Home Is Where Your Boots Are (9 page)

“Seriously.” He answered and maneuvered the truck so the tailgate was facing the pond. I stuttered a little as I climbed out holding the pie.

“You bought it? You really bought it. When? I didn’t even know it was for sale.” He cut his eyes to me as he dropped the tailgate and took the pie from me so I could jump up, using his spare hand to boost me.

“You didn’t know, my ass. Your daddy bought it the minute it went on the market and listed it for double and refused to come down.” I laughed at his tepid anger.

“Dude, you totally deserved it.” When he was fourteen years old, Cash had fallen head over heels in love. With a certain piece of property up the hill from our house. It was enough acres for a big house and lots of kids and an animal menagerie. And a deck. He’d sworn he was going to buy it and raise kids and cattle. The cantankerous and ornery old man who’d owned it had held on to it until he died; Daddy must have bought it from his family. I’d lamented the loss of that property after Cash and I had permanently parted ways. I’m sure Mama had urged Daddy to extract some revenge for me.

“So you did know.” I blinked and smiled.

“Nope, that had to be all Daddy’s doing. He probably laughed all the way to the bank. He knew the whole story. Just about the time you think he’s not paying attention is when you’ve got to watch him.” Cash laughed his agreement and settled
himself on the tailgate, reaching
behind him for the forks and towels. He dug into the pie, flicking back the top crust and forking it into his mouth. I watched the all too kissable lips close over the pie. He caught me watching him and offered me a grin and a fork. I rolled my eyes and grabbed the fork from him. He peeled back more crust and I delicately extracted an apple chunk, holding my hand underneath it as I brought it to my mouth. The pie was the perfect temperature, almost cool enough to make it gluey. I sighed and closed my eyes.

“Dang, I’m good.” He responded with a low chuckle.

“When’s the last time you had some of this?” he asked. I shook my head and motioned for him to set the pie down between us. He acquiesced, and I dug out another apple while he took a piece of sticky crust between his fingers. Cash and I had perfected the fine art of pie-eating sometime back. Apparently it was a little like riding a bike.

“I haven’t made pie since the last time I ate it with you,” I told him, atypically honest. His crust halted midway to his mouth. He recovered quickly.

“Mr. Fancy Pants didn’t like apple pie?” I crossed my legs and leaned back against my hands.

“No time for pie. Dessert was done at fancy restaurants or ordered by his mama from the very expensive cakery.” I informed him. “And apple pie holds a lot of memories.”

“You really haven’t had apple pie in seven years?” he asked me, incredulous.

“I truly have not. I’m guessing you have?” He hung his head.

“Well I haven’t had yours,” he told me, appearing as contrite as Cash Stetson could appear. I laughed at him.

“I didn’t expect you to abstain from apple pie, Cash. I just haven’t been in the mood for it.”

“Until now?” He asked, looking sideways at me. I cleared my throat and looked away to the glint of dying sunlight on the pond.

“Any more ideas on who might have tried to kill you?” I asked, changing the subject abruptly, lest that lack of will
-
power started to rear its ugly head. He ignored me, and pushed himself off the tailgate and walked to the cab of the truck to turn the radio on. George Strait sang of living and living well as the moon and the sun met in the sky. He came back to rest his lean hips back against the tailgate and looked out at the field and the pond.

“Cash?” I pressed, never patient enough to wait him out. He crossed his arms over his chest and, I noted, didn’t look at me.

“Well
,
Tina’s an obvious choice. When Clay went out to her mama’s to talk to her, he said it looked like she’d packed up and left. Other than her, I don’t know. She’s the only one I know who officially hates my guts right now. I know I used to cut a wide path, but it’s been a while since I’ve made someone that mad. Maybe someone’s holding a grudge.” I mused on this.

“No offense
,
but don’t you think if it were Tina she would have actually hit you?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Maybe it wasn’t meant for you. Who else was up there by you at the ribbon-cutting?” I asked, thinking out loud. He sighed audibly.

“Why don’t you just leave it alone, Lilly,” he bit off irritably. I bristled at his brush off. Normally
,
I would have popped off with something cutting and started an argument, but I could tell he was tired and worn out from it all. I dropped it, for now. He suddenly dropped his arms from in front of his chest and turned to me. “Did you ever miss me?” he asked, staring at me. I hesitated, shocked at his candor and question. My chest began to thud and my ears rang. I felt the evening air rushing around me. I struggled for a word, any word. After a lifetime of half-truths and prevarication from Cash, the straight talk, direct questions tactic threw me for a loo
p. My fingers itched to hug him;
he looked so dejected. The constriction in my windpipe tightened. I’d had one full-on panic attack when I was five and had broken my arm. I had never forgotten that same panicky feeling, and I could feel it start to rise again. I brought my focus to my breath and put my head down to break the hold his question seemed to have on my body.

He finally lost his nerve and turned his head back to the pond and the moonlight that was beginning to shine on it. I listened to the crickets and watched the lightening bugs float.

“I tried really hard not to have the time to miss you,” I finally answered honestly, feeling the knots in my chest loosen. He crossed his arms back over his broad chest.

“You didn’t have to,” he muttered obtusely. I shook my head, confused.

“Miss you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he turned around sharply. “If you hadn’t run off so quick, you wouldn’t have needed to miss me.” My degree in psychology should have helped me deal with Cash. Unfortunately, I allowed emotion to seep in and my irritation piqued at the implication that I was the cause of the failed idea of our relationship. I had spent the better part of my formative years bowing and scraping for whatever scraps he would toss my way. How dare he suggest I was the one who could have changed that.

“Cash, I was twenty-one years old; I didn’t know what to do with my feelings. All I knew were rumors swirling around you and Tina, and you weren’t denying them.” I tried to be gentle, but it came out biting. His mouth twisted angrily and
he
threw up his hands.

“Come off it, Lil!
I was only twenty-three. And I shouldn’t have needed to deny anything. You could have trusted me for once. Although that appears unlikely to ever happen.”

I tried to find solid ground with all the hurt, regret, sadness, anger, and longing swirling and dancing around us. I felt like I was on a merry-go-round with the school bully doing the pushing. I wanted to get off. I’m not proud, but what I really wanted to do was run away. I had never been known to shy away from a confrontation, especially one with Cash. I relished and reveled in confrontation. For some far away reason, my body and subconscious were telling me I wanted no part. I knew Cash and I were bordering on real, adult honesty and a part of me wanted no part of it.

“I’m sorry, Cash.” I gingerly put my hand on his shoulder. It was a bad move. The spark sizzled in the sticky May night. He glanced at me and moved languidly to stand between my legs dangling off the tailgate. His big hands settled on the outside of my thighs
,
and I drank in his smell: clean, fresh, feral. The slight sunburn on his sharp features glinted in the moonlight. I stayed motionless, unwilling to move, not wanting to break the spell of the moment.

“I was going to come down there.” I shook myself.

“What?” The shaky, hanging-off-a-cliff, seasick feeling intensified and I tried not to shudder. Was he looking at my lips?  It had been a while, so I figured it was him and the close proximity and the fact that I could feel his breath on my face and his mouth was inches away and he was giving me
that look
.

“I was all set to come down to Dallas and drag you home. I was filling up with gas when mom called to tell me to look in the paper. Your engagement announcement was in there. I figured it must be some sort of sign.” I gaped at him, shocked. While there were a lot of things that Cash could tell me that wouldn’t surprise me, this was something I never expected. He smiled sardonically, his lips pursing as he lifted his eyes to meet my wide ones. That look was classic Cash. Thoughtful, hopeful, dangerous. 

He didn’t give me a chance to protest. He tangled his sugary fingers in my curls and pressed himself against me. I dug my fingers in the threaded cords of his neck and our lips met, curling a
nd tangling, melding and fusing,
a sport we had practiced too many times to count. Another technique I could liken to riding a bike.

There was no teeth gnashing, no nose bumping, no need for air. Cash and I were good at this. If no other form of communication could serve us, this could. His hands started to slide under my shirt
,
and I instinctively drew myself closer to him, tightening my thighs around his. Something unfurled inside of me as I felt the edges of danger lick at my peep-toed pumps. Van and I had never had this chemistry. I had traded this for a life that had crashed down around me?

Then, from some far off place that hadn’t reached me in quite some time, or perhaps I hadn’t be
en
able to reach, I heard it.

Stop.

I yanked away from Cash, feeling, quite literally, like I had been burned. I stared at him. He looked back with no remorse, only what appeared to be amused detachment. A wave of disgust
roiled in my stomach. I pulled
back further. This is what I’d come down to? Illicit trysts on a truck bed with a married man? And Cash was married. Very married. I had become that very being which I so abhorred.

“Why’d you bring me up here?” I asked him, his features crisper in the darkening sky. He shrugged.

“It’s you. It’s me. It’s what we do.”

“You’re married.”

“For now,” he responded, nonplussed. I shook my head, disgusted with him and more at myself. I pushed him away from
me
and slid off the truck bed.

“Lilly…” I held up a hand.

“Just… Don’t.”

“I meant what I said, Lilly.”

“You always mean it, Cash.” The long-perfected offended look took over his face.

“I’ve never lied to you, Lilly. I’ve meant everything I’ve said whenever I said it.”

Ah, there he was. Still same old jackass. I almost threw up on him. Almost. But I wanted to cling to the tiny scrap of dignity I might have had left. I backed away and headed down the dirt path, back out through the gates to hell.

He didn’t even move after me. I felt like all of me was being burned alive. My scalp itched, the ends of my hair felt singed. I was tingling from head to toe. I needed to jump in the pond and cool off.

I needed to get away from Cash. Flashing images of my life and how little resemblance it bore to what it should be
, or what I thought it should be,
flitted through my head.
I choked back sobs. I took off down the rutted path, not pausing as my shoes slipped stepping on the gravel road. Thank heavens someone had put me on the prayer chain, because I had slipped so far off the path laid out for me I wasn’t sure if I could bush-whack my way back on. The disenchantment threatened to overwhelm me as I thought about how disappointed my God probably was with me. In me.

This
was what I’d come back to become? I fought for my old comforting control as angry tears started to stream. I had left Oklahoma because I had the very erroneous idea that I was too good for all these people, with their down-home aw-shucksing cheap shoes, and their sanctimonious morals. Who was I to judge? No one. Lilly Atkins was no one. If anyone found out about the Cash debacle that just was, they’d be more than disappointed in me. More than I could ever be in myself.

And then it hit me. They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t be disa
ppointed in me. They might yell;
they might chastise. But most likely, they’d take me into their fold, stroke my hair and dry my tears. The whole town that had raised me might judge me, but they’d also love me anyway. The same way they loved Cash, even through all the wrong and havoc he might have wreaked.

I tripped over a rock and fell to my knees in the dusty road. It dawned on me then that I’d spent the better part of my adult post-Cash life hiding behind my know-it-all self like a weak armor. But one
glitch
had unraveled
the chinks
to the point of no return. And in a moment of complete clarity on a dirt road in the middle of somewhere
,
I knew that the only way to find myself had been
to come back to the people who
helped define me. 

I couldn’t even remember why anyone would want to leave Brooks. All the designer shoes in the world couldn’t make up for h
aving around you the people who
loved you
unconditionally; the people who
knew you sucked at life and l
iked y
ou anyway;
the people who
brushed off your failures and gloried in your success. I’d trade all those designer shoes I owned f
or one more shot at
proving them right about me.