Summer Winds (19 page)

Signed Cash Tate

It was toward the end that my eyes lingered.

July 17th, Our lips came so close, I could almost feel hers throbbing. I wanted to kiss her so bad my knees about caved in. All I can think about is making love to her. I would have gotten her in bed but Perry showed up! I know she wants me too but she just won’t give in. She won’t give in to anything or anybody. Then suddenly she whirls on me and says she’s straight and she wants to stay straight and I’d better leave her alone. Break the rule and get a broken heart. When will I get that through my head?

Signed Cash Tate

July 18th, We are fucking platonicsville. I’m going out tonight to get my mind on something else. I can’t stop thinking about her and how her skin feels when I touch her and how good she smells and how she would taste and how phenomenal it would be.

Signed Cash Tate

I pushed my chair back and looked up at the ceiling, jealousy clouding my brain.
Why in hell did this woman ever show up out here?

Where is she right now and what’s she doing? As a more practical
matter, why in hell did I read her private thoughts? Inexcusable.

Unlike me.
As I closed the book, I caught a penciled-in line at the bottom of the last page.

I wanted you to read this.

Cash

She left the diary on the table knowing I would read it.
My jaw tightened at the audacity.
She thinks she can control my emotions,
manipulate my life.
I didn’t want her to know I’d read it and was mad that she played me like that. I slapped the book shut and pushed it back to the end of the table, positioning it at just the angle I thought it was in when I picked it up.

Jumping up, I paced. She’s still maneuvering me as if I’m another of her conquests.
She isn’t going to affect my behavior going
forward.
The oven timer shrieked, startling me and reminding me that something was done.
I’m the one who’s done. The mere fact
that I’m spending my evening sitting here thinking about her tells it
all, doesn’t it?

I shut the oven off, sat down, and quieted myself. Her going out tonight was made bearable by the words she’d written in her diary and left there for me. She wanted to be with me, but because that wasn’t possible, she was doing as I asked.
Why am I so unhappy that
she’s doing what I asked?

Long after two a.m., I heard a truck pull into the driveway and a key in the lock. I lay still in bed wondering if she was drunk or simply satisfied. Had she kissed that woman, taken her shirt off as they parked in her truck, or slept with her in some sleazy hotel?
She probably did sleep with her because Verta would
undoubtedly let her. After all, Cash is attractive and not from around
here…a notch in everybody’s Bible belt.

Moments later her bedroom door opened and then shut. I didn’t hear the shower but merely a short delay before the bedsprings bounced. Did she not shower because she wanted to smell like her?

Was she lying in bed thinking of her, wishing she hadn’t returned to the ranch but could have stayed over? Hell, it’s going on three a.m.

Why bother to come back? She should have stayed.

Irritated, I rolled over and punched my down pillow into a tight little knot that I jammed under my head and then yanked out from under me, thinking it felt like a bowling ball.
I should make her
leave. If she’s just going to use this ranch as her base of operations
for sexual forays into the gay…excuse me, lesbian…world, that does
neither of us any good. No wonder Buck wanted to send her out here
to bake the hellfire out of her. Well, it’s not working. About the time
she’s become useful, she’s bored. Bored enough to damn-near kill
herself on a bull and then make a pass at me and now she’s in town
carousing with…well, her.

The image of a half-naked Verta popped into my brain and I scrunched my eyes shut like a lens.
And now that I’m thinking about
lenses, what was I doing buying her a camera. I must have been
drugged. She probably took it with her to the hotel room and used it
to take fast shots of Verta writhing around on the bed.

Exhausted and fretful, I let out a large sigh and relaxed against the bed sheets. She would be in here with me, if I would let her, pinning me to the sheets as I stretched naked beneath her. That thought slipped out of my brain as fluidly as the dampness that gathered on my skin and between my legs. A luxurious sensation reminiscent of nothing, because I could never summon it when I slept with my husband, no matter how hard I tried. Gels and creams and valiant efforts on his part, trying to overcome the need for an ever-absent spontaneous reaction. In our first year, he saw me as unnatural, prematurely dry, old before my time. Uninterested and uninteresting. I wanted to please him if only to prove I was normal, but pleasure is its own wind and can’t be summoned; it merely blows in unexpectedly.

Ironically, tonight, I felt the erotic breeze, but with no one to enjoy it. I got up and showered to cool off and turned on the TV and watched
Indiana Jones
again…able to relate to the
Temple of Doom.

It ended at four thirty in the morning and I finally passed out as the morning light was illuminating the shutters.

Around ten a.m., I awoke feeling hung over and stiff, as if I’d been out all night instead of Cash. I staggered to the bathroom and took another shower. Circles under my eyes made me look like a raccoon and I tried to cover them with makeup.

A quick tour of the house told me Cash had left, and I glimpsed her returning from the pasture and Perry walking toward the north gate where the cattle were grazing. I checked on her through the binoculars. She was in tight jeans, her hands gesticulating, apparently happy and animated. Glad life is working out for her, I thought sardonically, and then felt bad.
What the hell, Maggie, stop acting
like some gal who doesn’t want the guy but doesn’t want anyone else
to have him. Let her be Verta’s summer screw!

Deciding to drive down to the back pasture and check the cattle to get my mind off things, I grabbed a floppy hat from the wall hook and put it on, the brim concealing my face from no one other than myself. As I stepped outside a sudden gust caught my hat and blew it back off my head. The leather strap snapped against my neck as if the wind demanded I face it or it would strangle me. And then I saw her, standing by the pond, her hair tousled by the same breeze, her cotton pants whipped against her legs as she faced the north gale.

Caught off guard, I stopped and could only stare. Something about her was so profoundly strong and beautiful. An assuredness that should only come with age but for unknown reasons had found itself in her stance and the movement of her arm as she skipped a rock across the pond. My heartbeat picked up and I fought the desire to call out to her. After all, right now she was most likely thinking of her tryst last night and what she should do next: pursue the woman, refuse her calls, download the photographs onto her laptop when I wasn’t looking, print one out and jam it into the wooden edge of her dresser mirror.

I got into the XUV and headed in her direction, noting Duke was by her side, his nose burrowing into the weeds around the pond bank. She squatted down on the ground slowly, as if not to disturb something, then put her hand into the tall grass. Despite my anger over her midnight antics, I called out to her, not wanting to see her injured by a water moccasin or rattlesnake baking in the summer heat.

She grinned widely when she saw me and waved me toward her as she reached back into the bushes. I winced at those long slender fingers disappearing into the marsh grass. This time she extracted something black-and-white.

“Puppy!” she shouted as I approached and took the wriggling creature from her. “How do you think it got here?”

“People dump puppies all the time but usually something kills them before they get this far in.” The puppy made little grunting sounds and I smiled in spite of myself at the tiny flat face, with its bright pink nose. I held the wriggling furball up to check its underside. “Girl.”

“I’m going to keep her,” Cash insisted, as Duke ran up and gave the small creature a literal top-to-bottom sniff, apparently deciding she was acceptable and could stay.

“Hard to keep small animals safe when there’s no fenced yard.”

“I can train her. She’s smart or she wouldn’t have gotten this far and stayed alive. Kind of like us.” She looked at me, seeming to want a deeper conversation, but I ignored her.

I handed the squirming ball of fur back to Cash, who nestled the pup under her chin and rubbed her face against it lovingly, then turned the vehicle and headed slowly back to the house, not offering Cash a ride but letting her trail behind. “So what are you going to name her?”

“Moses.”

“Because you found her in the bullrushes? Maybe not the best girl name.” I spoke over my shoulder and out of the corner of my eye caught sight of something.

“Neither is Cash but it’s mine.”

“Hold still for a minute, don’t move.” The snake, about as big around as my wrist, was coiled up in the reeds just ahead of Cash.

I lifted the shotgun off its rack in the XUV and fired quickly. The snake exploded, squirming and bleeding, and Cash jumped back and swore. “It’s a wonder it didn’t get the puppy,” I said, and got out to examine it. “Triangular head so it’s poisonous. I always hate killing good snakes but this one needed to go.” She drew back, startled by the shot, but obviously impressed. “Pretty hard to miss with a shotgun. Although you did think I missed the coyote.” I couldn’t help but goad her. “It’ll be gone tomorrow. Other animals will eat it.

Tastes like chicken,” I said jauntily as I signaled her to climb in and drove us back to the house, Duke running alongside our vehicle.

“I want to keep Moses indoors unless we’re with her, until she’s older. I won’t let her ruin anything, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried about that.” I reached over and scratched the pup’s warm body as we drove.

“I didn’t sleep with her,” Cash said, and glanced sideways at me.

Her remark cascaded over me, stunning me that she knew I had given her sexual escapades any thought at all. I paused, avoiding her eyes, and said evenly, “You can sleep with her if you want to.”

“You’re talking about the puppy and don’t pretend you’re not.”

I looked straight ahead, pretending I couldn’t hear above the wind, but my soul let out a great sigh and I felt triumphant, happy…
she didn’t sleep with her.

I crawled up in the attic and located a small wire cage I’d used to hold stray animals and handed it down to Cash. Before letting her put the puppy in it, I washed it out with Lysol and dried it off. She got one of her old black T-shirts and bunched it up in the corner, making a makeshift mattress. We put drinking water inside and Cash ran up to the corner store for some puppy food. Moses squeaked and wiggled and paced as if she’d already decided Cash belonged to her and couldn’t bear her absence.

“You’re just another woman captivated by her charm, aren’t you?” I said as I finally picked her up and cuddled her. She squalled rhythmically for a minute, then let out a big sigh and went to sleep.

I sat in the rocker and held the little pup, wondering why creatures of all shapes and sizes end up on the prairie and how each has to decide if it will fight and then fate decides who will survive.

The pup’s small warm body against mine soothed me, and I sighed too and closed my eyes, taking a brief break.

No telling how long we slept but when I awoke, it was to the smell of ham and eggs and Cash at the stove. I smiled at her quizzically.

“You two make a cute couple,” she said.

I stroked the still-sleeping puppy and didn’t move, not wanting to disturb its rest. “What are you cooking?”

“Omelets. One of the few things I’ve mastered. I also do soup, hamburgers, and tacos, but the ground beef wasn’t thawed so I went with eggs. Thank God for chickens. Oh, and I also made fresh biscuits…bet you didn’t think I knew how.”

“I think you can do anything you set your mind to. An omelet sounds nice.” I felt dreamy and relaxed and watched her as she worked in the kitchen as if she belonged there. She slung bowls and plates and frying pans around with speed, not worrying what she splattered or sprayed, then minutes later deftly mopped up the mess with paper towels and scrubbed dishes out at the sink.

“You cook like a man.”

“Well, thank you, since it’s never been my goal to cook
for
one.”

“When did you know you were gay?” The words came out before I could stop them.

She paused in mid-motion. “I can’t remember ever not knowing. I always liked women.”

“Tell me about the first woman you were ever with.”

“My rowing coach and I pursued her.”

“Your teacher?” My voice revealed shock and Cash merely shrugged. “So she was quite a bit older.”

“That wasn’t the issue. The problem was her husband. He threatened to kill me and called Buck, which is how Buck figured everything out.”

“What did
coach
have to say about all that?” My emphasis on her title was condescending.

“She was on pain medication and not herself, she loved him dearly, and basically…good-bye.” I giggled and she lightened up.

“Thus, ‘the rule.’”

I got up and put Moses back in her cage before sitting at a barstool across the counter from her. She slid the omelet onto a plate with hot biscuits and honey. “There you are, ma’am. Garnished with chopped salsa made with fresh tomatoes from your garden.”

I beamed at her and her face lit up with delight. “So your relationships have been conquests…you convinced women to surrender. Has anyone ever pursued you?”

“Hasn’t seemed to work out that way.” The puppy squeaked once and I took her out of the cage and gave her a bit of biscuit and honey. She licked the honey with her tiny pink tongue, then gummed the biscuit bit, gobbling it up, and we both laughed.