by Liz Isaacson
Gavin gawked at her. Was this how her matchmaking sessions went? No wonder the women who came out of her studio didn’t have their thoughts straight. “So I’ll come for dinner,” Gavin said. “But tomorrow, I’m going down to Dripping Springs to sign all the papers, remember?”
“We remember.” Grandmother stood, her time on his porch obviously over. Gavin wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her over here. It was more Granddad’s style to sit on Gavin’s front porch and talk.
She ambled away, and a pinch of guilt doused Gavin. But he wasn’t moving until the end of the month, and they’d only be here for three weeks without help. Still, he knew they’d miss him terribly, and he’d miss them.
“It’s only a ninety-minute drive,” he told himself. He could make that in an evening, or every Sunday if he wanted to.
The following day, he loaded the dogs and his granddad into the truck for the journey to One Man Ranch. His stomach fluttered like he’d swallowed birds for breakfast, when the reality was he hadn’t eaten at all. Sleep had eluded him as well. Somehow purchasing this ranch seemed like the very biggest thing he’d ever done in his life, and he didn’t want anything to go wrong.
So when he blew a tire thirty minutes outside of Dripping Springs, he very nearly lost his mind. The morning sun in Texas was only slightly kinder than the afternoon, and Gavin managed to get the spare on without breaking anything.
Granddad seemed worse for the wear, so Gavin pulled off at the next gas station for something to drink. “You okay, Granddad?” Gavin peered at the man he loved most, his heart clenching a bit too tight.
“Fine, fine.” But Granddad always said that, and his legs wobbled the slightest bit as he got out of the truck again. “I would like a sweet tea.”
Gavin made him sit in a display chair just inside the convenience store while he went in search of drinks. He also grabbed some beef jerky and potato chips, both of which Granddad loved and that would give him some extra salt.
When they were finally back on the road, headed in the right direction, at the right speed, Granddad ripped open the chips and said, “I’m gonna miss you, Gavin,” followed by the crunch of the sour cream and cheddar potato chips.
His simple words unlocked the floodgate Gavin had put on his emotions the morning he’d watched that bus drive away. A shudder shook his chest, and he cleared his throat to keep the sob inside.
“I know, Granddad.” He reached across the distance between them and squeeze his grandfather’s hand. “I know. I’m gonna miss you too.”
Several minutes later, he pulled into Dripping Springs and started talking. Detailing the quaint little town was better than thinking, and it got him through until the turn out to the ranch. “See? It’s not that far. I bet I’ll come home every weekend.”
“Bride never was your home,” Granddad said, stalling Gavin’s pulse for a moment.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve never been happy there. You came because we needed you, and we’re so grateful. But we knew you wouldn’t stay.” Granddad exhaled and brushed snack crumbs from his fingers. “I’m surprised you’ve stayed as long as you have.”
Gavin didn’t know what to say. He’d reassured his grandparents many times over the years that he wanted to be in Bride, wanted to be right where he was. Even as he’d said it, he now realized that his fantasies had always taken him from the town, away into the wilds of Texas.
“Granddad? What does Grandmother tell the women who come to see her?” Gavin tried not to look at him, but it was altogether impossible.
“Oh, let’s see.” Granddad smiled and let out a long sigh, one that went on and on like he’d been holding it inside for a while. “She doesn’t tell me much, you see. But she does say a few things. Mostly she just wants those girls to be happy, and that the one that’s standin’ in their way is usually them.”
Gavin’s jaw tightened. “So she doesn’t tell them they have to marry an Aquarius or whatever.”
“She probably mentions some stuff like that. Compatibility charts and the like. Chinese New Year animals were big one year in the eighties.”
Gavin blinked, sure he’d heard wrong. A burst of laughter came from his mouth. “So it is all bunk.”
“No, of course not,” Granddad said with increased passion in his voice. “What Grandmother does is serious. She does tell them who they’d be most compatible with. What they do with the information is up to them.”
“She told Navy she needed to be with an Aquarius. Only luck played into that one for me.” He pulled up to the title company and put the truck in park. He searched his granddad’s face. “I love her, Grandad, but what if I hadn’t been an Aquarius?”
A sparkle entered his weathered face, brightening his eyes back to that deep-lake blue that Gavin had always cherished. “I think she would’ve still fallen in love with you.”
“She left.”
“She’ll come back.”
Gavin tilted his head, grasping for some of his granddad’s confidence. “How do you know?”
“She’s one of the good ones. That’s what your grandmother said after Navy’s reading. Did you know that? Came right upstairs and said, ‘She’s one of the good ones. I hope she learns what she needs to about herself and gets out of her own way.’” He reached over and patted Gavin’s shoulder. “Then she sighed like she does when she really wants to help someone and doesn’t know how.”
“Hmm.” Gavin didn’t know what else to say. And he had a ranch to buy. “Let’s go,” he said. “I think you’ll like watching me sign papers for the next three hours.”
Grandad half-wheezed and half-chuckled, and together they made their way into the office, where a mountain of paperwork waited.
A week later, Gavin stood in the homestead on the ranch, the key to the front door still in his hand. Happiness flooded him, rushing and gushing through his whole body. He hadn’t felt this alive since the first time he’d kissed Navy.
Navy.
Her name made his heart ache, and a sound like a gong reverberating sang through his eardrums. He’d put off calling her all these weeks, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He dialed her number, praying with the strength of the sun, the moon, and the stars that she wouldn’t be at work, or sleeping, or ignoring him still.
Her voicemail picked up, sending disappointment through his lingering joy. He almost hung up, but something pricked him to stay on the line. “Navy,” he said. “It’s Gavin Redd. You know, the man who loves you down in Bride? Well, I’m not in Bride anymore, and you said in your last text to me that your future wasn’t there. I’m wondering if you think it might be in Dripping Springs.” He exhaled and looked at the yellow walls he was about to paint gray. “Anyway, give me a call back when you get this.”
He wasn’t sure if he should end with “I love you,” Or “Goodbye,” or what, so he just hung up. Then he did what Gavin did best when he felt his life slipping out of control.
He worked.
21
“Come in, come in.” Aunt Izzy gestured to Navy from halfway in the house, her wrinkled hand flapping in the fierce wind that had descended on Amarillo.
Navy hurried inside just before it started raining. The microburst would only last for a few minutes, but she didn’t want to be caught outside when it hit. No one did.
“Hey, Aunt Izzie.” Navy embraced her great aunt who bore a smile and the scent of peaches. Oh, how Navy loved that scent. It reminded her so much of love, as Aunt Izzie had never shown her anything but acceptance. “Thanks for the invitation to dinner.”
“Pish posh,” Aunt Izzie said, bustling into the kitchen where Uncle Marvin kept watch over a pot on the stove. “Your mother tells me you haven’t been home to see them yet.”
“I call her all the time.”
“I’m sure you do.” Aunt Izzie picked up a knife, and Navy thought her great aunt would lose a fingertip by the end of the evening. But she managed to get the knife through a red bell pepper and then a yellow one.
<
br /> “You’re avoiding them,” Aunt Izzie said without a trace of questioning in her tone. “Your mother knows it.”
“Maybe she’ll explode with her questions before I make it over there.” Navy collapsed onto a barstool and frowned. “I just don’t want to go see Lexie all joyful-joyful with my ex-boyfriend. I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t get that.”
“I get it,” Aunt Izzie said.
“You always do.” Navy smiled for a brief moment, the connection between her and her aunt as strong as ever. “I met someone in Bride.”
“I know you did.”
“You do?”
“He’s called me four times, looking for you. Gavin Redd? Did you know he stays with us every year when he calls the auction?”
“I do now.” Navy twirled a piece of her hair around her fingers. ‘He’s called?”
“He says he’s called you too.” Aunt Izzie gave her a sharp look and went back to her chopping.
Navy rested her chin in her palm. “I’ve only been home a week. I don’t know what to do.”
“Maybe put the poor man out of his misery.”
Uncle Marvin turned from the stove. “These are done, dear.” He beamed a smile in Navy’s direction and set about draining the rice noodles as if he was deaf to the conversation around him.
“I thought I was,” Navy said as Aunt Izzie set a cast iron skillet on the stove and jacked the flame to high underneath it. The peppers and onions went in, and moments later, so did a bowlful of marinating chicken. Aunt Izzie stir fried while the hot, snapping, sizzling sounds filled the kitchen. The scent of meat being browned and turned into something delicious rose into the air, along with the distinct smell of teriyaki and pineapple.
Moments later, the drained rice noodles went in with the meat, and Aunt Izzie stirred stirred stirred before transferring the pot to the counter right in front of Navy. “Dinner’s ready.”
Navy made it through a meal with her family, grateful she hadn’t had to go through another Sunday evening alone. She’d gotten used to eating with Gavin and his grandparents on Sundays after church, and she’d never felt as alone as she had last weekend after her shift.
She lingered on her great aunt’s couch with a cup of coffee, not wanting to return to her apartment, where even her cat had chosen to ignore her.
Gavin had called, but Navy hadn’t been brave enough to answer. In Bride, she was always the one to turn the other cheek, ask him to go to lunch when she wanted him to invite her. Insist he take her to the steakhouse when she really only wanted to eat French fries and salad.
“How’s work?” Uncle Marvin asked, and Navy pulled herself from her dismal thoughts.
“Great,” she said as brightly as she could muster. “We had a mother come in yesterday afternoon, pretty far along already. She didn’t have any time to get her shots or anything, and I coached her through the birth.” Navy’s chest warmed at the memory of joy on that mother’s face. “She had a baby girl.”
“What did she name her?” Aunt Izzie asked absently.
Navy paused as she took in how Aunt Izzie and Uncle Marvin sat beside each other on the loveseat. Their hands were intertwined, and he seemed to know exactly when she wanted her coffee because he took it from the end table and extended it to her without Aunt Izzie requesting it.
Navy suddenly wanted to leave. Maybe being alone in her apartment with her prissy cat was better than watching two people so in love. Wasn’t that what she was avoiding by not going home? She couldn’t bear the thought of being face-to-face with Lexie and Scott. Or John and his fiancé Ashley. She couldn’t tell them she’d left Gavin in Bride, just to come home and work at the hospital again.
A sour feeling crept up her throat, and no matter how much coffee she gulped to tame it, the emotion kept climbing. She spun the ring on her thumb, then her pointer finger, but her feelings would not be deterred. Before they could infect her vocal chords, she stood. “Thanks for everything, Aunt Izzie,” she said, her voice only straying higher on the last word. “But I have to run.” She put her coffee mug in the sink and skated kisses across both of their foreheads.
She’d just made it outside when the first band of pressure attached itself to her chest. By the time she got home, she could barely breathe.
Weeks passed, and Navy was no closer to finding a solution to her heart problems. Unfortunately, the cardiologists at the hospital didn’t know what to do about a broken heart either.
And so Navy suffered through her shifts. Through lunches with her friends. Through lonely evenings. Through church on Sundays. She put on a brave face, the one she’d worn after her break-up with Scott, which had really taken her out of the dating game for a year or two. When she had to, she put on a smiling face. Or a concerned face.
But she was simply passing time. Getting through every day. Breathing in and out without really living.
By the time October rolled around, Gavin hadn’t made contact in weeks. It seemed like he’d given up after the first few days, and Navy felt more alone and abandoned than ever.
“Which is completely ridiculous,” she told herself as she went down to get the x-rays for a newborn that had been born prematurely. Her voice echoed around the stairwell as she continued, “You’re the one who left him. You abandoned him.”
And all at once, Navy knew why she hadn’t been able to answer his calls or read his texts. Her embarrassment and humiliation simply wouldn’t let her. She practically punched open the door leading back into the hospital, and her fingers shot pain into her elbow and up her arm.
She collected the x-rays the doctor needed and instead of taking the elevator back up to Labor & Delivery where the mother waited, she opted for the stairs again. Her chest burned with the effort of climbing five very tall floors, but she felt more in control of herself by the time she returned.
She knocked quietly and entered the room, unsure of what she’d find inside. The mom cradled her baby against her chest, with the father standing watch near her head. Two elderly people—clearly grandparents—waited nervously by the window.
The doctor was talking, and Navy caught just the end of what he said. “…what it is, we’ll know. And we’ll be able to do something. You just need to be brave, and let us deal with it.” He turned toward Navy. “Ah, here are our x-rays now.” Dr. Candelis smiled at Navy, but she’d worked with him enough to see the underlying tension in the lines around his mouth.
She handed him the x-rays and he put them on the light box on the wall. Navy focused on her job, but it was really hard with be brave, be brave, be brave bouncing around inside her brain.
Hours later, after she’d worked a double shift and felt like she’d been run over by a tractor, she finally left work. Her phone flashed red, blue, and green lights at her, but she couldn’t bear to open it and see all the messages. Probably more guilt-ridden texts from her mom about working too much, not coming over, blah blah blah.
Navy drove through a pizza place that had pepperoni and cheese pizzas waiting in the warmer and headed home. For once, Apricot her orange tabby cat, stayed in the living room after Navy had entered. For once, Navy didn’t change before digging into her dinner. For once, she didn’t care about any of it.
She stood over the sink, eating through three slices of pepperoni and cheese before she felt human again. The darkness outside her window testified that fall was coming, and she better get on board with an earlier sunset.
After kicking off her shoes, she laid down on the couch and faced her phone. Four Facebook messages, seven texts, and three missed calls. She started with the calls, and her heart practically choked her when she saw Gavin’s name. Not only that, but he’d left a message.
“Navy.”
Every muscle in her body spasmed at the bass sound of her name in his voice.
“It’s Gavin Redd. You know, the man who loves you down in Bride? Well, I’m not in Bride anymore, and you said in your last text to me that your future wasn’t there. I’m wondering if you th
ink it might be in Dripping Springs.” He exhaled and she could just picture him standing on the ranch, that hopeful look in his eyes as he spoke. “Anyway, give me a call back when you get this.”
The message ended, and Navy stared at the phone as the electronic voicemail maiden gave her options. She stabbed the five with her pointer to hear the message again. And then again.
She’d missed him so much. Forgotten the sound of his voice. The touch of his hand in hers. The taste of his mouth.
Before she could think, or get up and drown her problems in more pizza, she hit the button to return the message sender’s call.
22
Gavin woke to the shrill peal of his phone ringing. In his disorientation, he hit it off the arm of the couch. It hit the floor with a heart-stopping crack and skittered off somewhere, going silent in the process.
He sat straight up, trying to figure out where he was. Several seconds passed before he recognized the shape of the room, the front door before him, the tall lamps standing sentinel in the corners.
“The ranch.” He breathed out a sigh of relief, the adrenaline that had him on fight mode leaking away. But he’d still misplaced his phone and missed a call.
His muscles screamed as he got up. Though he’d spent days painting before, these walls had sucked at the new color like camels that hadn’t had a drink in years. He’d worked well past the point of comfort, all in an attempt to keep his mind from rotating around a certain blonde woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.
Hope buoyed his spirits as he hunted for the light switch. Maybe Navy had returned his call. Since he’d been in Dripping Springs, only one person had called—Steve. Gavin initiated all the calls to his grandparents, and they seemed genuinely happy to hear from him every other day.