by Mae Nunn
“The girls agreed that my boots go well with this prairie skirt, but I’m a little worried I’m done up like a thirty-nine-year-old Taylor Swift wannabe.”
“Every inch of you is amazing and original, and those old Tony Lamas are the perfect touch.”
“I’m glad Mama kept them for me all these years.”
“Your mama’s a smart lady and she understands that fine wine and well made cowboy boots increase in value with age.”
“I hope you have the same opinion about women. You might take a little heat from your friends tonight for dating a decade above you when you’re surrounded all day by females half my age.”
“Six years is not a decade, and those girls can’t stand in your shade. Why, you’ve forgotten more than those college kids have even learned. And here’s something you’ll appreciate about hanging out with a bunch of academics―their measuring stick is what’s up here.” He tapped her lightly on the temple. “If you pass that test you’ll be tenured with my peeps.”
“Peeps?” Her lips curved invitingly. “Did you really say ‘peeps’?”
“Hey, I keep up. I’m hip to pop culture. I only appear to be an East Texas redneck.”
“Wearing that sport coat and expensive straw hat, you resemble a Texas Ranger more than a redneck.”
“A Ranger, huh?” He stretched an inch taller in his boots.
“The kind that wears a star, not cleats.”
“Either way it’s a compliment and I thank you, ma’am.” He dipped his head and touched the brim of his hat.
Cullen’s face warmed from her praise. He’d taken extra care to iron a white dress shirt and press a smart crease in his jeans. When he’d settled the summer-weight straw hat—custom-made for him by Texas Hatters over in Austin—on his head, Cullen had felt more like Hunt’s twin than he had in years. His persnickety brother would approve. From the clean shave on his jaw, to the spit-shined toes of his boots, he was a man out to impress the woman he loved.
He moved close to slide his arm around her shoulders and give them a squeeze.
“I can’t wait to get you on the dance floor at the Reo tonight.”
“Can’t you teach me somewhere less public, such as your living room?”
“Sarah, honey, back in the day, Jerry Lee and Elvis played the Reo Palm Isle. Why, it’s a Texas landmark.”
“Exactly! You wouldn’t teach me to roller-blade in front of the Alamo, would you? So why let me make a fool of myself at the Reo where any country music legend passing through East Texas might drop by for a set?”
Cullen caught Sarah by the hand and pulled her into a sweetheart dance hold. The surprise in her wide eyes made his pulse skip with delight. He glanced left and right for other signs of life on his quiet street.
“We’re all alone. My driveway will do just fine for your first lesson.”
“Won’t we be late for the wedding?” She caught her lower lip between her teeth.
“Stop makin’ excuses. Just follow my lead and keep your eyes on mine.”
As they began the basics he called the cadence to her softly. “Quick, quick, slow, slow. Quick, quick, slow, slow.”
He talked out the steps while she caught on to the simple rhythm of the dance that had a tangle of roots from Europe and Mexico.
“It seems easy enough,” she commented while concentrating on mirroring his footwork. “But it doesn’t seem that way when I watch couples on the dance floor.”
“That’s because doing the two-step is like making chili or margaritas. People use the same basic ingredients, but there are endless combinations.”
Cullen hummed “Amarillo by Morning” as he navigated a careful circle, heart to heart with his beloved. To end their first experience with flair, he smoothly led Sarah through a turn, caught her to his chest and gently dipped her backward over his arm, tightening his hold.
She rewarded him with a giggle that reminded him of Hope as he pulled her upright and stood her steady on both feet, her shoulders in the crook of his right arm.
“That was fun,” Sarah admitted, brushing waves of auburn hair from her eyes.
“See? You were working yourself into a tizzy over nothing.”
“I wasn’t even close to a tizzy, but I will admit to a minor dither.”
“Call it what you want but you were about to gnaw a hole in your lip.” He bent to examine her mouth. “Here, let me kiss it for you.”
* * *
SARAH MELTED INTO Cullen’s kiss as if her life depended upon it. And maybe it did. She’d regained the joy of being a woman again in the weeks since he’d blessed her life. Wrapped in his strong arms right now, she’d never felt so alive. Their sighs mingled with their breathing as they gave and took control of the intimate moment.
A door slammed and footsteps slapped the sidewalk somewhere nearby. There was no chance it was her girls since she’d dropped them at Alma’s before meeting Cullen at his house. Still, it was time to bring the sweet kiss to a reluctant end.
Cullen lifted his face, his gray eyes smiling down.
“I guess we’d better get going...unless you wouldn’t mind being late to the ceremony?”
“And incur the wrath of Miss Nancy? Norment the Torment?” Sarah was still nervous when she encountered the woman. She didn’t have Carrie’s skill with the older woman—but then, as Cullen had already observed, nobody had that skill aside from Merle.
“Excellent point.”
Cullen guided her to his freshly washed vehicle, opened the door and took her hand as she stepped up into the passenger’s seat. Once she was seated, she flipped the visor down to check her hair and makeup and a woman she hadn’t seen in ages peered back. The blue eyes reflected the evening ahead of her, bright with pleasure and promise.
* * *
“THIS MUST BE the student Nancy caught you kissing in the lecture hall.” The groom’s comment could be heard by everyone in the receiving line. The guests snickered in response.
“Guilty as charged,” Sarah admitted. There was no way to navigate around the truth so she might as well own up to it and laugh it off. She dared to glance at Cullen, who appeared unaffected, so she returned her attention to the groom.
“It’s true, I’m taking one of Cullen’s classes but, as you can see, I’m hardly the typical coed.”
“Is there a chance for anything serious between you two, or are you participating in another one of his research efforts, like everybody claims?”
Research?
“I beg your pardon!” Cullen feigned offense. “How am I supposed to get valid data if the subject is aware of the blind study?”
Both men chuckled and Cullen waved away the exchange, then turned back to Sarah. “Pay him no mind, darlin’. He’s been hitting the wedding punch.”
“I’m sober as a judge,” Merle insisted. “I’m just nosin’ for a little insider information. I bought five squares on the pot Lanier drew up for how long it would take for you to finish dabbling in psychology and get down to business in the history department where you belong.”
Miss Nancy jabbed a pointy elbow into her new husband’s ribs hard enough to make him grunt.
“Ignore this big fool.” Miss Nancy apologized to Sarah before saying to Merle, “If you poke that subject again it’ll be the only thing you poke tonight, old man.” She spoke the threat loud enough to crack up nearby listeners.
Then Miss Nancy smiled kindly at Sarah.
“I want you to know that your daughter was a life saver this week. I couldn’t have gotten everything done without that girl. I hope you’ll consider letting her take on a few hours with me in the fall.”
“So she wasn’t exaggerating? You really offered Carrie a job?”
“You better believe I did. She’s got potential, reminds me of myself at her age, a dia
mond in the rough. Why, Carrie accomplished more in a few days than this boyfriend of yours probably has all summer.”
“I can see this conversation is not going to end in my favor, so let’s get something to eat.”
Cullen took Sarah’s hand and pulled her away from the receiving line and toward the tent set up for the reception.
“How nice to hear such kind words from Miss Nancy,” Sarah enthused.
“It was certainly a new experience for me.”
“What did Merle mean when he said I was part of your research?” She tried to sound casual, irritated by the older man’s insinuation but not wanting to make an issue of the comment when his bride had been so good to Carrie.
“Search me. He’s an eccentric old guy with a strange sense of humor. I suppose he was trying to be funny.”
While they filled their plates with pulled pork and potato salad, other wedding guests approached and greeted Cullen. He was a perfect gentleman, hovering and solicitous, but introducing Sarah to his colleagues as his good friend. She squashed down a niggling instinct to be offended and resolved to put herself in his position, but it was a struggle. Did he think he was doing her a favor by not making a big deal out of their relationship? They probably should have discussed the situation before they arrived.
He held out her chair and seated her at a table of folks she’d only just met and went to get them some cold drinks.
“So, I hear you have three daughters,” a woman named Manuela commented. She was seated beside her husband, David, whom Cullen had introduced as his high school baseball coach.
“Indeed I do.”
“How old are they?”
“Hope is seven, Meg is ten and Carrie will be fourteen in September.”
“I met them when they were with Cullen at the batting cages,” David interjected.
Sarah had to laugh at the memory of the girls’ aches and pains after their first day of baseball.
“Cullen’s taken my daughters under his wing to teach them about team sports.”
“You couldn’t have a better coach for your girls. Both he and Hunt had professional potential, but college didn’t interest Hunt, and Cullen was always more of a bookworm than a hot corner.”
“Hot corner?”
“That’s baseball slang for third baseman,” Manuela translated.
“The Temple twins were five tool players.”
Sarah looked to his wife for another explanation.
“He means they had exceptional running and fielding skills, strong throwing arms and could hit for power and average.”
“We’re always recruiting coaching talent for the rec leagues. I’m glad to see Cullen experiment with the idea of working with kids.”
Experiment? Was this college-speak or did these folks know something she didn’t?
Sarah recalled something she’d heard earlier at Alma’s when she’d gone inside with the girls to get them settled for the night. Alma had greeted each with a hug and called them Cullen’s pequeño proyectos.
Little projects.
At the time Sarah had thought it was an odd thing to say but she’d chalked it up to being lost in translation.
Now she wasn’t so sure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CULLEN REJOINED THE TABLE, smiled at her as he placed a frosty glass of iced tea beside each of their plates and settled into his chair. He reached for the plastic squeeze bottle of barbecue sauce, gave it a shake and tipped it over his pulled pork.
“Hey, Temple, we heard you took a dive at the Rangers doubleheader last Sunday!” a male voice shouted from several tables away.
“Thanks for announcing it, Lanier.” Cullen winked at Sarah and gave a wag of his neatly groomed head. “It was only a matter of time before that secret got out.”
“So give us the color commentary,” Lanier called out, obviously determined to have a laugh at Cullen’s expense.
“That big goon has been heckling you since middle school,” Coach Uprichard recollected. “Who would’ve guessed he’d parlay his years as a flyboy into a campus recruiter position?”
Cullen must have been imagining he had Lanier’s throat in his grasp instead of the sauce bottle, he squeezed it so tightly.
Too tightly.
The plastic lid popped off and a mixture of tomato paste, honey and vinegar erupted from the neck of the bottle with the force of Old Faithful and then flew in every direction, but mostly toward Cullen. His pristine white shirt, camel sport coat and starched jeans took the brunt of the gusher.
Wedding guests sucked in a collective gasp as Cullen jumped to his feet. Paper napkins were passed to him from around the table. He grabbed the nearest handful and sopped at the mess, smearing the sauce and spreading the stains.
The embarrassing moment of silence was shattered as Lanier called, “Way to go, Temple! That was better than instant replay of the game on the Jumbotron!” Applause broke out beneath the tent.
“What is the deal with people cheering for a guy who’s just made a fool of himself?”
“We’re glad it’s you and not us,” Lanier pointed out. The laughter that followed said the crowd agreed.
Sarah remained in her seat, stunned by his spate of public misfortune and certain that anything she did would only draw more attention and make the situation worse. There was no area of his body she could blot that wouldn’t bring catcalls and suggestive comments from these people that Cullen would have to face again on Monday. So she simply dipped a cloth napkin into her water glass and offered it like a porter offering beach towels on the Titanic.
Cullen eventually gave up the effort and dropped into his seat. He recovered the plastic bottle and poured what was left of the sauce on his serving of pork.
“No point in letting good food go to waste.” He licked his fingers and raised a thumbs-up sign for the onlookers, who gave a final round of applause.
“Well, Temple, if that performance doesn’t send this pretty lady running for the hills, I’d say dabbling in a new field may be working out for you.” Coach Uprichard patted Cullen on the shoulder.
There it was again. Another comment that made Sarah feel like some kind of lab animal.
Cullen gave her an apologetic glance and said, “I realize it’s in the opposite direction, but unless you want to go out with me resembling a bus boy at the rib shack, we’re going to have to go back to my house so I can change.”
“You two kids got plans for later this evening?”
“Sure do, Coach. I’m taking this lovely lady dancin’ at the Reo Palm Isle.”
“Gosh, we haven’t been there in years.” Manuela stared pointedly at her husband.
“And we’re not going to end my streak of luck tonight,” Coach responded. “As soon they cut the cake we’re making our getaway so I can catch the new episode of Duck Dynasty.”
“We’ll give you a rain check,” Sarah offered. “That is, if Cullen isn’t afraid to be near me after I’ve trampled his boots on the dance floor.”
“Temple’s got stick-to-it in spades. He managed to see those other degrees through to the end and he’ll make it through this new one, too.”
A short while later, as an ensemble from the university stage band took their seats beside the dance floor, Cullen leaned close to Manuela. “Do you think Miss Nancy will understand if Sarah and I slip away before the music starts? Besides being a walking crime scene, the dampness has worked its way through my clothes and I’ve become a wet, sticky mess.”
“You were here for the ‘I do’s’ and made it to the front of the receiving line. I’m sure Miss Nancy will forgive you, considering the circumstances.” Manuela angled her eyes toward the pile of barbecue-sauce-splattered napkins beside his plate.
“Can we go, too?” The coach’s voice was hopeful.
/> “You just keep your seat and come up with something nice to say about the happy couple when our table has to offer a toast,” she instructed her husband.
“Actually,” Cullen said. “I was wondering if you two would mind walking over to the bar with us while the waiter clears away this mess. Then it won’t be too obvious that we’re leaving.”
“When did you sprout a social protocol gene?” Coach cocked an eyebrow at Cullen.
“When a beautiful woman became his primary subject matter, the same as with you thirty years ago,” Manuela reminded her husband. “Now, let’s escort these kids to the bar and you can buy me a glass of wine.”
On the drive to Cullen’s house, he seemed to be in a great mood in spite of his stained clothing. He hummed along with country tunes on the radio, which Sarah would normally find charming. But she couldn’t help but turn the odd remarks that had been made at the wedding over and over in her mind.
Research.
Experiment.
Dabbling in a new field.
Subject matter.
Maybe people who worked at a university naturally spoke in such terms, but intuition said there was more to it than that. Something had given a number of people the same impression. Should she mention it to Cullen and risk upsetting the special evening ahead of them?
No. She was making much ado about nothing. Cullen was an open book, not a confidential file. As her mother had recently reminded her, she couldn’t let Joe’s decision to withhold the facts of his cancer make Sarah suspicious of another man’s true intentions.
At the house Cullen unlocked his front door and bent to share a greeting with Rocket, who was very interested in his master’s hickory-smoked scent.
“I’ll jump in the shower and pull together a fresh set of clothes. I hope you won’t mind making yourself at home for fifteen minutes.”
“Of course not,” she answered.
Cullen used the bootjack he kept by the door to shrug off his cowboy boots and then he and Rocket headed down the hallway. Moments later the door to the master bedroom thumped closed behind them.