Chapter 27 – Dallas
Two weeks later…
"Seems like you actually managed not to fuck up something you planted all by yourself for once."
I look up from where I’m inspecting the cabbage and kale I’d planted in my garden a few months ago, two hearty, winter vegetables, to find Wylie walking toward me wearing a smirk.
“I've had a lot of extra time to make sure I got it right this time.”
“Extra focused now that your girl is gone, huh?” he says with a grin.
I shake my head as I continue to inspect their leaves.
My girl. Paloma is definitely my girl, and I'd told her as much before leaving her behind in Los Angeles to continue on her west coast tour despite hating every minute of it. After saying goodbye, multiple times in her tour bus then back at her apartment in downtown LA, I boarded a plane back to San Angelo. When I got back to Golden Farm, it didn’t feel the same knowing she was no longer nearby.
I guess I’d always felt a sense of home being here, imagining she was just down the road living at her parent’s ranch.
Now I knew where she was. Hundreds of miles away, singing to a crowd that didn’t appreciate her the way I did.
“I think I might have a bunny.”
“Probably a whole family of them with the looks of those leaves.”
He stoops down next to me to examine one of the pieces of kale. “This doesn’t look good.”
I drop the bunches, pulling them out by the root and toss them in a pile next to me, “No shit.”
“So, how was your visit back to Los Angeles?”
“Almost killed a guy who hurt Paloma.”
Wylie snorts, “Stevie told me.”
“Figures you two can’t keep anything to yourselves. You ever wonder if you'd have killed Charles over Stevie if your brothers hadn't come in to stop you?”
He rubs the scruff of his jawline as he thinks, “Yea, I probably would have.”
I nod, “I’ve killed plenty in my life, but never over a woman that I loved. Heck, I’ve never even been in love before. That's why I came home and she's still on tour. I’m not going to destroy the only relationship I’ve ever cared about with my ego.”
The word ‘love’ rolls off of my tongue so easily, but it’s the truth. I love Paloma.
“Ah...” Wylie nods in understanding.
"We both agreed that my staying on tour could potentially ruin her reputation.
Having a boyfriend just as she's hitting international fame isn't ideal, and that boyfriend being a former marine with a tendency to knock the teeth out of anyone who looks at her is a personal problem that I can't let impact her.
Plus, we never really discussed what this was beyond me telling her she was my girl. .."
But I know what it is for me.
She’s it for me. My best friend who always gives it to me straight turned lover. I didn’t want anyone else but how could I tell her I wanted everything with her; dating, marriage, life, when we’d just me for the first time and her career required her to constantly be gone.
I wouldn't discuss this type of thing with anyone else. Feelings, ruminating on emotions, aren’t my thing. At least not anymore. Life was pretty simple these days, and I didn't need time to process the facts as I saw them.
Paloma was mine and I was hers.
It was as simple as that.
“It feels like I’ve known her my whole life.”
Wylie stands, crossing his arms over his chest. “When’s she coming home?”
“Four weeks.”
He nods. “Y’all will figure your way. Can’t say it won’t be hard given her career, but Dove’s never let a lot of people get too close. I can tell you know her better than anyone ever has in this town and that's saying a lot.”
“I’m not worried about the time and distance, we’ve done that before, I’m more concerned about what the people around her, namely her manager, will tell her about me.”
“You trust her to make her own decisions right?”
Of course.
Wylie nods, reading my mind, “Then trust her not to let anyone else influence what she thinks about you.”
He’s right.
“Hey, my brothers and I are having a little cook out tonight to put up the Christmas tree at Cameron Ranch. Do you want to join us?”
"Sure," I yank another handful of kale out of the ground and hold it up, “I’ll bring the salad.”
He laughs as he turns to leave, “Better not be those half-eaten rabbit leaves.”
A few hours later, as I’m washing up and getting ready to head to the Camerons', my eyes catch sight of my empty desk. It’s only occasionally used these days since I went to work part time as an engineer, but gazing at it tonight reminds me of the desk I had back in LA where I’d written to Paloma for years.
I walk over, grab a pad of paper and a pen from one of the drawers, and sit down, gently tapping the pen against the wooden surface as I think about what I want to tell my friend.
*************
Dear Paloma,
You were always so much better at these letters than I was. Yours were full of humor, funny details about your life and interesting questions that had me digging deeper into my psyche. I’ve saved them all and recently reread them again.
There’s something I never told you about the letters you wrote me when I was with the Marines that I know I need to tell you now that we're apart once again.
The first one I received after going on tour, filled with anger directed towards me since I hadn't given you an address to write to (fully deserved, by the way), preceded the night that my entire platoon was brutally attacked.
The men in my group were either all severely injured or killed.
I was the only one to walk away completely unscathed, save fractured trust and a broken finger.
Ironically, it was the same finger I’d used to open your letter an hour before and the one that I'd used to trace the tiny dove outline that you’d scratched into your signature at the bottom.
That was new and unexpected, a deviation from your usual X’s and O’s.
I can’t help but feel like that dove, a symbol of peace and gentleness, saved me that night from a fate I probably deserved.
Dove, you, saved me.
Not just that night, but every night since.
When I returned, multiple tours later, honorably discharged, and trying to find my way back into civilian life, I saw doves everywhere.
Most men choose someplace new, different, and exciting—or quiet—to settle down, like the eastern shore, the mountains of Montana, or the beaches of the Gulf Coast.
But I never even considered any of those places. Instead, I chose Lonestar Junction, Texas—a tiny town that felt like home and smelled like the country, just as you'd described it.
When I arrived here, I thought it was for peace and quiet, the down-home feel and a fresh start. But I quickly realized I was searching for you—down every road I turned, into every store I entered, and in every passing face I saw, I looked for you.
But you weren’t here.
Until you were.
In the darkness of an elevator. Your arms wrapped around my body. Your sweet scent assaulting my senses.
It had felt like fate kept us apart until the precise moment that we were intended to meet under the cover of obscurity.
And now that I’ve had you, tasted you, realized what I knew all along, that I’ve always known you, and cared for you, I don't want to ever go a day without telling you that you're it for me.
There's no one else. And there never will be anyone else.
I’m sorry for being unable to control myself at your concert and for putting you in a bad position with your manager. It won't ever happen again.
But if I can't be with you in person these next few weeks, can we try something different?
Will you be my pen pal again?
Write back.
XoXo - Dallas