From the Boots Up

by Marquette, Andi

  “Then I’m glad I had a flat tire, too. And that you stopped to help.”

  “Not that you needed it.” Meg kissed Gina’s chin.

  “Maybe not. But I definitely needed you. Though I didn’t know it at the time.”

  So maybe this was more than one night? Butterflies zipped through Meg’s stomach and she hugged Gina closer. “I think I might like you,” she murmured against her lips.

  “I think I might like you back.”

  And Meg smiled, her head on Gina’s shoulder, as Gina stroked her hair and softly sang another Dixie Chicks tune, about needing wide open spaces, new faces, and the lessons life would give you.

  Eight

  Morning coaxed Meg awake. She opened her eyes and heard the river through the window, and laughter from the parking lot. She was lying on her side, facing the window, Gina spooning her, arm wrapped around her waist. Gina stirred and pulled her closer and Meg felt her lips on her neck.

  “Best morning ever,” Gina said against her skin.

  “Yeah, it is.” She covered Gina’s hand with her own and snuggled against her, reveling in last night’s aftermath.

  “I have a confession,” Gina said after a while.

  “Oh?” She rolled over to face her, and got caught in her eyes. “The morning looks really, really good on you,” she said after a few moments.

  “This one in particular?”

  “That’s all I’ve got to go on, so yeah.” She brushed a kiss across her lips.

  “It looks delicious on you,” Gina said. “And I’m betting mornings always look this good on you.”

  “Maybe you’ll find out,” she said, then caught herself. That was sort of forward, and she didn’t want to drop any complications into what had started as a really great day. “What’s the confession?” she asked, to change the subject.

  “I knew the River Rest does karaoke on Fridays.”

  She propped her head on an elbow, puzzled. “So?”

  “So I made sure to check out at the ranch and get my story sent in before I went.” She stroked Meg’s cheek, and gently brushed her hair out of her face. “Because I know the policy about guests at the ranch. And I had to make sure I was done with the story before I went last night.”

  Meg waited, Gina’s touch heating her skin in some places and causing chills in others.

  “Because I wanted to make sure nothing would be in the way when I got there.”

  “Are you saying that you were planning to ask me out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Or ask me to bed?”

  She smiled. “Both. Not necessarily in that order, obviously.”

  Meg laughed. “And you planned on singing?”

  She nodded. “Not that I thought it would work. Or anything like that. I just wanted to.”

  Meg kissed her again, long and slow, and Gina responded, her hand moving to Meg’s hip, then to her back.

  “All you had to do was ask,” she said after a few minutes of enjoying Gina’s mouth.

  “So you said. After the fact, I might add.”

  She shrugged. “You don’t seem to have a problem with it.”

  “No. None at all. So. . .how about it? Would you go out with me?”

  Meg laughed again. “Definitely. Even though you do seem to do things backwards sometimes.”

  “Does that mean we can have more mornings like this?”

  She didn’t respond right away, and instead studied Gina’s eyes, debating the pros and cons of what this represented. Long distance. Hot shot L.A. reporter. Where could this possibly go?

  “I know this is sudden. And maybe kind of weird.” Gina’s fingers continued to stroke Meg’s face. “But I know what I’m feeling. I know what I felt the first time I saw you, and I want to know what happens next.” Her fingers stopped moving, but remained on Meg’s face. “It’s okay if you don’t want to—”

  “Yes.”

  She waited.

  “More mornings,” Meg said. “And I want to know what happens, too. Even though you’re not actually a forest ranger.”

  “Oh, fine. Hold that against me,” she said with a little pout that didn’t withstand another of her smiles.

  “I’ll hold something against you. Like this.” She slid her hand down Gina’s chest, then lower, and lower still.

  “That’s okay,” she said with a little gasp. “I can take it.”

  “I know.”

  Gina started to move, slowly, against Meg’s fingers. She suddenly stopped and her eyes widened. “Oh, shit. Do you have to be back at the ranch?”

  “Nope. Day off.” She smiled and continued to tease Gina with her fingertips.

  “Then this is definitely the best morning ever.” And she kissed her, and the slow burn Meg had been carrying for Gina since the day in the parking lot of the feed store erupted again into flames. No, she didn’t know for sure where this would go. But she knew what she was feeling, too, and she wanted more. Much, much more. And then she surrendered to Gina’s lips and hands.

  Meg read the story again. Gina had a smooth, breezy style tempered with a little grit and grin, as Alice had said. She could hear Gina’s voice in the words, see her smiling as she talked, and the longing that filled her chest was an almost physical pain. She flipped the manila envelope over so she could look at Gina’s handwriting again. Neat block letters, but Meg saw in them parts of the woman who’d put them on the envelope.

  She’d sent several copies of the piece, a feature in the Times magazine. Meg envisioned how Gina had convinced her editor to run it as a feature. Gina said she’d gone for it right away, and she probably had. Gina was hard to refuse.

  She smiled.

  Very hard to refuse.

  She flipped the pages. She’d taken some really great photos, including one of Meg in the corral with the filly she’d worked with. There was another of Jackson at the bonfire and one of all the dogs staring into the stable. She’d have to ask how she’d managed to get that one. Plus some landscape shots and another of the main buildings as you crested the hill before you drove down to the parking area. And so far, Gina’s article had worked. Practically the day after it was published they started getting calls.

  Now they were booked solid through August, and a few people had asked to be put on a waiting list for next spring. She’d told her dad it was time for a decent website, as slow as service was out here, so they could get quotes from the story posted along with a link to it. Every little bit helps, she’d said. Maybe they’d finally be able to get ahead.

  She looked up from the table in the dining room where she sat with the article and stared out the front door, open to the late June air. She hadn’t seen Gina since she’d left, a week after their first night together. She’d stuck around in Saratoga as long as she could, even coming to the ranch when Meg had down time. “Extended vacation,” she’d told Stan, who seemed to really like her, so he didn’t mind, as long as work got done.

  “It’s a wonderful article.”

  Meg looked up at Alice. “Yeah. Good pictures, too.”

  “I told you it would be.” She sat down on the bench next to her. “When will you see her again?”

  She laughed, a little embarrassed.

  “The extra week tipped me off,” she said as she squeezed Meg’s shoulder.

  “Maybe around the Fourth. She said she’d let me know as soon as she got the time off.”

  “And maybe another story in this neck of the woods.” Alice chuckled.

  “Maybe.”

  “You should tell your dad.”

  She looked over at her, stomach clenching a little. “I know.”

  Alice must have read her discomfort because she put her arm around her shoulder. “He really likes her.”

  “As long as she’s not who I’m seeing.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  She shrugged.

  “This is your life, Meg. You get to date who you want to.”

  “Doesn’t mean people will like it.”
r />   “And that’s going to be something you’ll be dealing with for a long time. I wish it wasn’t the case, sweetie. I wish the world could be different. But you have to live your truth. That’s the kind of woman you are, and the kind of woman your dad knows you are.”

  She sighed. “How come the whole world can’t be like you?”

  Alice gave her a kiss on the cheek. She stood and patted Meg’s hair. The phone rang in the kitchen and she went to answer it. Meg put the article back into the envelope. She was keeping this one as her personal copy. She stood and was almost to the door when Alice called to her from the kitchen.

  “Phone, Meg.”

  She handed the receiver to her, smiling. “Gina.”

  Meg flushed, embarrassed again.

  Alice smiled. “She’s a lovely woman. And I think she gets you.” She went back into the kitchen and Meg sat down again, grinning as she held the phone to her ear.

  “Mail call,” Stan said to Meg as she came into the office. Aaron, Davey’s replacement, moved aside for her. She liked his quiet, pleasant demeanor and lopsided smile. He’d picked up the rhythms of the ranch within a couple of days after Stan hired him two weeks ago.

  “Let me know if I need to shift my schedule,” Aaron said to Stan. “Hi, Meg.” He tipped his hat at her as he left, in the way that old timey cowboys might do though he was barely thirty.

  She gave him a wave and turned back to Stan. He handed her a manila envelope and she recognized Gina’s handwriting. Little electrical charges zipped around her stomach. Gina had said to expect something in the next couple of days.

  “You think she and her family would like a Wyoming care package?” he asked without looking up from the paperwork at his desk.

  “Like what?”

  He took his reading glasses off and regarded her. “Some of Alice’s cookies. Jerky. A jar of honey and jam. She said her grandmother and mom cook quite a bit. They might appreciate that.”

  “I guess so,” she said, wondering when Gina had told him that.

  “Next time you talk to her, get her address. And her folks’.” He gave her a wink. “Unless you’ve already got ’em, in which case just check with her. Make sure it’d be okay.”

  Meg nodded. “I will.”

  “She’s good people. Stands to reason her family had a hand in that.” He leaned back in his chair. “After all, I’m a decent guy. And you turned out okay. Near as I can tell, anyway.” Amusement shined in his eyes.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s all you, Dad.” She gave him a look.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll only take half the credit.” He picked his glasses up and gestured at the envelope in her hand with them. “Better read that before it burns a hole through your fingers.”

  Her eyes widened and he gave her a little smile. “Like I said. She’s good people.”

  Fortunately the phone rang and he gave her a wave as he answered. Meg slipped outside, wondering if he had guessed what was going on between her and Gina. Sure sounded like he suspected something. She walked toward her truck, parked outside the lodge. She’d left her tailgate down and she sat on it, swinging her booted feet as she opened the envelope and pulled the sheets of paper out. She read the top sheet, a handwritten note in Gina’s no-nonsense printing:

  Hiya, Cowgirl. God, I miss you. I think I’m going insane. I got spoiled those two weeks at the DR. Especially the second one. . .at least I have the phone. And e-mail, though I know you’re so damn busy you don’t get to check it much. I think about you constantly and I’m plotting all kinds of ways to see you again. I’ll tell you all about ’em when I talk to you next. Which’ll probably be tonight, since I can’t go a day without hearing your voice. I thought I might hitch a ride on the next cattle drive but the Goodnight Trail closed a long time ago and hell, it doesn’t really go near California. So I guess I’ll just have to use good, ol’ fashioned planes and cars.

  Meg smiled. She sniffed the paper and thought maybe she smelled cinnamon. She continued reading:

  We’ve gotten lots of great feedback about the article. Editors loved it. We’ve even gotten some calls. Hopefully those people will be calling you to make reservations. Let me know if you or your dad want more copies, because I have a few lying around here. Anyway, I thought I’d send you the version I like best, though it won’t ever make the paper. Hope you like it, too. Miss ya.

  Yours,

  Gina

  “I miss you, too,” Meg said softly as she put the note aside and started reading the next page, which was typed:

  I know a little bit about farming. And maybe something about ranching. My Grandfather Antonio raises cattle and wheat outside Sacramento. I’m a city slicker now, but I miss the land and I miss the shadows a cowboy hat casts when you’re sitting in a saddle, boots in your stirrups, headed for home after a long day. I still find peace in the open expanses of space that define the American West. Peace and possibility.

  So I went to Wyoming in May. By accident. I had to fill in at the last minute for another journalist. I had five days to pack and drive there. Funny, how that worked out. I’d only been to Wyoming a few times in the past. Quick trips to Yellowstone and Jackson Hole. Twice through Laramie and Cheyenne. I’m not an expert on the area, but that’s where I had to go to get a story on the ways some western ranching families survive the market fluctuations and ever-constricting hold of agribusiness. I don’t know why my editor picked the Diamond Rock Ranch, south of Saratoga. Maybe she liked the way it sounded. Western with an edge of glamour. Kind of Hollywood. And my editor is completely L.A.

  Saratoga barely supports 1700 people. It’s about 30 miles north of the Colorado border, as much a product of prairie as mountain, nestled between the Rockies and the Medicine Bows. But there’s magic in the air. As soon as I hit town limits, I felt peace, even when I blew a tire as I slowed down on State Highway 130. I managed to get my vehicle into the parking lot outside Saratoga Feed. As I started working on my tire, I found possibility.

  Meg stopped reading and let thoughts of Gina course through her veins for a moment. She inhaled deeply, reveling in memories, and read further.

  I like stories about instant connections at first meeting, when you just know this person is somehow important, will somehow play a role in your life. But I don’t put much stock in them. So I started changing my tire and. . .well, it happened. I have one of those stories now. I fell for her boots first, because that’s what I saw first. Or rather, I fell for the way she filled them. And her jeans. And then her T-shirt. And the way her hat sat on her dark hair and shaded her eyes. Gray, like the storm clouds that gather over the Rockies.

  The first word she ever said to me was “Hey.” A simple greeting. A thoughtful “can I give you a hand” inflection, something just about anybody in Saratoga would do for a stranger with a flat. But I wasn’t a stranger and I somehow knew that and she knew it, too, because I saw it in her eyes. I wondered if she saw it in mine. I hoped she did, as I watched her pull my spare tire out of the back of my Pathfinder. She gave me her time and told me where to get the bum tire fixed. And then we had to go about the business of living on the different paths our lives were building. But something was at work there. Something bigger than both of us, bigger than a windswept Wyoming landscape and a western sky painted with a million stars.

  Meg’s chest tightened as she kept reading. It was the story of their first week, of Gina’s growing feelings for her and the certainty she felt about their connection. She got to the second-to-the-last page.

  I don’t know why some things happen. They just do. And now Wyoming’s in my blood and it’s in my bones and it’s wrapped around my heart. And it tells me stories about dogs named Dammit and winters so hard they cut. It sings cowboy songs around an evening bonfire and two-steps me across a wooden floor worn smooth under hundreds of boots. It takes me riding over secret mountain passes and kisses me in stands of ponderosa pine that smell faintly of vanilla. It makes me cry with hope before it leaves my bed with the dawn and it holds me cl
ose in the dark and whispers dreams against my lips.

  I need Wyoming. I need it like I need the breath in my body.

  I found my magic in Saratoga, when the first word she ever said to me was “Hey.” And I fell in love with her from the boots up.

  Meg’s eyes stung a little with tears. She wiped her eyes and turned to the last page. A flight itinerary, LAX to Denver. She read the writing at the top of the page. “See you in a week, Cowgirl.”

  A thousand tiny explosions rippled through her chest. She slid the papers back into the envelope and watched Dammit chase Bugoff into the horse paddock. The sun was warm on her back and Alice’s laughter carried past the open dining room door. Peace settled across Meg’s heart. Peace and possibility. She swung her legs one last time and hopped onto the ground. Whatever this was with Gina, Meg wanted it and needed it and it didn’t matter what anyone else thought.

  She smiled, tapping the envelope against her thigh as she walked. She opened the office door. “Dad? You got a minute?”

  End

  About the Author

  Andi Marquette was born in New Mexico and grew up in Colorado. She completed a couple of academic degrees in anthropology and returned to New Mexico, where she decided a doctorate in history was somehow a good idea. She completed it before realizing that maybe she should have joined the circus, or at least a traveling Gypsy troupe. Oh, well. She fell into editing sometime around 1993 and has been obsessed with words ever since, which may or may not be a good thing.

  She writes a mystery series set in New Mexico and a science fiction series set wherever she decides to take the characters. She is also the author of several short stories (some of which are available as freebies on her website) and another romance novella, Some Kind of River, available on Kindle. You can find excerpts and information about her books, freebie short stories, see what’s in the pipeline, and catch her blogging at her website: http://www.andimarquette.com