Summer Winds (27 page)

As I drove back to the ranch the radio sang Garth Brooks’s plaintive song about exchanging the pain for the dance, and the only thing I knew for certain was that I wouldn’t have missed making love to Cash Tate for any amount of pain. So that, I supposed, is what I would do—cherish our brief moment and embrace the pain it left behind.

When I got home, I went to the computer to check the weather almost idly, not really concerned with the results, just out of habit, assessing the elements. An e-mail dinged in at that moment, as if it knew of my arrival. My heart caught so suddenly that it nearly stopped my breath completely as I read her message: Maggie, life without you has been pretty unbearable, but you taught me a lot about staying focused, and that’s what I’m trying to do. Some things I know now for sure: I have more confidence, I’m determined to do what makes me happy, and I’ve experienced a love that, for me anyway, was more than mere sex (although I want to give that an A+ rating, for the record). Hug Moses and Knight and Mariah for me.

Hi to Perry. And of course, you already know, I love you.

Signed Cash Tate.

My chest so tight I could barely draw air, I tried to formulate a reply and vacillated between “come back” and “have a nice life.” In the end, there was nothing to say. I saved the e-mail and didn’t reply.

I would read it again when my wounds were less raw.

I opened the oldies Web site I’d stored in my Favorites after that night we’d danced and clicked on a selection. “Wayward Wind” filled the living room and tears, not unlike an accompanying storm, streamed down my face.

When the music ended, I went into the spare room she’d vacated so quickly at my demand. It was the first day I’d been able to enter her room, and I was doing it with the purpose of taking down the photos tucked into the edge of the dresser mirror and putting them, along with her diary and a few odds and ends, into a dresser drawer.

I carefully slid the picture out of the crevice that held it up against the mirror. The shot was of me in the field that day, hot and sweaty, showing off for her. I looked absolutely on fire, alive. And next to that picture, another of me lounging on the chair just as she’d placed me, the night I gave her the camera and she tousled my hair and told me I looked sexy. I did look sexy, and relaxed, and dreamy…and in love. The truth about what I felt for Cash Tate was staring at me. I’d never seen that expression in my eyes, didn’t know I was capable of giving anyone that look. On top of the dresser I noticed a slip of paper with Cash’s handwriting, and I picked it up.

Things I learned this summer.

1. Mama’s closing rule: mouth, fridge, gates… close them all!

2. Wear the deerskin gloves!

3. You can’t fool a mare with cookies

4. Line-dance boots are out

5. Give Buck more credit for bull riding 6. To attract a horse, act like a horse 7. Country boys are terrified of Mama & Jesus 8. To rock on you need a porch

9. Ranch women are proud and stubborn and can break your heart

10. One-sided love sucks

I took a deep breath and lay back on the bed and gazed up at the ceiling and thought about her and the risk of loving and how taking risks changes everything. I could still faintly smell her cologne from the pillowcases, and it was intoxicating and heartbreaking.

I should never have touched her, I thought, and the voice in my head entered the conversation. And would never touching her have stopped you from wanting her? And are you decimated now because you not only wanted her, but you love her and you miss her?

Moses whimpered, stretching her little frame and begging to be lifted up on the bed as Cash used to do for her. I reached down and scooped her chubby body up, and she scurried around on the bed covers looking for Cash until I cuddled her in my arms. Tears streamed down my cheeks as we hugged her pillow, both of us searching for any scent of her.

Two-thirds of August spent, and two weeks since Cash had disappeared from my life, when Donnetta’s old Mercury Cougar, its paint color long indistinguishable, chugged up the driveway. She climbed out lugging a cardboard box, and I managed a wave from the porch, where I’d been gaping off into space.

“Brought you something to eat,” she said with wrinkled brow, and set the box down on the table and rummaged through it, setting up the porch as if we were two ladies at a tea party. Napkins, drinks, sandwiches, chips, all anchored with small rocks she picked up off the ground to keep things from blowing away. “There.” She finally plopped down in a chair alongside me. “Now let’s have a bite.”

“So you’ve started a catering service?” I tried to smile.

“Yup, but very limited. You’re my only client because I gravitate to women who are miserable, pining, and moving rapidly toward anorexia. Eat that,” she demanded, pointing at a sandwich, and I took a bite. “What have you been doing?”

“Just running the ranch. This is good, Donnetta, thanks.”

“Running the ranch from this rocker, I’m told. Don’t see you in town any more.” I tried to respond and I choked up and tears gathered in my eyes. Donnetta ate silently, pretending to ignore my emotional state. “My Cherokee grandmother used to say, ‘Don’t let yesterday eat up too much of today.’ You chose a path for good reasons. Be strong enough to live with your choices.”

I dried up and bristled at the advice. “Does this Indian lecture come with the burning of sage to ward off evil spirits?”

“Burning sage drives out ghosts…and seems to me you got one lodged in your heart. Have you talked to her?”

“She sent me an e-mail. I didn’t respond.”

“Boy, when you’re done, you’re done.”

Perry came around the corner of the house as if he just happened to spot her car, but I was certain he was the one who’d told her I was a mess. “Well, look who’s here!” He gave what I was pretty sure was a mock-surprise greeting. “I was just about to take a look at the hinges on this screen door,” he said, and pulled a screwdriver out of his back pocket as if we required proof.

“Have a sandwich.” She handed him a wrapped lunch and he took it. “You’re looking thin too. This whole place is on the verge of shriveling up and blowing away.”

I said nothing and continued to eat. I thought I saw the two of them giving each other the eye, but I was too worn out to care.

Finally Donnetta stood up, dusting off the crumbs on her pants, and cleaned up our dishes. “See that she gets into town for half a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll be waiting for her at the coffee shop. If I don’t see her, I’m coming out to kick everyone’s ass.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Perry said, and left when Donnetta did, to avoid any reprimand from me. I knew Donnetta was right. I needed to get on with today before I screwed up the rest of my life.

❖

Tuesday I drove into town to the 2-K, only because I didn’t want to see Donnetta’s Mercury flying up my driveway again. When I opened the glass door to the café, Donnetta flung her arms around me. She poured me coffee and tried to fend off anyone who came over to the booth to say hello, mostly because she knew almost anyone who showed up was just curious about my condition.

When Sven Olan couldn’t get within a few feet of me, he hailed me from clear across the room. “Heard your ranch hand left. Must mean your hay’s all in, then?”

Anyone could drive by my fields and see I was up to my eyeballs in uncut hay, so that was Sven’s way of asking why she’d left.

“I’ve still got hay to harvest but Cash has gone home,” I said, refusing to call her a ranch hand any longer.

“Verta could come out and give you a hand,” he said, and I declined, wondering exactly what kind of hand was being offered and where it had been.

“Men are stupid,” Donnetta said under her breath. “And speaking of stupid, here comes Verta herself.”

Verta Olan wandered into the 2-K and almost went to the counter to greet her brother but, seeing me, glided over.

“So she’s gone.” Verta shrugged, obviously referencing Cash.

“Like a ’57 Cadillac,” I said wryly.

“She was frigid,” Verta whispered loudly, wrinkling up her nose, and a tiny diamond stud in the edge of it caught the light. “I heard that, anyway.”

“Really?” I couldn’t contain a wistful smile.

“Yeah, really. I think she will be happier there in Denver. She had lots of hang-ups and there are many good therapists there.”

Having shared that piece of news, Verta sauntered off.

“Sounds like she didn’t get laid. Now aren’t you glad you came to town?” Donnetta grinned.

Despite the insanity of the commentary, the fact that everyone knew Cash personally made it seem as if she was still here. Maybe that’s what little towns did—created a collective consciousness of love and joy and hate and sorrow, intensifying everything by their communal nature. Today everyone seemed connected to Cash’s leaving or at least acknowledged that she’d been here, and somehow that helped.

❖

Long, hot weeks went by before the mid-September winds kicked up suddenly, coming in cool from the north and threatening torrential storms and damage to the hay that needed to get off the fields immediately. We’d cut two days earlier and raked, and now we had to get the balers moving and hay off the ground before the high winds carried it down to Oklahoma. The last cutting of the season and Perry had another worker from town helping him, a fellow I hardly knew and at this point didn’t want to know, so long as he could drive a tractor.

“We’ll barely beat the first frost.” I smiled at Perry as he trudged toward me from the field. Something in the wind sent anticipatory tingles through my body, foreshadowing the cool shade of golden leaves and relief from the summer heat.

“Maggie Tanner, our hay never gets frostbit. We’re old-timey ranchers and we have our wits about us.”

“Glad to know you’re so high on yourself,” I said. “As for me, I think we’re just plain lucky, and God gives fools luck when He runs short on brains.”

“Well, I was at the head of the line. If they ran out before they got to
you
, well, that’s none of my doing.” He grinned and strutted off, full of himself again.

For the first time in weeks, I was happy for no apparent reason other than Perry’s good mood and the fact that the seasons were changing again and I could feel excitement in the wind—the restlessness that comes as the heat’s driven off and the cool fall air signals farm equipment can be cleaned up and put away for another year, the green grass turning brown ahead of the winter snows. The horses could feel it too, and they reared up and pawed at each other, battling playfully in the fields, then ran and whinnied as if the wind was a bellows for their soul, telling them secrets no human could translate.

The machinery made its last run of the season up and down the long rows all day long until late afternoon. Individual buyers came and went, loading up single rounds as they tumbled off the baler.

Late afternoon, it was over, and the pastures looked picturesque.

Perry and his crew headed into town for what would undoubtedly be a night of drinking, the harvest serving only as an excuse.

I went inside and showered and picked up a book, preparing to read, which I did a lot of lately to allow myself to leave my life and disappear into someone else’s. Usually I read myself to sleep, going to bed early.

Tonight, I heard the sound of tires ripping down the driveway, and I hopped up and flew out onto the porch to see who was tearing up my road, leaving Moses watching through the screen door. The vehicle was surrounded by a cloud of dust. I wondered if one of Perry’s workers had forgotten something.

Shielding my eyes to squint through the grit, I watched as the vehicle slammed on its brakes and a tall figure climbed out and sauntered toward me. As if my heart recognized her walk, it sped up to greet her as my body braced against the newel post and I watched the beautiful form approach, solemn and determined.

The handsome, somber figure, carrying a large duffel bag, crossed the front lawn and planted herself at the foot of my porch and I smiled, unable to speak.

“Cash Tate, Ms. Tanner. I was hoping you might be expecting me. Heard you need an experienced hand, and I damn sure am one.”

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” My words were breathless and barely audible.

Her tone was serious but her eyes caressed me. “I hope you have your shotgun handy, Maggie Tanner, because that’s what it’s going to take to get me to leave you again. I swear, you’ll have to shoot me.”

“And what if you get bored with this…me?”

“I won’t.”

“When I’m sixty—”

“We’ll dance in the moonlight.”

“What will you do out here, for God’s sake?”

“Love you.”

I sagged in surrender as she picked up her duffel and slung it onto the porch, bounded up the steps, and gathered me up in her arms, pressing every inch of me to her. Then, like the hero in a bad Western movie, she picked me up and carried me over the threshold.

“Put me down, you’ll break your back.”

“I only intend to do this on special occasions. She tilted me so I could reach the screen-door handle. “Hold the door open, Ms.

Tanner.” As I did, she caught it with her foot and swung it back, twirling us both through the opening. Moses leapt up and down at her every step, overjoyed that she was back as Cash made a left turn away from the guest room and into my bedroom, where she lowered me onto the bed.

For a second, I realized Cash would never really fit in anywhere, except maybe out here, if given a chance, and I didn’t fit anywhere either, despite the years I’d stayed. And none of that mattered any more for either of us.

“I said every terrible thing in the world to you—”

“And didn’t have the courtesy to answer my e-mail,” she said.

“—when the truth is, I love you. I’ve been desolate without you.”

“I spent weeks trying to get over you, but I couldn’t get you out of my head. And then I realized I could spend years trying to find the thing that makes me happy, when it’s you. Just you.” She buried her face in my neck and ran her hands down my back and cradled my body, nearly driving me insane.