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“Please.”
“Are you hungry?”
“It’s been a while since breakfast.”
“You eat lunch?”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t always have the time. But when I eat, I eat.”
She nodded to agree his words made sense.
He bowed his head and rubbed his nose. He said earnestly, “I’ll build a fire in the parlor.”
“Thank you.” She asked, “Is the water in the sink drinkable?”
He gestured openly. “Gen-u-wine artesian, the real McCoy. Have some.”
He went and turned on the faucet and water gushed forth. Lauren had forgotten her parched mouth. She drank two glasses. She put the again-filled glass aside.
“You was thirsty.”
And she replied, “Obviously.”
He said it earnestly, “You can get any more anytime you want some.”
“Thank you.”
And he responded with great courtesy, “You are most welcome.”
It was then she realized he varied his speech. He might not be a hayseed after all. That only proved he was tricky.
She considered him. How come he was talking thataway? What was his purpose to pose as something other than what he was? He was a coyote.
The animal coyotes are clever and sly. They are amused by their tricks. There are humans who are called coyotes. Like those who smuggle people over into the States from Mexico and charge outrageous prices to guide them. And those intruders who get lost, get lost. And they die in the unpeopled areas from the heat and from not finding water.
Kyle asked, “So you don’t cook at all?”
“Oatmeal.”
“Then when you get hot, come in the kitchen and I’ll get you dinner.”
She responded, “Excellent. I’m quite hungry.”
“This’ll be a ball and a banquet.” He almost smiled.
“I’ll look forward to it.”
And he left the room.
She shed the blanket and went looking for the lavatory. She found one and it was pristine.
Kyle was probably a cattleman but who had cleaned the lavatory? He didn’t look the type to care.
She washed her hands before she left that room and got back by the fire before she heard Kyle whistling in the kitchen.
Her daddy whistled. It was such a cheerful sound. Her daddy had told her all cattlemen whistled or sang. It was for the beeves.
Kyle wasn’t with cattle, he was in the kitchen fixing her supper. She could set the table. The house was really quite comfortable. There must be a means for heating it.
Lauren found the kitchen and looked at it with untried eyes. She saw that it wasn’t like the one at home that was ruled by Goldilocks.
She asked the man by the stove, “May I help?”
He turned and looked at her.
Something happened in her stomach and to her breathing. He was absolutely glorious! Or maybe it was the mouth-watering smell of cooking onions? Something was wobbling her.
He looked’at her without the blanket. She wore the soft silk, sand-colored outfit of blouse and trousers. They were more for a drawing room than a kitchen. On her, they were something.
Maybe the something that was so eye-catching was the body inside the silks. With some resolve, he tore his eyes from her and said, “Yes.”
He had been agreeing that she was special.
She assumed he meant she could help. So she sought the right cupboards and brought the germane dishes and glasses to the table. But she put them aside. Then she dampened a towel and wiped down the table quite well.
After that, she set the silver precisely, then the plates and glasses. She found napkins. They were yellowed, but fairly clean. In the hall, she found a bouquet of dried flowers and leaves. It was intact, and it was glorious to put it on one side of the table.
He watched her as he cooked. She amazed him. She rattled him. And her body drove him tilted off center. Her mouth did, too. Her hands. Then she licked her lips!
He breathed…carefully.
She asked with courtesy, “What are we having?”
He looked at her a minute as if surprised she could get out a communicating sentence. He finally told her, “Beans. The onions in them are the vegetables. The chili peppers get rid of worms.”
She looked aside as she assimilated the last part. She looked at him again and inquired, “Worms? In the house?”
He tilted back his head as he bit his lower lip. His eyelashes almost closed over the humor, and he said, “The ones in your digesting tract.”
And she formed her lips thoughtfully as she responded, “Oh.”
He went on cheerily stirring the beans and dropping in the onions and peppers.
She noted the beans had come from a can. They would be perfectly all right. He was a sham. She would figure something to pay him back for his sly humor.
She looked in the cupboard and then the freezer and found tortillas. She thawed and toasted them. Then she cut cheese into bits with some of the onions and rolled those into one of the tortillas. Hot, the cheese melted, and she handed him one.
It was perfect.
Actually, it was normal. It was just that they were so hungry that it didn’t matter what condition the food was in, it would be good.
Three
In the pantry, Lauren found some dried fruits and washed the various kinds before she cut them up with an apple for a fruit salad. It was pretty and colorful on the plate with the yellow cheese on the tortillas, along with the brown beans and the red peppers.
As they ate, she was leery of the peppers and her fork discreetly isolated them from the beans. The rolled tortillas substituted for bread. They were heated and the cheese melted just right. The milk was from a great glass canning jar. The substance tasted like milk.
Kyle turned on the radio, and they got the weather station. The snow would be a three day deluge according to their information. Settle in and enjoy! That was their advice.
Lauren asked, “Can you ignore the cattle?”
He replied logically, “The beeves are drifting from the storm so the men are guiding them so that they don’t get piled up or fall off anything along the way.”
Then he added with ease to explain himself, “The milk cows have to be milked but they’re here. The horses don’t mind a little snow. The Jeep doesn’t, either. You wanna go home?”
She didn’t. Oddly enough, she didn’t want to go home. She said, “I’ll have to retrieve my car.” And she left the subject hanging. He could figure it out. She wasn’t of any mind to go off and leave there. She was going to have an adventure…with him. It would be a first time and with a stranger. If she loused up or quit in the middle of it, no one would ever know.
How strange that a coward like she would come to this rash decision.
Was it being twenty-seven? Was that what was making her so reckless? That and the fact he’d made no real intrusions, uh, he’d kept his hands to himself. Yes, he had. Other than those two times when his hand had slipped out from her armpit.
Where would she sleep? Would he brusquely insist that she sleep with him? Maybe. And maybe she’d just find out what sex was like. She was old enough. She was beyond being old enough. Even Sid had had one.
Lauren had noticed that the knowledgeable women’s eyes were smug and different. They giggled and whispered. Lauren felt out of it. The last women’s golf tournament at the club had been a trial until she was put in with three other women-and not one of them had mentioned anything about any man! It had been a surprise. It had been quite refreshing.
If there were women who…didn’t and didn’t even talk about it, then why was Lauren Davie so anxious to experience something so private with a total stranger?
She had no idea. But it was something to think about. Something to decide about. What would happen if she just up and told Kyle she was curious?
Would he say, “Okay.” Or would he back off with his hands up to fend her off?
She smiled at the idea of his fending her off.
He asked, “What’s so funny?”
And she raised her eyes to his and smiled.
“What you thinking?” But he was a little tense as if she was thinking about him and laughing at him. That was interesting to observe. He was vulnerable.
She said, “I was playing golf with some women and they were talking. It was just a joke I remember.”
“What kind of joke?” He was serious.
She was kind. “It was a woman’s joke.”
And he asked, “About. men?”
And she was gentle. “No. About another woman who couldn’t cook at all. Like I am.”
His face changed. He was interested. He considered and told her seriously, “You could learn.”
“I am really a peanut-butter woman.”
And he complimented her. “You did nice with the tortillas and cheese.”
She scoffed, laughing. “It was the onions chopped in the cheese that caught your taste buds. You like onions and hot pepper. You’re a chili man.”
He nodded as he considered her with a nice smile. And he told her, “Yeah.”
It was only then, with the exchange, that she understood he was vulnerable, and she couldn’t taste him without hurting his opinion of himself.
It was a giant step forward for Lauren to understand that. She had never really thought about other people that way. They could be hurt. The realization of his being vulnerable was sobering.
With the meal finished, Lauren sat back in her chair and sighed. “I was starved. You are a wonderful cook.”
He said it quite nicely, “That fruit thing was nice. Pretty.” He appeared lost for words, so he declared, “You got a good appetite.”
She assumed he meant her table manners. His elbows were on the table. Could she tolerate that? And she considered manners and mores.
He’d saved her neck. He’d rescued her…and horses! The horses that had gone in the barn gate! He’d been rounding up horses! So that’s why he’d been out there! He had known about the storm and he’d gone out to get his horses!
Of course.
He hadn’t just been moseying along. He’d been there for a purpose. That’s why he shifted their course a time or two. He had been monitoring the horses.
And by the greatest chance, he had ran into her out there, on foot. Alone. He could have just gone on and left her there. And she was not dressed for, nor capable of surviving, such a storm. But he’d seen her and been committed. He’d brought her back with him, there to the house where he was living.
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