by Imani King
"What happened?"
I looked up when he said that, so I could peer into his eyes and see if he was really asking. He was. Why not tell him? River Bend was a small town, he was going to find out eventually. I consciously slowed my breathing and closed my eyes.
"My parents were killed. Almost two months ago – it was a car accident. I was in the car with them but I didn't get hurt. I don't have any other family besides my great-aunt and great-uncle, and they live in River Bend. So, yeah, that's why I'm here."
My voice didn't shake, my eyes didn't sting, I had managed to get the words out clearly, without losing it. That was something, wasn't it? I glanced off into the distance, because I was afraid I was going to see that look in Dallas's eyes, the one I was getting so used to seeing – pity. I was afraid that when I saw it, my fragile resolve was going to crumble. But there was no pity there. It was something else. Understanding? Humanity? Something that told me, without him having to say a word, that he knew how I felt.
"That's tough," he replied. "That's real tough, Tia."
"Yeah," I nodded, playing with a frayed hem on my shirt. "It is. Thanks for – um, well, just thanks for not trying to make me feel better. A lot of people do that, tell me my parents are in a better place, all of that. And maybe they are, but it doesn't help."
"You're right, it doesn't. Listen, do you want a beer? Actually, I'm out of beer. How about a nice cold glass of water?"
It was a stiflingly hot afternoon. A cold glass of water actually sounded perfect.
"Sure," I replied, following him into the cabin.
"Have a seat out back." Dallas said as he went into the tiny kitchen. "On the porch, just to your right. It's nice out there, I'll bring you your drink."
So I did just that, finding my way out onto the porch, followed closely by the dog – who appeared to have decided that I wasn't worth eating. There was only one chair so I leaned against the railing and looked out through the woods to the field in the distance. It was full of russet-colored cows, probably the same herd that had been trying to make a break for it that day on Old Ware Road.
"Are those your cows?" I asked when Dallas joined me on the porch and handed me a glass of water.
"Well, they're not cows. But yes, they're mine. And you can have the chair."
The ice-cubes clinked in my glass as I sipped the water. "If they're not cows, what are they?"
"Steers. Castrated male bovines. They're being raised for beef, so they're castrated when they're young – let them keep their balls and they get all ornery."
"Like Ranger?"
Dallas chuckled. "Yeah, like Ranger."
"Who knew it was all so complicated?" I replied, glad of the lighter topic.
"Everybody in the country knows this stuff. It's just city slickers – like yourself, no offense – who don't. I have cows, too, but they're in a different pasture."
He was teasing me – and I was enjoying it.
"You know," I said, turning and fixing him with a skeptical look. "Everyone in River Bend seems to think you're a jerk. I confess I thought the same thing after our first couple of run-ins. Is it true? Are you just a big, mean jerk who thinks he's better than everyone else?"
"Better than everyone else? No, definitely not. But I guess it's true that I'm not the most social guy in the world. I didn't really come here to make friends, Tia."
For some reason, I liked it when he said my name. I liked the sound of the word in his mouth, the syllables being spoken in that deep country twang of his. "Were you always like this?" I asked.
Dallas frowned, thinking. "I guess I was always on the introverted side of things, but it's what I said earlier – I've seen the ugly side of humanity. And as far as I can tell, it's not restricted to one group of people, it's all of us. I've seen things I can't un-see. And I've done things I can't undo."
I didn't ask him about the things he couldn't undo. Not that I knew much about the war, but I knew awful things had happened, and I knew a lot of broken men and women had returned home. If he didn't want to talk about it, that was OK, I understood. But everything he was saying just struck me as so sad.
"So that's it? You're just done with humanity, forever?"
"I know how it sounds," he told me, gazing out through the woods. "Believe me, I know. But I'm not some fifteen year old kid who just got dumped by his girlfriend. I've had friends who went through the whole therapy thing, and I think for some of them it even worked, in a way. But me? I don't have kids. I don't have a wife. And to be honest, I'm not sure I've got it in me to go through years of talking to a stranger for an uncertain outcome."
He wasn't joking, that was clear. I didn't think he was exaggerating, either. "So," I started. "Why am I here?"
"You came here," he reminded me.
"Yeah but why did you ask me out the other day? Why did you invite me in to sit on your porch this afternoon if you don't like other people?"
Dallas looked at me, then, like he wasn't quite sure what to think. "I don't know," he answered slowly. "That thing at the store, I don't know what that was. Something just came over me – maybe I felt guilty about not doing anything to help that night outside the bar. As for right now, damn, I still don't know. Maybe I saw something in you? Maybe I saw that you were in pain? I never invite anyone over."
"Well," I smiled. "Not never – don't look at me like that, it's a small town. People talk."
He reached one hand over his shoulder to brush a pine needle off his tanned, muscular back. I suppressed the urge to reach out and do it for him. "Yeah, I guess so. I mean, that hardly counts."
I laughed out loud. "Why doesn't it count? They're women, they're people, you invite them over. It counts."
"Yeah," he protested, "I know that, this isn't some sexist bullshit. I just meant I don't invite people over to get to know them. I invite women here the same way I'd invite a plumber if one of the pipes broke – to take care of something I need and then leave. Believe me, we're not chit-chatting about our inner children."
I felt heat rising into my cheeks, thinking about the things Dallas did with the women he brought back to his cabin. The dog, who I'd heard him calling 'Beau' when he was in the kitchen, sat down at my feet and leaned his head into my knee. I flinched away nervously.
"Oh, don't worry about him," Dallas reassured me. "He's just a big baby – he makes a lot of noise but he doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He just wants you to pet him."
I reached out and lightly petted the dog's ears, running my fingers over the coarse, spotted fur. "So," I continued, not willing to let the subject drop for some reason. "You told me why you'd invite a plumber here, or a girl you meet at the bar. Is that why you asked me to come in?"
"No!" he replied vehemently. "No, it's nothing like that, Tia. It's – it's just not. I won't lie, though. You're beautiful. When I saw you in the bar in that pink dress, damn, they don't make 'em like you out here in River Bend."
I sat back in the chair, tingling with delight. Had I heard him correctly? Beautiful? Me? I didn't know how to handle compliments like that from teenage boys, let alone grown men. I stole a glance at Dallas out of the corner of my eye but he was still staring into the distance, seemingly unaware of the chaos he'd just caused inside me.
"Well," I started to reply, speaking before I'd completely worked out what I was going to say, "the dress was actually peach."
Oh my God. I felt my cheeks get hotter. What a perfectly idiotic thing to say. Dallas had caught me, too, because he was looking right at me, grinning. "Not used to being complimented, huh? That's adorable. Surprising, but adorable."
Beautiful. Adorable. It was all I could do not to openly swoon. I met his gaze and time seemed to stop for a few seconds as we looked at each other. He really was very good-looking. I wondered what it would feel like to lean in quickly and kiss the cleft in his chin, the one that appeared to have been designed specifically to lure women into kissing it. For a second I even felt like he might be about to kiss me, but eventua
lly he sort of shook his head and broke the spell.
All my attitude was gone, though, and there was no pretending otherwise. Why did I ask him his reasons for inviting me in? Why did I push it like that? All I'd done was make it obvious just how much the answers suddenly mattered. I took another sip of water, hoping maybe its coolness would soothe the heat rising in my body.
"That came out wrong," he said, as I sat beside him trying desperately to get myself together. "You are beautiful, don't get me wrong. But it's not that. You're – Jesus, I don't know how to say this without sounding like a goddamned fool – but you seem different. I knew it the first time I saw you. Ranger knew it, too. There's something, I don't know, something gentle about you. You have soft energy."
Something gentle? Soft energy? I didn't really know what he was talking about, but I also didn't want to question him any further and risk sticking my foot in my mouth again. Thankfully, I didn't have to say anything else because Dallas stood up and asked me if I wanted to go with him to check that the cattle had water and the chickens were fed.
"Chickens?" I asked. "You have chickens?"
"Sure do. Got nine hens, they basically eat kitchen scraps, they keep insects out of the garden and I always have free-range eggs. Have you ever tried a free-range egg, Tia?"
As we were walking back through the cabin and out the front door, he put his hand on my lower back, just briefly, to guide me. And all I wanted to do was stay right where I was, with that big, firm hand on my body and him right there, behind me. Of course I didn't, but I wanted to.
"Uh, I think so," I replied. "You mean the ones that say cage-free in the store?"
"No, not those. That 'cage-free' stuff is marketing bullshit. I mean real free-range eggs, from hens who spend their days in the sunshine, eating bugs and not commercial chicken feed."
We were walking down the dirt track towards the fields. It felt good to be beside Dallas. He was a big man, but it wasn't just that. There was something reassuring about his presence, a solidity that made me feel safe and protected. "No," I told him. "I don't think I've tried one of those."
"Well then you'll have to try one."
"I'd like that."
Dallas Corbett was turning out to be less of a jerk than I'd initially assumed. In fact at that point I didn't know quite what to make of him – the talk of wanting to stay apart from the rest of humanity combined with his kindness to me that day and, let's not forget, the fact that he was insanely hot, just left me burning with curiosity to learn more.
When we got to the field, I followed him around as he checked water troughs and eyeballed the cattle.
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
"Oh, just signs of sickness, weakness, things like that. This herd is antibiotic-free so I have to be pretty vigilant about catching any issues before they spread. They all look pretty good, though. Now, the chickens."
I don't think I was much help, but Dallas didn't seem to mind. In fact if anything he appeared pleased to be able to give me little snippets of information about the livestock and the garden he had planted behind the cabin.
"Do you want to feed them?" he asked as we approached the chicken coop with a bucket full of garden scraps. As soon as the hens saw us the most hilarious thing happened. They started flying at the wire that separated them from the food, squawking and just generally going crazy. Because I was already covered in dust from the pick-up, I didn't mind getting covered in more.
"Sure," I replied, "but – are they going to peck me?"
"No, they don't care about anything but food. Here, I'll open the gate – just chuck it on the ground, they can do the rest."
So I did as I was told and dumped the bucket's contents out in front of the hens, who, as Dallas predicted, ignored me completely once their dinner was in front of them. He checked their water as I watched the birds eating and then came back to me.
"They're funny, aren't they?" he asked. "They actually have personalities – that surprised me. None of them are going to win any Nobel prizes, but they're individuals. I've come to kind of enjoy their craziness, and their company when I work in the garden. They follow me around like a bunch of gossipy old women, eating any worms or insects I turn up in the dirt."
I looked up at the shirtless man beside me, suddenly struck, as I had been on a regular basis since coming to River Bend, by just how different life was in the country. He must have seen the expression on my face.
"What is it?"
"Oh," I smiled. "It's – uh, it's nothing, really. I was just thinking about how different things are out here. You know I've never even seen a live chicken before today? I eat chicken all the time – and eggs, too. But I've never seen a chicken. Isn't that weird?"
Dallas ushered me out of the chicken coop and we started to walk back to the cabin, led by Beau. "I don't think it's weird. You grew up in the city, right? Where would you have seen a chicken? I'm sure there's lots of things you're used to that would make your friends from River Bend freak out, or that they wouldn't know what to make of, anyway."
"Yeah," I agreed, even though I wasn't convinced there was anything in Philadelphia that would be as strange to Amber or one of the other girls as real, live chickens were to me, "maybe."
I didn't want to leave. As we walked back, side-by-side, I found myself anticipating Dallas's goodbye, wondering if he would ask to meet up somewhere for dinner, or if he'd remember to invite me back to try one of the free-range eggs. So when he stopped just short of the cabin and turned to me, I braced myself to say something polite about what a nice time I'd had. But he didn't say goodbye.
"Say, Tia. Are you doing anything right now? Do you have to be anywhere?"
I pressed my lips together hard, refusing to smile because I didn't want him to see just how happy that question made me. I shook my head. "No, I don't."
"Well then, how about you let me fry up a couple of eggs from those hens we just fed?"
Since there was almost nothing I wanted to do more than spend more time with Dallas Corbett, I agreed. Hell, if he'd asked me to stay longer to help him with his chores, I probably would have rolled up my sleeves and got to work. There was a pleasant nervousness in my belly, one I recognized from the way it used to make me feel to be around my high school crush – the crush that never did get around to asking me out, even though all my friends swore we would be perfect for each other. The butterflies that afternoon, sitting at the small wooden table in Dallas's kitchen, were much more intense. It felt like my whole soul was vibrating.
I watched him as he cooked, noticing everything from the way he cracked the eggs one-handed against the rim of the skillet to the way his triceps flexed when he picked it up to swirl the melted butter around. I also noticed, when he opened the fridge, that it was almost entirely empty.
"Do you just live on soup, then?" I asked. "Soup and eggs?"
Dallas laughed. I liked his deep, rumbling, masculine laugh. "No, not entirely. But I'm kind of a shitty cook, Tia. A lot of what I grow in that garden ends up going to the hens. If I had more time, I'd read up on some techniques, but there's always something else to do. These eggs I'm frying, right now? This is as complex as it gets for me."
That was interesting, mostly because cooking was something I was actually good at. My mom taught me to cook. In photographs from my childhood I'm often standing on a chair next to her as she tends to something on the stove, and she had me mixing cornbread batter and stirring big, steaming pots of soup and gumbo before I was old enough to read.
"My mother was a good cook," I said, without really intending to. The words just came out. I wanted to talk about her and it felt safe to do so with Dallas. "She taught me a lot. Maybe I could teach you? Just some basic things, like how to make vegetable soup so you don't have to keep eating that awful canned stuff, for example?"
I was doing it. I was talking about my mom. And I wasn't crying. Dallas turned away from the eggs to look at me, his expression calm and encouraging. "I'd like that, Tia. Yeah, that
would be great. Your mom was a good cook, huh? You're lucky – my mom can't boil an egg. I think my uselessness might be genetic."
"Do you have olive oil?" I asked, thinking maybe I could go and pick some of the vegetables from the garden right then and there and whip up a simple vegetable side dish to go with our eggs.
Dallas shook his head. "No, but I could pick some up in town tomorrow."
"How about vegetable oil?"
"No."
"Any oil at all?" I chuckled.
"No, sorry."
"OK then, how about cream?"
"No, no cream. But if you want to make a list for me, I'm happy to pick up whatever you need. One of the checkout girls at Parson's said I was going to get malnutrition if I kept eating so much canned soup."
"You are!" I admonished him affectionately.
"Well then," Dallas handed me his phone, "make me a list. I'll get it all tomorrow, I'm serious about learning how to do this stuff. And you sitting there all gorgeous and helpful is starting to give me a cooking hard-on."
It was a throwaway comment. At least it seemed to be. Still, the direct reference to a part of the male anatomy I had never been truly acquainted with created a strange, intense warmth in my belly. If Dallas noticed, he didn't show it. He slid the eggs out of the skillet onto two chipped plates and placed one in front of me.
"There we go. Perfect. Try the yolk first."
"I – what? Oh, uh, yeah," I stammered, still totally distracted by the hard-on comment.
Even before tasting the eggs I could see they were different. The yolks were a deep, glossy orange. I cut into one with my fork and took a small bite. Dallas was right – they weren't like any eggs I'd ever eaten before.
"Oh my God," I laughed, covering my mouth in shocked delight. "Wow. These are – these are amazing!"
