Courting the Cowboy

by Liz Isaacson

  Cheese and cilantro on the soup too. May flew into action, arranging the different pieces of the main dish on the platter. Steak in the middle. Onions and her pepper medley on the right. Guacamole in a bowl on the bottom. The salsa went beside that. And shredded cheese next to that, as those were cold and needed to stay that way. Tortillas went along the top, and Kurt placed the last steaming two and dashed over to the fryer to get his strips out.

  He tossed salt on them and then started building a beautiful bowl of tortilla soup with pico de gallo, shredded cheese, the strips, and cilantro leaves. They worked side-by-side, each of them ultra-focused on their tasks.

  “Done,” he said. “I’ll get the tarts.” He pulled them from the fridge and arranged them on a long plate he’d found when they’d wandered through the Trade Days barns.

  “One minute,” he declared. “Soup’s done. Tea. Tarts. Fajitas.” He checked the items off on his fingers, his voice barely more than a whisper. “What else?”

  May plucked one of her perfectly crisp chips and swiped up a mouthful of guacamole with it. She crunched through it, the creamy avocadoes with the salty chips making happiness in her mouth. “Now we taste.”

  His phone sounded the end of the two hours, and he lifted both hands in the air as if there was a real judge there. He looked at her, blinking, and she blinked back. “Holy cow,” he said. “We did it.” A slow smile spread his lips.

  “It’s good too,” she said. “At least the guac is.”

  He pulled out his phone and took several pictures. “For my mom,” he explained. He finally stuck the device back in his pocket. “All right, let’s taste.”

  Saturday morning, May was woken by her phone ringing. And ringing. It was still dark outside, which meant it wasn’t quite morning at all. “Hello?” she answered.

  “May,” her father said. “The restaurant has flooded. I need you over here immediately.”

  Her heart leapt into the back of her mouth, and she glanced around as if she’d have a personal butler holding up the clothes she needed. She wasn’t slated to work today—a complete rarity for a Saturday, but she’d committed to joining Kurt and his parents for a day at the Antiques Weekend.

  She couldn’t cancel on him. The Antiques Weekend only happened twice a year, and—

  “May?”

  “Yeah, Daddy.” She ran her hand through her hair and sighed. “I’m coming.” She hung up and found darker objects among the darkness in her bedroom. Living so far from civilization definitely made the night black.

  “How am I going to tell Kurt?” she whispered to herself, knowing she was wasting precious seconds. Maybe the disaster wasn’t as serious as her father thought. She glanced at her phone, which read four-thirty-seven AM. Maybe they’d have everything under control by nine, when Kurt was coming to pick her up. He could easily swing by the restaurant instead of coming all the way to her house.

  But that would require her to be ready to go to Roundtop right now—and in the flood. Desperation coated her throat, but she got up and pulled on a pair of jeans and a bright teal top. She brushed her teeth and swept her hair into a bun on top of her head. She could feel the ghost of Kurt’s fingers as he worked the knot loose just before he kissed her only a few days ago. Looking into her eyes, she begged the Lord one more time.

  “Please, please,” she whispered to herself, and to God. “I can’t cancel on Kurt. Not today.” They’d had plenty of conversations about her schedule, and his, and she’d canceled on him for other things. “This is his mother. Please.”

  Without another phone call from her father, saying everything was a hoax, she hurried to brush some makeup on her face and stick her feet in some good walking shoes. If there was any chance she could still make it to Antiques Weekend, she would.

  She pulled up to the restaurant to find Juan Carlos’s minivan parked next to her father’s black luxury sedan. She wasn’t sure why, but the minivan bothered her. Had her father called him too? If so, why?

  “Daddy?” she called as she pushed open the kitchen door. Water seeped over her toes and soaked her socks. She lifted one foot as if that would help and looked at the water rushing toward her. Most of the red-orange title in the kitchen was wet, some of it covered in standing water, and her father turned from where he stood at the dishwasher with Juan Carlos.

  “May, come on over.” He waved her forward as if it wasn’t five o’clock in the morning.

  “What happened?” she asked, giving up on keeping her feet dry.

  “I got a call from the security company,” he said. “They said they’d detected some motion in the kitchen, and they checked the feeds and said it was water. So I came down.”

  May frowned at the way Juan Carlos jammed a screwdriver between two pieces of metal. “Everything was fine when I left last night.” Every surface had gleamed it was so clean. All the dishes and plates and cups had been stacked, ready for another busy day in the restaurant.

  “It’s clogged here,” Juan Carlos said. “And the sensor has malfunctioned, so it started when it didn’t need to start.”

  “It was running for a little over two hours,” Daddy added, waving to the water carnage in the kitchen. “Which is why this happened.”

  “Well, what do we do?”

  “We’ve got the water off now,” Juan Carlos said. “And I’m going to fix this.”

  May met her father’s eyes. “And I guess I’m going to fix all of this.” They had drains in the kitchen, and if she could get the water in the right place, maybe she would still make it to Antiques Weekend.

  So she got out the floor squeegee, and she started working. Her arms burned after only a few minutes, and her usual workouts of baking and walking around the restaurant in heels hadn’t prepared her to push water into drains for longer than thirty seconds.

  But she kept at the work, her mind only thinking An-Tiques Week-End in four-count syllables.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kurt’s phone rang at eight o’clock and he pulled it from his back pocket. May’s name and picture sat on the screen, and his heart plummeted to the dirt floor of the riding ring where he stood.

  “Hey, May,” he said in as upbeat of a voice as he could muster. He pressed his eyes closed though he should be watching Old Susanna as she walked the circle, make sure she stayed on the fence line though she wanted to come in.

  “Kurt.” She exhaled, and he imaged her scraping her bangs off her forehead.

  “You can’t make it today, can you?” He opened his eyes and focused on his horse, who had indeed snuck inside the path she was supposed to be on. He didn’t even have the heart to correct her.

  “The dishwasher at the restaurant flooded, and it’s still not fixed, and I’m a huge mess, and—”

  “It’s fine.” He didn’t need to know all the details. His disappointment tasted like bitter coffee, the kind his father made and refused to add sugar to on Christmas morning.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Maybe we can go down for Sunday dinner tomorrow.”

  “You’re working at two, remember?”

  “Oh, right.”

  His mind whirred, trying to come up with another solution. “Maybe I can bring my parents here. Main Street is practically an antiques roadshow.” With over one hundred shops, specialty stores, and restaurants on Main Street, Grape Seed Falls did have some great shopping for tourists and locals alike.

  “And then we can come see you at the restaurant.”

  “I’m in no condition to be seen. Especially not to meet your mother.”

  Kurt nodded, though May couldn’t see the action. “All right.”

  “All right?”

  “What else is there? You can’t make it. Things happen. All right.” And while he spoke true, Kurt couldn’t help the frustration rising through his body, infecting his thoughts. He couldn’t tell her it didn’t matter to him that the restaurant came first, and then be upset when the restaurant came first. He wasn’t going to play games like that.

&n
bsp; “Are you still going to go?”

  “I have to,” he said. “I can’t let my mother down, and I have the whole day off.” And suddenly, he wanted to spend it with his mom and dad. Talk to them about May. Find out how to make a complicated relationship a little less complex.

  “Oh, all right. Well, have fun. And I’m so, so sorry. You’ll tell your mother I’m sorry?”

  “Of course, May.” He hung up, his fingers too tight, too tight on the phone. He wished he could just squeeze away all the negativity, but he couldn’t. So he finished up with Old Susanna, got her brushed down and put away, and then got himself in the shower.

  By eight-forty-five on the dot, he sat behind the wheel of his truck. Without having to go all the way to May’s to pick her up, he’d still be on time to get his parents. So he set the truck south and let the miles roll by.

  Once he arrived in San Antonio, he stared at the little white house where he’d grown up. His father had obviously just had it painted. Right on schedule, Kurt thought, as his dad refreshed the paint every year in the spring.

  He got out, his memories flowing thickly as he walked up to the front door. “Ma?” He knocked as he entered the house.

  “Kurt.” She came bustling around the corner, a white-haired woman full of life and energy. “There you are. Get over here and give me a hug, boy.” She grinned at him and drew him into a hug while she laughed. All at once, the sound cut off and she stepped back. “Well, where’s your girlfriend?”

  Kurt’s smile faltered. “She couldn’t come.”

  “Couldn’t come?” His mother’s eyebrows rose so fast Kurt thought she she’d have whiplash.

  “The dishwasher at her restaurant flooded.” He spread his arms wide. “So it’s just me today.”

  His mother narrowed her razor-sharp, blue eyes. “Kurt, you tell me the truth. You are dating someone, aren’t you?”

  “Ma, come on.”

  “It’s just that last fall, you said you were bringin’ home a lady friend for Thanksgiving and then you showed up here with five pies and no woman.”

  “I told you why. She broke up with me.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “So did this one break up with you too?”

  “I literally just said the dishwasher at her restaurant flooded.” Kurt rolled his eyes. “If I’d have known I was gonna get the third degree, I would’ve hired a date for the day.”

  “Hired a date?” His father appeared at the end of the hall. “I thought you said you had a girlfriend.” He looked at his wife. “Didn’t the boy say he had a girlfriend, Flo?”

  “He sure did.”

  “I’m forty-six,” Kurt mumbled, tired of his parents calling him a boy. But they always had, and he normally didn’t mind, like when his mother told him to get on over there and hug her.

  “I do have a girlfriend,” Kurt insisted. “She just happens to own a big restaurant and couldn’t come at the last minute.”

  “Mm hm,” his mom and dad said in tandem.

  Kurt looked away, frustrated, though he was glad his parents were both here, still alive, and that they hadn’t changed much from the last time he’d seen them, which was over the Thanksgiving holiday.

  “Can we just go?” he asked. “It’s a long drive to Warrenton.”

  “Oh! I need my apron.” His mother dashed back into the kitchen as fast as her eighty-year-old feet would take her.

  “Really, Dad? She’s still wearing that apron?”

  His mother had an apron she’d sewn specifically for Antiques Weekend. She had a credit card and her driver’s license in a zippered pocket. One pocket for bills. One for change. And one with a small notebook and a pencil so she could take notes and come back to certain vendors she liked.

  She appeared wearing the floral disaster, and Kurt grinned at her. “Wow, Mom. That thing hasn’t changed in three decades.”

  “I know.” She beamed at him. “Isn’t it great? We didn’t go to Antiques Weekend in the fall, and I’m just dyin’ to see what Clara Belle’s has.”

  Her favorite home décor vendor, she’d spend at least an hour there this afternoon. “So we better get going.”

  “Are we stopping for lunch?” his dad asked.

  “Dad, I already told you. We’re eating at Maddox when we get there.” They had the best turkey steaks in five counties, and Kurt could already taste their turkey steak nugget. They cut a two-inch square of turkey steak, and sculpted mashed potatoes around it into a ball. Then that was dipped and fried, and Kurt’s mouth watered just thinking about it.

  He helped his parents climb in his truck and he got them going in the right direction. Two hours in the car was a long time, but thankfully, Kurt had some things he needed to talk about.

  “How do you know when you’re ready to get married?” he asked.

  “Kurt.” His mom sucked in a breath. “You’re going to marry this woman?’

  “I don’t know, Ma.”

  “Well, you’ve done it before,” his dad said, leaning forward to peer at Kurt past his mom.

  “I know, Dad, and it was a disaster.” He had no desire to repeat his past mistakes.

  “I can’t believe we haven’t met her.” His mom’s hand fluttered around her throat.

  “Mom, calm down. It’s a long way off still.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—” He stopped himself from telling them she would be taking over the restaurant, and all the details that surrounded it. All at once, he realized that a wedding might not be as far off as he thought. After all, May wasn’t getting any younger either, and her father wanted the restaurant to stay in the family.

  He sighed. “I just don’t know how to trust how I feel.”

  His mother patted his leg and took his hand between both of her weathered ones. “Oh, Kurt.” She spoke in a much softer, more maternal voice. “That one’s easy. You already know. You just need to believe in yourself.”

  “That’s exactly the problem, Ma.”

  “And if you can’t do that, believe in the Lord,” she said, giving his fingers a final squeeze.

  Kurt chewed on her words as he listened to his parents tell stories about his younger sisters, and the neighbor down the street with the eight cats. He loved his parents, idiosyncrasies and all, and they had a great lunch and afternoon together, wandering the miles of antique shops along the highway.

  He even found a new blown-glass pitcher that the peach sweet tea would only make more beautiful. He also spotted two new crocks that would hold May’s salsa and guacamole, and he bought those too. So even though May was absent, and the hole she left in his life felt all-encompassing, he still enjoyed a great day with his family and found some great antiques.

  As the days and weeks passed until the Spring Jubilee, Kurt’s nerves grew until he was as jittery as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He’d chatted May’s fingers to the bone, he was sure, and when he sat in the corner booth and waited to talk to her in person, he made lists and ran through the recipes “one last time.”

  Finally, the morning of the Jubilee dawned—with Kurt on the front porch of his cabin, his trusty dog at his feet and a steaming cup of coffee in his hand.

  A sense of peace filled him, though the air wasn’t as crisp as it had been these last few months. April was his favorite month in Texas, what with its blossom-scented air and bright sunshine.

  April also meant tourists, and the start to the summer season, and loads of work on the ranch.

  But for ten minutes, Kurt didn’t think about any of that. He sipped his coffee, patted his dog, and kept his emotions close to his heart. When he stood to go get a few things done before he had to head over to the community center, his nerves came back in full force.

  He reminded himself that he’d practiced his dishes individually again last night. He had all the ingredients he needed. May would be there, and though Kurt hadn’t spent as much time with her as he’d hoped since taking on less responsibility around the ranch, he still got to see
her most days, kiss her most evenings, and today, they were going to bring the prize money and honor to their congregations.

  When he arrived at the community center, the Spring Jubilee was in full swing. A three-day event, it had already been running for a day now, and the cookoff was one small part of the festivities that greeted him in the parking lot and sprawling lawns at the center.

  He’d known there would be a lot of people at the Jubilee. After all, it wasn’t the first one he’d attended. Locals and tourists alike wandered through the booths, the food trucks, and the events. Children rode ponies, and adults threw baseballs at milk cans, and the atmosphere was family-friendly and vibrant.

  Kurt lugged his groceries over to the outdoor kitchens and checked in with the volunteer there. “Kitchen six,” she said, pointing him toward a back corner. He put his grocery sacks there and made the trip back to his truck to get the new pitcher and crocks, along with the rest of the plates and bowls he needed.

  With a half an hour to go until the cookoff began, Kurt tied his apron around his waist and leaned against one of the stainless steel tables in kitchen six. He certainly wasn’t the only one in the kitchens. In fact, almost every station had both participants there, laying out ingredients and talking through things one last time.

  Kurt scanned the Jubilee for May, but he didn’t see her. His anxiety rose with each minute that passed, and he folded his arms to try to contain it. He couldn’t compete without her, and he checked his phone to see if she’d called or texted. Nothing.

  The volunteer returned, and she looked around the kitchen, obviously searching for May. “This is a pairs competition,” she said, as if Kurt didn’t know.

  “She’s coming,” he said, making his voice strong and sure. He hated that he wasn’t one-hundred percent confidant that May was actually coming.

  “We start in ten minutes. If she’s not here at start-time, she can’t compete.”

  Kurt nodded in short bursts and looked past the volunteer, willing May to come running across the parking lot. It felt like too much time had passed, and Kurt had started thinking about what he’d do with all his groceries if he couldn’t compete, when he heard his name.