by Kim Redford
“Is that all you’ve got to say?” he murmured against her ear, and then gently nibbled the outer edge of the delicate shell with his teeth.
She shivered in response, feeling heat burn outward from her inner core to set her entire body on fire. “I wish we could step back in time.”
“Tonight.” He kissed her forehead, groaned with suppressed need, and backed up. “Tonight we’ll make the lonely years go away. It’ll be as if they never happened to us.”
She sighed, wanting it to be so. “But what about our former—”
“Tonight it’s the two of us. Okay?”
She nodded, tamping down her questions and concerns as her body continued to burn hotter with every soft word he spoke and every intent look he gave her.
He took a deep breath, as if to control his rising emotions, and dropped his hands to his sides. “Come on. Let’s go get barbeque. It’ll be dark before you know it.”
“That’s right. We always liked to watch the sun set over the Red River.” She stepped up into his truck and sat down in an amazingly clean space.
He leaned in and gave her a brash, brazen look. “But it’s what we do after the sun goes down that’s got me in a rush to get to Lovers Leap.” He quickly shut the door and walked around the front of his pickup.
As if time had melted away, Lauren took a deep breath, feeling all safe and snuggly and excited in Kent’s truck.
When he sat down beside her, started his pickup, and gave her a big grin, revealing his adorable dimples, she felt like a piece of chocolate on steamy summer days—a soft, gooey, hot mess.
Chapter 32
A little later, Kent stepped out of the Chuckwagon Café carrying a bag of barbeque and fixings in one hand and two big drinks nestled in a container in the other. He frowned when he saw Lauren talking with Morning Glory on the boardwalk in front of his pickup. He’d asked her to stay in his truck so they wouldn’t get hung up on their way out of town with folks in the café wanting to say hello, but he might as well have saved his breath because she’d been caught in Old Town anyway.
As he walked up to them, he saw Morning Glory point at the closed sign on the front door of Adelia’s Delights, then point at Lauren. He’d never seen Morning Glory act so intense because she was always laid-back. He perked up his ears to hear their conversation.
“I don’t care if you have to drag Hedy to Kent’s barn kicking and screaming, you find a way to do it,” Morning Glory said in a decisive voice.
Kent blinked in shock at those words, hardly able to imagine Morning Glory being so upset. He stopped beside them, looking from one to the other. “Ladies, don’t let me interrupt, but sounds like somebody’s got a burr under their saddle about something. Any way I can help?”
“Hedy!” Morning Glory grumped. “I swear that gal’s got her head on backward. I’m counting on you two to set her straight.”
“What’d she do?” he asked.
“It’s not what she did,” Morning Glory explained. “It’s what she won’t do.”
“You lost me there.” He held up his sack and shook it. “At the moment, all I know about is barbeque.”
Lauren sighed as she looked heavenward. “I haven’t told him yet.”
“Why not?” Morning Glory demanded.
“There just hasn’t been time.”
“More likely you were putting your head in the sand.” Morning Glory shook her finger at Lauren.
“You want to enlighten me?” Kent pushed for an answer.
“Hedy got all riled up when Lauren suggested she try hippotherapy, so Hedy came complaining to me that she wasn’t going to do it.” Morning Glory put her hand on her hips, necklaces jingling and jangling. “Like I was gonna support her malingering if she had an option to get better, even if it is a long shot. Quick as a duck on a June bug, I gave her a piece of my mind.”
“How’d that go over?” Kent asked, shaking his head.
“About like you’d expect,” Morning Glory said. “Made her madder than a wet hen. She stormed out of my store, closed her place early, and went home.” Morning Glory clasped her necklaces in a fist. “Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t walked a mile in her moccasins, so what do I know?”
“You know what we all know,” Kent said. “We love Hedy and we want her back to her old cantankerous self.”
“Maybe there’s a better way to help her, but if there is, I don’t know about it.” Lauren gave a big sigh. “This is something I know how to do, and I’ve seen equine-assisted therapy heal others. Body and mind.”
“Well, it sure as shootin’ is worth a try,” Morning Glory agreed. “Right now, Hedy’s got her tail in a crack and she’s not pulling it out.”
“Not on her lonesome.” Kent gave Lauren a sharp look. “I wish you’d told me sooner that Hedy had cold feet about hippotherapy. I would’ve talked to her about it today. Maybe I could’ve turned her head in the right direction.”
“I didn’t say anything because I was hoping she’d come around by tomorrow,” Lauren explained with a shrug of her shoulders.
“Hah!” Morning Glory let go of her necklaces and flung wide her arms. “When has that gal ever come around after she got her mind set on a course of action?” She snorted indelicately. “That’s why Hedy was a champion barrel racer. Nothing, and I mean nothing, got in between her and her win.”
“If we could get her to bring that attitude to hippotherapy, she’d be a winner again,” Lauren said.
Morning Glory slumped as she glanced toward Adelia’s Delights. “Tell you the truth, I’m worried sick about Hedy. What would I do without her? Even worse, what would the town do without her? It just don’t bear thinking on.”
Lauren reached out and squeezed Morning Glory’s hand. “Don’t fret. I’m working on a way to get Aunt Hedy up on a horse again. We’re not going to lose her, not anytime soon.”
“I guess I need some of my own medicine,” Morning Glory said. “I need to trust that all will be as it should be. And that includes my dear friend Hedy’s future.” She looked through the necklaces hanging around her neck, selected one, pulled it over her head, and handed it to Lauren. “See if you can get Hedy to wear this one. I imagine she’s too mad to accept anything from me.”
“She’s mad at me, too.” Lauren looked at the pendant. “A soaring eagle piece of horse harness hardware is just perfect.” She looked up at Kent. “But you’d better be the one to give it to her.”
“I’ll try, but I doubt she’ll set a wheel inside my barn now.” He frowned at Lauren, feeling renewed frustration. “If you’d told me sooner, I’d have made a special trip to her place today.”
“Water under the bridge now,” Morning Glory said. “Let’s go forward from here and see what we can do to persuade Hedy.”
“Okay,” Lauren agreed.
Morning Glory glanced at Kent’s food and shook her head. “Regret I’ve kept y’all from your meal. It’ll be cold now.”
“No matter,” Lauren said. “Barbeque’s good hot or cold.”
“True enough.” Morning Glory glanced back and forth between them as a sly smile came to her lips. “Better get on your way. You want to get up on Lovers Leap before the sun sets.”
“How’d you know that’s where we’re going?” Lauren asked.
Morning Glory chuckled. “Let’s just say a little bluebird whispered in my ear.” She whirled around in a flurry of colorful skirts, opened the door to her store, and glanced back. “Now don’t be a stranger.” And then she stepped into Morning’s Glory and was gone.
Lauren turned toward Kent, smiling. “She almost disappeared in a cloud of smoke, didn’t she?”
“That’s our gal. You never know what she’s going to get up to next.” He walked over to his truck, opened the passenger door, and glanced up at the sky. “Come on. If the sun gets any lower, we’ll be out of luck.
”
“We’re never going to be out of luck.” Lauren walked over and sat down inside. “Don’t you know that?”
“That’s exactly right now that you’re back in town.” He grinned as he handed her the sack and drinks.
As he settled behind the wheel, he noticed Lauren quickly set the two drinks in the cupholder in the center console. She put the sack between her feet, glanced over at him, and raised a shoulder.
“You aren’t mad at me, are you? I mean about Hedy.” She slipped the smoothly knotted macramé cord back and forth between her fingers before she draped it over the rearview mirror, where the eagle hung like a good luck talisman.
“No.” He gave a big sigh as he backed out of the parking place. “I just wished you’d trusted me enough to share that bit of information.”
“I do trust you. It’s just there was so much going on, what with the fire and the horses and Hannah and well, I apologize that I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“No apology necessary.” He reached over and quickly squeezed her hand. “I thought we were in this together, so any information about Hedy is vital in making plans for her.”
“We are in this together, but I’m used to working alone, so you’ll need to give me a little catch-up time.”
“You’ve got all the time you want, just so it’s today.” He chuckled, gave her hand another squeeze, and gripped the steering wheel with both hands.
She joined his laughter. “I’ll tell you what, that barbeque smells so good I’m about ready to tear into the sack and start chowing down.”
“You’d start without me?” He glanced over at her sitting in the shotgun seat as pretty as you please and generating enough heat in him so that he might need to flip on the AC.
“You know I’d never start without you.” She said with a little bit of a growl as she gave him a smoldering look.
“Better put the straws in the drinks. I’m starting to need something cold.”
She laughed as she bent over, dug two straws out of the brown paper bag, unwrapped them, and stuck them through the plastic lids on the drinks. “What’d you get us?”
“Traditional Texas.”
“Sweet tea or Dr Pepper?”
“Which do you want? I got one of each to make sure you had your choice.”
“Don’t you remember what I used to drink?”
“DP. But I thought you might’ve grown up and want tea.”
She laughed again, then quickly slurped from each cup. “Yum! Maybe I’ll have both.”
“You’ve made them both sweeter now.”
She laughed even harder. “Sweet-talking man, you’re getting in bigger trouble by the moment.”
“I hope so.” He glanced over at her and they shared a hot, lingering look before he settled his gaze back on the road.
He left Main Street and drove back lanes till he hit the twists and turns of No-Name Road that gradually turned from asphalt to gravel to rutted dirt until it played out on the bluff overlooking the Red River.
Kent saw the familiar line of daffodils that always heralded the return of spring sporting their early yellow blossoms along the edge of the cliff. No one knew anymore who’d planted the daffodils, but they suspected an early Republic of Texas pioneer had brought a touch of home to join the native bluebonnet and Indian paintbrush of the Comancheria.
“Do you remember our favorite tree?” He drove across the dry, clumped grass of the flat land.
“How could I forget?” She pointed at an ancient oak near the edge of the tall cliff. “Our oak is still there!”
“It’s just been waiting for us.”
With a quick turn of the steering wheel, Kent backed up under their tree. Its spreading limbs cast long fingers of shadow from the slanting rays of the sun across the golden grass that spread out around them. He cut the engine, and silence enveloped them in the cocoon of his truck.
“Alone at last.” He unbuckled his seat belt and glanced over at her. “Does this feel like old times?”
She looked all around, then back at him. “Old times, but new times, too.”
“Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“If you’ll get the food, I’ll get the yoga mats and sleeping bags for the bed of the pickup.”
“Yoga mats? Sounds like we’re getting fancy.”
He chuckled as he opened his door. “Comfy, that’s all.”
“I never complain about comfort.”
He stepped outside, opened the back door of his truck, and slid out two yoga mats, two sleeping bags, four pillows, and several towels. He carried the pile to the back of his pickup, tossed them in the open flatbed, and lowered the tailgate. He went back and picked up an ice chest that he’d loaded with bottles of water and Dr Pepper.
Lauren walked around the truck, carrying the barbeque. She set the sack in the back of the pickup, then moved to the edge of the cliff. She looked down, then back at him. “It’s beautiful here.”
He joined her and put an arm around her waist to hold her close. “Peaceful and quiet, too, except for the sounds of nature. Just listen to the frogs singing their nightly song down by the river.”
“I’ve missed it all.” She snuggled close to him, leaning her head against his chest.
He stroked up and down her upper arm, feeling her slender yet strong shape under her T-shirt’s soft fabric. He looked out over the Red River Valley with her once more as they had so many years ago.
With Lauren by his side, he felt renewed in body and spirit while he watched the rust-colored water sluggishly slide around sandbars in the twists and turns of the river meandering its way east. Across the river, the red cliffs rose up in Oklahoma, meaning Red People, a name chosen from the Choctaw Nation when their vast land in the Indian Territory was confiscated and turned into a state, much as Kent’s own Comanche ancestors had lost their huge track of territory. But the Choctaw, like the Comanche, still watched over and protected their ancestral land and people just as they had always done, so that in the end nothing had changed except the names.
As Kent watched, he felt as if he’d stepped back in time not only with Lauren but with his ancestors as well. The sun cast one last ray of brilliant light across the river until a snake of glowing crimson connected the old Indian Territory with the older Comancheria.
And then the light went out and they were enveloped in darkness.
Chapter 33
Lauren felt as if a cape had been cast over the land as the sun disappeared and they were blanketed in darkness. And in that moment, all around her turned silent as frogs stopped singing, birds on their nighttime perches went still, and the rustle of insects and small critters in the grass stopped all movement. She shivered at the coolness in the air along with the lack of sight and sound.
Suddenly, soft light spread slowly across the Red River, turning the water into a bright, burnished ribbon of orange. Surprised at the sight, Lauren looked to her right, along the path of illumination, and saw the huge, round, orange moon rising on the eastern horizon.
As if the Earth had rested for the briefest of seconds after the sun set in the west, life suddenly burst forth again when the river shimmered from orange to silver as the moon rose in the sky. Frogs resumed their songs, night birds trilled together, coyotes yipped in harmony, and cattle mooed as moonlight spread across the Red River Valley.
“Ah, beautiful, enchanting muea.” Kent squeezed Lauren’s waist as he dipped his head in respect toward the rising moon.
“Muea?”
“Muea is Comanche for moon. Don’t you remember?”
“I’d forgotten so many people in our county still speak a little Comanche.”
“It’ll always be our heritage.” He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
She shivered again, but this time from his nearness and all he was saying without words.
He glanced over at the moon again. “Hope the cattle don’t spook.”
“Why would they?”
“A big, orange moon on the horizon can scare cattle. In old times, cowboys on a trail drive always kept an eye out for the moon. The last thing they wanted was a stampede, particularly after dark.”
“Do you need to be back at the ranch?”
“Not tonight. Extra ranch hands are on duty on a night like this one.”
“Good.”
He gestured toward the moon. “Reminds me of the Comanche legend about how the moon got spots. Do you remember it?”
Lauren shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s a long story.”
“And it’s a long night. I’d like to hear it. I bet Hannah would love to hear Comanche legends, too.”
“Any time.” Kent cleared his throat as he prepared to tell his story. “Once upon a time, Coyote warned the children to be very quiet when they walked through the territory of Peah Moopit, the monster of a giant owl. A little girl—named Hannah—did her best, but her baby brother cried and cried. Peah Moopit flew down from the tallest tree and kidnapped them. Hannah managed to escape with her brother. Yet Peah Moopit came after them. On a full moon night, the children ran and ran across the plains until they were worn out. Baby Buffalo found them and stepped in front of the little ones to protect them. Peah Moopit just laughed at the sight. ‘A baby to protect babies. I will get you now!’ When Peah Moopit lunged, Baby Buffalo charged and knocked Peah Moopit high into the sky, up and up toward the bright moon. Soon dark spots appeared across the white surface. And that is how spots came to be on the moon.”
“Oh, Kent, that’s a wonderful story.”
“There’s a reason for it.”
“What?”
“Did you know the Comanche taught their babies never to cry or make loud sounds because their noise could endanger the entire village? Comanche children were always quiet so as not to draw attention to their people.”
