Gabe lugged his bag, my bag, and his guitar. I hadn’t even noticed the guitar was in the truck. I carried a box of sub sandwiches and two drinks. The room was unimpressive and clean. There was only one bed. I stood in the doorway and watched him toss our bags onto the dresser and kick his sneakers off with abandon. He launched one straight into the bathroom. We exchanged a brief glance and then ate with little conversation. I was famished. Gabe looked tired. The dark circles below his good eye showed his exhaustion.
“At least there’s a TV,” I said making light, although I knew very well I would be watching him sleep.
“Sorry about the bed. I wasn’t thinking. I always get a single,” he told me.
I would have never bought that line from anybody else.
Then he placed his HalRem hat on my head and stripped off his shirt. He tossed it on the table in front of me and winked. My eyes narrowed directly to his stitches. Before I could reply, he pulled down the covers on one side, threw his weight on the bed and pulled a single sheet over his legs.
“We can share if you get tired.”
Those were his last words. I watched him sleep. I watched the clock like it was a timer on a bomb, the minutes ticking by in slow motion. Four hours passed. I couldn’t stomach daytime television another minute. I filed and painted my fingernails with a black polish. I explored the bathroom twice, sniffing each of the shampoos and soaps. I took out Meggie’s cellphone and contemplated calling my best friend, Janie, about a hundred times to tell her I was in a Kansas motel room with a gorgeous boy. For some odd reason I didn’t. I stared at the guitar Gabe treated like a pet and wondered what was so remarkable.
The most devilish thing I did was open his bag and snoop. All I found were clothes and enough candy to last a kid through summer camp.
Gabe didn’t stir for hours. I couldn’t see his face—he was practically breathing into the pillow—but I watched his shoulder blades rise and fall and wondered if he was dreaming. My legs were sore from sitting curled up in the chair. I pulled my hair into a bun, so not to whip him in the face if I fell asleep. Cautiously, I lowered myself onto the bed and stretched out on top of the slippery bedspread as close to the edge and as far from him as possible.
Minutes passed and I grew braver.
I rolled to my side and propped my head on my folded arm so I could study his face. His head rested on his hand and his mouth was slightly open. I couldn’t see his bruised eye.
“Unlawfully gorgeous,” I purred into his face. He was sound asleep.
When my arm got numb from holding my weight, I rotated to the wall again. As I was drifting off, a hand reached over my shoulder and slid down my arm. I held my breath. My eyes flew open. My chest constricted, and I clenched all my muscles, all over my body. I found it impossible to relax.
Gabe rolled into me and pulled my back against his warm chest. His breathing was deep, measured, and sweet. His heavy arm rested on my ribs. I gently let my hand fall over his and smiled gloriously against the pillow. I couldn’t hide the fevered pulsing of my heart or even close my eyes. I wasn’t even sure he was aware of what he was doing. He said he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend.
Did he have a change of heart?
I awoke to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. The door stood slightly ajar. A thin line of steam escaped from below. Sliding up the headboard, I glanced across the room to check the time. Gabe must have pulled the curtains closed. It was evening already. I sat back comfortably and wondered how he woke up. We’d slept another three hours together.
At least I had.
“Morning,” he said cheerily.
He had a towel around his waist and one around his shoulders, his wet hair matted to his forehead. The steam followed him out. I couldn’t pry my eyes off the picture in front of me.
“It’s like after dinner,” I corrected. “Save any hot water?”
He turned into the mirror to smooth his hair with his palm. “Wanna eat out in a real restaurant?”
I gaped as he shimmed the towel across his back to catch the last of the droplets. He turned fast and whipped the towel at my feet. We were both in unique moods.
I thought I heard him chuckle.
“Get ready. I gotta fill the tank,” he said as he rummaged through his bag.
He tossed a T-shirt and shorts on the bed. Then he stepped into his shorts and pulled them up under the towel right in front of me. I took my unsettled thoughts and exited to the bathroom.
Music played on the other side of the wall as I finished my shower. It was effortless, mesmerizing. I toweled off and pulled on new clothes. I decided to wear my pink Rockin’ the Bakken T-shirt, the one Meggie sent me for my birthday last year. The one that my mother insisted was too tight. I didn’t think Gabe would complain.
I glared at the tan arm strumming the guitar. I was absolutely taken aback.
“Just passing time,” he told me.
I lifted my jaw off the ground and asked, while I watched intently, “Did you take classical guitar in school?”
Gabe looked up. “Naw, Eli taught me. I like to pick at it.”
“Nice pun,” I replied under my breath.
He flashed a charming grin and frowned just as quickly. “I try real hard, ma’am.”
He was wearing a cowboy hat. I hadn’t seen that in the truck either. I stepped closer, timidly, as though he had transformed into the rock star I’d crushed on for years. My eyes searched his face. His playing was incredible.
“Gabe, you’re...that’s amazing. I mean, you play so...wow,” I said as I tripped all over the place. “It was you playing in the driveway the night I arrived.”
I wanted to make him happy. What I realized transformed my reality. I had fallen hard for this intrepid, sensitive, afflicted boy. A boy I had only known a mere week of my life. This was way more than the silly crush I had allowed myself to pretend I had.
He set the guitar against the nightstand and collected his keys and a handful of Atomic Fireballs. I gazed at his striking profile with deep awareness of my newly realized feelings.
Then I thought—if only.
He voiced in his perfect southern inflection, “I’ll check out. You pack the truck. The door is unlocked.”
Six
“Rockin’ the Bakken?” Gabe crossed his eyes and huffed.
Had he just noticed? My shirt was the first place guys usually looked. But he wasn’t like most guys. He hadn’t spoken a word since we left the restaurant an hour ago. I stayed quiet. Something wasn’t right. I had that feeling, like when I woke up at Janie’s and hadn’t realized the words had violated my forehead.
“I like pink,” he said.
“Meggie gave it to me. I had no clue what it meant. Now I do.” I dropped my gaze to the glittery gold words.
He liked pink.
Gabe pulled into a convenience store parking lot and killed the engine. “Need anything? We got about five hours to go.” He hopped out of the cab. “Mind if I use that phone to call Caleb?”
I pulled Meggie’s cellphone out of my pocket and slid it across the seat. I watched Gabe dial the numbers in haste.
“No. It’s me, Gabe. I’m in Kansas,” he told his brother with an exasperated twang and then paused. “Uh huh, she’s here.” Silence. “No. I just needed to go. I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think,” he said in a peeved tone. “Yeah. Uh huh, late morning. Yup. You’re not that far behind us, anyhow.” He dropped the phone through the window and stomped into the store.
Five minutes later, he swung a grocery bag over the seat and tossed a Hershey bar in my lap. He grinned and his gaze cut to the floor behind our backs where we stored our bags. His hazel eyes jumped around.
Alarm flashed across his face like a bolt of lightning. “Uh, hey. Where the hell’s my guitar?”
The truck rocketed out of the parking lot and launched across oncoming traffic. I cringed when the headlights illuminated the letters on a sign declaring Syracuse was fifty miles away. If only it had
said Syracuse, New York. Apparently the pet guitar was more like a human offspring.
Gabe was pounding his fists on the door of the motel office more than an hour later. It was after midnight. His rage stunned me. He disappeared into the brick building and returned a few minutes later waving the instrument, his expression hidden under the cowboy hat. I could appreciate the relief I read in his body language. I remained silent and small.
I said my two thousand I’m sorry statements on the return drive. He offered me nothing but a cold shoulder. I even offered to pay for the gas.
* * *
“Benjamin,” I read the sign aloud. My burden lifted slightly. The endless ride was nearly over. I was half asleep when we crossed into Texas. It didn't look much different than North Dakota, but to verbalize my depressing thought would only prolong the silent treatment. The sun was forcing its way over the dusty acreage. Bleak lands were coming into view. Brown and green acres rolled on for miles. There wasn’t a single home or farm or sign of life to speak of, aside from abandoned trucks half buried in fields, until we came to a white fence resembling a woven basket. At the fence, the scenery changed. I imagined horses running free in the pasture, huge lawn tractors mowing the grass. It was so much greener than any of the arid land we’d driven past.
There wasn’t a cactus or a tumbleweed to be seen anywhere.
I no longer wanted to be in the truck or to attend the wedding. The only thing keeping me from telling Gabe was the fact that Molly would be joining us. I would have a confidant, some much needed girl time. The incident with Caleb weighed heavy in the back of my mind, yet I wasn’t going to let one fleeting kiss eat at me any longer.
“I’m gonna pull over and close my eyes. I don’t wanna get there yet. I gotta think,” Gabe said, breaking the quiet.
He pulled off the road where the ranch-style fence turned into a monumental stone wall, the type that guarded a fortress. Gabe rolled down the windows and slid down his seat until his chin was in his chest and his knees were in the dashboard.
“Wake me if anybody comes by,” he said.
“You’re kidding,” I mumbled.
He still wouldn’t look at me. A single tear slipped down my cheek. I had been holding it in, hoping it would die inside my head. I couldn’t figure out why I was losing it.
All this over a stupid guitar?
I sort of got it. His guitar was his thing. He was grieving over the loss of his brother. Texas changed him. The closer we got to his home, the more distant he grew. I had to wonder why I was even there. I had eagerly and foolishly anticipated my chance to drive twenty-something hours with a boy I hardly knew.
“Fine. I’ll be outside,” I shared in a tight voice. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”
I pushed the door open into the hot air. He didn’t respond. I walked with a slight limp to the stone wall. My hands ran all over the ridged surface, exploring the nooks and crannies, the uneven rock. I settled on a patch of land, out of Gabe’s sight and curled up against the foundation. I rested my head against a cool rock and purged my disappointment. My shirt sufficed as a Kleenex. Then I took a deep breath, cursed my lame setback, and cleaned myself up quickly.
I got to my feet. I wasn’t going to let a boy shake me. Never would I have acted like this at home.
I wandered away without looking back. The farther I got from the pickup, the lighter I became. I walked faster and faster as my ankle adapted to the pressure. I covered at least two miles in the steamy sun.
I couldn’t believe I was in Texas.
The space stretched. Nothing changed in respect to the scenery, except the stone wall began to have section breaks where swirly iron spindles decorated the openings. At each gap I paused to snoop like a prying neighbor, hoping to win a glimpse of something distracting.
A horn honked behind me and intruded on my serenity. Gabe pulled up. Together, we stopped moving.
“Get in,” he said. The engine moaned and he revved it. “We’re here.”
My eyes climbed into the vehicle. The AC was on.
“I’m walking,” I asserted. “I’ll follow.”
I had seen enough of that pickup. I was officially the tagalong, no longer welcome, even though I was under the impression I was invited as a friend.
“Aw c’mon, Av’ry. It’s right here,” he moaned. His voice softened. “Get in. I wanna show you something.” He pushed the door open and grinned.
Something changed. I climbed in.
“You get whatever you want, huh?”
Just like his brother.
“Just you wait,” he said. His voice was slick. “It would take you another hour to walk in.”
We came to an enormous gated entrance made of iron bars. Two tanker trucks could have driven in side by side. A mirror image on each section, the letter H was woven into the ironwork. The Texan flag and the American flag flew high inside the wall. The gates opened mechanically. My jaw slacked. The thudding between my ears quickened.
The land went so deep and so far.
Treeless countryside, wildflowers, and green grass stretched across the horizon and rippled like a pond during a light drizzle. In the center stood a stone mansion with white columns. It was the size of a castle. It was so far off I had to squint.
Gabe’s home was a Monopoly piece stuck in the middle of a lush carpet.
I curled my shoulders over the dash. “Shut-the-front-door,” I muttered into the windshield.
“Yup,” he said. I think he enjoyed my reaction. “We’re here. In spring this here’s all blue bonnets.”
Gabe took the driveway slower than I would have believed his lead foot was capable of. The Taj Ma-Halden came into focus after a few minutes. Halfway up the driveway, the road split and Gabe circled the property until we came to a smaller version of the exquisite main house. My gaze narrowed to a garage with at least ten bays. All of the white doors were down.
“I don’t think I dressed for this. You think you could have warned me?”
He smiled, and through his teeth said, “Nope.”
A familiar silver pickup truck pulled up to our bumper. I secretly wondered if Gabe was stalling back there, waiting for Caleb to arrive, chickening out on confronting his parents alone.
I sighed inwardly. Molly had arrived. She’d lift my mood.
After we all parked, we congregated around a large fountain decorated with roses.
“Howdy,” said Caleb as he tipped his hat. He had the most charming smirk on his face. “Rockin’ that shirt alright. So what do you think of my castle, legs?”
My eyes hadn’t stopped wandering over the extraordinary property. “I think you two keep a secret better than the CIA. First HalRem and now this.”
“We were taught not to brag,” Caleb said as he raised his dark brows. “You need to like us for who we is first.”
He sounded like a preschooler. Molly slapped his HalRem hat and it popped off.
“Well, let’s not prolong this any longer. Time to feed the lion.”
Gabe scratched his jaw and spoke up. “Don’t expect much from my dad. Meggie’s more like family than he is.”
“Mr. Halden’s a doll. Never mind them,” Molly reassured.
Aunt Meggie seemed to think he was okay. She hadn’t said anything negative. In fact, she really hadn’t said anything at all. Nobody ever mentioned Mrs. Halden. Though I was more curious to see what their father looked like. These boys got their remarkable looks from somewhere.
* * *
“Miss Molly Taylor, you grace me with your lovely presence once again. How are you, young lady? I see you’ve brought a comrade. And some familiar faces. Gentlemen,” the man said curtly. Mr. Halden studied Gabe’s black eye and Caleb’s torn lip for an uncomfortable stretch, all the while he expressed what I thought was a displeased look.
He was a tall, slender man, like his sons, yet he stood rigid and refined like a soldier. His bulky belt buckle sparkled like a shiny coin.
“And Miss...what might y
our name be?” Gabe’s father inquired as he extended a hand. I shook it firmly. He curled his other hand around mine and then let go. I tried really hard to keep from gaping. The man was a distinguished clone of his sons.
“She’s Av’ry Ross, sir. From New York,” said Gabe.
He surprised me with his formal address of his father and the use of my full name. I would never have called my father sir.
“Welcome to our home, Miss Ross, Miss Taylor. I assume y’all will be joining us for my niece’s wedding,” he said grinning the same grin I had seen on several faces before.
I unearthed my strangled voice. “My aunt said to say hello, Mr. Halden. She’s Meggie Paulsen.”
Gabe stepped closer to me. His arm brushed against mine, the hairs tickling my skin. What was he trying to do? Protect me from his kind and gracious father?
“Meggie’s her aunt, sir,” he said redundantly.
Gabe’s father lifted his chin and an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Margareta, eh?” Surprise lit his expression. “Well, I do see a slight resemblance. The beauty runs deep,” he told me kindly. “And how is she doing, Miss Ross?”
I detected a slight blush on his face.
“She’s fine. Busy with her work,” I said truthfully.
I wasn’t supposed to say anything to anyone about the baby. I smoothed my hand over my bangs to make sure I was covered. I guess it was a habit that was hard to shake. From what Gabe said about appearances, telling Mr. Halden about my unmarried aunt being knocked up with a sixteen-year-old son already wouldn’t sit too well.
I was still not sure how he knew her.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Halden. He abruptly ended the meet and greet. “Show these young ladies to their room and meet me in the study. The housekeeper will take your bags. We have some business to address before lunch.” He nodded a grin and tipped his HalRem hat in a gentlemanly manner.
I quickened my stride and followed Caleb down a wide stone path that wound through a courtyard and opened to a patio leading into the impressive guesthouse. Over my shoulder, I heard Gabe address his father. He spoke defiantly. Then I heard his father and my scalp prickled.
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