The Curse of February Fourteenth

by Liz Isaacson

  “You don’t want Cal to know.”

  “I don’t want anyone to know.”

  Libby closed the laptop instead of staring at another article, analyzing more pictures. Trina appreciated that, and she gave her roommate a weak smile.

  “I don’t see how telling him you’re the monarch butterfly has anything to do with your tennis career.”

  Trina tried to explain it in a way that wouldn’t hurt Libby’s feelings. “People…treat me differently once they know I’ve won Wimbledon.”

  “Twice,” Libby said with a grin.

  Trina blinked and then a laugh burst out of her mouth. Libby joined in, and Trina released all the pent-up emotions she’d bottled up and carried around with her for the past six months.

  “So I’m texting Cal.” Libby lunged for her phone while terror gripped Trina’s heart.

  “I’ll tell him,” she said. “Let me tell him.”

  But how she was going to do that, she had no idea. But her promise got Libby to lower the phone, and Trina felt like she’d just bought herself a tiny window of time.

  She didn’t tell Cal on Monday. He was in a very bad mood, and she even skipped eating lunch with him to give him some space.

  She didn’t tell him on Tuesday, as he didn’t seem to be anywhere on-site that day. She found out on Wednesday that he’d gone to Amarillo with Pete and Squire and Brynn to a horse auction. They didn’t return until Thursday afternoon, and then it was all hands on deck as they unloaded six new horses.

  Friday, Miss Kelly fed everyone on the property, including all the employees at Courage Reins, the equine therapy clinic, and Brynn’s place.

  Trina didn’t want to go, but her other option of dining alone with Cal while she stared at her black cowgirl boot was out, so she went.

  Cal came over to her immediately. “Hey, there.” He gave her a grin that rivaled the sun in brightness and heat. His fingers brushed against hers, causing a breath to stick in her lungs. So many people milled about, talking, laughing, and going up the stairs to a huge deck where Kelly and Squire stood serving everyone in the line.

  “Do they do this often?” Trina asked, sticking close to Cal as he hung back from everyone else.

  “Every couple of months.” He glanced up to the deck and back to Trina. “You want to take our chili back to my cabin?”

  Relief rushed through her. “Absolutely.”

  His grin made a reappearance. “Great.” He slid his fingers in between hers and held on with a tight squeeze. “I’ve missed you this week.” He released her hand, leaving her skin cold and her muscles, tendons, and bones tingling.

  Cal moved up the stairs, leaving Trina to stare after him. He missed her?

  Libby’s voice practically shrieked in Trina’s ears. Tell him. Tell him today!

  He glanced back at her and gestured for her to come through the line with him. She joined him, because the country version of Trina Salisbury wanted to.

  By the time they escaped the crowd and made it into the silence of his cabin, Trina needed some painkillers and an injection of patience. She groaned as she sat at his kitchen table.

  “Rough week?”

  “Rough lunch,” she said.

  He placed a plate of butter between them. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t like crowds.”

  “Ah.” He nodded and scooped up a bite of chili. “I don’t like tomatoes.”

  “How are you eating chili then?” She giggled as she filled her spoon with tomatoes, black beans, and beef. “I mean, it’s tomato-based.”

  “I’ll eat them in soups and stews.” He took another bite, as if to prove his point.

  “What else don’t you like?”

  “Summer.”

  “Summer?” She stared at him. “Everyone loves summer.”

  “You haven’t lived through one in Texas, obviously.” He grinned as he spread butter on his cornbread.

  “I haven’t. But I’ve…traveled all over the world. Been in a lot of hot places.” Sometimes during the worst times of the year. He should try London in July.

  “Traveled all over the world, huh?” He watched her from under the brim of that sexy hat, and Trina glanced toward the boot still sitting in his living room. It had been moved since the last time she’d been here, which meant he looked at it, picked it up, thought about it often.

  “Yeah, in a…previous life.” She took another bite, everything inside her on fire, which had nothing to do with the jalapenos in the chili. She put her spoon down. “Look, I have to tell you something.”

  “Shoot.” He didn’t seem worried about whatever she was going to say, but the words got lodged in her throat. Surprising, as she hadn’t been able to come up with any words. Not really.

  “I’m, well, when we met—”

  “Cal?” A man whose head nearly hit the top of the doorframe as he leaned inside knocked after he’d spoken. “Shirley Temple is throwin’ a fit, and she’s gashed her leg on her stall. Brynn needs you.”

  He glanced at Trina, noticing her for the first time. “Oh, hello, ma’am.” He ducked his head and retreated out of the cabin as fast as he’d come.

  Cal was already on his way toward the door. “Stay as long as you like,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll find you later.”

  He was gone just as fast, leaving Trina to whisper, “We met at the masked ball. We danced one magical, beautiful dance before I freaked out and ran away.”

  She looked at the boot. “That boot is mine.”

  There. She’d said it. Too bad no one was around to hear it.

  Chapter Seven

  The weather worsened the deeper into November the days went. Trina came over for lunch everyday. Sometimes Cal entered his cabin to find her already there, sometimes seated at the table as she used his microwave to heat something from home. Sometimes curled into the couch as she ate a peanut butter sandwich. And once, he’d walked in to find her holding that black cowgirl boot and whispering something.

  He’d broken the physical barrier between them, and if she sat on the couch, he sat next to her. If she ate at the table, he ate across from her. He held her hand as they walked down the gravel path, and his dreams started to match his daydreams, all of them featuring a kiss with Trina.

  One day, the week before Thanksgiving, they strolled out behind the cabins, enjoying the sunlight even though the wind tried to chase it away. She claimed to love the open land, the wildness of it, and Cal had started to appreciate it more.

  He’d learned she didn’t like social media, or athletes, or pomegranates. She did love a big juicy hamburger and rising early enough to catch the sunrise.

  They usually filled their limited time with chatter, but today, they both stayed silent. At least until she said, “You go to church, right?”

  Surprise lifted his eyebrows. “Yes.”

  “Every week?”

  “Most every week, yeah.”

  “And you take Sabrina.”

  “Yes.”

  Trina paused and looked up at him with scared eyes. Her tension radiated in the space between them. “Could I go with you this week?”

  Cal grinned. “Of course.” He released her hand and tucked her close to his body, guiding her back to a walk. “Have you been to church before?”

  “No.”

  “Not even as a little girl?”

  She shook her head, her hesitation swirling with the wind. He’d suspected she had a past she didn’t want him to know about; she’d dropped enough hints for him to guess. Traveled all over the world. Never been to church. And her hair had started growing in and it wasn’t naturally the color of the butterscotch discs his grandmother kept in a bowl on her front table.

  It was dark.

  Cal had all but given up on his monarch butterfly. He’d texted Libby a few times over the past few weeks, but she either ignored him or answered with a terse Don’t know yet.

  He wasn’t sure he cared to find the other woman. He had Trina right next to him, and
he found her interesting and beautiful.

  He hadn’t kissed a woman in a while, wasn’t quite sure how much courage it took, didn’t know how to tell if the moment was right.

  But he paused and turned toward her. “Trina,” he said, his voice low and almost getting whisked away by the weather. “I sure like you.”

  She tilted her head back to look up into his face, a smile filling hers. “I sure like you right on back.”

  He cupped her face in his palms and lowered his mouth toward hers slowly, painfully slowly, giving her a chance to escape if she wanted to.

  She didn’t want to, because she stretched up to kiss him too, and when his lips met hers, an explosion of heat shot through him.

  He handled her gently, carefully, exploring her lips until he knew every centimeter of them. It was easily the best kiss of his life, and his heart galloped like a herd of wild mustangs by the time he pulled back.

  She gazed up at him, pure wonder and…adoration in her expression. She smiled and ducked her head as she wrapped him in an embrace that he could feel along his ribs long after she let go.

  On Sunday morning, Cal stood in the bathroom, supervising Sabrina as she brushed her teeth. “Get all the way to the back ones,” he said.

  “Mom says they’ll all fall out anyway,” Sabrina said around a mouth of foamy toothpaste.

  “Still have to take care of ‘em,” he said, hoping his voice sounded nonchalant and not like he was mentally cursing Petra for pardoning poor hygiene simply because those teeth would fall out later.

  She finished and jumped down from the stool he kept in the bathroom cupboard. “Can we go riding after church today?”

  “Not today, baby. We’re….” His throat closed. He wasn’t aware of Petra dating anyone since the divorce, and he had no idea how to explain Trina to his six-year-old. “We’re stopping by Trina’s house to pick her up for church. Remember Trina?”

  “The horse feeder.”

  “Right,” Cal said. “She’s comin’ to church for the first time today.”

  Sabrina just looked at him, waiting for more. But Cal knew it had taken some serious bravery for Trina to ask him about church.

  “We’ll come back here and have lunch with her,” he said, hoping that was a good enough explanation. “You’ll probably get to see her in the next few days while you’re here, before we go to Uncle Kyle’s for Thanksgiving.”

  Sabrina didn’t argue or seem upset. He loaded her up and drove into town, finding the apartment building around the corner from the bank easily. “Scootch on over into the middle, baby. I’ll go grab her, and she can sit by the window.”

  Her front door opened before Cal could get there, and Libby emerged first. “Cal Hodgkins.” The way she always said his first and last name put this awkward air between them. He smiled at her anyway.

  “Libby Larsen.” He glanced behind her to find Trina.

  “She didn’t own a dress, so we did the best we could.” Libby turned to face the door and called, “Come on out, Trina.”

  Cal licked his lips, unsure of what he’d see when Trina finally appeared, his heart running away with his imagination.

  Trina emerged wearing a black skirt that probably went to Libby’s ankles. But on Trina, it hit mid-calf, revealing a pair of blue-as-denim flats. Her blouse was the color of the sunflowers that grew wild in the fields around the ranch, and it hung a little awkwardly off her narrow shoulders.

  She took his breath away. One hundred percent left him breathless, the same way the monarch butterfly at the masked ball had. He found himself moving toward her and sweeping her into his arms, forgetting or not caring that Libby stood a dozen feet away and that his daughter was likely watching from the truck.

  “You are beautiful,” he whispered in her ear just before placing his lips against her soft skin there.

  She trembled slightly in his arms and he regained his composure long enough to put the proper distance between them. He tucked her hand in his and turned back to Libby, who wore a giddy look on her face. She even bounced up and down on the balls of her feet and clapped her hands.

  “You guys are so cute together. You’re right though, Trina. You can’t wear heels with him.”

  Trina looked up at him and smiled. “You look nice.”

  “Thank you, sunflower.”

  “Sunflower?”

  He reached over and fingered the blouse, pulling it slightly off her shoulder. He stared at the newly exposed skin, his thoughts bursting into fantasies he couldn’t play out right now. “This reminds me of sunflowers,” he said through a parched throat.

  “Well, your hat reminds me of coal, but you don’t hear me using that as a term of endearment.”

  “So no Sunflower.”

  She shook her head, a playful smile toying with her mouth. Cal wanted to lean down and wipe that small smirk from her lips by kissing her. He opened the passenger door of the truck, kissless.

  “What about baby?” he asked.

  Sabrina looked over. “Yeah, Daddy?”

  Trina cocked her eyebrows. “No baby.”

  Cal chuckled as he helped her into the truck, waving to Libby as she climbed into her own car.

  “Hi, Trina,” Sabrina said as Cal swung the door closed. He went around the front of the truck, his eyes never leaving the two ladies in his truck. They were both smiling, and Trina said something that made Sabrina laugh.

  Cal’s heart squeezed out an extra beat, then two. Could this be his reality long-term? Could he build a stable family unit for his daughter?

  If he could, he knew one thing: He wanted to do the rebuilding with Trina.

  Go slow, he coached himself. Be cautious. Every decision you make impacts three lives. His. Sabrina’s. And as much as he didn’t want to admit it, Petra’s. Her life was eternally intertwined with his, whether he liked it or not.

  One of his father’s mantras came to mind. Make good choices, then you only have to make them once.

  Cal wanted to do better than he’d done in the past when it came to choosing a wife. He couldn’t believe he was thinking about Trina like that after only five weeks, but there the thought sat, right in the middle of his brain.

  His parents would be at his brother’s for Thanksgiving too, and Cal couldn’t wait to see everyone. Maybe they’d be able to help him make sense of his jumbled feelings, help him iron them flat and examine them.

  As he drove toward the church and parked, his thoughts turned heavenward, and he pleaded for help. Help with Sabrina. Help to know what to do and say with Trina to make her first day at church meaningful and enjoyable.

  “All right, ladies,” he said as he took the truck out of gear. “Let’s go.”

  He got out of the truck first and waved for Sabrina to slide out on his side. He held her hand as he went around to help Trina, who also kept a firm hold on his fingers.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “No one’s going to…well, I don’t really know what people will do.”

  He chuckled and lifted her wrist to his lips. “Expect a lot of staring. But that’s about it.”

  “Staring,” she mumbled. “Great.”

  Chapter Eight

  Trina was sure most of the staring landed on her and Cal’s joined hands. He walked between her and Sabrina, and Trina felt like she was on display.

  She’d lived her whole life like that, but she still didn’t like the squiggly feeling in her stomach or the way her jaw muscles ached from holding her face so still for so long.

  He led her to a pew on the left side in the back. “We sit back here,” he said, ushering Sabrina into the row first. “Because Bri likes to leave as soon as the choir sings the last song.”

  “Do people normally stay later?” Trina asked, admiring Cal as he helped his daughter get all the way over so there was room for all of them.

  “Some like to mingle, chat with each other, that kind of thing.”

  Trina would like to leave as soon as the last note sounded in the hall also
.

  “And the pastor comes out and speaks to everyone,” Cal said. “We almost always beat him out.”

  “Sounds great,” Trina said, not knowing she’d need to “mingle” and “speak with the pastor.”

  They’d arrived early, and Trina gazed around the chapel, awed by the rich wood, the high ceilings, and the beauty of the morning light spilling through the huge windows in front of her and behind her.

  An overwhelming sense of gratitude filled her, reminding her of the many things in her life she had. Maybe it was the Thanksgiving season, or maybe she was finally figuring out who she was, but she closed her eyes and sent the simplest prayer toward the rafters.

  Thank you.

  Her phone buzzed against her palm and she flipped it over and opened her eyes to Mom on the screen.

  She smiled, probably for the first time, at the text.

  Missing you today.

  Another one came right after it.

  How are you?

  Really great, Trina texted back, the smallest of smiles forming on her face. She felt the weight of Cal’s eyes on her phone, and she tilted it toward him. “My mother.”

  He lifted his arm and draped it around Trina’s shoulders, making her feel warm and wanted. She’d never felt small next to a man, but he made her feel that way—in a very good way. A way like he’d take care of her, protect her, love her no matter what happened.

  Why so great? her mom asked.

  Trina hunched her shoulders as her thumbs flew across the screen. Just that the job is going great, and I’ve made some friends.

  So are you going to stay wherever you are?

  Trina glanced up as a man announced, “Brothers and Sisters, welcome to our Sabbath Day worship.” He wore a bright smile and had a trustworthy face. Trina liked him instantly, even from this distance.

  “That’s Miss Kelly’s cousin’s husband.” Cal’s lips practically tasted her ear he leaned so close.

  Shivers cascaded across her shoulders. She hadn’t felt so giddy about a man in all of her thirty-three years. “I don’t even know how to follow that,” Trina whispered back.