Not My 1st Rodeo

by Donna Alward

  Then the phone in her office rang and Karen gratefully hurried to answer it. It was the flower wholesaler, calling to confirm her rose order.

  Karen was grateful for the distraction of work. She threw herself into the pre-Valentine’s Day preparations with a vengeance. Which was how she normally handled the holiday. Work kept her from reliving the lousy Valentine’s Days she’d muddled through with Roger—with the expensive piece of jewelry in a Tiffany box that had invariably proven to be the $99 cheap mall-store special that he’d transferred into the bright-blue box on his own, the dinner where he’d boldly and loudly professed his love in front of the rest of the diners but never when they were alone. Oh, and the way his phone would always ring at some point in the evening and he’d hurry out of earshot to talk to a client who was always his latest girlfriend, calling to tell him how much she loved him.

  But this was different. She wasn’t trying to drown out the memories of being neglected, misled and ignored. She was trying to not think about the way Mack Tucker had watched her swim, the fire in his eyes when he’d made her cry his name. Because to think of that would be to want it—him—again.

  The days turned into a week, then two weeks. Every time the phone rang, she stupidly hoped to hear his rough voice on the other end, asking to see her again. Telling her he couldn’t stop thinking about her. That he missed her.

  Mack didn’t call.

  She knew he wouldn’t.

  Mack turned on his phone, saw the text messages from all three of his boys as well as all the missed calls, and shut that sucker right back down.

  He knew what they wanted. They wanted to know how his big date had gone and whether or not Mack was getting on with his life.

  He didn’t want to talk about the date. He didn’t want to talk about Karen. He didn’t want anyone to know how he’d tucked his damn tail between his damn legs and run like a coward.

  He didn’t want to tell his sons that he’d almost forgotten about their mother.

  So he kept his phone off. He didn’t turn on his computer, just in case one of the boys tried to video-chat with him or whatever the kids were calling it these days. He let the machine pick up his landline.

  He didn’t tell anyone about the date. He didn’t even go to church for a few weeks because he didn’t know how he was supposed to sit in the house of the Lord and listen to the preacher talk about sin and forgiveness.

  He didn’t even turn on the television, aside from catching the weather because impending blizzards were something that no rancher in his right mind would ignore. But instead of leaving the TV on all the time just to fill the silence, Mack turned it right back off.

  The silence was punishing, but he deserved it.

  Karen probably hated him, but he deserved that too.

  One snowy day, when he’d made sure his cattle had water and feed and that was all he could do, he couldn’t take it anymore. He dug out the shoeboxes full of photos, the album his mom had put together when he and Sue had gotten married. He flipped through decades of snapshots.

  He started spreading the photos out over the kitchen table, organizing them by year and by memory, forcing himself to remember everything that he might have forgotten.

  There were the photos of his senior prom. They’d slow-danced to every single song, unwilling to part for anything, even a catchy tune. They’d already been having sex for about four months then, and he’d decided that night that he was going to marry her just as soon as he could, because he knew it was never going to get better than this.

  And the photos of her senior prom, then their wedding photos from just two weeks later. Her prom dress had been her wedding dress because her momma had refused to spend more money on another dress so soon, so she’d gotten married in that. It hadn’t mattered to them. They’d been adults and they couldn’t wait a minute longer. The rest of their lives had been waiting for them.

  The rest of Sue’s life anyway.

  He stacked the pictures of Sue’s growing belly when she had Mark, then the ones of her with a big belly and a toddler in her arms. Nicky. And then Tommy, a squalling little ball of red in her arms in the hospital, with Mack leaning over them both, his arm around Sue. Years of Halloween costumes and Christmas mornings and new boots for the boys.

  He found the professional photo they’d had done for their tenth anniversary, because Sue had lost as much of the baby weight as she could and was finally ready to have her picture taken again. He’d felt ridiculous being posed by the photographer, but even he had to admit the results were worth it.

  Slowly, order was restored to the piles of photos, but Mack couldn’t bring himself to put everything back into the boxes. He had to look at all the photos now—the table was covered in them. He had to remember. He couldn’t allow himself to forget.

  There was one last box he pulled out from under the bed. It wasn’t overflowing like all the other boxes had been.

  Mack sat down at the table and opened it.

  There weren’t as many photos in this one. Instead, there were bracelets from hospital visits and a copy of the first clean doctor’s report, followed by the results from a year later that the cancer had come back. The scarf Sue had used to cover her baldness was in here.

  And down at the bottom was a photo. He didn’t remember seeing this one before. Sue was in her hospital bed, wires and tubes and death lurking at every corner of the frame. Mack was in bed with her, his strong body curled around her weak one.

  She’d turned her face to his and their foreheads were touching. Her hand, the one with the IV lines running into it, rested on top of his. Their eyes were closed.

  Tears ran down Mack’s face as he studied the picture. He didn’t know when the photo had been taken, but it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks before she died.

  And Sue…was smiling. She was smiling in the picture. Her eyes were closed and half-sunken into her head and she was about to die and leave him for forever, and still, she smiled. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it. Of her.

  Something made him turn the photo over. There, on the back, was Sue’s handwriting. It was jagged and slanted, none of her normal strong curves to be seen, but he recognized it anyway.

  “See how happy you make me? Be happy, Mack. Be happy.”

  “I don’t know how to be happy without you, babe,” he whispered to the photo.

  It didn’t answer him. Of course it didn’t, because there was no answer to be had.

  Mack put his head down on the table and cried.

  Chapter Ten

  “Dad?”

  Mack started from his brooding at the shout. “What?”

  “Dad!” Tommy burst into the house, tracking in snow. “Where the hell have you been? We’ve been worried sick about you.”

  Mack gaped at his youngest. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in school.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t text me back.” Tommy stomped his feet, getting more snow everywhere. “You haven’t returned my calls, or Nick’s or Mark’s. You’re not online, you’re not answering your phone. What the hell were we supposed to think?” He shed his coat and draped it over the couch. “We decided that one of us had to make sure you weren’t frozen to death somewhere out on the ranch, and I was closest. What the hell have you been doing?” He turned and saw all the photos piled on the table. “I mean, seriously, Dad, what have you been doing?”

  “Nothing. Just…remembering.”

  “Jesus, Dad. We thought you might have been kidnapped by your date or something, and you were here organizing photos the whole time?”

  “Hey, you watch your tone.”

  Back in the day, that rebuke would have gotten him a, “Sorry, Dad,” or something.

  But not now. Mack was starting to realize Tommy was pissed. “For God’s sake, you could have at least sent us a text to let us know you weren’t dead or a
nything. Do you have any idea how worried we were?”

  Mack stared up at his son, his youngest. He always thought of Tommy as the baby. But he wasn’t looking at the littlest of the three right now. He was looking at a full-grown man. “I’m…I’m sorry, son.”

  Tommy glared at him for a moment and then it passed. He sank onto the couch across from Mack’s recliner. “So what happened?”

  “I…I can’t talk to you about it.” The thought of explaining anything that had happened with Karen to his own kid…no.

  “Come on, Dad. You’ve been a hermit for weeks now, organizing old photos and—” He stood and walked over to the table and picked up the top photo. The very last one. “Oh. You found this one.”

  “You know it? I didn’t remember it.” Which was the problem, wasn’t it? That he was forgetting the love of his life?

  “I took it, Dad. You two were asleep and you looked… Well, I didn’t know if you guys would get another chance like that. So I took a picture and showed it to Mom.” His voice softened. “She told me—”

  “What?” He stood and went to his boy. “She told you what?”

  “She told me to put it in with the other stuff and you’d find it when you were ready.”

  Was this what that was? Was he ready? Ready for what?

  “You didn’t tell me about it.” It came out as an accusation, but Mack couldn’t help it.

  “She told me not to,” Tommy replied easily. “And if you think I’m the kind of man who’d go back on a promise I made to my dying mother, well—”

  “No, no,” Mack quickly replied. “I just…”

  They stood in silence for a few moments, staring at the last picture of Sue Jenkins Tucker.

  “So tell me what happened that sent you into hiding to dig all this up,” Tommy said quietly. “Was it that bad?”

  “No.” “Be happy, Mack. Be happy.” “She was actually wonderful. Beautiful and smart and nice.” Then, because he felt he owed Tommy a compliment, he added, “You picked well. But don’t ever sign me up for another dating website again, okay?”

  “Okay,” Tommy said with a chuckle. “If she was all that, what happened?”

  How could he stand here and tell his son about sex with a woman who wasn’t his mother?

  Tommy sighed. “I don’t really want to know the details, Dad. Ew. But I also don’t want you to lock yourself away like this. It’s not healthy. Suck it up and tell me what set you off.”

  Mack spun and walked back into the living room. “I—I spent the night, all right?”

  “Good,” Tommy said. “Good for you.”

  “It’s not though. Don’t you see? It’s not good. It’s not good at all.”

  “Why the hell not?” Tommy demanded. “Look, it’s been six years, okay? It’s not a bad thing if you move on. It’s not a bad thing to go out with a pretty woman—she was pretty, wasn’t she?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not what made her special,” he snapped.

  “Then what the hell was it? You’ve spent the last six years acting like you died with Mom. Six years of barely living at all, and for what? That’s not what Mom wanted. I heard her—do you remember what she told you the day before she died?”

  “She told me to go on with my life,” he said bitterly. “That, I remember. But I—I’m forgetting other things. Me and Karen—we—things happened. Things happened and they were good things and she asked if I’d ever done anything like that with my wife and I couldn’t remember, okay? I couldn’t remember.”

  Tommy stared at him for a long, quiet moment. “And that’s why you ran away?”

  “Yes!” He was shouting, but he couldn’t stop. “I know it’s been six years. You don’t have to tell me how long it’s been because I know it every single damned day that I wake up and she’s not beside me. Six of the longest, darkest years of my life because, even though she died and left me, I still love your mother and I don’t ever want to forget her. And when I was with Karen, I…forgot.”

  He dropped back into his chair and covered his face with his hands. For so long, he’d kept it together because he had to. The boys had needed him to be strong after they’d lost their mother. The cattle had to be fed and worked. He had to go on. He couldn’t stop.

  But the boys were men now, grown men. They didn’t need him anymore, not like they had.

  And Mack was all alone. With nothing but his memories.

  “So what you’re saying is you were not thinking about your dead wife while you were having sex with another woman.”

  “Jesus, Tommy.”

  “No, I’m serious, Dad. That’s it, isn’t it? You were able to let go of Mom for just a little while and be in the moment with someone else and you…what? Think that makes you a bad person?”

  Mack managed to level his meanest glare at his son. “I am married.”

  “You were,” Tommy corrected. “Damn, man. Have you at least called her? Karen, I mean.”

  “No.” Admitting that was harder than he thought it’d be.

  “Why not?” He was irritated again. “You’re kind of coming off as a jerk here. I know you’re not all up-to-date on your dating protocol, but sleeping with a woman and then not calling her or sending flowers or something—that’s a jerk move.”

  “I couldn’t.” There was an expectedness to the silence that followed. “I didn’t know what to say.”

  Tommy sighed. “You thank her for the nice time. You compliment her. You ask her out again. No one is asking you to get down on one knee and pop the question, for God’s sake. That was one of the reasons I picked her. She expressly did not want to get married again. But you don’t have to spend every waking moment remembering every single thing you and Mom ever did, you know. Letting go of Mom for a while doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you human.”

  Mack didn’t have an answer for that. Tommy sat back down on the couch. “None of us—not Mark, not Nick and not me—would think less of you for that. You’re not erasing Mom’s memory. You’re just not living in the past anymore. And if you can’t see that…” He abruptly stood and thrust the new photo into Mack’s hands. “If you won’t listen to me, listen to her. And turn your damn phone back on.”

  And he left. Tommy walked right back out as suddenly as he’d walked in, nothing but small puddles of melted snow on the floor to tell Mack the boy had been there at all.

  Mack stared at the photo, at Sue’s smile. And then he turned it over in his hands and read the very last thing his wife ever wanted to say to him over and over until it burned into his memory.

  “See how happy you make me? Be happy, Mack. Be happy.”

  Be happy.

  He couldn’t let her down.

  Chapter Eleven

  The chime over the door jingled as Karen was double-checking the day’s deliveries against her inventory list. She glanced at the clock—four-fifty. Almost closing time. “Welcome to Bergman’s, we’ll be right with you,” she called out, trying to sound perky about the late arrival. The shop had been incredibly busy. Flo was pulling ten-hour days and Julie, who normally worked part-time on the weekends, was pulling down 40-hour weeks right now.

  Which was great. Valentine’s Day sales accounted for almost a third of her yearly sales. Yay for love.

  Not for the first time, Karen’s thoughts turned around and ran smack-dab into Mack Tucker. She hoped he was doing okay—if anything, the fact that their date had been so close to Valentine’s Day had probably only made things worse. This could be a lonely time of year.

  But she had let it go. Or tried to anyway. She hadn’t called. She’d sent one email, but he hadn’t replied. She hadn’t even contacted his son, the one who’d set him up on that dating site.

  She had deleted her profile though. She wasn’t ready. That much was clear.

  She just had to get through the next week. Then she could proc
ess it all with a little more distance.

  She finished the inventory check and set the clipboard down. “How can I help you?” she asked, heading out into the front of the shop.

  And she ran smack-dab into Mack Tucker.

  “Mack!” She gasped as she tripped backwards.

  Two strong hands went around her waist and steadied her. “Karen,” he said. He looked…a little older, maybe a little sadder. But then his mouth curved into a smile. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “It is? I mean, yes. It is.” She cleared her throat, trying to get her brain to work. It wasn’t easy with his hands around her waist like that. “I…didn’t expect to see you. In the store. Today.” Or ever, her brain helpfully—but silently—added.

  “Yeah.” He let go of her and took a step back, his gaze drifting over her floral apron and her sensible sneakers. She wished she looked better—that she’d been able to plan ahead for this. Oh, to have on a cuter shirt and the chance to make sure she didn’t have any errant leaves in her hair. “Well, about that. I need to order some flowers.”

  “You do?” She gave him a confused look. “Don’t you have a florist in Butte?”

  “Oh, yeah, there’s a couple. But they didn’t have what I needed.” Again, there was that grin, sly and nervous all at the same time.

  “What is it you need?” She didn’t mean it to come out quite like that—like a double-entendre—but she honestly didn’t know how else to say it at this point.

  Why was he here? Had he come to apologize or ask her out again or was he just in town and had an hour and was looking for a quick screw?

  That last thought made her a little mad, which was enough to at least get her mouth closed. She stood up straighter. This man—this kind, loving man—had cut and run after a really good night of sex. She was no one’s fuck buddy. And that was final.

  “I need something that tells a woman that I’m sorry,” he began, his gaze never leaving hers. “I need something that tells a woman I found her to be the most beautiful, exciting woman I’ve talked to in years, and that I really do like her. I like her a lot. I need something that tells that woman that I do believe in hope even when I might feel hopeless.”