My One and Only Cowboy

by A. J. Pine

  Lila layered a sausage patty, a slice of cheese, and a scoop of scrambled eggs inside a biscuit. “I appreciate that. I’ve got to take a few days after July Fourth and get moved out of my apartment in Florida. I’ve got an interview in Conway, Arkansas.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it? Closer to here if you and Brody do stay together.”

  “I’m not sure what’s a good thing right now. My world is kind of crazy.”

  Molly shook a knife at her. “I told you that gettin’ mixed up with Brody was not a good thing.”

  Was that knife an omen? Should she simply leave? It wouldn’t be like the last time because she and Brody had the foundation of a relationship. There would be phone calls, texts, and Skype. But there wouldn’t be those painful last-minute tears. Plus, if she got back to Florida and cleared out her apartment by the first of July, she wouldn’t have to pay another month’s rent.

  She’d weighed the pros and cons until closing time at the café and decided that leaving that night made sense. She wanted to hug Molly and tell her that she wouldn’t be there the next morning but she couldn’t make herself do it. She did take time to write her a note before she packed everything into the truck and got the cats into the old wooden crate.

  “We’ll stop at the first store we come to and I’ll get you a proper carrier and a new toy to keep you entertained on the ride. If you don’t whine, I’ll even buy you some cat treats.” Talking out loud helped take the sting out of driving away from the café.

  She couldn’t leave town without talking to her father first. Stopping at the cemetery, she got out of the truck and sat down in front of his tombstone. “I never did tell you good-bye. Not even at your funeral and I can’t do it tonight. Remember when you would leave and I’d beg you not to go away? We’d touch each other on the forehead and we’d say ‘see ya later.’” She traced his name with her forefinger. “I love that cowboy so much. Am I doing the right thing, Daddy?”

  No answers came floating down from the big white puffy clouds above her. The sun didn’t stand still in the sky. Her phone pinged a couple of times but she ignored it.

  “Evidently you’re tellin’ me to figure this one out on my own, aren’t you?” she finally said as she rose to her feet. “See ya later, Daddy. I promise I won’t wait twelve years to come back this time.”

  The kittens had decided to claw at the crate and whine about being cooped up. “Y’all might as well settle down. We’ll be driving most of the night and I expect you to stay awake and talk me out of making a U-turn anywhere between here and the Louisiana border. I didn’t bring you to listen to you fuss at me the whole way.”

  Duke meowed pitifully.

  Cora glared at her.

  She stopped at the edge of town and pulled off to the side of the road. In five minutes she could be back at the apartment. Tears rolled down her cheeks. If leaving without even saying the words out loud created this kind of pain, she didn’t want to even think about seeing Brody waving in her rearview mirror like she remembered from the last time she left Happy.

  She pulled back out onto the highway and flipped on the radio. Every single song had a message to her heart but she kept going until she got through Tulia. Then she saw the flares and hit her brakes hard. She counted four cars ahead of her truck but the traffic was lining up behind her pretty fast. A semi blocked both lanes of traffic but it didn’t obliterate the flashing lights of half a dozen police cars, along with a couple of ambulances not far ahead of the traffic jam.

  “Okay, guys, is this an omen? And if it is, what’s it tellin’ me? To turn around and go back to Happy or is it telling me that there will be obstacles in the way of this long-distance relationship?”

  Not a single meow came from the backseat.

  “Some help you are,” she fussed.

  It took thirty-two minutes to get the semi pulled out of the way and the ambulances going back south with their sirens blaring. For the next half hour the traffic was horrible and it was nearly midnight when she stopped to buy the things she’d promised the cats, along with a bag of chocolate donuts, a couple of apples, and two bottles of cold Dr Pepper. That much caffeine and sugar should keep her awake for several more hours.

  She set the new carrier with a fluffy throw in the bottom, along with a little bowl of treats and a new toy on the passenger seat. She managed to get a kitten in each hand and relocate them. They nosed around, ate a few of the little treats, sniffed the toy, and went back to sleep.

  She smiled for the first time since they’d left Happy. She’d bought some ribbon and a leash so they could get out and run around later but right then she needed to get more miles in before she stopped for a rest. She turned on her phone before she started the engine. Six messages and four missed calls from Brody. One call from Molly and two from her mother.

  She hit the button to call her mother first.

  “Where are you?” Daisy answered. “Molly went back to the café to get some sugar and found the note you left. What were you thinkin’?”

  “I’m on my way home. I’ll stop in Shreveport or sooner if my eyes get heavy. What was I thinkin’? That I couldn’t bear another good-bye,” Lila answered.

  “What about Brody? Did you kiss him good-bye?”

  “No.” Her voice cracked.

  “That’s good enough for him.”

  “Why would you say that? He came back that morning we left to apologize but I didn’t want to hear it,” she said.

  “You’re taking up for the man who broke your heart?”

  “I guess I am, Mama.”

  “You love that cowboy, don’t you?” Daisy sighed.

  “Always have. Probably always will. Can we talk about this later when just the sound of his name won’t make me tear up?” She wiped away a fresh batch of tears.

  “Turn around and go back, Lila.”

  Had she heard Daisy right? Surely she wasn’t throwing in the towel and admitting defeat where Brody Dawson was concerned.

  “I can’t. Something in my gut says that we need this time apart to see what happens and where this is going. If it is meant to be, I’ll know it. If not, I’ll survive on the memories,” she said.

  “I know this is hard for you and hearing the pain in your voice is making me cry with you,” Daisy said. “I wish I’d stayed in Texas all those years ago. I may have ruined your life.”

  “You did the best you could with what you had to work with that day, so don’t have any regrets. You were only thinkin’ of me when you left, not yourself. I’ll text after a while. Bye now. I’m going to get back on the road. I’ll text you when I check into a hotel. I love you, Mama.”

  “Call Molly. She’s worried sick that she offended you,” Daisy said.

  “I will. I promise.” She hit the END button before Daisy could say anything else.

  Molly answered on the first ring. “I’m sorry for whatever I did.”

  “It wasn’t anything you said or did. You’ve been great, Molly, and I’ve loved working with you but I couldn’t endure a bunch of tears and good-byes.”

  “When are you comin’ back?”

  “Don’t know that I am,” Lila said.

  “Oh, yes, you are. It’s just a matter of time,” Molly said.

  “We’ll see. Thanks for everything. I need to get back on the road.”

  “Don’t drive when you get sleepy. Get a hotel room.”

  “I promise I’ll be careful,” Lila said. “Tell Georgia hello for me.”

  “Hmmmph,” Molly snorted. “You can tell her yourself when you come home.”

  She waited another hour to send a text to Brody: Too late to call. We’ll talk tomorrow morning.

  Seconds later the phone rang.

  “I thought we were good.” His voice sounded raspy.

  “We were. We are. But you said it when you told me you were lost and your heart hurt when I left the first time. Imagine how hard it would be to go through that again.”

  “I am going through it again,” he said.


  “So am I but I have to get moved out of my apartment and we need some time apart.”

  “How long is some time?”

  “I don’t know. I just couldn’t say good-bye, Brody.”

  There was a long silence before he said, “I understand. Does that mean you’re coming home to Happy for the rest of the summer after you get this job in Arkansas?”

  “It means I’m leaving Florida. I’m not sure where I’m going. I’m at a rest stop right now and I need to get back on the road.”

  “Be careful, darlin’, and call me every couple of hours so I know you’re okay,” he said.

  “I’m a big girl, Brody. I’ve been traveling alone for years. I’ll text you when I get to a stopping point. If you’re awake, you can call me.”

  “Lila, I don’t like this.”

  “Neither do I, Brody.”

  She hit the outskirts of Shreveport at four in the morning. She’d thought she’d feel a tremendous sense of relief when she crossed the line from Texas into Louisiana. The inner wild child would disappear and she’d be another person.

  It didn’t happen.

  Her eyes felt like they’d been worked over with eighty-grit sandpaper but she couldn’t rationalize paying out money at that time of night for a hotel. Checkout in most of them was noon and only a few would let her take the cats in without a hefty deposit. Three or four hours’ sleep, maybe just until the sun rose, would get her on into Panama City Beach by bedtime.

  She saw a sign for a roadside rest at the next exit. She whipped over into the right lane and slowed down. The place was empty except for a van with a family who looked as if they’d been traveling longer than she had. A little red-haired girl must’ve slept through the night because she was running circles around a picnic table where her daddy slept on top of it.

  The child reminded Lila of Emma but her mama wasn’t a thing like Kasey. The dark-haired lady was sitting on a quilt next to the picnic bench with a second little girl in her lap. The lady watched the little girl run off energy and smiled as Lila passed by them on her way to the ladies’ room.

  Someday Lila would have a family like that. It wouldn’t matter if she and her husband were too strapped for money or time to get a hotel room on their travels. The important thing would be if they had each other. The family had left when she went back outside.

  The kittens were quiet, so she rolled down the windows a few inches, threw the seat back as far as it would go, and shut her eyes. She wiggled around until she was semicomfortable, tucked her hands under her cheek, and was sound asleep in seconds. The sun pouring in the window and Duke howling awoke her four hours later.

  “Okay, guys, let’s try out this new thing.” She put collars on each of them and tied a ribbon to each before she took them outside and tied the other end to the leg of the picnic bench. She expected both of them to fight against the collars but they were too fascinated with the grass, a butterfly, and the new things to fuss. Duke was the first one to scratch out a hole in the loose dirt under the bench; then Cora followed his lead.

  “Good kitty cats,” Lila praised them.

  She kept them in sight and went back to the truck to get the new water dish and food bowl. When they’d finished eating and romping, she took them back to their carrier and removed the collars and ribbon leashes. They were not happy but they didn’t have a choice. It was still a long way to Florida and she didn’t want them getting lost amongst the luggage.

  She rolled the kinks from her neck and fastened her seat belt. The second Dr Pepper she’d bought was warm but it washed down half a dozen donuts. She wouldn’t need food again until noon. She was on the road again, trying to put the disappointment she’d heard in Brody’s voice out of her mind without much luck. By supper time she’d be back in her apartment but right then she wished she was helping with the breakfast rush at the Happy Café.

  I miss you, Brody. It’s only been a few hours but I miss you so much. Why does love have to be so hard?

  Chapter Twenty

  On Thursday morning, Brody awoke to the same empty feeling he’d taken to bed with him on Wednesday night. There had been hurt the first time Lila left Happy, but this time it went beyond simple pain and he had no idea how to make it go away. He put a pot of coffee on, made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and carried it with him to the corral where Sundance was penned up.

  He sat down on the other side of the fence and ate two bites of the sandwich before he tossed it to the side for the ants or the squirrels. Whichever got there first was welcome to it.

  “I’m back, old friend,” he told the bull.

  Sundance made his way over to the fence and tried to poke his head through the railings.

  “Grass ain’t a bit greener on this side,” Brody said. “She’s gone and I don’t know what to do or say to make her come home for good. I feel like half my heart is gone. Hell no! That’s not right. She took the whole thing with her when she left. I hate good-byes, too, but if she’d have talked to me, we might have avoided ever havin’ another one. Movers could have taken care of her stuff and she had a job at the café.”

  The big Angus bull hung his head over the top rail.

  “Nothing we can do now. I sent a text an hour ago and she hasn’t responded yet. What if she doesn’t? What if she gets down there and Clancy convinces her to stay? I don’t know why I’m talkin’ to you. You don’t have any answers and every time you get a chance, you break out of the corral and get into trouble.”

  Brody chuckled. “I guess that’s why—we’re a lot alike. We don’t like being penned up and we know what we like. Well, thanks for the visit. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m not going to figure it out here.”

  He started back to the house and checked his phone but there were no messages or missed calls. He didn’t want to talk to Jace or Kasey, so he detoured and walked over to Henry’s old barn. He heard Blake Shelton’s voice singing from his first album before he even peeked inside the door to see Paul loading feed.

  “Hey.” Paul waved and reached inside the truck to turn down the music.

  “I like it loud but Gracie won’t let me play it like that when she’s in the truck.” He grinned. “I heard Lila left last night without tellin’ nobody, not even you. Thought maybe Henry might reappear.”

  “Why would you think that?” Brody asked.

  “Just a feelin’ I had. I know that they left and then he disappeared but since it all happened in a few weeks, I’ve wondered if they were connected in some way. Guess I was wrong. There ain’t no one at the house. I go through and check it every month or so just to be sure there ain’t been no vandalism.”

  Brody grabbed a pair of gloves from a hook beside the door and hoisted a bag of feed onto his shoulders. “I’ll help you get this unloaded since I’m here.”

  “How’re you takin’ it?” Paul asked. “Looked like y’all was gettin’ pretty serious.”

  “I wish she would’ve stayed.”

  “Maybe the stars wasn’t lined up right,” Paul said.

  They finished loading the feed and Paul removed a glove and stuck out his hand. “Thanks for the help and remember that old thing they say about lettin’ something you love go.”

  “If it comes back, then it’s real. If it don’t, it wasn’t?” Brody asked.

  “Something like that. I remember once when Kasey and Adam were havin’ a big fight. Can’t remember what it was about but Gracie told him to love her enough that she’d come back. What’d y’all fight about?”

  “We didn’t. She hates good-byes,” Brody said.

  “I can sure relate to that. Telling Adam good-bye every time he left made me come out here to this barn and cry like a baby. Mamas are pretty smart when it comes to things like this. Speaking of, you talked to yours?”

  Brody shook his head slowly. “Oh, no!”

  “You might be surprised how smart she is about these things, son. Thanks again for the help. There’s that white cat again. I sure wish so
meone would take her home with them. She’s a sweet-natured old gal but Gracie ain’t one much for cats. You think about talkin’ to Valerie or Hope.” Paul got into the vehicle and drove away.

  Brody worked his phone from his hip pocket and had his finger ready to call his mother but he couldn’t. He jogged back to the ranch, got into his truck and drove over to her place. He knocked on the back door and then pushed on inside.

  Valerie was braising a roast and scarcely even glanced his way. “Good mornin’, son. Coffee is in the pot. What brings you out this early?”

  “Lila’s gone.”

  “I heard.” Valerie finished the job and slid the roast into the oven. “The only thing that surprises me is that you’re here talking to me about it.”

  He removed the phone from his pocket and found the song that had come to his mind when Paul made that comment about mamas. “I want you to listen to this and then we’ll talk.” He laid it on the countertop and turned up the volume.

  “So Much Like My Dad” started playing and tears ran down his unshaven cheeks. George Strait sang the words better than he could express them. His mother had always said that he was just like Mitch Dawson. By the time the song was nearing the finish, Valerie was wiping both her tears and Brody’s away with a dish towel.

  “Like it says, if I’m like Dad, then there must’ve been times when you wanted to get in the car and leave this place too. So please, Mama, she’s gone and I need to know what it was that Dad said to make you stay, because I don’t think I can live without her,” Brody said.

  Valerie poured two cups of coffee and set them on the table. “It’s normal for people in a relationship to have arguments and times of doubt, son, but I don’t know that I can help you.”

  Brody had a hard time swallowing all his tough pride around the lump in his throat. “How did he do it, Mama? I know it’s personal, but I need to know if I’m so much like him.”

  Valerie motioned for him to sit down at the table. “He said the three magic words. I love you. That’s what always made me stay with him. Have you told her that?”