I guess we’ve all been young and stupid. Did you ever think about all the good times we had before you moved away? Want another beer?”
She shook her head and put a hand over the top of the beer so the bartender could see. “Sure I thought of you. I taught in a high school in Memphis where I was the junior class sponsor. That meant I had to attend the prom as a chaperone. I thought of you that night and how handsome you looked in your tux when you escorted Gloria Tanner into the room. Hmmm.” She tapped her chin with a finger.
“I told you back then that I wanted to take you but…,” Brody stammered.
“It’s water under that bridge that I burned down.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and slid off the bar stool.
“Don’t go. I’m sorry, Lila, for everything,” Brody said.
“When I come back home, I’m still the wild child and you’re Brody Dawson, the most popular cowboy in Happy, Texas,” she said. “You were the quarterback of the football team, the high-point shooter in all the basketball games, class president, and voted most likely to succeed. If they’d had a tough cowboy title, you would have won it too.”
“We are the cowboys,” he reminded her. “Do you remember everything about everyone?”
“Of course. I remember dancing with you one time right here when we snuck in with fake IDs. You didn’t mind holding me close in a bar but you wouldn’t even sit with me in church. What does that tell you?” She wanted to dance with him again so badly that she could feel his arms around her, but wild horses or a Texas tornado couldn’t drag her back out onto the floor.
“Stay until I finish my beer and I’ll walk you out to your truck. I’m about ready to call it a night too. Just five more minutes, please?”
She fought with herself for a moment before she sat back down on the stool.
“So you’re a teacher now?” he said.
“Yup. High school English.”
He took a long draw from the bottle. “Where do you teach?”
“Taught in Memphis and, believe me, in the neighborhood where I taught, the fourteen-year-old girls were as tough as nails. Then I taught in an inner-city school in Little Rock that was even rougher and the past two years I’ve been in an upscale place in Panama City, Florida.”
“I can’t imagine you in a classroom,” he said.
“Where did you imagine I’d be in twelve years? Living in a run-down trailer park with six or seven kids and a drunk for a husband?”
“No, you were too smart for that. I just figured you’d be a lawyer or maybe the mayor of Philadelphia or something really big and important. Not that a teacher isn’t a fine job. So you never got married, right?”
“Your beer is done. To answer the question, though—I told you in the café I wasn’t married.”
“Yes, you did but that’s not what I’m askin’. You aren’t married now but have you been at some time?”
She shook her head. “My therapist says I have commitment issues.”
It was the truth and Brody was the one who’d caused those issues.
“You?” she asked.
“Nope, my sister says the same thing about me and commitment. She’s probably right.”
Lila slid off the stool. “How’s Kasey? Adam’s death must have hit her hard.”
“She’s trying to move on but it’s not easy. Three great kids help but she misses Adam a lot.” Brody threw a few bills on the bar and followed her.
“Tell her hi for me. See you around.” Outside, she inhaled the clean night air and wished that she could get him out of her mind and heart as swiftly as leaving a bar full of the smell of sweat and beer.
“You’re two different people. One is the smart teacher. The other one is the girl who left and they’re fightin’ with each other,” he said.
“You got it. And the winner takes all.” She walked faster.
He matched his long strides with hers. “Which is?”
“The prize.” She stopped abruptly. “Don’t feel like you have to walk me to my vehicle. I’m a big girl and I’ve been takin’ care of myself for years.”
“You’ve always been able to take care of yourself, Lila, but I want to walk with you.” His hand went to her lower back.
The intense heat would probably leave a print on her back that would look like a bright red tattoo for days, but she didn’t argue or shrug it away.
When they reached her bright red truck, he whistled under his teeth. “Nice vehicle.”
She dug around in her purse and found the keys. “I left the motorcycle at home.”
“Oh, really?” His expression said that he didn’t believe her.
“Yep, I didn’t want to arrive with helmet head.”
“Are you serious?”
“Why would you be so surprised? I am, after all, the resident bad child of Happy, Texas. I’m surprised there’s not a picture of me beside the city limits sign warning everyone to steer clear of Lila Harris. If you rub shoulders with her, you get an instant ticket to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Just get on your poker and get ready for the ride.”
“Motorcycles are dangerous. You shouldn’t—”
She laid a finger over his lips. “I stayed on a bull for eight seconds and climbed to the top of the water tower. You didn’t fuss at me about those things because, wait, you were right there with me. Well, darlin’, buy a Harley and we’ll terrorize Happy before we have to use that quarter and call for the senior citizens’ bus. Good night, Brody.”
With a hand on each side, he pinned her against the truck door. She put both hands on his chest with intentions of pushing him away, but she made the mistake of looking into his eyes. Lashes slowly closed to rest on his cheekbones and she barely had time to moisten her lips before she was swept away by a scorching hot kiss.
She should push him back but instead, her arms went around his neck and she touched his bottom lip with her tongue. He groaned and opened his mouth, deepening t
he kiss into fiery hot passion. She would have been there until daylight, but he finally stepped back, picked up her hand, and kissed her palm twice.
“One kiss for the Lila I remember, the other for the woman she’s become. Both are very special.” Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness.
With weak knees, she hit the button to unlock her bright red truck and crawled into the driver’s seat, leaned her head back, and sighed. Her whole body tingled and every single frayed hormone was crying out to call him and tell him to meet her at the springs. But instead she started the engine and drove south toward Happy at five miles under the speed limit.
She pulled into the garage and got on her cycle, rode it out to Henry’s ranch, and parked it at the barbed-wire fence separating Hope Springs from Texas Star. Jumping a fence was like riding a bicycle—once done, it was second nature to do it again, even after a dozen years. She put a hand on a wooden post and gave a hop, cleared the top strand, and came down on Brody’s property.
Hot! Damn hot! If hell is seven times hotter than this, the devil might already be cooling off in Hope Springs, she thought as she made her way from the fence to the cold spring that bubbled down over a tiny little waterfall into a pool. The water came from an underground spring that flowed all year and no matter how hot the weather was the water was never warm.
She jogged a quarter mile back to the springs, where she jerked her boots and socks off and waded out into the icy water until it reached her knees, not caring if her jeans got wet. That didn’t help the place where his hand had been on her back. It was still too warm, so she went back to the grassy shore, shucked out of every stitch of clothing, and dove into the icy water.
“Oh. My. God!” She gasped when she surfaced. “I forgot how cold this is even in the summer. Are you happy, my inner wild child? I’m a thirty-year-old woman out here trespassing and skinny-dippin’.”
Somewhere down deep inside her soul she heard a very loud, Hell, yeah, I am.
Chapter Five
On Sunday morning, Lila awoke to the sound of rattling pots and pans in the kitchen. She covered her head with a pillow. “This is summer. I’m not supposed to be working. June, July, and August are the number one reason people go into the teaching field. This place makes me crazy. I’m talking to myself. I need a pet.” She threw the pillow at the wall.
Molly was rolling out dough for morning biscuits by the time Lila showered and made it to the kitchen. She frowned and shook the wooden rolling pin at her. “You won’t ever live down that wild kid reputation by going to the bars. You will be in Sunday night church services this evening. You can sit with me. We can’t go to morning services what with having to run this business but God will be there tonight as well as this morning.”
“You aren’t my boss,” Lila said.
“Oh, yes, I am, especially on the Sundays after I hear that you were seen talkin’ to Brody Dawson at the Silver Spur of all places. You don’t need to be hangin’ around with him. Your mama told me that he plumb broke your heart the night before y’all left town,” Molly said.
“Maybe he’s different now that he’s grown up.”
“Why are you takin’ up for him?” Molly stopped what she was doing and cocked her head to one side.
“I don’t know but—”
“No buts.” Molly shook her head. “If things are right, then there are no buts.”
“Don’t stomp a hole in that soapbox.” Lila filled both coffeemakers.
“Don’t sass me. I can still walk out that door, and if I do, you’ll have to close down this place. Then it won’t ever sell. Nobody will buy a café that’s been shut down for months,” Molly declared.
Lila threw up her hands defensively. “Yes, ma’am. I won’t sass you again, Miss Molly.”
“That’s better. Now let’s get to work.”
Brody only caught a sentence here and there of the Sunday morning sermon. With Emma on one side of him and Rustin on the other, he spent the time switching between handing Rustin crayons so that he could work in his cowboy coloring book and peeling off stickers for Emma to plaster in her book.
His heart went out to Kasey, who was sitting on the other side of Emma. Adam should be the one helping with the two older children and making Kasey smile every evening when he came home from work. Only when she looked at her kids did her eyes light up—the rest of the time she was still struggling with her loss.
He wondered what it would be like if things had worked out between him and Lila right out of high school, and then he’d lost her to an accident that no one could even talk about. His chest tightened and the pain was so sudden that it brought tears to his eyes. If nothing more than a thought could bring on that much hurt, his poor little sister was doing good to crawl out of bed every morning.
He glanced over his shoulder to see if Lila might be back there somewhere, then reminded himself that she was at the café. If she attended Sunday services at all, it would be that evening. If the family wasn’t gathering at his mother’s for dinner, he would have gone to the café just to be sure that Lila was okay. But he’d promised Emma that he would sit beside her, and a man was only as good as his word, whether it was to a three-year-old girl or a ninety-year-old cowboy.
Guess you learned that lesson the hard way, didn’t you? that irritating voice in his head said. If you’d kept your word, maybe you and Lila would have stayed in touch all these years.
Yes, I did. He nodded. And after the misery I’ve lived with for years over that, I’ve tried to never go back on my word again.
There were few parking spots left at the café when he drove past it after church. He tapped the brakes and slowed down, but all he could see in the windows were people sitting at tables and in booths. He could picture Lila practically jogging between customers as she took orders, served them, and kept everyone’s drinks filled. Her black ponytail would be flipping from side to side. She’d be smiling at Fred and Paul’s banter. And those tight jeans would stretch over her butt, and her T-shirt would hug her breasts.
When he got to his mother’s house, he untucked his shirt, more to cover the bulge behind his zipper than for comfort. He removed his hat at the front door and hung it on a hook beside Jace’s on a hall tree in the foyer. He could hear three distinct women’s voices in the kitchen—his mother, Valerie; Granny Hope; and his sister, Kasey. Jace was in the living room surrounded by three kids all begging him to go outside with them. Brody slipped down the hallway to his old bedroom and slumped down in a rocking chair.
“Hey.” Kasey poked her head in the door a few minutes later. “Dinner is on the table. Rustin said he thought he saw you coming this way. Everything okay?”
Brody shook his head. “No, but there’s no one to blame but me.”
“Want to talk about it?”
He pushed out of the rocking chair and draped an arm around her shoulders. “Short version. I really hurt Lila the night before she left town. We had a date, a real one where I was going to take her to dinner and to the movies.”
Kasey whistled through her teeth. “Did Granny and Mama know about it?”
He shook his head. “Nobody did but me and Lila. I stood her up and when I tried to apologize the next day, right as she was leaving, she wouldn’t talk to me.”
Kasey stepped back and popped him on the bicep. “I wouldn’t have talked to you either. I might have shot you. You liked her a lot. Why would you do that?”
He grabbed his arm and winced. “Damn, Kasey, that smarted. To answer your question, I couldn’t bear to see her cry.”
“That’s not a good reason or even a good excuse,” Kasey said. “She was probably floating on cloud nine and then you didn’t show up. God, Brody, that’s terrible.”
“I blew it with her and now all these years later…” He hung his head and let the sentence hang.
“Maybe she’ll forgive you if you show her that you really care,” Kasey said as she started walking again. “But just between me and you, I wouldn’t.”
Jace said grace and then it got loud. Plates, platters, and bowls were passed. Brody cut Emma’s meat into small pieces while he listened to her talk about butterflies and kittens.
“So what’s on your agenda for the rest of the afternoon, Brody?” his mother asked.
“I’m going out to check on Sundance, to make sure that he hasn’t broken through the fence again. I was gone two nights and that wild critter is like a kid. He has to have constant supervision. Then I’m going to Sunday night services,” he said.
The room went uncomfortably quiet for several seconds; then Rustin slapped a hand on either side of his face. “Why would you do that? Church is boring.”
“Rustin!” Kasey gasped.
“It is.” Emma nodded.
“Is it because Lila might be at church tonight?” Valerie passed the green beans to him, and he sent them on to Jace without taking any.
“You got to eat your beans or you don’t get any cake, and Nana made a pecan pie too.” Rustin tucked his chin down on his chest and looked across the table at Brody.
Brody motioned to Jace and the bowl came back to him. “I sure wouldn’t want to miss out on Mama’s pie.”
“You didn’t answer me,” Valerie said.
“Could be,” he said. “But if she’s not, I know how to knock on her door.”
Hope rolled her eyes and Valerie shot a dirty look his way.
Brody fixed his eyes on the green beans. He wasn’t arguing or fighting with either one of them but his mind was made up. He was going to church and hopefully Lila would be there.
“Guess I’m going to church tonight,” Hope said.
“Me too.” Kasey nodded.
“I wouldn’t miss this for all the dirt in Texas.” Jace grinned.
“What’s going on here?” Brody asked.
“We want to see if the clouds part. You haven’t been to Sunday night services since your grandpa died. You usually only go on Sunday morning,” Hope answered.