Ticket to Bride

by Liz Isaacson

  “Let me check with Carol.”

  Gavin collected his gear from the back of the truck, waved to Steve as he drove off, and had taken two steps toward his front door when Navy came around the side of the house, both Misfit and Miles panting at her side.

  11

  Navy could see and sense the wall Gavin had constructed between them. She’d dated enough men to know, talked to parents who were resisting treatment, had a sixth sense about such things.

  So she was sure he’d put his defenses in place. What she wasn’t sure of was why.

  “How was the fishing?” she asked.

  He lifted a lidded basket. “Great. Here’s dinner.” He watched her with amusement, like she’d balk at eating bass.

  “Great,” she said without batting an eyelash.

  Gavin stepped to his front door and entered the house. Navy had not gone inside earlier, but she did now. The inside of Gavin’s house was neater than she’d thought in some ways, and messier in others. There were no dirty dishes in the kitchen, but the living room held discarded socks and unfolded blankets, almost like he slept on the couch most nights after kicking off his cowboy boots.

  “Give me a few minutes.” He moved down a hall, adding, “Make yourself at home.” A door closed a moment later, and Navy took the opportunity to snoop. Problem was, Gavin didn’t have a whole lot for her to draw from. There were two pictures in the front common area of the house. One of him and his grandparents, obviously taken a few years ago as his beard didn’t hold any of the gray streaks it did now. And a photo of him and who she assumed were his parents. His father had the same sloped nose, the same twinkling, mischievous look in his eyes when he smiled.

  Dust didn’t cover anything, which meant Gavin did a fair bit of cleaning, and Navy couldn’t smell anything foul. He didn’t return right away, so Navy sat on his couch. Almost immediately, Blue jumped up next to her and put his paws—his damp and dirty paws—in her lap. Right on her khaki shorts.

  “Blue,” she said, leaping to her feet. “You’re dirty.” She swiped at the mud smeared on her clothes.

  Gavin chose that moment to return, his cowboy hat gone and his hair damp. He wore his basketball shorts and a gray T-shirt. He paused on his way into the kitchen and looked at her. Navy froze, unable to even continue cleaning herself. Experiencing him in his natural environment, shoeless, hatless, and his stunning physique, and Navy couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.

  “Let’s go, Blue,” Gavin said and the dog trotted over to him. He opened a door next to the garbage can in the kitchen and Blue went through it. “You guys too.” Misfit and Miles, who hadn’t done anything, followed and Gavin closed the door.

  He scanned her again, making her blood heat. He’d looked at her in this way several times now, and every time felt like the first time. “Let me get you a washcloth.” He moved into the kitchen and started rummaging around in cupboards and drawers.

  He finally faced her again. “It looks like I don’t have a washcloth. Grandmother will, though.”

  “You don’t cook,” she said, the pieces of his flawlessly clean kitchen coming together.

  “Nope.” He grinned at her. “So let’s get these fish next door so Grandmother can put lemons or something on them.” He picked up the basket and stepped toward the door. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to talk to you.” She didn’t want to tell him she didn’t have any other friends in town besides him. Surely he already knew that.

  Gavin didn’t ask about what or continue the conversation. He took Navy next door and said, “I have six bass here, Grandmother.”

  She bustled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. “Wonderful, wonderful.” She took the basket and disappeared back the way she’d come.

  “We’re gonna go for a walk,” Gavin called. He didn’t wait for an answer before heading outside again. He took several long strides away from the road and into the backyard before asking, “So what did you want to talk about?”

  “Yesterday,” she said. “I had a good time.”

  “Me too.”

  “Did you?” She tilted her head and looked at him. He’d stuffed his hands in his pockets, the exact opposite of what she wanted him to do with them.

  “Sure,” he said. “Did you see that new lampshade? I put it on the lamp in the living room.”

  “I must’ve missed it.” Had she misread the signals from him too? She inched a bit closer to him on her next step, and he remade the distance between them when he stepped. Nope.

  She stopped walked and drew in a deep breath. “It seems like you’re unhappy with me.”

  Gavin stilled too. “Not at all.”

  Navy examined him, trying to see past the symmetrical face, the sexy salt and pepper hair, the impressive muscles. “Did I do something yesterday?”

  He gazed back at her evenly. “Not at all.”

  “What did I say to upset you?”

  He blinked twice in rapid succession. Ah-ha. So that was it. She’d said something. Her brain whirred and stirred, trying to find what it could’ve been.

  “Nothing.”

  She bumped him with her hip and started walking again. “You’re such a liar.”

  “Navy—”

  She froze again, all this stop and go making her stomach lurch. “It was the thing about me looking for a match.” She peered at him, getting that tiny flinch again. “Isn’t it?”

  His eyes transformed as she watched, from displaying his agony, to his anxiety, to his anger. “I don’t believe in the legends about that stupid statue.”

  “Your opinion on that has been made very clear.” Navy’s defenses flew into place now too. She worked to put them down so she could really listen to him.

  “I’m not interested in dating another woman who’s seen my grandmother and danced around an inanimate object.”

  “Were we dating?”

  His eyes stormed with aggravation and he started walking again. “Seriously, Navy. I’m not interested.” But everything about his voice and his stature screamed that he was lying.

  “Yes, you are.” She hurried after him and put her hand on his arm to get him to stop. He did, and she slid her fingers down his forearm to his hand, where she linked hers with his. “I can tell that you are.”

  “So what?” he asked. “I’m not your match, which means you’ll leave town as soon as you figure that out. I’m not interested in chipping off another piece of my heart for another pretty woman.” He ground his teeth together. “I’m really not.”

  “How do you know I’m not your match?”

  “Experience.” He folded his arms.

  Navy wanted to reach up and erase the pain from his expression. “What did they do to you?” she whispered. He was so good, so gentle. How could anyone not see that?

  “Let’s see,” he said with a long sigh. “Debbie wanted to know if I could sing. So I sang for her. But see, I wasn’t the right height. The right height. So that ended pretty quick. And there was this one woman named Tabitha. Things were going great with her until Grandmother told her she needed someone born in nineteen-seventy-five. So that was me. Because you know, a couple’s entire compatibility depends on what year they were born.” Every letter dripped with sarcasm and scorn and sadness.

  He scoffed, the sound full of bitterness. “And the real kicker—the last woman I dated for two years left me standing at the altar by myself while she hopped on the bus and rode out of town.” He glared at her, and glared hard. “So you’ll excuse me if I’m not a fan of that blasted statue and everyone who believes in the fantasy of it.”

  Navy had no idea what to say. She’d wanted—craved—this part of Gavin’s story. She’d just had no idea it would be so tragic, or so opposite of how she felt about the statue in the center of town.

  He muttered something under his breath, but Navy couldn’t decipher it. Her mind spun with information, with emotion, with indecision. She’d been flirting with him for a solid ten days. But if she f
ound out he wasn’t an Aquarius, would she abandon him?

  She really wanted to say No, of course not. But the truth was, her heart started a war with her brain.

  “So what do you need to know?” he asked.

  “I-I d-don’t know,” she stammered.

  “Sure you do.” He looked at her angrily. “My grandmother told you something. And it wasn’t that your match lived across the street from her.”

  Navy opened her mouth, determined to make something up. Instead, she said, “She said my best match would be an Aquarius. Because I’m a Libra.”

  Gavin’s fury came immediately, almost a scent on the air. “Great.” He stomped back toward his house. “I have no idea what that means.”

  “It has to do with your birthday,” she called.

  “February seventeenth,” he said, his long strides putting so much distance between them so fast.

  Numb, Navy sat in the grass and pulled out her phone. She looked up the dates for the Aquarius zodiac sign, and sucked in a breath. January 20 to February 18.

  She jumped to her feet and searched the horizon for Gavin.

  Gavin, who was an Aquarius.

  Later that night, Navy sat in the backyard with her laptop balanced on her lap. She’d searched for “cattle ranches for sale in Texas” and nearly closed the computer from the sheer volume of listings that came up. No wonder Gavin was overwhelmed and had stopped looking.

  She narrowed her search to the Hill Country area, and the choices went down. The prices sure didn’t though.

  She clicked and frowned. Read listing after listing. Navigated to a new real estate website that included all commercial properties and performed the search.

  A bed and breakfast came up, and she straightened. The Old Main Hill B&B looked charming and like the heart of Texas. And it sat right across the street from Gavin’s house—and certainly didn’t look like the pictures online.

  But it could be perfect for Gavin. Navy copied the website and sent it to herself so she could text it to Gavin. She hesitated, not wanting to be the first to make contact since their mini-argument that afternoon. It was one of her dating tactics—make the man initiate contact after a confrontation.

  I want a different result, she thought. The breeze whispered to her that she needed to do something different.

  So she wrote up a text about the B&B and put the link at the end. She hit send before she could second-guess herself. Her second text said: Oh, and you are an Aquarius, in case you were wondering. Do you have time for lunch tomorrow?

  12

  Gavin ignored his phone the four times it chimed. His embarrassment wouldn’t fade, and he didn’t want to interact with anyone until he felt more human. His stomach growled with want of those bass he’d caught, but he didn’t want to face Grandmother without Navy at his side. She’d ask a zillion questions about where Navy had gone, and why hadn’t Navy stayed for dinner, and when was Gavin going to call Navy again.

  He sighed and stared at the flickering TV as darkness fell. He woke when his phone rang, and he fumbled along the top of the couch until his fingers touched the plastic case. He squinted at the bright light and hit as close to the green circle as he could estimate. Thankfully, the call picked up. “Hello?”

  “Gavin, it’s Granddad,” Grandmother said.

  He was instantly awake and throwing his legs over the side of the couch. “Granddad?” He reached for his boots. “Talk to me, Grandmother.”

  “He woke up, complaining of pain in his stomach.”

  “Maybe it was something he ate.”

  “He started coughing, and there’s blood.”

  Gavin stood. “I’m on my way over. Call the ambulance.” He hung up and pulled open the front door at the same time. He jogged across the street by the light of the moon. The front door banged against the wall, and Grandmother obviously hadn’t made it out of her bedroom to turn on any lights.

  He hit his leg against the chair and groaned. After making it to the kitchen, he flipped all the switches he could find and headed down the hall. Granddad sat up in bed, a washcloth in one hand and a miserable look on his face.

  “Did you call the ambulance?” he asked Grandmother, who stood near the bathroom with the phone hanging at her side.

  “They’re coming,” she whispered, her voice feeble and tired.

  “All right.” Gavin scooped Granddad into his arms. “I’ll wait with him in the front room. Get dressed, Grandmother. We’ll follow the ambulance to Temple.”

  “I want to ride with him,” she said stronger now.

  “You still need to get dressed.” Gavin gave her a quick smile and went down the hall. He didn’t like how little Granddad weighed in his arms. “How are you feeling?”

  “I feel like I need to throw up,” he said. “But I can’t.”

  “When did you start coughing?”

  “Oh, I’ve been coughing for weeks now.”

  Gavin didn’t like the sound of that, or the hint of pain in his granddad’s voice. He put him on the couch and sat beside him. “Any blood any of the other times?”

  “No.” Granddad looked at the washcloth like it could diagnose him. “I’m old, Gavin.”

  “We’ll get you fixed right up.” Gavin spoke with confidence he didn’t feel. He sat with his grandparents for fifteen minutes while they waited for the ambulance to make the trip from nearby Temple. With both of them loaded in the back of the bus, Gavin headed across the street and climbed in his truck.

  He exhaled and ran his hand through his hair. It was two-thirty in the morning, but he felt wide awake, ready for anything.

  Well, maybe not anything, he thought as he swiped on his phone and saw that he’d received two text messages from Navy. Two from Steve as well. He opened those first, and found one about the fishing trip and one about next week’s fishing trip. The normalcy of the messages calmed Gavin further.

  He read Navy’s two messages, the last one burning his retinas. Oh, and you are an Aquarius, in case you were wondering. Do you have time for lunch tomorrow?

  He didn’t care about what astrological sign, or zodiac sign, or whatever an Aquarius was. But for some strange reason, he did want to have lunch with her tomorrow.

  He looked up and out the windshield at the stars hovering above him in the sky. He wasn’t sure what would be going on with Granddad tomorrow, so he couldn’t commit to Navy. He couldn’t text her that right now either. So he set a reminder for himself so he wouldn’t forget to let her know he couldn’t make lunch.

  Her first text required more thought, more time. A bed and breakfast? His eyes narrowed at the link. His thumb waited over it. He didn’t tap, didn’t want to think about taking on a bed and breakfast when his lifelong dream had been a cattle ranch.

  “How are those two things even close to the same?” he wondered to himself. His voice cut the silence around him, and he put the phone down on the seat. He drove to Temple, catching the ambulance pretty easily, his mind churning over the thought of running cabins-full of bed and breakfast patrons instead of cabins-full of cowboys.

  Hours later, he still didn’t know why Granddad had been coughing up blood. Grandmother slept in the recliner in his room, leaving Gavin to the uncomfortable waiting room chairs, the giant saltwater fish tank, and the low drone of The People’s Court on the television nearby.

  He’d texted Navy by eight o’clock, but she’d just answered with, Oh, no. I hope your granddad is okay. Keep me posted.

  And No worries about lunch. I’ll go with Jana.

  Jana who? he typed out and sent.

  Jana Cheeks. Do you know her?

  “I know everyone in Bride,” he muttered. “Especially the women.” He didn’t put that in his text, though. He just said, Yeah, and let it go. People like Navy didn’t understand how small towns worked. She’d never lived in one, so he couldn’t expect her to, but still. She should know about the town gossips, the best place to get burgers in the middle of the afternoon, and how if you waited until Satur
day night at the bakery, you’d get the cupcakes for half-price because they weren’t open on Sunday and couldn’t hold their stock.

  And Jana Cheeks was the town gossip. How she’d latched on to Navy was a mystery, as she hadn’t left Gavin’s sight for long during the day. Not that they’d spent every evening together either, but she claimed to have simply hung out at her house after he’d finished his work for the day.

  But maybe he’d missed her going into the hair salon. He thought about his obsession with her blonde hair, and he didn’t think so. He yawned and decided to leave the Jana issue alone for now. Navy was a smart woman; she’d figure things out.

  She’s making friends, his mind whispered as he slouched down far enough for his head to rest on the back of the chair. That’s not what someone does when they’re just in town for a few months.

  The more irrational side of his brain wanted to argue back, but he was too tired. It seemed like only minutes later that Grandmother came out, pushing Granddad in a wheelchair. Gavin jumped to his feet and went to take over the manual labor from her.

  “What’s goin’ on?” he asked. “Why didn’t someone come get me?”

  “His chest x-ray was clear,” a doctor said. She had a warm smile and a baby duck attached to her collar. “He has a mild case of bronchitis, which we’ve treated with antibiotics here and your grandmother has a prescription for more. We believe he ate something bad last night, and he had some acid reflux at night, which caused the lining of his throat to be tender. So when he coughed from the bronchitis, there was some tearing and thus the bleeding.”

  Gavin could hardly absorb so many words at once. “So he’s okay?”

  The doctor smiled, and Gavin wondered if Navy looked as comfortable when she dealt with anxiety-ridden patients. “He’s okay, Gavin.” She put her hand on his bicep. “Go home and get some sleep.” She looked at Grandmother and Granddad. “All of you.”

  “Thanks.” Gavin nodded and pushed Granddad toward the exit with Grandmother shuffling along beside them. By the time Gavin got everyone taken care of: Granddad with his antibiotic and soda water, Grandmother with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, and all three dogs with their food and water, Gavin wanted nothing more than to sleep.