Lost in Tennessee

by DeVito, Anita

  Kate looked around the small cab, reaching for knobs that controlled the hydraulics.

  Butch slapped at her hands. “No touching.”

  She frowned but didn’t reach again. “Doesn’t it go faster?”

  “Sure, but there’s something to be said for taking your time.”

  “That something is that it’s freaking slow.” She put her foot over his and pressed.

  The tractor lurched forward, giving them both a good knock. “Stop that.”

  “When can I drive?”

  “Later. McCormicks have farmed this land since the 1800s. The crops have changed, the farm has grown, but this place has always been ours.”

  Kate listened to the history of the land Butch loved. He never actually said he loved it, but he didn’t have to. It was there in every building and tree and rock that had a story. Butch had a way of talking that drew her in. She wanted to know what his crazy great-uncle did during that full moon. She cared about the men who worked the land while their sons fought a war a world away.

  Butch parked the tractor close to a pond fed by the creek that cut through the property. It had rained two days prior, leaving the pond filled high and the low spots in the road muddy. Kate extracted herself from Butch’s lap and hopped to the ground. It was an experience, riding like that. Being that close made her heart and stomach flutter. She worried that he noticed what he did to her, but how could he know that whenever his hand brushed against her, a thousand butterflies batted their wings?

  “My grandfather built this pond and stocked it. My grandmother complained about him running off to God knew where to fish, so he built this pond. That way, she knew exactly where he was. Do you fish?”

  “I’m not much of an outdoors girl. We didn’t camp or any of that kind of stuff.”

  Butch took her hand, leading her out onto the wood pier. “Maybe we’ll try it. There’s nothing like camping out under the stars.”

  Kate didn’t know what to make of the comment. She didn’t expect to see him after today, so why talk about anything beyond dinner? “Maybe,” she said noncommittally before changing the subject. “What kind of fish do you stock? Anything that tastes good?”

  Butch rattled off a list of fish that Kate had never heard of, offering to take her fishing.

  “Maybe,” she said again. “Can we walk? It’s such a pretty day. I don’t get to just be outside too often.”

  As if understanding English, the dog raced ahead down a footpath.

  Butch took her elbow and led the way. “You never did say what you do for a living.”

  “I’m an architect.”

  Butch cocked his head as though the answer surprised him. It forever frustrated her that it didn’t surprise anyone when Tom said he was an engineer, but when she said she was an architect, people acted like they didn’t know what the word meant.

  “What? You’ve never met a female architect before?”

  Butch stroked her arm. “Don’t get ruffled. I don’t know that I’ve ever met any architect, male or female.”

  She backpedalled, physically and verbally. “Sorry. I thought you thought, uh, sorry.”

  Butch took her wrist and tugged, giving her no option but to walk with him again. “I expected you to do something mechanical.”

  “Oh. I’ve always loved tinkering with machines, but buildings are my passion. The idea that something I imagine today will be around hundreds of years just, well, fascinates me. Like your house.”

  “Not much to look at.”

  Kate bumped into him, admonishing his disrespect. “Don’t you dare talk about her that way. She’s strong and beautiful with twice as much grace as ninety percent of the houses built today.”

  Butch bumped her harder, using the grip on her wrist to pull her back. “I’ve always thought of the house as a ‘her,’ too. Do you design homes?”

  Kate twisted her wrist, gaining her freedom but then lamented the loss. Could she reach out and take his hand? He had taken hers, so he probably wouldn’t protest. But she couldn’t. Her hand wouldn’t move. “No. My company, Riley Architects and Engineers, specializes in commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings.”

  “You have a partner? His name is Tom?”

  Kate nodded. “He’s a major pain in the ass. He has been his whole life.”

  “Why are you with him?”

  “When he’s not a pain in the ass, he’s brilliant.”

  Spring raged around them in brilliant greens. Birds called through the air, creating a tapestry of sound. The black Lab, whose name she now knew was Bullet, but she’d come to think of as Chubsy, added to the sounds by rustling under the brush and bramble.

  The path followed along the creek until a drop off, where it turned and connected back to the road. Kate could see the tractor a short walk away, but a mud puddle the width of the road and just as long stood in between. A perfect spot for a little fun.

  Kate bumped Butch with her shoulder. “Betcha I can clear that puddle better than you.”

  Butch snorted. “That’s not a puddle, it’s a pond.”

  “Chicken? Loser buys lunch.” Ten feet from the edge of the water, Kate made ready to run.

  “You’re on. You first.”

  Kate shook her head. “Together.”

  Butch matched her at the starting line. “On the count of three. One…two…three!”

  Chapter Three

  Feet digging into the soft earth, they both bolted from the starting line. One step before the leap, Kate stopped. She saw that instant of confusion when he tried to stop, but he was too far committed, and the ground too soft. He slid into the puddle like a runner stealing second.

  Covered in mud from his toes to his chest, Butch punched at the fluid surface. “You cheat!”

  He looked spectacular. Raw and earthy and riled.

  “I don’t know what you’re pissed about. You won. I’m buying lunch.” She couldn’t keep up the innocent act and broke into laughter. She picked her way around the edge of the puddle, looking for high ground. “It’s supposed to be good for you. I hear spas charge a lot of money to wallow in mud.”

  Instead of looking for the high ground, she should have been looking for the hand that snaked over. “Then, why don’t you join me?”

  And just like that, she flew sideways into the puddle. The afternoon temperatures had reached a comfortable seventy degrees, but the water temperature crested closer to fifty.

  “Bastard!” The cold water shocked her warm skin. Instinct made her pop up, but gravity put her right back in the water. The harder she fought, the wetter she got and the harder she laughed.

  Butch sat at the edge of the puddle, his back to the winter wheat growing in the spring sun. Kate thought he looked a little too clean.

  “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t.”

  Kate put on the innocent face she’d perfected as a teen. “What?”

  “Kate. Katie. I’m serious.”

  Kate launched herself at Butch, wrapping her muddy arms around his shoulders. He rolled them into the wheat, alternating laughing and cursing her.

  “You muddy…little…brat.”

  Chubsy ran thought the wheat, hopping around their prone bodies, barking his head off.

  “Busted,” Kate said, filled with so much joy she couldn’t contain it.

  Butch stood first and offered her a hand. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  Their hands slipped, but Butch caught her wrist and pulled her to her feet. “I can’t believe you fell for that.”

  Butch swatted her behind. “I’m going to have to keep my eye on you.”

  Butch leaned against the counter, ankles and arms crossed, as he watched the dinner preparations. Kate handled farm equipment like a pro. She couldn’t skip a stone across the pond but had the arm of a left-handed relief pitcher. Put a tool or piece of equipment in her hands, and the woman moved with the air and confidence of a queen.

  Here in the kitchen, she was a fish out of water.

>   “Is the chicken supposed to be that color? It is chicken, right?”

  She wrinkled her nose and glared at the skillet. “Of course it’s chicken. Haven’t you ever heard of blackened?”

  “Blackened is not the same as burned.”

  Kate covered the skillet with a lid and pointed at him with a wooden spoon. “Since when did you become the chef? This is my specialty. Don’t you have farmer work to do?”

  “Farmer work?”

  “Aren’t you a farmer?”

  Here it was, the perfect opportunity to tell the truth. But what would happen then? He liked this woman. The one he washed down with the hose. The one denying dinner was burning. He just needed a little more time with her, a little more time with the real her and the real him. “I’m a songwriter. I just help my father with the farm.”

  Kate shifted her focus from the skillet to the pot. She used the wooden spoon to stir the red glop he suspected of being a kind of sauce.

  “That’s a cool job. Have you written anything I would have heard?”

  “Maybe. Do you listen to country music?”

  Kate shook the bottle of basil over the pot until the mystery contents were greener than the lawn. “I don’t listen to much music at all. Sometimes the guys will have the radio on in the trailer, but I never really notice it.”

  Butch winced when she took up the salt shaker. “We grew up with music in the house. My mother plays piano, and my father sings. Jeb and I both have played piano and guitar since we were big enough to handle the instruments.”

  “I grew up on construction sites. I drove a Bobcat when I was twelve. By sixteen, I was a better backhoe operator than most of the guys on my father’s crew. This has about twenty minutes yet. Will you play a song for me?”

  “You want to hear one of my songs?”

  She adjusted the temperature on the stove. “Yes. This has to simmer for a little while so we have time.”

  Butch winced at the thought of the chicken “blackening” for twenty more minutes as he took her hand and led her upstairs. He sat on the bar stool and lifted his favorite guitar into his lap. Kate crossed her legs and sat tailor fashion in the middle of the floor. She rested her chin on her folded hands and looked up at him with wide, blue eyes.

  Butch saw those eyes and forgot his name. He dropped his pick, fumbling it again when she handed it to him. She pulled the band from her ponytail, letting her hair fall around her shoulders like a sinful rain. The guitar slipped from his leg. Good thing the strap around his shoulder caught.

  Butch swallowed a lump in his throat and began a sultry ballad accompanied by his acoustic guitar. Kate never looked away. Those amazing eyes focused on him so intently he nearly forgot the words. He sang to her, willing her to understand that the words he sang, he sang just for her.

  When he finished, she sprang to her feet. “You are amazing! How are you not, like, King of Nashville?”

  His fingers picked out another tune. He sang with a joy he hadn’t felt in a long time, fueled by the carefree happiness displayed as his audience spun in circles in the intimate space.

  The alarm on Kate’s phone rang. “Time flew, didn’t it? You are amazing. I can’t believe you haven’t won an Oscar or Tony. Which one is for music?”

  “A Grammy.” He knew, because he had one. Vegas had good odds on him getting another.

  “Yeah. A Grammy. Come on, let’s eat dinner.”

  They set the kitchen table with white cloth, real napkins, two red candles, and the good glasses. The sunlight waned as night began to rise, providing a backdrop of cotton ball clouds for the candlelight dinner.

  Kate plated the chicken and pasta at the stove and set the two dishes on the pretty table.

  Butch opened the bottle of wine and generously wet the glasses. “This is nice.”

  “It makes me feel like a grown up, eating off of something you don’t throw away.” Katie accepted her glass. “What should we drink to?”

  He raised his glass to the things that brought her to him. “Construction zones, wrong turns, and flat tires.”

  She guffawed and raised her glass high. “Your granddad’s sign, a John Deere tractor, and a mud puddle the size of Delaware.”

  Glass kissed glass. Lips touched glass while gazes met.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” Kate said. “I made enough for you to have leftovers for a few days.”

  Butch inspected the green-speckled sea of red on his plate. He poked at the rubbery lump of flesh, wondering how something could be raw and burned at the same time, and stabbed at the pile of mushy pasta with his fork.

  Kate sliced the bread that had come from the bakery. “It’s not a field mouse, and you’re not a cat. Stop playing with your food and eat it.”

  Butch raised his eyes. “You first, Katie.”

  “Chicken.” Kate put the bit of chicken into her mouth. She chewed once, twice, and snapped the napkin from the table to discreetly spit out the wad of macerated flesh.

  Butch roared with laughter. “Your specialty, huh?”

  Kate rolled her eyes and blushed. “I’m better at building things.”

  “Come on, Chef Boyardee, I’ll buy you dinner before I take you to your motel.”

  “You’ll buy me dinner?”

  “Yeah, well, don’t get your hopes up too high. All you’re getting is mediocre pizza and cold beer.”

  Kate gave him a dazzling smile. “A vast improvement. I’ll provide the stimulating conversation.”

  Kate delivered, regaling him with colorful tales from her life. She claimed to be a homebody, but her body seemed to be everywhere but home. She traveled where her work took her, collecting stories along the way. Butch listened, encouraged her, drawing out the night as long as he could.

  Their easy conversation ended when he pulled into the shit hole of a motel. An inferno waited to happen in the single-story building, where half-dead scrub brush grew from wide cracks in the pavement. Litter blew like tumbleweed across the fractured asphalt, and bruised and battered vehicles lay like corpses left after a battle.

  He looked at the five-and-a-half foot tall, hundred-and-nothing pound woman who held her chin up as though they parked in front of a posh salon instead of this reject from the penal system.

  “You’re not staying here, Katie.”

  “I know it’s nasty, but there aren’t many options. Maybe my next project will be designing a nice hotel with crown moldings and pest-free carpet.”

  She had to hate the roach motel. Butch couldn’t imagine anyone who spoke lovingly about his old farmhouse enjoying one moment in this joint. Just looking at it made his skin crawl.

  She sat in the passenger seat, a sour look on her face quickly hidden with a shrug of her shoulders. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  Pride. Butch squeezed the steering wheel and shook his head. It had cost her a lot of pride to let him bring her here. “You’re coming back home with me.”

  Kate blinked twice. “Home with you?”

  “I have plenty of space.” Butch looked around. “It’s only a twenty-minute drive, and my house has everything.”

  She sat still as a statue for a long moment. “Are you serious?”

  Butch looked back at the Bates Motel. “Absolutely.”

  In an instant, she erupted in full motion. “I’ll pay rent. I can fix things. I’ll do half the cooking.”

  “You don’t have to pay rent. Hell, I don’t pay rent. And you are not cooking…ever. I don’t need you fixing things, either. I can hire somebody if I need to.”

  Kate’s shoulders sagged, her hands fell into her lap, her gaze on her feet. All that life, all that energy vanished. “Then I can’t stay. I want to. I really, really do, but I have to earn my way. I can’t explain it. I just have to. Sorry.”

  The respect Butch had for her grew ten times in that moment. Since he had “made it big,” too many people were too ready to let him pick up the bill. He’d gotten used to it along the way. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have surprised h
im that Kate would need to stand on her own.

  “All right. I started a list for myself. I’ll appreciate any help you can give me. But just so we understand each other, you’re welcome without it.”

  She snapped her face toward him. Her blues eyes wide and shining. “Thanks. Thank you.” She leaned into him and laid a shy kiss on his jaw.

  Butch inhaled her scent as she leaned in close. Strawberries. She smelled like summer strawberries, and dear Lord, he was hungry.

  “You’re welcome.” That soft kiss went all the way to his toes. He ran his hand up and down her smooth arm, soothing his need. “Let’s get your things.”

  Kate unlocked the door with a little shimmying, opened it, and flipped on the lights.

  “Holy shit! How long have you been living here?” Twenty bucks a night would have been too much for the dump of a room. Every piece of mismatched furniture was broken or dented, and the fluorescent light in the bathroom flickered like a bug zapper in July.

  “About three months.” Kate stuffed files into a paper box. “Glamorous, isn’t it?”

  “I’m going to need a tetanus shot.” Butch lifted her suitcase from where she had stacked it on an inverted chair.

  Kate hauled another suitcase from a precarious position on the top of the television. “Another Slice of Heaven shot should take care of anything out to get you.”

  He stacked her file folders on top and hooked the door open with his foot. “Good idea. You’re buying.”

  The Sly Dog was indeed a slice of Heaven, even if Kate did stick with bottled beer having names she recognized. Sunday brought out a smaller crowd, but the band kept the place hopping. Trudy and Hyde sat with a couple Kate met the night before. Eyebrows lifted when she walked in with Butch. He wanted to keep it quiet that she would be staying with him. With his divorce proceedings starting, he expected the eye of public opinion to be watching him, and didn’t want her dragged into it. Kate argued that paying him rent would keep everything above board, but Butch wouldn’t have any of it. So they concocted the true story that Butch would be driving Kate to work in the morning where she would get a company truck.

  None of his friends believed it. Kate saw it in their faces. They all thought she and Butch were sleeping together. She looked at the strong jaw and dusty blue eyes and didn’t mind the rumor. It elevated her stock, the thought that she could have a man like Butch.