“I got it as soon as I got recruited into the defense firm I worked for in San Antonio. I hated the job a lot more than I’d ever imagined I would, but I sure did love the perks.” He walked to the vehicle and opened the passenger door for her. “I have our tacos in a Styrofoam cooler in the back.”
She breathed deeply of the aroma let off by the tacos in the back seat. “I think I still love him.” She said the words jokingly because of the tacos, but as soon as they left her lips, she knew they were true. She was still in love with Ciran, the only boy who had ever broken her heart. What on earth was she thinking going out with him?
Ciran slid in beside her, and he started the car. Before he backed out of her driveway, he put his hand over hers. “Remember how your dad and Bobling chased me off your property when I showed up in my beat-up Chevy truck to take you to our first ballgame together?”
Roxane laughed softly. “I do. I miss Bobling still.”
“Is he still in the Marines?”
“Yeah. He said he’s not coming back here until everyone he’s ever known has forgotten his ridiculous nickname. I can’t blame him, but I really do like it. He’s always been Bobling to me.”
“Yeah, if people called me Bobling, I think I might have to shoot myself.”
“If I remember right, you did once shoot yourself with your dad’s BB gun.”
“Yeah, well, I was six, and I wasn’t supposed to touch the thing.” He winked at her as he stopped at the park. “Did you bring bread to feed the ducks?”
“Oh, no! I forgot!”
“It’s okay. I have some old tortillas from yesterday I figured we could use if you didn’t bring bread.” He reached into the back and grabbed the Styrofoam cooler and a drink holder like you would get from a fast food place. “You’re going to have to open your own door, Cinderella. I’m going to assume you know how by now.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I’ve been known to open my own door once or twice.”
“Glad to hear it. I wouldn’t want you to be stranded in my car simply because I had no free hands.”
The park was surprisingly quiet for a summer evening, but Roxane knew they were probably all at the water park. She had spent every available minute in the water park as a girl, and she was sure others did the same. “I think I can make it.”
Together, they walked to an empty picnic table, and Roxie eyed the cooler. She hoped he’d thought to bring sopapillas, because she could live on a steady diet of them.
He slowly pulled out tacos. Three of them had Rs on them, and she knew they were for her. The others were blank. “No Cs for yours?”
“There’s no point in wasting my energy on that. If it doesn’t have an R, it’s mine.”
“I guess.” She took the drink he handed her and sipped through the straw. “I still love Lime Rickeys as much as I did when I was a girl. They just somehow mean summer fun to me.”
“They do to me, too. Always have.” He took a sip of his own and looked at her as she slowly opened her tacos. He’d slipped in a couple of new flavors that evening, knowing she’d like them.
She carefully unwrapped her first taco and looked at it curiously. “Is that pulled pork?”
He nodded. “Best tacos out there!”
She looked at the taco skeptically before she took a bite. “OMG. These are fabulous!”
“I know!” He sighed, taking a bite of his own taco. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to even find the right ingredients to imitate Tex-Mex tacos here, but I can find the produce. I have to order some of the spices, but I need to have them in bulk anyway.”
“Can you get the produce here in town?” she asked.
He laughed. “No, I get most of it shipped in from Lewiston. Our grocery store here leaves a lot to be desired.”
“Yeah, it does.” She opened the next taco and pulled out a ground beef taco with some refried beans slathered on it and cheese all over it. There was even some guacamole on it. “You are really speaking my language with these tacos. I didn’t even know I liked tacos so much!”
Ciran shrugged. “Unless you’ve had really good tacos, there’s no reason to know you love them. I discovered in college that tacos were my real love, not the law, but I felt like I needed to at least try to make law work for me.”
“And how long did you practice?” Roxane asked softly. She hated that he must have accumulated a huge debt in student loans, only to stop so quickly.
“Three years. And they were three very long years. I was practicing criminal law, and the way the people in my firm did things really bothered me. I didn’t last long, but I got my loans paid off and saved up enough for my taco truck, and that’s all I needed really.”
She grinned at that. “The taco truck was definitely worth the money. How did you end up parking it next to my parents’ hotel?”
“My grandmother owns the land next door. She said it was such a small piece, there wasn’t much she could do with it, and when I was looking for a place to park the truck, she offered it to me, like she’d been saving it for me my entire life. I can’t really complain, because it’s a prime location.”
“It is that. You’re close to the hot springs, and you’ll get tons of traffic from the hotel. And people walk down that street with their rafts to start over at the top of the river. I think it’ll be perfect.” The town was known for having a “natural lazy river” that people came from miles around to float down.
“I do, too. I’m super excited. I don’t know what will happen in winter, but if I can build up a big enough clientele of locals, I think they’ll still come get their lunches from me.”
“Will you only be open for lunch?” Roxie bit into her chicken taco, barely avoiding moaning aloud. She didn’t want to do that in front of him, but the taco was good.
“In the summer, I’ll try to be open from ten to seven or so. During the winter, probably just from ten to two. I’ll see how it goes and what the demand is.” He shrugged. “I’m also hoping to be able to do some catering. You should let people who are doing parties at the hotel know that I’m an option.”
“Catering is a lot of work. You’re going to need to hire people to help you out.”
“That’s all right.” He took a sip of his soft drink. “You know anyone looking for a part-time job this summer?”
“I really don’t. I know we’re full up with employees for the season. I’ll ask some of the teens if they have siblings needing a job.”
“You have teenagers making up the rooms like you used to do when we were in high school?”
She nodded, wrinkling her nose. “I hated working in housekeeping, but you know my dad. If you haven’t worked your way up through the ranks, you’ll never understand being a boss.” She was the only one of her siblings who cared about the hotel industry at all. All three of her sisters were more interested in the healing side of things.
“And have you worked your way to where you want to be now?” Ciran asked as he pulled a tin foil pouch full of sopapillas from the cooler along with several packets of honey and two plates.
“I think this is what I want to do. It was always my dream to be the event coordinator. I thought planning parties would be the ultimate job back in high school. Do you remember that?”
“You didn’t even like parties in high school, so it never made sense to me why you wanted to be a party planner.”
She sighed. “High school parties consisted of driving up into the mountains and getting drunk. I never saw any benefit in that. I like real parties.”
“And what’s a real party, Cinderella?”
“Why have you always called me Cinderella? It never made sense to me.”
“Because you were the girl I wanted to take to every ball, and I wanted my happily ever after with you.” Ciran knew it was corny, but it was the honest truth, and she needed to know that.
She stared at him for a moment, embarrassed by a tear that popped into her eye. “That’s really sweet. Why are you so sweet?”
&
nbsp; He shrugged. “No idea. I just always have been.” He put two of the sopapillas on her plate and took two for himself. “Darn! I forgot the butter. Next time, I’ll bring butter, and you’ll get a truly wonderful culinary experience.”
“Culinary experience? Why are you talking all hoity toity? I happen to know you’re just an Idaho ranch boy.” An Idaho ranch boy she had always loved.
He grinned. “I guess I got a little culture in college.”
“I’m not sure you can call what you pick up in Texas culture . . . at least you really shouldn’t . . .”
“I never started saying y’all, so I haven’t abandoned my roots.” He opened a package of tortillas and gave her the top half. “For the ducks.”
As soon as she threw a piece, the ducks started gathering around them. “Thank you for bringing sopapillas. My mom is in love with them, too.” She looked at him for a moment and tilted her head to one side. “My grandmother told me to bring a date for Independence Day. We do fireworks, and the whole family who is still in the area gets together. Huge picnic and we always grill out. Want to come?” She held her breath. Even when they’d been dating for years, she’d never gotten up the courage to ask him out.
“I’d love to. I can hire someone to work the truck that day. I really should find a teenager somewhere.”
“Yeah, you should. Sounds good. Want to pick me up at about ten? I’ll take enough food for both of us.”
“No, let me take some of my tacos. I’ll make four dozen, and then maybe your father will decide I’m good enough for you.”
“Because you make good tacos? He’d probably have preferred you stayed a lawyer.” She popped her last bite of sopapilla into her mouth and then started feeding the ducks in earnest.
“He never did like me, did he?”
“He never thought you’d amount to anything.” Roxie didn’t need to say why. She knew he was aware.
“Because my mom ran off when I was a little boy and my drunk father raised me? I had my grandmother, and she wasn’t going to let me be anything like my father. She said she’d learned from her mistakes.” Ciran wasn’t bitter about his upbringing because his grandmother had always been there for him. He was annoyed that Roxane’s father could never see past his parentage.
“I never thought it was fair that he blamed your father on you. I’ve never seen you touch a drop of alcohol.”
“I never have,” he said softly. “I learned from my father’s mistakes. It was one of the biggest bones of contention with my law firm. They thought I should drink when entertaining clients, and I always refused.”
“A man shouldn’t have to go against his principles to have the job he wants.” Roxie got to her feet and brushed off her hands. “We have about fifteen minutes to get to the theater.”
“I remember I used to sweat about whether or not you would want a drink or popcorn. I never had enough money for anything more than the movie, but I knew you were used to getting whatever you wanted whenever you wanted because your family pretty much owns the entire valley.”
“Not the entire valley,” she said with a shrug. “And I always knew your financial situation, so I never worried about getting anything at the movie. And if we went out to eat, I would just get a bowl of soup so I wouldn’t have to be expensive. It made me feel better.”
“And here I thought you just loved soup!”
“Oh, I do love soup. I make a huge pot on Sunday afternoon every week all winter long, and then I eat on that soup all week. Sometimes I only have it for my lunches, but a lot of times, I’m having lunch and dinner of soup. I rotate the soups out every week, though.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I realized just how much I missed you until you were standing in front of me again. It seems so strange to have you beside me after so much time apart.”
“You were the one who left for college, not me. I did mine online, so I could stay in the valley and work forever.”
“Do you ever regret not having the full college experience? With dorms and roommates and all that?” Ciran asked. He’d gotten a full ride scholarship for his football. He had lived in the dorm and done all the other normal college things.
“Not at all,” Roxane answered. “I was never a social butterfly, and the idea of living with a stranger freaked me out. I was so happy just to stay home and do my school online. I didn’t have to interact nearly as much.”
“So you never had a college sweetheart?”
“I’ve dated one man in my life, Ciran. You do the math.”
He stopped with his hand on the door handle of his car and just stared at her. He hadn’t dated in college either. He’d gotten his law degree and worked his butt off so he could go back to Idaho as the returning hero and sweep his girl off her feet, and his girl’s father would then approve of him. He’d even bought the Jaguar for just that purpose.
She was already in the car when he slid in beside her. “Really?” he asked, his voice soft and disbelieving.
“Really. There was never another man that I wanted to date. There was only you, Ciran.”
As he drove the short distance to the movie theater—nothing was more than two minutes away from anything else in Quinn Valley—he wasn’t sure what to say to her. He was pleased she’d not dated anyone else, because he wanted to be the only man who had ever kissed her. It was stupid, and he was sure it was even a bit caveman-ish, but it’s how he felt, and he refused to be ashamed of it.
Chapter Four
At the theater, they sat toward the middle, the back row already completely full of teenagers looking for a spot to make out. Ciran grinned at Roxane, remembering how they’d sat in the back more times than he could count themselves. It was the perfect place for kissing and ignoring the movies.
They sank into their seats, and he slipped his arm around her shoulders. He wondered if she would mind, but he certainly hoped she wouldn’t. There was something about sitting close to your girl in a dark theater that called for your arm to be around her.
Roxane snuggled close, realizing just then how much she had missed his touch. She hadn’t kissed a man in over eight years, and the man beside her would be kissed that night. She didn’t care if he tried to kiss her or not; she was going for it if he didn’t.
The movie was the typical action movie everyone expected from a superhero flick. She had never been a big fan of action movies, but it did give her a need to bury her face in his chest over and over, which didn’t disappoint her.
As soon as the movie was over, they joined the throng heading out of the theater. “Did you know that in Texas, they show like eight movies at a time in theaters?”
She laughed. “Are you making fun of the Quinn Valley theater with its one movie at a time?”
“Never!” he said with a grin, knowing she understood. As much as he loved the little town, it was a huge culture shock after living in San Antonio for eight years.
“Do you want to get some ice cream?” he asked. “I think Valley Ice Cream is still open.”
“Sure. That sounds good.” As long as she could spend a little more time with him, she was happy. She wouldn’t be happy in the morning when she had to be in her office by eight, but what did that matter when she had Ciran at her side?
At the tiny little ice cream parlor, they each chose a flavor of homemade ice cream. That was the benefit of living in a place like they did. Everyone did things fresh and homemade, and they were the beneficiaries of it all.
Roxie chose chocolate marshmallow, which had always been her favorite, and Ciran chose black cherry. They took their cones outside and walked among the tourists on the street. Many were wearing just their bathing suits, but some were attired more decently in shorts and t-shirts. They found an empty bench and sat watching the people.
“I’m already ready for winter, and I shouldn’t be. My family does much better business in the summer, but we’re expanding to cover the water park. We own it now, but it will be an indoor resort by winter, and there will be lots m
ore taco sales. Plus, the people who come to soak for their health. They’ll buy tacos! Tacos are healthy!”
“How are you settling into the new job?”
She couldn’t remember if she’d told him about the new job or not, but in a small town there was absolutely no hiding anything from anyone. “I love it. I’ve already started booking events. We didn’t have any on our schedule for the rest of the year.”
“Then it was time you stepped in. Any of them need a taco menu?”
She frowned at him. “Are you dating me for connections to the hotel or because you really missed me?”
“If I wanted connections to the hotel, I’d have my grandmother talk to yours. I think they still do tea every Wednesday, don’t they? No, I’m dating you because every time I’ve closed my eyes for eight years, I saw you. Really for more like ten years because it started when we first started dating. Probably even a couple of years before that because I had a crush forever before I finally got up the guts to ask you out at the beginning of our junior year.”
“You did not!” Roxie had a crush on him since the first day of seventh grade. She’d gone to school in Quinn Valley her whole life, but they’d both gone to high school in Riston. While his grandmother had lived in Quinn Valley, he’d been raised in the Riston school district, so they hadn’t met until junior high.
“I did. Why does that surprise you so much? Don’t you remember how I stuttered and fell all over myself when I finally got up the guts to ask you out?”
“Well, sure, but . . . I didn’t know you’d had feelings before that.”
“I did. I waited until Bobling joined the military before I got serious about you, though. I was afraid he’d squash me like a bug.”
“But you were the football star!” What was he talking about?
“Don’t you remember? I took over Bobling’s spot when he graduated. He was the football star before me.”
She frowned, thinking about it. “I guess that’s true.”
Taco-Truck Tryst (Quinn Valley Ranch Book 1) Page 3
