The Lone Star Collection Page 14

  Sexy was a more daunting topic than underwear. “I won’t be coming back in.”

  “Why not?” She took off the stocking cap and scratched her head.

  “You should get some more rest. You had a tough time last night.”

  She pondered this, her eyes still on me while I finished buttoning my shirt. I’d scooted toward the flap, deciding to put on my jeans and boots once I stepped outside. “Why does it look like you’re the one who had the tough time?” she asked finally, her voice still soft with sleep.

  Unable to form an answer, I just left, took care of business, and started the fire. The early morning air was still but biting cold in the way that announces the arrival of winter in Texas. But once the sun rose and the fire got going, I was pretty comfortable…physically. When I heard the tent flap zipper and saw Katie’s form disappear into the woods, I started breakfast. We didn’t say much, though when she sipped on the coffee/hot chocolate mix I’d put together, she closed her eyes and moaned a little, and for a moment I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I wanted to hear that sound over and over, and I wanted my hands and my mouth to be the cause of it. Forcing my attention back to the fire, I threw on a few more sticks before speaking. “Give me your car keys and I’ll hike back to the parking area to get your sleeping bag.”

  “Why?”

  “So you’ll be okay sleeping somewhere else tonight.”

  She blinked. “What if I don’t want to?” When I looked away, she fetched the keys out of her backpack and handed them to me. “Clearly I’ve underestimated how important that Wilderness award is to you.”

  I could hear the hurt in her voice. “It’s not the pin,” I tried to explain. “It’s the truth behind it. The accomplishment.”

  Katie said nothing for a long moment, her face set in an expression I couldn’t identify. Finally, she stepped closer and took my hands in hers. “I need to tell you something. The little sister I mentioned? She has a kidney disease that was misdiagnosed for a while, and she kept getting sicker. We moved here because a doctor at the medical school identified both the problem and the correct treatment.” Her voice softened. “Meg’s a terrific kid and understandably, most of my parents’ attention has been focused on her. They try to make it up to me with extra spending money and a car, which is fine.” She smiled sadly. “But last night was the first time I’ve ever had someone take care of me like I was the most important thing. So if you want an accomplishment, you’ve got one. And that’s my truth.”

  I felt like I was falling into her eyes, not even realizing she was leaning towards me. She kissed me softly on the mouth as I stood inert, tasting the sky and the morning sun on her lips. Just as my body pushed me to respond, she stepped away. “I’ll wait here, and we can talk about that when you get back.”

  †

  All the way to the parking lot and back my mind insisted I should wait to hear what Katie would say while my body advocated going directly for more kissing. My heart abstained, for the moment. When I arrived back at the clearing, her tent was down and neatly rolled beside her backpack. She was at the fire, stirring something that smelled delicious. I called out and she walked over, taking me in a tender embrace that could be a goodbye. I closed my eyes as she whispered close to my ear, “You were right about spending time alone. I’ve figured something out.”

  “Oh?” I swallowed, trying to sound casual through my apprehension, certain she’d concluded that she had no interest in the geeky soft butch who’d almost let her freeze. Without answering she led me to the fire and I took off my pack, warming myself while she ladled up two bowls of stew. Again, we ate with minimal conversation. When we finished, I indicated her folded tent. “So you’re going?”

  “That depends.” She sat close, turning to face me.

  “On?”

  “On whether I’m right that you’re acting shy because you’ve never been intimate with a girl before. And on whether you’re going to let me be with you tonight. Because if not, I am leaving. Either I’ll find my own site or go back to base camp. If you just want to be friends, maybe we can have coffee again once we get back to town, but I can’t handle being here alone with you. I’m drawn to you, Jules, and I have been since that first Scouting Girl meeting. Whenever we’re together, I discover something else about you I like.” She licked her lips. “And after last night, I know your body makes me hot in more ways than one. If I hadn’t been so out of it, I probably would have tried to take advantage of you. But God…you were so sweet. You made me believe everything was going to be okay, like you were going to keep me safe and protected, no matter what.”

  I blinked, my pulse thundering as her fingers swept through my hair.

  “Waking up with you was so wonderful, but the way you left the tent confused me. When you went back to the car I had time to figure it out, just like you said. So here’s my brilliant insight: I want to be with you, because I think there’s something really special between us. But if that’s not how you feel or what you want, then I have to go.”

  I knew I should say something, but when my lips parted nothing came out. She kissed me again, and this time I kissed her back, my heart settling the earlier dispute. “Please stay,” I moaned, when we came up for air.

  Katie stood and led me toward the tent. “Forget about your blue norther,” she murmured. “I think we’re in for a heat wave.”

  †

  She goes by Kate now, but I still call her Katie. We’re celebrating our tenth anniversary by taking our twenty-fifth camping trip. Our newest tent has room for the dogs, but we’ll still zip our sleeping bags together just as we did on that second night, even if the temperature is mild. Because I know one thing that won’t change—our love will weather even Texas weather.

  About the Author

  Jaycie Morrison

  Jaycie Morrison is a second generation native Dallasite who is also in love with Colorado and now splits her time between the two. She lives with her wife of over two decades and their spoiled dog. As a youngster, Jaycie and her friends entertained themselves making up and acting out stories featuring characters from popular TV shows or favorite bands. As a voracious reader, she always wondered what it would be like to write a book. Once she started, it was almost impossible to stop.

  Jaycie’s debut novel, Basic Training of the Heart, (Bold Strokes Books, fall, 2016) and its sequel, Heart’s Orders, Bold Strokes Books fall, 2017) are the first two in a series that combine her love of the written word and her fascination with history. Weather or Not is her first short story. Catch up with Jaycie’s latest news at www.jayciemorrison.com or contact her at mjaycie.morrison@yahoo.com

  Cowgirls Aren’t Allowed

  Stacy Reynolds

  I hate horses. I may be the only lesbian in the world that does, but I really do despise them. Coupled with the fact that there is nothing I disliked more than an outdoor assignment on a hot, windy, Texas summer afternoon, it was shaping up to be a very unpleasant day.

  The wind always blows around here. I once read a joke that said when you have a two-ton boulder on a ten-foot chain tied to a pole, and the boulder was sticking straight out, there was a slight breeze. I am here to tell you it was not that much of an exaggeration. The dust gets so thick it clogs up everything, including your lungs. It blows in your eyes, your mouth, and gets under your skin. There is no way to stop it from permeating everything. Unfortunately, blowing wind and dust were part of living in the Texas Panhandle. In spite of the dust, the job needed to be done.

  I loaded up my cameras, lens, and tripod. I stuck a notebook and a new pen in the back pocket of my jeans. I put on a shirt recently purchased at Boot Barn. I thought it made me look like I would fit in. Once I was outfitted in proper western attire, I took off for one of the smallest towns in the Panhandle: Nazareth, Texas, population 33,342 individuals. Nazareth was only one of more than a dozen small towns in this part of the world that had populations of less than 50,000. It was also the site of today’s event: Nazareth Pro Rodeo and Steer Sh
ow. I had been assigned to cover the rodeo by the newspaper that employed me. The rodeo, at least, was a welcome change from the interminable school “bored,” I mean board, meetings.

  Once I’d pulled into the field that doubled as a parking lot, I got out and looked around. My little foreign car was almost the only vehicle there not a pickup truck. Here in the Panhandle of Texas, they are not just trucks, they are pickups.

  I surveyed the area trying to find the best spot to cover all the action. As a journalist, I could have climbed the ladder to the announcer’s booth and taken photos from there. The booth was a tin structure about the size of a boxcar, set ten feet off the ground and filled with pot-bellied cowboys spitting tobacco juice, swigging Lone Star beers, and making inappropriate jokes about the contestants. I knew this from experience. In this heat it would be like standing inside a microwave oven. Of the group of men inhabiting the oven, one would be at a microphone calling out the names of events, riders, and animals. He would recite statistics of the riders and the location of their hometowns. The others would be scoring the events, writing numbers down on pieces of paper, and shoving them toward the announcer. There are two timers, the men who keep track of the stopwatch. Normally, there are a few other hangers-on making the small space not only uncomfortable, but also, it stank. Because I barely tolerated beer-bellied men who called me miss and little lady, I decided to forego the booth and climbed over the fence into the arena itself. I positioned myself directly underneath the booth and between the two sets of chutes. This is where the action could be documented and recorded.

  Technically, I was not supposed to be there. I discovered long ago that if you act like you belong somewhere, normally, you are not questioned. Usually, this area was filled with the rodeo clowns and the flaggers, men who dropped a flag once the contestant had completed his or her task before they ran out of time. There were a few other guys whose jobs I did not know. If something happened and I was hurt, it would be on my head, of course.

  There I stood with a bunch of heavy camera equipment hanging around my neck and weighing me down. The first few shots were just for focus. The actual rodeo had not started yet, but I could feel the anticipation building in the way the people and the animals were moving around. Some of the riders were jumping around, waving their arms and just generally blowing off steam. The animals picked up on the mood. Many were making animal sounds of anxiety. I just pointed my camera in the direction of the action and pushed the button. A full range of riders were racing around the arena. Whether they intended to show off, or if they were legitimately warming up, was a coin toss.

  It was during this ritual that I first saw her. I quickly changed over to my telephoto lens so I could get a better look. Her hair was brown and tied back and braided underneath her purple cowgirl hat. The horse she rode was a sorrel, much the same color as her hair. Something about the way she was so focused caught my eye.

  After trotting around the arena with the other participants, she disappeared through a gate along with the rest of the cowgirls. Meanwhile, the clowns prepared the arena for the cowboys and their bucking broncs. I obliged my employer and snapped photos of dust blowing, hats flying, and airborne men as they failed their struggle to stay in the saddle.

  A few events later I saw her again. She and her horse were in line for the Cowgirls Break Away, a calf roping event. According to the program, her name was Terri, appropriate for a cowgirl. She was 21 years old and from Canadian, Texas. Canadian is a town even smaller than the one we currently occupied.

  Cowgirls from small Texas towns like Canadian aren’t allowed to do a lot of things. Among the things they are allowed to do is sit next to boys in pickup trucks and race up and down the one main street on a Friday night after the football game. They hang out at Dairy Queen and talk about how they are going to get away from there, go out and change the world.

  Cowgirls from small towns like Canadian are allowed to show a passion for horses and rodeos, but only until they get knocked up by some fumbling cowboy in the front seat of their pickup trucks. Once they give birth to the little buckaroos, they are allowed to continue their passion for horses and rodeos but only behind the scenes. Most cowgirls aren’t allowed to continue to compete once they have married and popped out a kid or two. There were plenty of pint-sized future bronc busters following around their cowgirl mamas.

  But this is Texas. Or more accurately, the Texas Panhandle. God’s country. Just the fact that this town was founded by a priest and populated by his congregants spoke volumes about the attitude of its citizens. This is where cowgirls are allowed to be tomboys, but they aren’t allowed to fall in love with other cowgirls. Or in this case, a 36-year-old photographer who didn’t want to be here in the first place. I’d learned the hard way a very long time ago what cowgirls are and are not allowed to do. A part of me wondered if I was attracted to her, or if I was lamenting the loss of my own cowgirl days, which were somewhere on the scale of brief to non-existent.

  Trying to be inconspicuous, I worked my way toward the calf-roping chute. I told myself it was to get in a better position for a decent picture, but it was to get closer to her. I wanted a better look, and if I was perfectly honest with myself, I wanted her to notice me. I had done much more foolhardy things to get the attention of a cute little cowgirl.

  Terri kept a look of fierce concentration on her face as she warmed up. A bandana was wrapped around her saddle horn, and she used it to wipe her hands before she shook out her rope and took a few practice twirls. What was she thinking, I wondered. What was the name of her horse? What did her voice sound like when it whispered in the dark? Was it low and husky or a little high? Did her smile light up like the stars deep in the heart of Texas?

  She led her horse to the chute. Once the cowboys had the horse in place, Terri lowered herself to the saddle. In a smaller pen next to the chute, a small black calf bellowed and cried for its mother. As the two of them ignored one another, knowing they would interact soon enough, I snapped pictures as fast as I could.

  After a brief nod in her direction and returned assent, a big, beer-bellied cowboy swung open the smaller gate and prodded the calf. It shot out of the pen, running as fast as it could toward the other end of the arena as if all the demons in the world were chasing it instead of one slim cowgirl. Seconds later, Terri and her horse took off after the calf.

  The horse kicked up a clump of dirt that hit me square in the chest and sullied my brand-new cowgirl shirt. It didn’t matter; if you didn’t want to get dirty, then don’t stand in the arena. I held the camera up to my eye and shot pictures as fast as my shutter could open and close. I didn’t want to miss a second of this. That way, I would have the memory of the illusion.

  She rode with one hand on the saddle horn and the other spinning the rope with tightly controlled fury. When she was almost on top of the calf, she threw the rope. It bounced off the calf’s head and fell into the dirt. A groan went up from the audience, led by me. Riders at the other end of the arena herded the victorious bovine back to the pen. If animals could smirk, I was sure that one did.

  Although I couldn’t see her disappointment, a bitter twinge of it raced through me on her behalf. Calmly, she gathered up her rope. When she turned to return to the stalls outside the arena, her face was unreadable. Cowgirls don’t cry.

  She rode right past me. If she noticed the dirt splatted across my chest, or even noticed me at all, she did not acknowledge it. She did not apologize, nor did she falter. Once outside the arena, she slid off the horse. She brushed the dust off her own cowgirl shirt, removed her matching hat and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the bandana from the saddle horn.

  It seemed like she was alone. I didn’t see anyone else approach her. Before, when she was riding around the arena to let her horse get the feel of it, she rode alone and not in a group like some of the other cowgirls. While she was waiting for her event, she didn’t speak to anyone else. She was just there, waiting with her horse same as she was now. Waiting
for whatever came next.

  When the Bar None Drill Team rode into the arena, Terri was one of the riders. Although the women and their horses rode in perfect precision, they stirred up so much dust, the air was almost unbreathable. I know from experience this demonstration is supposed to inspire a love of all things rodeo. All it did for me was produce more dust to choke on. That sums up about all there is in this part of the world: dust, cactus, rattlesnakes and rodeos.

  Next up was the barrel racing competition. The rider is supposed to race around three barrels as fast as they can. Now I don’t know much about barrel racing, but Terri sure did look good doing it. She hit the first barrel, and it wobbled and almost fell over. That would cost her some points. As she rounded the number two barrel, I got a good shot of her hat flying off her head. If I went and picked it up and handed it to her, would she just say thank you, or would she wonder who I was and start up a conversation? If I tried to race across the arena and get it, the odds were I would be mowed down by another cowgirl trying to win her own belt buckle. Although these small town rodeos gave out prize money, the winners also got belt buckles instead of trophies. The buckles themselves were more coveted than the actual prize money, or purse, as it is called. It didn’t look like Terri was going to take home a buckle today.

  All I wanted to do was go up to her afterwards and offer her an ice-cold Dr Pepper. Cowgirls always drank Dr Pepper. There would be a dance later tonight in the giant arena, where the Dr Pepper would be secretly mixed with whiskey for those underage drinkers. She might attend the dance, but cowgirls aren’t really allowed to dance with other girls. I didn’t even know if she liked girls. For all I knew, she could have been in love with one of the cowboys hanging around the parking lot passing around a bottle of Jack Daniels.