Coming Home to Texas--A Clean Romance

by Kit Hawthorne

  “It is not the exact same thing!”

  “How is it different?”

  “Well, for one thing, I’m sober. For another thing, there wasn’t any point to balcony diving other than showing off.”

  “Oh, and there is a point to bull riding?”

  He raised his hands high.

  “It’s rodeo! It’s what people like us, cattle-raising people, have been doing for hundreds of years to celebrate our way of life.”

  “It isn’t your way of life. You’re a town boy and you always were. Visiting your grandparents’ ranch on weekends does not make you a cowboy. And riding a bull is not an actual useful skill. Nobody rides a bull as part of legitimate ranch work.”

  “Maybe not, but they do have to show grit and determination and physical courage. Anyway, if it’s so stupid, why is it okay for other people to do it? Why did we come here to sit with hundreds of other spectators if it’s all such a waste of time?”

  “It’s different for the other competitors. They’re not blind in one eye.”

  “Bull. It’s the same risk for everyone. It’s all muscle memory. I don’t have to see—I just have to feel, get my rhythm right, hold on.”

  “Oh, yeah? And what if you’d detached the other retina? What if you’d lost what’s left of your vision?”

  He made a scoffing sound. “That would be such a freak occurrence that it’s not even worth considering.”

  “It’s not all that unlikely for someone who behaves as idiotically as you do.”

  Boom.

  Tony stood there a solid second, unable to reply, like the breath had been knocked clean out of him. When he did speak, his voice sounded strange in his own ears, like it was coming from a long way off.

  “And there it is. It’s almost a relief to hear you say it, after waiting all this time for the shoe to drop. Tony is an idiot. Tony is an idiot, everyone!”

  “Stop trying to make me the bad guy. You’re the one risking your life, trying to prove your manhood with an infantile stunt. You could have been killed, Tony.”

  “Yeah, well, guess what? People get hurt. People get killed. People with all sorts of jobs who aren’t doing any kind of stunt. Ranching is one of the riskiest jobs in the nation, did you know that? Death by livestock, death by equipment—”

  He stopped.

  “Death by sunstroke. Like my father. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it, Tony?”

  “I didn’t say it.”

  “Yeah, you’re just a paragon of self-control.”

  “Right, well, you’re the expert on that, aren’t you?”

  “On what?”

  “Control. The truth is, you’re a control freak, Dalia, and you always were. Even today, our first date after getting back together, you couldn’t just enjoy being with me. No, you had to take me to school. Lecture me about my monocular vision—like I don’t know what it’s like to have just one working eye, after living that way for six years. Oh, no. I don’t know anything, but one night of research and suddenly you’re the expert. You were always the expert, about everything. You never let me forget I wasn’t good enough or smart enough for you—not then, and not now. You talk about me being hurt, but you hurt me like nothing and no one else ever could. You make me feel small.”

  For a second, she was actually at a loss for words. She just stood there staring at him, wide-eyed.

  Then she swallowed hard and drew herself up.

  “Well, then I’ll get out of your way so you can feel big again.”

  She turned and walked away.

  * * *

  DALIA’S HEART WAS POUNDING, her legs were shaking, and she felt sick to her stomach. Their beautiful day was ruined. Everything was ruined.

  “Dalia, wait.”

  She stopped. Was he actually going to apologize? What could he possibly have to say to her now, after everything he’d already said?

  But all he said was “Let me take you home.” Calmly. Quietly.

  She shut her eyes and suppressed a groan. She’d forgotten they’d come in his truck.

  She turned around. “I’m not accepting a ride from a driver with limited peripheral vision and no depth perception.”

  It was a cheap shot, and she knew it, and also pretty silly since he’d driven her there in the first place, but Tony didn’t even flinch. He didn’t look angry anymore, just tired.

  “What’re you gonna do, then? Walk? Hitchhike?”

  “Oh, I see. I don’t get to risk my personal safety. Only you get to do that.”

  “Come on, Dalia. Don’t be like that.”

  Don’t be like that? Who did he think he was, acting like he was the adult in this situation?

  “Just let me take you home, okay?” he said. “You don’t have to talk to me or look at me. I just want you to be safe.”

  “I’ll take an Uber.”

  Tony frowned, looking doubtful. “Do we have Uber in Limestone Springs?”

  “Yes, Tony. We have Uber in Limestone Springs.”

  She heard the irritation and impatience in her own voice. Why was she being so nasty?

  Tony backed off like she’d hit him. “Okay, okay. I just never heard of anyone using it around here. But if you’re sure...”

  “I’m sure. Now would you please just go?”

  Still he held his ground. “I’d rather wait with you ’til it comes.”

  “And I’d rather not have to look at you anymore tonight.”

  He stood there a moment longer, sober-faced. Red dust from the arena still clung to his jeans in patches. As angry as she was, part of her wanted to go over and brush it off and tell him... Tell him what? That she was sorry? Why should she be sorry? He was the one in the wrong.

  “Okay,” he said.

  He shifted his riggin bag on his shoulder, turned and walked away.

  Once he was out of sight, she took out her phone, opened the ridesharing app and hoped fervently that they really did have Uber in Limestone Springs.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “WAIT A MINUTE, back up,” Lauren said from Dalia’s laptop screen. “Didn’t you say Tony drove you to the fair? So how did you get back home? Did he drive you home after your big fight? Was it superawkward?”

  Dalia sighed, a sigh that felt like it came from all the way down in her toes. “Yes. I mean no. I mean, yes, he did drive me to the fair, but no, he didn’t drive me home.”

  She dropped her head into her hands. “Why did I let him drive me?” she said, almost wailing. “What was wrong with me? I already had my doubts about him driving at all with his vision, and I’d told him so. After all that, why would I still let him come for me and drive me there like some sort of princess, and put myself in the position of getting stranded?”

  Lauren’s jaw dropped. “Stranded? Seriously? He just left you there?”

  “What? No. He wanted to take me home. I’d actually forgotten we came together. I was all set to storm off when he called me back and said he’d take me home. But I said no, I’d just take an Uber. So no, I wasn’t stranded. But I could have been. It’s the principle of the thing.”

  “Okay,” said Lauren, in a way that meant she knew Dalia was leaving out a lot.

  Dalia didn’t want to repeat that part of the conversation because she suspected she hadn’t exactly come off well in it. The things she’d said sounded childish and mean in her memory. Tony was the one who’d been calm and dignified and practical, putting her safety above his own feelings.

  “It was one of those chatty Uber drivers, too,” Dalia said. “Turned out to be a distant cousin through my mother and my father, if you can believe that. Showed me all these pics of his wife and little children. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I did not feel like talking just then. Uber really ought to make the silent ride option available across the board and not just for premium users.
”

  “Yeah,” said Lauren. “So elitist of them.”

  Silence.

  Then Dalia said, “You might as well go ahead and say it.”

  “Go ahead and say what?”

  “You know what. You think I’m wrong, don’t you? If you’d been in my place you wouldn’t have been the least bit bothered by the bull-riding thing. You’d have thought it was sexy.”

  Lauren shrugged. “Wasn’t it?”

  “No! It was terrifying.”

  “What about that other time you saw him ride a bull, when he was eighteen?”

  Another pause. Then, “Okay, yes. That time was amazing. But this? This was just plain irresponsible. Tony’s already done permanent damage to himself with another crazy stunt. How could he take a risk like that again?”

  “Well, the guy’s already a firefighter.”

  “Yes, he is. And that’s another risk he shouldn’t be taking.”

  “It sounds like he’s one of those personalities that have a high excitement quotient. Some of us are just that way. We need a lot of risk and physical challenge in our lives to feel alive.”

  “I know that. But he’s physically impaired now. He can’t go around living on the edge like an adrenaline junkie anymore.”

  “Whoa, hold on. Don’t you think you’re being kind of ableist here?”

  “I’m being realistic. He has to understand that there are certain things he can’t do anymore.”

  “But is this one of them? Is there a vision test for bull riding?”

  Dalia opened her mouth and shut it again. Finally she said, “If there’s not, there should be. Bull riding is dangerous enough for guys with perfect vision.”

  Lauren leaned forward on her elbows. “Okay, but here’s the thing... Other rodeo guys are putting themselves at risk, too, right? And so are other firefighters. I mean, there could be a guy right beside him fighting a fire who also has some preexisting condition that puts him in greater jeopardy. Or there could be a perfectly healthy guy beside him who gets hurt, or killed, in spite of not having any kind of impairment at all.”

  “That’s completely irrelevant.”

  “Why?”

  “Because those other guys aren’t Tony!”

  Lauren sat back and smiled.

  “Exactly. That’s what the problem is. You’re afraid.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. You’ve always been afraid of losing Tony—to other girls, or a wild partying lifestyle, or some sort of accident. That’s why you get so angry with him, because anger is the bodyguard of fear.”

  Dalia opened her mouth and shut it again.

  “Okay, you may have a point. In retrospect, I admit I could have played the whole bull-riding thing differently. But I didn’t. Maybe Tony and I just bring out the worst in each other.”

  “Or maybe you’re just not used to reacting on a purely emotional level. From what I’ve seen, other guys don’t bring out much of anything in you, good or bad. You just don’t care with them like you do with Tony.”

  Dang it. How was it possible for a ditzy idealist like Lauren to be so downright wise when it came to Dalia?

  “I wish you were here,” Dalia said.

  “I’ll come if you want me to.”

  “No, I couldn’t ask you to leave Aspen in October to come to central Texas.”

  “I do want to come stay in Texas at some point, though. It’s weird that I’ve never actually been to La Escarpa, when you think about how much I travel and how you came home with me so many times when we were in school.”

  “It isn’t weird at all. I went to school where I did for a reason—I wanted to get away from this town, where half the people are related to me and everyone knows my business. I wanted to make it on my own, in a city where I knew no one and no one knew me or my family, using skills that have nothing to do with ranching. I’m glad I did it. But now that I have, and now that I’ve come home again...I don’t feel the same about it anymore. All the Tony drama aside, I’ve liked being home. I belong here in a way that I don’t anywhere else. And I’ve come to realize that no one ever does anything truly alone. Everyone has a family, a background, a history, a people. Mine are here. And I was starting to think I could have a future here, too.”

  “Whoa, seriously? That’s huge. Have you told your mom?”

  “No. All this was before things blew up with Tony.”

  “Well, what if Tony wasn’t in the picture at all? Would you want to be there then?”

  “I don’t know. He is in the picture, and I can’t take him out. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You can always come to Aspen. Who knows, you might fall in love with the van life.”

  Dalia chuckled. “Oh, I doubt that. But thanks for the offer.”

  She looked out her front window. The curve of driveway that Tony’s truck had come down the night before disappeared in a bend at a clump of oaks. But there was more history here than hers with Tony. Trucks had come and gone down that same driveway since before she was born, picking up cattle and taking them to market. Before that, cowboys on horseback had driven herds north to the Chisholm Trail. Somewhere out there in the pastures, a herd of curly-coated Angora goats used to browse, and get rounded up for shearing twice a year.

  She thought of Alejandro Ramirez, who went away to fight for his country and never came back, and Romelia, who held on without him and kept the ranch alive.

  “I’ve got to go,” she told Lauren. “I need to talk to my mom.”

  * * *

  DALIA’S MOM WAS on the sofa with her foot up, knitting something pale green and fuzzy. She gave an eager smile when Dalia came into the living room, and Dalia felt a pang of conscience. They hadn’t talked much since last night, when Dalia had come inside after the Uber driver dropped her off and found her mom waiting up, with the same knitting project in her lap.

  She’d taken one look at Dalia’s face and said, “Oh, sweetie. What happened?”

  And Dalia had said, “I can’t right now, Mom. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

  Then she’d gone straight to her room, where she’d stayed almost the entire day, concentrating on work, avoiding both her mom and the construction crew. Tony hadn’t sought her out, and now he and Alex and their guys were gone, and it was safe to come out.

  Dalia was grateful to her mom for giving her the space she needed. She knew it must be driving her crazy, not knowing. She and Eliana always talked over all of Eliana’s romantic relationships in minute detail—which, considering how many relationships Eliana had been in over the years, had to add up to thousands of conversation hours.

  “Are you hungry?” her mom asked. “I thawed that sausage gumbo Teresa brought and started some brown rice in the rice cooker. It should be ready in half an hour.”

  “That sounds perfect. Thanks for doing that. I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be helping you. I should have seen to dinner instead of leaving it to you.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I got—one of the guys to do it before they left for the day.”

  “Good.”

  Dalia took a seat on the ottoman by the sofa and held out the bundle from Ray and Syndra. “I got you something last night.”

  Dalia’s mom pounced on the Ziploc bag and opened it. “Ooh, what is this?”

  “Angora roving—no, wait. Angora is the name of the goat, but the fiber is called mohair. So mohair roving, and yarn made with mohair fibers around a silk core. I thought you might like it.”

  Her mom rubbed the fibers expertly between her fingers. “I love it! I’ve never worked with mohair before, but I’ve always wanted to. It’s supposed to have a lovely halo—that’s, like, the aura of the yarn around the core. I’ll have to find some project with open stitch work to show it off. Thank you, sweetie. Where’d it come from?”

  “From this couple I
met at the fair. It was so cool, Mom. I wish you could have been there. This man who raises the Angora goats used to work for Grandpa at La Escarpa years ago. He remembered Dad when he was a little boy.”

  “Did he? How wonderful! What did he say about your dad?”

  “That he was an impeccable little cowboy and a hard worker. He said Dad used to have a pair of Lucchese boots when he was a boy?”

  “Oh, yes, those boots! Martin was so proud of them. They must have been pretty pricey—a real extravagance for a growing boy. But the Ramirezes were ranching royalty, and nothing was too good for Martin. Most of the country kids I went to school with were not well off. They were always talking about how they wished they lived in town where they could ride their bikes to their friends’ houses and go to the movie theater whenever they wanted. But not Martin. He was the lucky one, and he knew it. There was always something special about him, even when we were kids—not just the land and the boots and the family name, but Martin himself. I thought he was terribly good-looking, of course, but he was so quiet I didn’t really know him—and he was a year older than me. As far as I could tell, he never even looked at me until I went out with Carlos.”

  They’d already strayed pretty far off topic from what Dalia had meant to talk about, but now that she had an opening, she decided to probe a little. “Yeah, what was that like? How did it even happen?”

  “Well, Carlos was very good-looking, too. His boys look a lot like him, especially—well. But he was wild, you know. He invited me to a pasture party out at the Mastersons’.”

  “You went to a pasture party? With beer and everything?”

  “Oh, honey, there was a lot more than beer, at least at this one. It was not a good scene. A far cry from the parties your brother used to have in the low acreage.”

  Dalia felt like the floor had just dropped away. “You knew about those?”

  “Of course I did. I wasn’t thrilled, but I figured it was better than him driving all over the county.”