9 Ways to Fall in Love

by Caroline Clemmons

  "What time? I'll be here."

  "Try to come around ten," she said.

  He left the hospital with his emotions in turmoil. He felt light-headed. His heart was beating a tattoo. He had presumed he knew what to expect when he reached Texas, but he had been wrong.

  He had navigated out of the Lubbock city limits and hit the highway south before his insides began to settle. At least Lane wasn't dead. A week had passed since the accident. Dalton thought of the words he had heard often in Iraq: the golden hour. The precious span of time that immediately followed a potentially mortal injury. If a soldier could survive the golden hour, he had a chance. If Lane had been able to stay alive a week, surely he would recover.

  Hatlow was an hour and a half from Lubbock. Dalton hadn't eaten a meal all day, and the lousy coffee and pretzels they served on the plane were long gone. He stopped off at a convenience store and bought a Coke and a rubber sandwich, then continued on his way, munching as he drove.

  A sense of home and history washed over him, reminding him that his Comanche ancestors had ruled, roamed and hunted this part of Texas for hundreds of years. In their time, this plain had been covered by wild grass and a sea of buffalo. His great-great grandfather's people had hunted for survival, lived off the land and defended their way of life against encroachment.

  His genetic connection might be far removed from the fierce warriors of long ago, but he still took pride in knowing he was a part of something greater than himself. In all of his life, lacking a cohesive family, he had clung to his Native American heritage. Until the Marine Corps, his ancestry was the only thing he had ever felt he belonged to.

  Bringing his thoughts more down to earth, he observed that, just as they had in his childhood, endless fields of cotton stretched to the horizon on either side of the highway. He had no trouble seeing through an imaginary camera lens the bolls bursting with white fluff, clinging to thigh-high stalks against a backdrop of a brilliant blue sky. Fall. The best time of year in West Texas. Cotton harvest was just around the corner.

  His mind drifted to the Parker ranch. Since hearing of his mother's troubles last Saturday—and at the end of the day, his mother's troubles were the ranch's troubles—he had been considering what obligation he had to help bail her out with his own money. She had never asked for help and had never discussed the ranch's financial situation with him. He wasn't filthy rich, but he had done well enough. He could afford to help her a little if she needed it.

  Thinking of money took his mind to his younger brother again. He could already see that if the kid really had no hospitalization insurance, as the phone message had said, somebody was going to be called on to pay his hospital bill, which could climb to six digits in a hurry.

  Soon Dalton began to see pump jacks seesawing against the sky, sucking crude oil from the bowels of the earth. In his youth, Parker land had been under a drilling lease constantly, though only one oil well had ever been sunk. The production from the well was never developed and his family never became oil rich.

  He spotted a new drilling rig not far off the highway, its tower thrusting in a straight line toward the sky. The last time he had passed this way, most of the existing wells were static and no drilling rigs existed. But why wouldn't drilling activity be starting up again? Jesus, with the price of a barrel of oil more than doubling, wildcatters and big oil producers should be turning cartwheels and falling all over themselves to get moving again.

  Oil. Black gold. Dalton could almost smell it in the air and it smelled like money. From his experience and observations in the world, he had concluded that most of the world's great wealth came from two commodities: crude oil and narcotic drugs. And it was a toss-up which was the greater source of most of the world's problems.

  Reaching a familiar crossroad, he made a right turn, as he had done a thousand times in the past. Now the fenced Parker ranch lay on either side of him and white-faced cattle marked with a Lazy P brand leisurely grazed. The sight salved his soul in a way nothing else ever had. He had traveled all over the world but had never found a place that touched him this deeply.

  He had left it behind when he wasn't much more than a boy because blind hatred for his mother's husband had overridden every other emotion in his life.

  He had rarely come back even to visit for the same reason. On his few return trips, his stays had been marred by the rebirth of his antipathy for Cherry's very presence.

  But his stepfather had been dead for ten years. Why hadn't Dalton returned and tried to revive some kind of relationship with his mother? He didn't know the answer. He supposed he simply got used to having no ties or no feeling of obligation to family. And at the deepest level, a part of him resented his mother. In his youth when he was at his most vulnerable, she hadn't defended him against Earl Cherry.

  The house shimmered in the distance, and he could see the silhouette of the windmill nearby. A sense of elation filled his chest. Soon he would reach the twenty-acre pasture where new calves or heifers that might have trouble delivering had always been kept. He could hardly wait to see what animals were penned in the small pasture. He had always loved the cattle. A baby calf with its fresh black or russet coat, curly-haired white face and white eyelashes was his favorite animal. Once when his granddad had tried to give him a puppy, he had opted for a calf.

  Arriving at the corner of the pasture he saw...

  Chickens?

  He slammed on the brakes, pulled to the shoulder and stared into the pasture. He had never seen so goddamn many chickens all in one place. He couldn't even count them all.

  And chicken houses.

  And jackasses.

  His mother was raising chickens? And jackasses?

  The Lazy P was a cattle ranch. Had she lost her friggin' mind?

  * * *

  Walking toward the ranch house's front door, Joanna saw a gallon jar of tea bags and water sitting in the sun on the stone pathway that led from the driveway to the rickety wooden porch. The tea had brewed, so she took it into the cavernous kitchen to pour it into glass pitchers like Clova always did.

  As she poured, she heard the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway. She wiped her hands on the apron she had borrowed and walked to the front door.

  Through the old wooden screen door's haze, she saw a small white car had parked in the driveway at the end of the stone path, and a man was climbing out. He closed the door with a clack that resounded in the morning's stillness. He stood a moment and planted his hands on his hips, looking around. He had on sunglasses and a loose white T-shirt with an unidentifiable logo on the chest. The tail fell free over faded jeans.

  He lifted his hand and adjusted the sunglasses. Even from thirty feet away, Joanna could see his tanned biceps knot against the shirt's short sleeves. He seemed to dwarf the midsize Ford, but not because he was such a huge man. There was something else about him. And just like that, she knew who he was.

  And in that same millisecond of recognition, she also knew he was trouble. Her stomach dropped like a rock. "Oh, hell."

  He started up the limestone pathway toward the porch with a get-out-of-my-way swagger. His face might not be clearly visible, but the shape of his body—square shoulders and slim hips—couldn't be mistaken. A schoolgirl giddiness skittered around inside her. She didn't even try to resist letting her eyes feast on his total maleness.

  Though she was wearing her worst clothing, she was glad she hadn't been out to feed the cattle this morning, glad he wouldn't see her dripping with sweat and covered with hay dirt and cow manure. In fact, for some reason this morning, she had taken extra pains with her makeup, and she was glad of that, too.

  Still wiping her hands on her apron, she slipped past the screen door onto the plank porch. Feeling strangely insecure and trembly, she said nothing.

  The man said nothing either. His sunglasses were the mirrored aviator type, so she couldn't see his eyes. He peeled them off, hung them in the neck of his T-shirt, planted his hands on his hips again and looked up at
her with the most intense eyes she had ever seen on a man. They were the color of strong coffee, like Clova's eyes. They seemed to touch her everywhere at the same time, from her face to her feet, jolting her at a keenly visceral level. Hearing him accurately quote her bra size wouldn't even surprise her.

  Months, even years, had passed since she had seen that lean and hungry look in a man, a look that had always stirred her blood and sent her skulking to a dark corner to give herself a constructive lecture on men. As clear as the blue in the sky, she saw it today in Dalton Parker. She might not be an expert when it came to the human male, but that mysterious allure that poured off Dalton Parker in waves charged through her system like a raging river.

  "You the one who called?" he asked.

  His speech was sharp and clipped. No sign of a Texas twang. At the same time, his voice was deep and soft, with an almost smoky rasp and a resonance that zoomed straight to the same deeply buried part of her that her first glimpse of him had gone.

  A gentle breeze sent strands of hair across her face. Grateful for the distraction, she reached up and tried to tuck them back into place, fighting for a smile and forcing herself to look him in the eye."You must be Dalton."

  Two wooden steps led from the porch down to the stone path. For the first time ever, she looked down to make sure she didn't miss one of them as she stepped down to where he stood. She stuck out her right hand and he took it.

  "I'm Joanna Walsh." She pumped their hands up and down, still looking into his face, not daring to let her gaze drop to where her aberrant thoughts had taken her. "I was a sophomore when you were a senior. When I was in school I went by my whole name, which is Joanna Faye, after my grandmother. But I shortened it because... Well, for obvious reasons. I remember you, though. I used to go to the football games with my big sister, Lanita, and see you playing. You might—"

  "Yeah, you're right." He freed his hand from hers and continued to look around. "I don't remember."

  "Oh. Well, you've been gone a long time."

  Shut. Up, she told herself and drew a breath.

  "Where's my mom?" he asked.

  "Uh, one of the neighbors called about a break in the fence. She's gone to feed and to check on it."

  "Which one?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Which neighbor?"

  "Oh. Uh, Hulsey. August Hulsey. Do you know him?"

  "Not anymore."

  "Oh. Of course you used to know him." She lifted her open palms and let them fall. "I mean, he's been around here forever. He's old now."

  It was eleven o'clock on a Friday morning in September in the Texas Panhandle. The sun was already a ball of fire in a blue sky dotted with mushrooming white thunderheads and the temperature was over ninety. "It's hot," she said. "There's some fresh sun tea. Would you like some?"

  "Yeah."

  She stepped back up onto the porch and reached for the screen door handle. As she pulled, the old wooden door stuck. She jerked and it came loose with a pop. The edge whacked her right between the eyes, knocking her head backward and causing a shot of pain that almost blinded her. Her hand flew to the spot.

  He was suddenly standing behind her, his thick arm to the right of her face, holding the door open. His scent, woodsy and masculine, surrounded her. "You hurt?"

  "Uh, no. I'm fine. Sorry. It needs work done on it. The porch has shifted and...well, anyway…"

  She dropped her hand and walked on into the house. The spot just above the bridge of her nose throbbed with every quick pulse beat, but she resisted rubbing it.

  The Parker ranch house had been built before homes had entries, so the front door opened into the living room. He stopped just inside and looked around, no doubt reacquainting himself.

  "Uh, that tea's in the kitchen." She wound her way through the dining room into the kitchen. He followed.

  She grabbed a bowl from the cupboard, pulled a plastic ice tray from the refrigerator and began to twist it and break out ice cubes into the bowl. "Uh, your mom doesn't use the ice maker. The well water isn't fit to drink, as you might remember. It corrodes plumbing so bad, Clova has to battle it all the time. The cistern got a crack in it last year and quit holding water. She buys drinking water in town now."

  He continued to look at her intently as she prattled like a twit. Under his scrutiny, just preparing a glass of iced tea seemed like a Herculean task, but she finally succeeded and handed it to him. He took it and sipped, then looked down into the brown liquid for a few seconds. He looked back at her. "Got any sugar?"

  "Sugar? Oh, yes. Certainly." She could have sworn she had put sugar in that tea. She strode across the kitchen as if it were her own, lifted a china sugar bowl from the cupboard and a spoon from a drawer and handed both to him.

  He sauntered into the dining room carrying his tea and the sugar bowl. He took a seat at the round oak dining table, dumped three heaping teaspoons of sugar into the tea and stirred. When he caught her staring, he said, as if she had asked, "I got used to the way they drink tea overseas."

  She nodded and sank to a chair adjacent to his. Now, with him no more than three feet away, she let herself take in his square jaw, the dark shadow of his beard, the defined cleft of his upper lip that perfectly fit against a full, square lower lip. She stopped herself; she never stared at men's mouths. "I see. Where, um, would 'overseas' be?"

  "The Middle East." He nodded toward the glass she had poured for herself. She wasn't even conscious she had brought it from the kitchen. "Aren't you drinking?" he asked.

  "Yes. Yes, I am." She picked up her glass and sipped. "I take mine straight," she added with a silly giggle.

  Her forehead throbbed like hell and she could feel the sting of broken skin. No doubt a bruise would greet her in the mirror tomorrow.

  He picked up his glass and she watched as he drank deeply, his throat muscles working rhythmically. The temperature in the old house was probably eighty, but she felt an urge to shiver.

  The glass had made a ring of condensation on the table. The round table, an antique, had been refinished recently and Clova was careful about marring it. Joanna grabbed a paper napkin from a holder in the middle of the table and swiped away the moisture.

  He gave the tabletop, then her, a look. "Do you live here or something?"

  "Uh, no. I'm just..." She stopped. How could she come up with a short explanation for why she was in someone else's house making herself at home. Whatever explanation she concocted, she suspected this guy wouldn't believe her. "I live in town. It's like I said in the phone message I left you. I'm a friend helping out."

  His forearms, tanned, with ropey veins standing out against defined muscle, came to rest on the tabletop. "Then you must know when my mother started raising chickens."

  Chapter 7

  "Oh." Joanna sat up straighter and blinked. "Well, uh, those are mine. I'm in the egg business. You know, free-range eggs?"

  "Are you bullshitting me?"

  The words came at her sharp as knives. "It’s—it's part of the organic food craze that's going around these days. What it means is the hens aren't kept penned up. They live freely and feed on bugs and grass and stuff, like they used to in the old days. I still have to feed them some, but—"

  "I know about free-range eggs. You'd have to sell a helluva a lot of eggs to make that worthwhile. So you're what, leasing land from my mother for that?"

  She almost told him that she used the land for free, but the tone of his question and a gut instinct stilled her tongue. Clova's statement of a few days ago emerged in her consciousness. If somethin' happened to me, I know them boys wouldn't let you keep these chickens or these donkeys here. They'd prob'ly run you clear off.

  Dammit, she didn't want to have this conversation with him without his mother's presence. And she certainly didn't want to end up in a confrontation with a friend's son whom she didn't even know. Wounded by his antagonistic tone, she stammered, "Uh, well, um, not really. We've kind of got a deal we both like. It's, um, hard to explain."

/>   "I'm beginning to see that. And those jackasses are part of this egg business?"

  "Actually, they're supposed to keep predators away."

  His mouth didn't smirk, but she could see the disdain in his eyes. As quick as lightning, that look turned her anxiety into irritation, if not downright anger. She had done nothing wrong. Why should she feel so intimidated by him? After all, he was the one who had ignored his family. "They do keep the predators away," she added more firmly.

  "That's hard to believe. Your message said my mother's sick. What's wrong with her?"

  "I can't imagine that you don't know, but she had walking pneumonia back in the spring. It really got a grip on her and she hasn't been able to stop working long enough to get well. She's better, but still not a hundred percent. She waited too long to go to the doctor."

  He said not one word, just looked at her, then picked up his glass and finished off his tea.

  She abandoned hope of congenial conversation. "Did you drive here, uh, Dalton? I can call you Dalton, right? Or would you prefer Mr. Parker?"

  "You can call me Dalton."

  Ass! She held her tongue, but her eyes bugged.

  He turned his attention to the dining room's picture window and the view of the fenced pasture where the hens lived. In the sun-brightened area, they were strutting and clucking and scratching the ground for bugs.

  Gray life-size plastic owls perched on posts at strategic locations. Her two donkeys grazed beside a short flagpole from which long, thin and silky Asian flags fluttered and flicked pointed ends in the breeze, all of it her effort to protect the hens from flying predators. She didn't have to be told that a source potentially even more fatal than a chicken hawk had arrived. Suddenly her business was in more jeopardy than ever. She had no idea whether Clova would resist if her oldest son insisted the hens be removed.

  She cleared her throat. "So, um, did you drive all the way from California?"

  "Flew to Lubbock. That piece of shit in the driveway's a rental." He got to his feet. "There's usually a work truck around here. Where is it?"