Page 48 of Tate
Just teammates.
But she was making it a little difficult for him to think.
“I pegged you wrong. I totally thought you’d be a country music fan.” Scarlett sat on the passenger side in the cab of his truck. Dressed in a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, she looked about nineteen, her face and arms tan from yesterday’s picnic in Cruz’s backyard, her legs crisscrossed on the seat. She wore a pair of aviator sunglasses, the morning sun reflected in the amber glare, and ate Cap’n Crunch out of the box.
He had this weird, eerie civilian throwback memory to one of his rare dates in high school, the ebullient feeling of youth, freedom, and summer nights.
Not that he’d ever sown any wild oats, but if he had, it might feel like this—a pretty girl beside him on the bench seat, the window open, one hand occasionally riding the breeze like a dolphin through the air. She pulled her arm in and rolled up the window.
“What’s wrong with the Ting Tings?” he said. “Can’t a country boy listen to British girl bands?”
He glanced at her, cocked his head, and sang the chorus in a falsetto—“‘That’s not my name... That’s not my name...’”
She laughed, and it turned his heart buoyant. He’d picked her up before sunrise, in the cool darkness of the dawn, and by the time they turned eastward at Barstow, rose gold was peaking over the mountains in the Mojave National Preserve.
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised. Cruz listens to Italian opera, and Nez is a wreck for books on tape. He listens to them on high speed as he works out.”
“Yeah, well, Nez also owns a Prius. You’re driving an F-150. If this doesn’t scream Montana, I’m not sure what does. Except for maybe the cowboy boots.”
“Cowboy boots are more comfortable than you’d think. But no, I grew up with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Merle Haggard crooning in the barn. Sad songs about broken hearts and life gone wrong. I much prefer this—” He flashed into falsetto again.“‘Are you calling me darling? Are you calling me bird?’”
“Never.” She folded up the cereal bag, grinned, and picked up her cup from McDonald’s, a large Diet Coke. The third she’d sucked down over the past four hours. She hit ice, and the sound garbled in the straw.
He had finished off his bullet coffee an hour ago, but still had some in the Thermos. His stomach growled.
“You want some of my Cap’n Crunch?” She made to hand him the box.
“Seriously? I made some grub for the road. I’ll grab it at the next rest stop.”
“What kind of grub? PB and J?”
“Oats, soaked in almond milk, blueberries, a little baobab powder.”
She made a face. “I’ll keep my sugared cereal.”
“What? So I don’t eat like a twelve-year-old.”
“Road trips are for junk food. Haven’t you ever road-tripped before?”
“Once. To Disneyland.”
And that shut him down briefly, because oh, how he hated talking about it.
So, “But no, we spent summer vacations working. My father had us working on irrigation pipes, moving cattle from pasture to pasture, fixing equipment, and mowing hay. Except for Sundays, we worked from sunup to sundown.”
“You and your dad?”
“And my brothers and sister. Reuben, my oldest brother, is seven years older than me, so by the time he left home, I started pitching in more, but we all started riding when we were old enough to sit in the saddle.”
“Even your sister?”
“Of course. My mother too—we all worked. My mother also ran a big kitchen garden, which we were required to dig up in the spring, hoe, and pull weeds.”
“How big is your ranch?”
“Now? I don’t know. About nine thousand acres when Dad ran it. Knox took it over when Dad died, about five years ago, and he started breeding bucking bulls. Bought a champion headed into retirement to seed the line. He was a bull rider, and the guy just has this knack. He bred Gordo with one of our cows and produced this champion bucker named Hot Pete. He waskilled recently—some sort of fire I guess. My mother mentioned it in a letter. Anyway, no road trips for us. Just hard work.”
“No fun at all?”
