Summer Winds (23 page)

“Did you tell her?” she asked her husband somewhat sternly.

“You tell everything so I thought I’d leave that to you.” Hiram walked off to the shed as if he suddenly had important business that had been interrupted, then crossed the pasture and fired up his old truck and drove away.

“He’s been talking to Stretch, who said Bo had been talking to Buddy, who told him Donnetta had said she thought maybe you liked living with that young gal…” The way she stopped at the end of the sentence, as if going another syllable farther would crash her into the unneighborly zone, let me know exactly what the rest of that sentence might be: “…more than a man.”

“I never trusted Stretch, myself.” Her comments wandered on to reassure me that she wouldn’t blame me if I liked anyone better than Stretch. I got up suddenly and thanked her. “Now don’t go saying I said anything.”

I stalked back across the pasture, the blood all zooming to my head until it was hot and buzzing.

Cash and Perry were waiting for me on the front porch. “What’d the neighbors say?” Cash asked.

“Stretch Adams,” I replied. “Didn’t come out and say it but they might as well have.”

“You went out with him.” Her voice rose and I didn’t bother to correct her misconception. “Any idea why he wants to date you at seven and burn you down at ten?”

“Years back, I’d have told you a lot of her dates kind of ended in flames.” Perry grinned and spat, and I glared at him. He turned and walked back to his bunkhouse, knowing apparently all he needed to know. I said nothing, choosing to pace, thinking through what to do that would put a stop to this before it got any further out of hand. But Cash couldn’t let go of it, like a dog with a bone. “Did your date go bad? I’ve heard city-council meetings can be treacherous.”

“I didn’t go out with him.”

“Really?” She looked pleased. “Which could be why he’s mad.”

“Country boys in heat don’t like anything between them and what they think ought to be theirs.”

“This is about you and me?” She came to a quick halt and her eyes widened. I didn’t answer but grabbed my truck keys, and Cash followed and hopped into the Chevy beside me. I asked her to get out, but she was defiant. “If it’s about me, then I’m sure as hell not staying home. In fact, in my current state of mind I would enjoy kicking someone’s ass.”

“That just stirs up men like Stretch and makes them want to top whatever you do. They’ll shoot your mailbox, put nails in your truck tires, and that’s just the warm-up. It’s taken me a long time to earn the right to retaliate, and you haven’t earned it because you’re not from here.”

“Where I come from, if someone fucks you over, that earns you the right. Your theory is bullshit,” she said, obviously not caring about my reaction at this point. I decided I didn’t need a second fight so I said nothing and stayed focused on the road to town, pretty certain that Stretch was on the late shift.

Thirty minutes later, I whipped into the gravel drive of the lumberyard at such speed and so close to the entrance that when I cranked the wheel to the right, gravel sprayed halfway up the side of the metal building and my headlights flooded the workshop where the night shift did their cutting. I spotted Stretch’s truck parked alongside the fence, and then I remembered seeing the propane tank in the back of his truck the day he fishtailed out of Sara Goodie’s store lot. My blood started boiling.

“Got to be him,” I muttered. “Thinks he’s creating a perfect alibi for where he was during the fire.” I continued talking to myself as I jumped out, and Cash jogged to keep up with me.

Inside the cavernous, drafty building, several nightshift crew were stacking lumber, talking on phones, or working at buzz saws.

Stretch was bent over a huge circular saw, his face goggled as he sliced through large slabs of wood. I marched over and flipped the adjacent wall switch I’d seen Hiram use to shut down the power to equipment and watched the giant industrial blades spin down on Stretch’s workbench. Etta Dormer, the lumberyard’s dumpy little night manager, stopped to see what was happening.

Stretch pulled his goggles off and propped them on top of his head and lazily arched his back, hands on his spine, stretching like a tall preening waterbird.

“Stretch, I’ve always treated you like a gentleman.” My voice rose, prompting Cash to move in closer in a protective way.

“Too much so, because I’m no gentleman.” Stretch tried to make his voice sexy but it was “a stretch,” given how he looked.

“You were out of work and I convinced Hiram to hire you.” He glanced around, no doubt wondering how many of his co-workers knew I’d gotten him the job. “And the time your mama was sick and you left her and went fishing, I cooked a meatloaf and took it to her so she could have something to eat.” My mention of his elderly mother, who went to church services every day and twice on Sunday, took the sexual wind out of his sails. “And to show your appreciation, you blow up a propane tank that sets my house on fire because I won’t go out with your sorry ass!”

One of his male co-workers snorted, choking back a laugh, then pretended he was looking at something on the floor to cover up his embarrassment.

“Look, Maggie.” Stretch shuffled from side to side and made an effort to regain his bravado. “All I’ve ever tried to do is come courting but I’m competing with a…different kind of hand.” The same fellow snickered again, and Stretch snorted in appreciation just as Cash charged forward and got Stretch by the shirt front.

“Get the hell out of here, you she-he!” His lip curled with the gender slur and she reared back to slug him, but I yelled for her to stop and in the same breath threatened him if he touched her. Stretch put his hands above his head in mock surrender.

“If your mama heard about this she would die. Keel over and die! You’ve disgraced her and she raised you better than that.”

I gave him one big shove backward toward the saw blade, dashed to the wall, and flipped the wall switch while he was stumbling around trying to regain his balance. The revving blades spun wildly a few feet from his back and he flattened to the floor, fearful of being sliced like baloney. Scrambling on hands and knees, he made it to the door in the back. His co-workers remained frozen.

“I’d like you to come over to my house. I need to get my husband in line,” Etta said as she turned her back on me and walked away.

Fired up and remembering something else, I shouted at the top of my voice, “And get your ass over and settle up with Sara Goodie. She’s running a feed store, not a bank!”

I stormed out of the metal building and Cash followed me back to the truck and crawled inside looking a little shaken. “Will he stop or retaliate?”

“Probably stop. Prairie males are afraid of two things: Jesus and Mama.”

“You’re hell on wheels when you’re mad,” Cash said solemnly.

I glanced at her stoic expression, then broke into a big grin. “My God, the gravel’s spraying, and you storm in, pull the power on his bench saw, start shouting about meatloaf and Mama, and then you nearly slice him up like bad-boy brisket, and to save himself he hits the floor quaking like he’s found Jesus. You scared the pee out of him…and me! You won’t let me finish punching his lights out, but you try to cut the guy in half with his own power tools.”

Her eyes softened and my heart did the same. It felt sexy and wonderful being the object of Cash Tate’s admiration. We drove in silence, smiling into the windshield as the radio played a country song about a woman who relished destroying a guy’s headlights with a baseball bat and autographing his leather seats with a pen knife.

“Men are trouble,” Cash mused.

“And so are some women.” I glanced at her.

“They can be…” Cash reached over and took my hand in hers.

It enveloped mine in a loving way, and for a second I welcomed the feeling it sent through me.

It’s not sex, it’s just hand-holding
,
I said to quiet my mind.

Hand-holding that feels like sex. I made an excuse to pull my hand back and dust off my shirt.

“Sorry. Nothing personal,” she said. “Kind of like when two football players pat each other on the butt after a big play, then go off and screw a cheerleader.”

I cut my eyes at her and hers twinkled in response. With those looks and that sense of humor and the way she could kiss, she could be addictive. Even I could see that.

“You saved that rope I won at the River Festival. I found it in your photo box when I packed for the fire.”

“What were you doing looking in my photo box?” I demanded, shocked.

“What were you doing reading my diary?” She grinned at me and I ignored her. “I’ll tell you why you kept my River Festival necklace. Because you’re sentimental, and you don’t want anyone to know that, and you care about me. Just a little, nothing big, just… you care.” She smiled at me as if she’d won a significant victory and kept smiling all the way home.

The following morning, I was having coffee on the front porch and making a list of things we’d need to repair the back of the house when the wrecker turned into my driveway.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said out loud to no one as the vehicle came toward the house, and I recognized it as the one always parked at Olan’s Gas Station. As it approached, I could read the lettering painted on the side.
Towing To Keep You Going.

The driver pulled up, swerved wide, and put the vehicle in idle.

The door swung open and Verta Olan, her breasts like two chubby divers poised to make the leap from her tank top, swung her black leather-wrapped derriere to one side, hopped out, and gave me a playful wave.

“Never get out this way but had to tow somebody and thought while I was in the area I’d stop by and see how you’re doing, and say hi to Cash.” She added the last part as if it was the inconsequential piece, but I knew it was the sole reason for her visit.

“So the two of you had a night out,” I said, getting to the point.

“We did.” She sighed happily, apparently believing that my brevity indicated approval. “She’s a mean dancer.” She dragged the words out as if the dancing might have been horizontal. “You like to dance?” When I nodded, she added, “We should all go sometime,” and I smiled, thinking I would sooner go to a religious revival involving snake handling than a dance with Verta Olan. “So what’s been going on out here?” Her necked stretched, terrapin-like, as she scanned the landscape for signs of Cash. I shrugged and smiled, refusing to give her any information. “So is uh…Cash around?”

I told her I didn’t know but I would certainly check. Leaving Verta on the front lawn, I dashed up the steps and knocked sharply on Cash’s bedroom door. When she opened up, looking surprised, I said, “Your date from the other night is here.” I turned and walked back into the living room, busying myself at the computer while Cash stood at the front door.

“What did she say to you?” Cash didn’t take her eyes off Verta.

“That you’re a meeean dancer,” I said flatly, without looking up. Cash pushed the door open and went out onto the front porch and began talking to Verta. The wind sent some of the conversation my way, but not all of it. Verta’s tone was toying and playful. Twenty minutes later, Cash came back up the steps and the wrecker pulled out of the driveway and headed for town. Without so much as a word, Cash returned to her bedroom.

What in the hell was that about? Obviously Verta thinks they’re
dating or wants to continue dating or something. And what did Cash
tell her? See you later, e-mail me, pick me up at seven?

After a few minutes, Cash came back into the living room, crossed to the kitchen, opened the cabinet and took a jar of peanut butter down, located the bread, and began to make herself a sandwich. The casualness of that act annoyed the hell out of me. I was determined not to let her think I cared what she and Verta had said to one another, and after five minutes it appeared Cash was determined not to tell me. I sighed loudly enough to shock myself, then pretended to be occupied with an animated ad on the Internet.

Cash picked up a paper plate with her sandwich on it and headed for her bedroom.

“So did Buck teach you to dance?” I asked just before she disappeared again.

“Dance lessons,” she replied, and took a bite from her sandwich.

“You lead or follow?” My tone was a bit haughty as I contemplated the overly endowed Verta gliding across the floor with Cash.

“Why?” She walked back into the living room, her expression blank as she slumped onto the couch. Another long silence.

Irritable, I began again. “I was just wondering, that’s all. Two women dancing, I assume you have to decide who’s leading.”

“Lead.” She picked up a magazine and began nonchalantly reading.
Of course she would lead. She’s tall and athletic…and a
complete smart-ass.

“So they have dance classes for gay women who dance the boy’s part?” I said, and she looked confused. “I mean, it’s…how do you learn it, that’s all?”

“I asked my brothers to teach me when we were kids,” she said simply, and I realized my questions sounded ridiculous, but I couldn’t stop myself. Another long silence while she read and I breathed and focused on my computer, having no idea what I was looking at. “You lead or follow?” she asked, so casually that her tone was almost mocking, and she never looked up.

I swiveled in my chair to face her. “What do you think?”

“How would
I
know? A lot of men can’t dance and their wives kind of guide them around the dance floor and make them look like they’re leading when they’re really following. So I was just curious.”

“Follow.”

“You lead on the ranch but you follow on the dance floor. I follow on the ranch but I lead on the dance floor. Guess it’s all about…

geography.” She went back to reading, then looked up suddenly as if she’d forgotten to ask something. “Are you good at it?” Her tone sounded as if she were conducting a survey. “Following?” she said, for clarity’s sake.

“Anyone who could answer that is dead,” I said, coldly.

She got up, tossed the magazine down and stood in front of me, took the computer mouse from my hand, gliding it across an Internet site, then clicked on a button, and then another and another, and finally the video of a 78 rpm recording popped up and spun around on the turntable.