CHAPTER SEVEN
-:- DALLAS -:-
Waking up, I stifle my blind panic until I realize where I am.
The couch in Cork’s apartment isn’t too uncomfortable, and I certainly slept well after the Irish coffee we drank while watching the movie.
My face aches this morning from all the laughter.
I’m just about to stand up when I notice my comforter on the floor.
As I reach down to pick it up, I have to let go of my comforter to do so.
What? How can I have my comforter in my hand if it’s on the floor?
Taking a moment to rub my eyes and have a yawn, I look again. This time I see a head on a pillow and a body under the comforter. Cork? What the hell? When did he…Why is he…What?
Being careful not to disturb him, I slip off the couch, grateful I wore pj’s for the first time in years. If he was hoping to get a crafty eyeful, he was out of luck. Nah! You don’t bring a pillow and a comforter to be a peeping tom. Phone camera maybe!
Popping to the bathroom I empty my bursting bladder and after washing my hands, I get the coffee machine working.
Making two mugs, I leave one on the floor by the end of the couch and settle myself back on the couch with the other.
Watching Cork sleep, I see his face more relaxed than I have in days.
It’s a handsome face too. I have to admit, I’ve woken up next to worse. I mean on the trail, not romantically.
Seeing him start to move, I wait for him to open his eyes before I give him the third degree as to what he is doing by my ‘bed’.
Opening his eyes, I see him frown. He blinks a few times but doesn’t move. I genuinely believe he doesn’t know where he is at this moment! Oh my God! How weird is this?
“Good morning, sleepyhead. Had a good night down there, have we?” He jumps a mile and rolls over to look at me. In doing so, he rolls out of his comforter, and I’m a little disappointed that he isn’t fully naked.
“What the hell?” He stands up in just his shorts, gawking at me and I just happily take in the view. “What am I doing out here? Why did you get me out of my bed?”
“Hold on there, Kemosabe, I didn’t do nothing.
I woke up a few minutes ago, and there you were.
My first words were exactly the same as yours.
In fact, my whole reaction was exactly the same as yours.
I didn’t drag you out of your bed and snuggle you up on the floor, so it must have been you.
Sleepwalk often do you?” I tilt my head to one side, for no other purpose than to get a view of his very nice body from a slightly different angle.
“I should get some clothes on,” he states, but before he turns away I speak.
“Your coffee is getting cold. You should drink it first.” Reaching down, I lift his coffee, then pass it to him. Pulling my feet up, I nod at the space on the couch I’ve made for him to sit. Taking the offered seat and a swallow of the coffee, he looks around the room.
“To my knowledge, I’ve never sleepwalked before. I’ve never woken up in a different place from where I went to sleep, that’s a fact.”
“Was it a nightmare or something? I’m normally a very light sleeper, but I never heard you come through.
That drink last night did the trick though, I was asleep in seconds, and it took me a moment to get my bearings when I woke up.
” Rolling my shoulders and stretching my neck, I feel my pajama top move.
Pretending not to notice, I see him catch a glimpse of my breast and the edge of a nipple.
He drops his hands to his lap and tries to cover his appreciation of my attributes with his coffee mug.
I’m happy to say that he’s going to need more than his mug to cover that, and I see now why Nurse Betty would want to be the only one doing his bed baths!
Seeing his embarrassment, I decide to let him off the hook and laughing, I suggest we both get dressed.
Dressed and decent, we have breakfast and chat about what we are going to do to pass the time. The apartment doesn’t need any further work, there’s no laundry worth talking about, and with my bedding folded and put away, the place looks neat and tidy.
Deciding that we should get out for some air, Cork suggests we stop by the garage and see if Raven has her truck there, then maybe take a drive down by the river.
I think that sounds like a plan, and add to it by saying we should take a packed lunch and find a spot to watch the world go by as we eat.
With sandwiches made, bottled water packed and a thermos of coffee done, we head out.
Pulling into the garage, we don’t see a fancy truck, so we roll straight out again and head for the riverside picnic area.
As we drive, Cork tells a story that Heather, one of the ol’ ladies, shared.
Apparently, her man, Forest, took her on a picnic by the river to a special spot he knew.
Only when they got there, he had deterred anyone else from taking the spot by marking the area with police crime scene tape.
When she thought that was what it was, it almost soured the mood.
Arriving at the river, we grab our picnic and find a table that overlooks the river. Wasting no time, we tuck into our food and wash it down with a bottle of water. Nursing a coffee, we enjoy the solitude and silence which except for the sound of the river is almost complete.
“I guess we scared everything away. There isn’t even a bird tweeting,” I smile at Cork.
“I like the quiet.” I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or just talking at first. “I enjoy the sound of nature, don’t get me wrong, but growing up, all I heard was screaming, shouting and fighting.
Day after day…Night after night…Never ending.
I left home at fifteen, lived with friends on the streets.
I don’t even know how long I’d been gone before my parents even noticed.
It was more than a year before I saw my father again.
“I met up with others living like me, and we started to look out for each other. We quickly became like brothers. We swore that we would never leave one of us behind. We were really struggling when I took ill. Some bikers turned up at the door of this shack we were living in and offered us a place to live, work and become human beings again. Stitch saved my life, and it’s only while I’ve been at the clubhouse that I’ve been told how close I came to dying.
“I've never told anyone my story before. I don’t know why I told you, but it just seemed right.” Cork gives me a sad smile, and I’m not sure what to say for a moment.
“I appreciate you sharing that, and I will keep it to myself. My story is very unremarkable. I was an only child and grew up as a typical daddy’s girl.
On my twelfth birthday Daddy bought me a pony, and that changed everything.
Within a few months, all my dresses had been swapped for jeans and shirts.
Shoes and sandals out, boots in. Hair ribbons, clips and hair tie out, Stetson in.
The transformation from ‘pretty little thing’ to cowgirl complete.
I tried all the different forms of horse sport you can think of.
Barrel racing was probably my favorite, but my horse wasn’t in the class for that.
One of the girls on the circuit was a bitch and said all I’d ever be good at was roundup.
Well, it turned out she was right, I went and tried it at a local ranch and it was what I was born to do.
My horse was a natural cutting horse, he could stand up with the best of those regular cowboys, and I hardly had to tell him a darn thing.
He knew what he was doing better than I did.
“One of the young cowboys threw a loop over me one day, you know, lassoed me, but before he could pull me off my horse, one of the old boys roped him, dragged him off his horse and threatened to drag him through a cactus patch if he tried that again.
Well, that old boy took me under his wing from that day on, and taught me so much I thought my head would explode, there was so much going in there.
We were talking one day, and he told me his daughter had been killed in a road accident.
Turns out she died on my twelfth birthday; I think God told my daddy to get me a horse ‘cause he knew I was gonna meet Old Jeb and fill a hole in his life. He died in his sleep on the trail one year, and I brought him home on the back of his horse. When all the legal stuff was done, I took his ashes out on the trail the next year, strapped them on the back of his horse and let them scatter where they wanted.”
“Didn’t you get into trouble for bringing him home like that?”
“Well, I could have, but the rancher, Mr. Hawken, told everyone that if anyone asked, Old Jeb had passed in the bunkhouse. That young cowpoke was still there, the one that had roped me. He tried to speak up about it, but everyone told him in no uncertain terms, what would happen if he did. There never was any trouble.” I top up my coffee, and Cork’s, then watch the river flow by and think of Old Jeb.
“I think we should go home and get absolutely wasted. What a pair of maudlin old timers do we sound like? When you talk about your cowboying, you even talk different, Dallas. Do you know that?” Cork grins at me.
“Of course I know it. You should hear me when I sing to the herd on the trail at night. Those cows just love my country singing voice.”
“Ha! Only cuz them dogies is so tired they ain’t got the energy to stampede!” Cork’s attempt at cowboy talk has me burst out laughing.
“What the hell language was that supposed to be?”
My phone pings, and when I look, it’s Raven.
Raven: I’ll stop by after work if you’re gonna be home and show off my truck. I’ll pick it up from home and should be at yours around 6:00 p.m.
Me: Oh yeah. I can’t wait to see what I have to best when I get my truck done!
Raven: Never gonna happen, girlie.
“Let’s head home. Raven’s bringing her truck around about 6:00 p.m. I can’t wait to see it.” Standing up, I gather everything from the table, garbage into the trash, everything else ready to take home. Cork watches me with an odd look. “You okay, Cork?”
“What? Oh, yeah. Sure thing. 6:00 p.m.” I think I could be getting to the man!
Raven is good to her word and arrives at six on the dot.
I could hear that engine burbling long before I saw her.
It sounds fantastic. There is nothing like the rumble of a V8.
Seeing the quality of the paint job and the artistry of the images, I am blown away.
The tailgate with RAVEN is the pièce de résistance.
The workmanship that went into the truck bed, the quality of the wood, the way it has been oiled to highlight the grain.
“It’s a piece of art on wheels, Raven. I don’t know how you thought it all up, and then got it to match together so perfectly. You should do this for a living.” I think she obviously has a wasted talent.
“I would gladly accept all your praise, however, she was presented to me this way. I had no say in any of it. Wasn’t even aware of her existence until my hunk handed me the keys.
This is all the work of Grease and the crew at Hot Hogs and Cages.
He had the idea; they have the talent and skill to bring such things to life.
I agree though she is a work of art. You should see Star’s garage.
Her hog and Charger are gorgeous, too. So are Nyx’s Jeep and her Rewaco. ”
“Her what?” I’m lost by that term.
“Rewaco. It’s the name of a trike. Basically, a car engine bolted to a three-wheeled frame, but so much more than that, too.” Fiddling with her phone, she shows me some images of Rewaco trikes.
WANT ONE! AND A HOG!! AND MY TRUCK DONE!!!