Authors: Carolyn Brown
“Hey, you showed up which means you stayed a whole week?” Molly said.
“So how are things with Rye? We know you did the Easter egg thing. Verline would’ve been happy about that,” Greta said.
“Haven’t seen him all week. We went to dinner at his folks’, had us a big old fight, and he left the next day for a rodeo in Houston.” Austin pulled out a chair and sat down.
Greta smiled. “I heard that he won the purse. I think it’s funny as hell that they call it a purse even though big old tough men win it.”
“How do you know so much about him?”
“It’s like this. Oma Fay is Kent’s momma and she’s Pearlita’s cousin so Kent tells his momma stuff and she tells Pearlita and Pearlita calls one of us nearly every day.”
“Small towns.”
“Yep, don’t you just love ’em? What have you got done in the packing area?” Molly asked.
“I got a tiny little dent put in the garage and Granny’s room all cleaned out. Y’all know where the nearest Goodwill store is?”
“Sure, but we got a clothes place in our church if you’re just wanting to donate them. Bring them next Friday and I’ll take them to the church,” Greta said.
“Thank you.”
“Sure you don’t need any help down there? Verline was the worst pack rat in the world. I can’t imagine you going through that place all by yourself,” Molly said.
“If I could stay out of the wine cellar, I could get more done, but it keeps calling my name. I’d love to try my hand at making it.”
The waitress set their ice cream in front of them and Austin had her spoon halfway to her mouth when Greta said, “So one week down and you still haven’t got a chance to get Rye into bed. That’s too bad.”
Molly shook her finger at Greta. “Stop it! You’ll embarrass her. Besides, I’ll bet you twenty dollars she sweet-talks him into the bedroom before she goes back to Tulsa.”
“I’ll take your bet but she has to be honest with us and tell us that she did or didn’t.”
“You two are crazy,” Austin said and her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of the pocket of her grandmother’s jeans and answered it without looking at the Caller ID.
“I’m stuck in traffic. An accident happened up ahead. I won’t be home before eight. How about I just slap a steak on the grill and we eat at my place?”
“That sounds fine to me,” she said. “I’ll bring dessert.”
“Bring a bottle of Lanier Wine and you can be dessert,” he laughed.
“Hold that thought,” she giggled as she hung up.
“You are going to lose your money,” Molly said. “Was that Rye?”
Austin dug into her ice cream. “It was.”
“Hold what thought?” Greta leaned over and whispered.
“He said I was dessert.”
“Yep, you might as well pay up now.”
Austin smiled. “Who says I’ll be honest and tell all? You’d best hang on to your money.”
She found a pair of denim capris in her grandmother’s closet and a blue and white checkered shirt that she tied at waist level. After trying on four pair of shoes, she tossed them all aside and wore a pair of Verline’s rubber flip-flops. At least they were blue and matched the shirt.
Once she was in the wine cellar she had no idea what bottle to take. Did she take last year’s vintage or 2006, which was the oldest label in the cellar? Since she had no idea which were good and which weren’t she picked up a 2006, 2007, and 2008. Surely Rye would know enough about them to pick the right one to compliment his steaks.
It seemed senseless to drive such a short distance so she walked down the short driveway and across the road. The first step on his property made her antsy enough to consider turning tail, kicking off the flip-flops, and running all the way back home. They’d talked and flirted on the phone and all was well but what would happen when he opened the door? She reminded herself that she was thirty years old, but it didn’t stop the jitters.
Rye got home at seven o’clock. He threw two steaks into the microwave and pushed the thaw button, rushed to the shower, shaved, nicked himself in that same place he had when he was in a hurry to get to the Peach Orchard to see her the first time, applied cologne, and tried on four shirts before he put on a soft blue plaid cotton.
He cut up two large potatoes and wrapped each one in a foil packet with real butter, salt and pepper, and a quarter-inch slice of onion, and put them on the grill to cook while he prepared a salad and put it in the refrigerator to chill. He pulled down two plates and carried them out the sliding glass doors to the deck.
The sound of the doorbell made him jump. He rolled his neck on the way through the house but when he swung the door open he was tense all over again. She was damn beautiful standing there with three bottles of wine cradled in her arms.
He opened the door. “Come on in. I’m about to put the steaks on. The potatoes are cooking and the salad is chilling. Want me to put a bottle of that on ice?”
“I don’t know anything about watermelon wine so I brought three bottles and thought you might help me decide which would go better with supper.” She held all three out to him as she stepped inside the cool house. There was no way he could take them from her without brushing against her bare skin.
She managed to keep from visibly shivering.
He wanted to gather her up in his arms and hold her forever, kiss her, make love to her, wake up the next day with her in his arms. But he took the wine and set it on the cabinet and said, “I’ve got the steaks ready to slap on the grill. Hope you are hungry.”
“Starved.”
“Make yourself at home.”
The awkwardness was back. On the phone they were fine. Off, well, that was a different matter.
She busied herself taking a look at the living room. One look around said that Rye O’Donnell was a neat freak. The living room was furnished in mahogany colored leather furniture arranged in front of a fireplace. Not a speck of dust was visible on the heavy oak coffee tables or the end tables. She didn’t even see a skim of dust on the rungs of the oversized rocking chair. No doilies. No frills but good serviceable furniture that begged to be sat on and tables with enough space to set a cup of coffee or tea without knocking over a ceramic duck or elephant. A bar separated the living area and the kitchen which was spick-and-span. Carpet was a light neutral shade of sandy brown, tile on the kitchen floor and cabinet tops were the same shade of mottled brown. All in all, a man’s house.
“Nice place you’ve got here.”
“It’s temporary. My goal is to build a big house like Mom and Dad’s about a quarter of a mile back on the property by the time I’m forty. Buying a prefab worked at the time and it’s serviceable but it’s not big enough to raise a family.”
“So you’re thinking of a family?”
“Sure am. Gemma says I’m grown up enough to start thinking about one. Matter of fact, she’s insisting I think about it. How about you?”
“I’m not nearly grown up enough yet and I don’t have younger sisters to pester me about it. Actually, it’s the opposite in our family. I’ve got two aunts who would put out a hit on any man I got serious about.”
He raised a dark eyebrow. “Really?”
“No, not really. But they’ll be very disappointed if I marry anything other than my career.”
“What about your mother?”
“In her words, she doesn’t need grandchildren to fulfill her life.”
“That’s strange to me. I came from this big loud family. I can’t imagine not having one just like it. What about you? Leaving aside your aunts and mother, what do you want?”
“Well, when I grow up…” she pondered the issue. “I’ve been so busy getting to where I am that I never gave it much thought, to tell the truth.”
He put the wine into a galvanized milk bucket, dumped two trays of ice in on top, and motioned for her to follow him through sliding doors out to a deck. The sun was starting to slide down toward the western horizon and the new leaves on the elm tree danced in the cool evening breeze.
“Got to take advantage of the pretty days and nights. Pretty soon it’ll be so hot that we’ll be hugging the air-conditioners like them folks who hug trees,” he said.
“It’s beautiful back here.”
The cantilevered deck offered an octagonal picnic table that would seat eight, with a bright red umbrella tilted just right to prevent the sun from shining in their eyes. Adirondack chairs were placed up close to the grill where the delicious aroma of onions almost, but not quite, obliterated that sex-in-a-bottle shaving lotion he’d used.
“By the way, you look beautiful tonight,” he said.
And you smell so good I could forget the steaks and have you for supper,
she thought.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You like your steak well done or—?” He let the question hang and raised one eyebrow.
“Medium rare. Pink in the middle. Scorched on the outside.”
“I like a woman who knows how to eat steak right.”
The awkwardness was fading now that they were talking.
“So that’s the way you like yours too?”
“Wipe the sorry old slobbers off its face. Shoot it. Slap it on the grill long enough to get a burn mark on the outside and flip it over for a minute then put it on my plate. And don’t be offerin’ me any sauces or ketchup to drown it in. I like the flavor just like it comes.”
“So you don’t marinade it for hours in all kinds of secret sauces?”
“Nope, I just slosh a little watermelon wine on it ’bout the time it gets done and serve it up. If I don’t have any of Granny’s wine, I pour beer on it. You want a glass of wine while we wait? It won’t be real cold yet, but I’ll swish it around in the ice a few times. That 2008 bottle is good right off the rack. It’s the best she ever made.”
“I’d love a glass of wine. I’ve been waiting for you to get home to taste it. I didn’t even know which bottle would be the best or if it went with fish or steaks or what.”
He opened a bottle and filled two stemmed wine glasses. “It goes with anything in my books.”
“Wow, all fancy!”
“Don’t get too excited. They’re plastic and from Walmart down in Bowie. I only have two and they’re for special times.”
“Oh, so I’m a special time.”
He touched his glass to hers. “Yes, ma’am, you sure are. To Austin and her first taste of watermelon wine.”
The wine was sweet and smooth with just enough kick to taste good. She finished the first glass and poured another, which was colder than the first. She sipped it while he grilled the steaks and decided that she could probably drink watermelon wine with dinner every evening. It was doing a fine job of mellowing her out.
She reached for the wine bottle and the sky tilted slightly to the left. She’d never gotten tipsy on two glasses of any kind of wine before. Maybe it was because she’d put it down on an empty stomach or drank it too fast. Whatever, she had to slow down or she’d be more than mellow. She’d be downright uninhibited before the night was out and Molly would win that bet about her sweet-talking Rye into bed.
She stifled a giggle and realized that she was indeed getting pretty tipsy on watermelon wine. She checked Rye’s glass and was surprised to see that he was still working on number one. It damn sure wouldn’t take much to remedy that.
“Open this bottle and let’s see if it’s as good as the last one.”
“But there’s still some in the other bottle.” Rye looked up and realized it was almost empty.
He uncorked the second bottle, downed what was left in his glass, and poured more for both of them.
“Yep, every bit as good.”
“I believe you are right.”
Would the flirting end with a walk across the road and lingering on the porch after a good night kiss? Is that what she wanted? Did she really want to start a relationship with Rye?
She was sitting at a picnic table with another glass of sweet red wine in her hand, watching a hunky cowboy grill steaks and didn’t know what the hell she was going to do. The wine was heady enough that she wondered what the alcohol content was. One measly glass of any kind of wine had never caused light-headedness before. But then she hadn’t eaten since lunch and skipped supper because she’d had ice cream with the girls at the drugstore.
She remembered the hired hands’ trailer looking different the last time she came to Terral. It had been faded turquoise and white and not nearly as long. There had been a rattling old air-conditioner propped up on wooden legs that stayed wet from the condensation and the porch was nothing but a set of wooden steps that were rotting away.
“When did Granny buy the hired help a new trailer?”
“About five years ago. Got it real cheap and had the guys do some work on it when they got here that year. They put on the porch and wanted to dig up a garden out back but she told them that they already took care of her garden and could have anything they wanted out of it. It’s got three bedrooms so she put six twin beds in there. The living room has television and a couple of used sofas. They love it.”
“Well, this new one sure looks better than that old turquoise one.”
I’d rather be talking about you than a used trailer house,
he thought.
About you staying and running that watermelon farm. Why didn’t Granny Verline prepare me for the way you’d make me feel?
The steaks put off a heady aroma that made her stomach growl. “Sorry about that. I’m really hungry so don’t be thinking you are going to get half my steak. You touch it, I’ll put a fork in your hand.”
Rye chuckled. “I like a woman who appreciates a good steak. Don’t know that I could ever…” he stopped and took a sip of wine. He’d been about to say that he could never fall for a vegetarian.
“Ever what?” Austin asked.
“Ever be a vegetarian.”
“Me either. One of my aunts is a vegan.”
“How many aunts do you have who’d put out a hit on anyone you got serious about?”
“Two. There were three girls in my mother’s family. Their mother was a career woman. She helped her husband, my grandfather, build the dealership. No, rephrase—she built it and he sold cars. She had the business sense and passed it on to her daughters. Mother was the only one who married. The other two are married to their careers.”