8. Elka
Chapter 8
Elka
S o far, my absolute favorite thing about the town of Tulip, Texas was the generous outdoor market that took up most of First Street, as well as Lady Tulip Square, named for the big bed of Lady Tulips planted in the center. I’d already spent an hour walking around, picking up flowers and seedlings, and taking advantage of all the fresh produce for sale. My clean eating habit was hard to break when faced with heirloom tomatoes and Japanese eggplant.
Besides, with the sun beating down on my face, warming my skin through my lightweight white skirt and matching tank top, I could pretend like I belonged. Even if I didn’t. Not yet, anyway. Austin wouldn’t constantly doubt himself; he was the most confident person I knew, which wasn’t saying much since I didn’t a lot of people, but still. He would walk with his shoulders back and his head held high, pretending he fit in until he actually did.
Channeling my favorite person in the whole world, I did the same, smiling while picking up a pint of strawberries, answering polite questions, and asking a few of my own. I spotted the Bell sisters a few booths down. They had matching tight black curls and almost-violet eyes. Mimi dressed like a fifties housewife while Trixie dressed like a teenage boy in jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers.
“Mimi, your corn jelly is absolutely delicious!”
Her cheeks turned a bright shade of red when her mouth widened into a proud smile. “Thank you, dear. That’s lovely to hear.”
And because I was trying to fit in, I turned to Trixie and bought a two pack of her famous corn. “I’m making Mexican salad with black beans, avocado, tomatoes, and onion with tortilla chips.”
“I wouldn’t mind a taste of that,” Mimi said with a hesitant smile.
“I’m happy to share it with you. It’s not like I can eat it all on my own before it goes bad anyway.” That seemed to perk her right up.
“We live in the yellow Victorian two blocks north of your cottage,” Trixie said, turning to her next customer.
This town was as kooky as it was wonderful and I knew I couldn’t let one bitter man with anger issues color the entire town for me. It was easy to admit that aside from Officer Vargas, Tulip had been amazing so far. Very welcoming and friendly.
“Oh there you are, sweetheart.” An older man with a head full of thick red-and-silver hair stopped in front of me, panting with his hands tugging on the straps of his overalls. “I’m Rusty and I owe you a mighty big apology, young woman. I’ve picked up your hatchback and one of my nephews has already got it hooked up to see what’s going on with it. I’ll have it fixed up for you in no time.”
My shoulders sank in relief. Making a dozen trips to the post office on foot was great exercise, but it was not good for my mood or my creativity. I needed my car fixed and fast. “I am so glad to hear that, Rusty. Thank you.” My smile beamed so wide, my cheeks ached.
“Don’t thank me. Thank Antonio. He’s the one who took care of it all.” Rusty shoved his cap back over his head and kicked at the dirt absently. “I’m real sorry about making you wait. Fishing and beer don’t always mix.”
“I’m just grateful that it’ll be done soon.” What did it mean that Antonio had “taken care of it all”? “You’ll let me know the damage before you start repairs, right?” I’d read an article that said women had to be careful when it came to things like auto repairs.
“I sure will, but Antonio said he’d take care of the bill.”
“I’m perfectly capable of paying my own car repairs.” There was no way I’d let that jerk pay my way. Ever. “Just call me with the cost and I’ll take care of it. Please.”
“Sure thing. Antonio won’t be pleased, but if I had a pretty thing like you smiling up at me, I’d let you do whatever you wanted.” His eyes sparkled with mischief that told me he still had a way with the ladies, then he flashed a wink and walked off.
Austin, you won’t believe this town! He would get such a kick out of it. From the old-school diner to the feisty twins and even the Hometown Heroes calendar, he would have been in fits of laughter.
“What’s that smile for? Please tell me the thought was super dirty!” Nina’s voice pulled me from my thoughts and memories of my brother.
“Nothing dirty at all. I was just thinking about how much my brother would have loved this town. He said small towns were where all the real weirdoes were.”
She smiled. “Are you weirdo hunting, Elka?”
I laughed. “No, but I’ve never been anywhere before this, so it’s all kind of new to me.” I couldn’t believe how easy it was to share with her. Not that I shared all that much, but for me, it was a lot.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.” That was mostly true anyway. “Between work and getting my place set up, I’ve been too busy to think about … things.” Some nights I woke up from dreams of that gun being aimed at me, but I was working on getting over it. Things like that happened in the world every day—one look at the news would confirm that—so I tried to feel grateful that nothing else had happened.
“If you’re sure …”
“I am. How’s it, uh, going?”
Nina took pity on me and grinned. “You are terrible at small talk.”
“Practice makes perfect.” I liked Nina’s honesty and that her words didn’t feel like judgment. Just facts.
“You have to come to our next girls’ night. You can meet some of the women in town and maybe brush-up on your communication skills. If that’s something you want?”
“I do. I haven’t spent much time around people other than family. I moved here to do all the things I never could.” Why was I sharing so much with this woman who was practically a stranger?”
“Were you in a cult or something?”
Her question made me laugh. It also made me realize that I wasn’t the only freak here. “Nothing as interesting as all that. My parents had me so I could be a living donor to my brother Austin.”
“That sucks,” she said simply and offered a smiled filled with sympathy.
“It did, but I loved Austin and I would have done it anyway.” But it would have been nice to be wanted on my own merit too. “Anyway, I spent most of my time in the house or the hospital, staying healthy in case he needed something else.”
Nina held up a hand and I feared that I’d said too much, made her sad or angry. “Okay, hold up. This story requires booze and backup. We’re moving girls’ night up to tonight. Your place. Eight o’clock.”
I stared at her, not sure what to say. Girls’ night sounded good. I’d seen movies where it looked like a lot of fun. But a bunch of strange women at once? That was scary as hell. “Okay?”
Nina grinned. “Perfect. We’ll all bring a little something—food or booze, probably both.”
Girls’ night. I wasn’t just attending a girls’ night; I was hosting it. I’d been in town a couple weeks. This was another thing I’d missed out on and now I’d get to experience it for myself. “Sounds great. See you later.”
Girls’ night was a tradition that I was unfamiliar with since there was never a right time for me to interact with girls my own age, thanks to my parents’ fear that I’d bring back a super germ that might kill Austin. “Not thinking about that right now.” Nope. I refused to think about my childhood today—or any day really.
Unfortunately, just as I made the resolution to push everything about my past, except for Austin, to the deep recesses of my mind, the phone rang again. One of my parents calling. Again.
No, thank you.
Instead, I did a quick run-through of my rental, making sure discarded shoes and clothes were carefully out of sight, tidying up the guest bathroom, and putting together a playlist for background noise. Maybe it was overkill, or maybe I was just nervous about entertaining for the first time. Either way, I kept myself busy and tried not to think about why, all of a sudden, my parents remembered they had another child.
When the doorbell rang, I froze, suddenly feeling like I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t. Looking around the living room— my living room, which I paid for and cleaned—I straightened my shoulders and opened the door just as the bell sounded again. “Deputy Vargas, what are you doing here?” He wasn’t dressed in his uniform—a fact my lady parts were grateful for—so it couldn’t be an official visit.
“Can I come in?”
I gripped the handle tighter, ignoring my body’s response to him. “No. What do you need?” It didn’t matter that my nipples were hard around him, because my hand resting on the doorknob wouldn’t stop trembling. “Well?”
Deputy Vargas sighed and raked a hand through his thick, dark locks, those intense hazel eyes focused on me until I felt the urge to squirm. “I came to apologize.” His words were unsure and a little shaky, but I heard them loud and clear.
“Come again?” I needed to hear it again because … well because he pulled a gun on me.
“I’m sorry for the way I acted.”
“Which time?” I shot back because he hadn’t been exactly welcoming on any of the times our paths had crossed.
His lips twitched but the smile never came. “You’re right. I’m sorry for being a jerk from the moment you arrived in Tulip. You didn’t deserve it.”
Damn right I didn’t. “No, I don’t deserve it. Care to tell me what I did?”
His expression tightened and he moved his head from side to side as if cracking his neck. “No.”
“Okay then. Thank you for stopping by, deputy.” The apology was nice to hear, but whatever problem he had with me was still there. His hand reached out and smacked the door, making me leap back with a gasp. “I think it’s time you leave.”
“No, dammit. I’m trying to apologize.”
Just like that, my anger had bubbled up to the surface. Just because I avoided getting overly emotional about things I couldn’t change, didn’t mean I didn’t have anger. I did. A lot of it. “Yeah, well, apology time is over. And your apology is definitely not accepted!”
He took advantage of the space between us, stepping inside my place and kicking the door shut behind him. “Are you always this difficult?”
“Are you always this much of an overbearing jerk?” My arms began to tingle and then my whole body. Fighting with him was exhilarating, probably because it was the first time in my life that I’d stood up for myself.
He blinked. “No. I’m never overbearing.” He seemed surprised by the realization.
“But you’re always a jerk? That’s not surprising, actually.”
“No one else thinks I’m a jerk.” His voice pitched lower, and that weird sexy tone hit me right in the gut, sending tingles shooting to all my extremities.
I ignored the super-obvious signs of attraction, because I knew a bad idea when I saw one, no matter how tempting it was. “They should consider themselves lucky, then. Me, not so much.”
“Which is why I’m trying to apologize, Elka.”
Damn him for saying my name. He made it sound sexy and exotic, not plain and boring. It shorted my brain and I hated it as much as I loved it. “But you’re not sorry, are you?” I shook my head as he tried to hide that flash of guilt. “Of course you’re not. I should have realized. Why are you even apologizing to me, Deputy Vargas?”
“Dammit, my name is Antonio. Antonio! Got it?”
“Whatever you say, Deputy Vargas.”
He let out a sound that was part roar and part growl. Whatever it was, it was sexy as hell. “Frustrating woman.” He was up close and personal— right in my space. I froze, unsure what to do next. Then it was taken out of my hands when his much bigger, stronger hands grabbed my face and smashed his mouth against mine.
I should have pushed him away, maybe bit his lip, but holy cow the man could kiss. No, not kiss because that was too simple a word for the way his lips, full and soft, mated with mine. His mouth was capable and determined as his lips pressed against mine. His hands moved from my face to my hair and down my back before they settled, hot and searing, on my hips. A moan left my body and Antonio swallowed it and pulled me closer.
The kiss seemed to last forever before his tongue licked the seam of my mouth, silently asking it to open up to let him in. It did because Antonio was too much man for an inexperienced girl like me. My body felt like it had been touched by a live wire; my skin practically smoked from the heat produced from his hands moving up and down my body. It was a sensation unlike any I’d ever experienced and I was helpless to fight against it. Not that I wanted to fight against it, but I felt like I should. Felt like it shouldn’t be so easy for a guy like Antonio to get his way after how he’d treated me.
But my body wouldn’t listen. She was as excited as I was the very first, and only, time I rode a rollercoaster. With Austin. That name was, this time, like a bucket of ice-cold water over my head. I took a step back and looked up at Antonio. His black hair stood up in all directions and his eyes were so dark, they might as well have been black. The way his chest heaved, the force he used to push air out of his lungs, said he was just as affected as I was. And that left me feeling even more unsettled. “What in the hell was that?”
He looked as stunned as I did, eyes wide and blinking like he’d just awoken from a dream. “Hell if I know.” He stared at me for a long moment before taking a few steps back and stomping out just as abruptly as he’d entered.
“Well that was weird as hell.” It was more than weird. It gave me a rush like I’d felt on that rollercoaster—that same excited nervousness I felt when I crossed into Texas. I didn’t want Deputy Vargas to be the one giving me any kind of rush, not when he’d clearly hated that kiss.
A car door slamming in the distance sounded at the exact same time as the doorbell. The door opened before I could answer it and Nina smiled at me from the doorway. She held up a giant bottle of tequila and a bag of limes. “I just saw Antonio tear out of here like his ass was on fire. You have any idea why?”
I shrugged. “None.” It was the truth. “He showed up, apologized, and then yelled at me when I wouldn’t accept his apology. Then we argued and he kissed me.” I still couldn’t believe it happened either, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.
Nina didn’t seem to mind though, because her gaze was already past me and her feet were headed to the kitchen. “How was the kiss?”
“How is that relevant?”
She shrugged and paused at the kitchen table where I’d set up a taco bar along with dip, queso, salsa, chips, and beans and rice. “Just curious. With the way things have been between you two, I’ll bet it was really hot. That’s how things were with me and Preston. We fought and fought until one day we ended up naked.”
“Um, okay.” I didn’t know what to say to that so I grabbed the bottle she set on the counter. “Freezer?”
Nina nodded just as the bell rang again. “I’ll get it. You do … that.”
It sounded like the other women had arrived, so I took five deep breaths and let them out slowly to calm my racing heart. I slapped a smile on my face and went out to greet my guests. “Hi, girls. Thanks for coming.” The rest of what I planned to say died on my lips at the sight of Nina, Penny, Max, and Bo loaded up with chips, dips, and more alcohol. “I guess you came to party. Follow me.”
We settled around the table. “This way, all the food and booze are handy,” Nina declared and dropped into one of the jewel-toned chairs I’d chosen to give the kitchen some color. The rest of us followed suit. As the first shot of tequila turned into the second, I found myself starting to relax.
“I approve of this taco bar,” Penny said around a mouthful. “But don’t expect this when it’s my turn to host.”
Bo made a pitcher of margaritas. “These are to help slow down how fast we all get plastered. I’d like to finish at least four tacos before that happens, as well as a boatload of the queso dip.”
We ate and talked, laughed and drank, and then we repeated it again and again. For a couple hours.
“Now that we’re all a little bit tipsy, let’s talk about the fact that Antonio kissed Elka today.”
As expected, they all gasped and every pair of eyes in the kitchen turned to me.
“Yes, he did. No, it didn’t mean anything.” Realizing how pathetic that sounded, I rushed to correct myself. “What I mean is, he probably did it to shut me up because we were arguing. Besides, I’m not interested.”
Max nodded and flashed a sincere smile. “Of course. I mean, who would be interested in a gorgeous but gruff man with a mile-wide protective streak?” She shrugged and pushed thick red locks off her shoulders. “Then again, he never dates anyone in town, so this is an interesting development.”
I shook my head, not wanting it to be any kind of development. “I’ve had a lifetime of feeling like I’m not good enough and I don’t intend to start my new life by falling for a guy who thinks I’m garbage.” That was more than I meant to say, and instantly I felt my cheeks flame. I knew my face was a bright shade of humiliation, with a hint of overshare-pink. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Nina said with a smile that felt sincere and a little mischievous. “Now is the time to share. To unburden yourself in the presence of friends and booze.”
That sounded nice. Except we weren’t friends. “You don’t even know me.”
“We know enough to know you’re a good person. But we could be true friends if you wanted to share.”
“Only if you want to,” Bo added firmly, a determined look aimed right at Nina.
“Duh,” Nina replied with a roll of her eyes, which then slid to me. “Whatever you’re comfortable sharing.”
“But talking helps,” Penny added with a kind smile that helped me relax a little bit more.
If TV and movies were anything to go by, there was a certain level of catharsis in talking about your problems. It had helped with Austin, at least much as I let myself confide in him. Or anyone. So I grabbed the bottle of tequila and poured myself a shot before sliding the bottle to Max. I knocked it back, took a big sip of margarita, and then I spilled my guts. “I grew up sheltered—very sheltered—because my parents wanted me to be healthy.”
Max and Penny, both mothers, shared a sympathetic look I understood all too well. Parents would do anything, no matter who else got hurt, to save a dying child.
“Understandable,” Penny whispered and knocked back her own shot.
“Not just healthy though. Pristine. I couldn’t go outside or have any friends. The few I managed to make while I was in school, I couldn’t hang out with them. Kids are filthy and full of germs.” Just hearing my mother’s voice say those words drove me to another gulp of margarita.
Nina frowned and leaned in. “Were you sick as a baby?”
Here it was—the moment of truth. I could just say yes and let my parents seem like heroes doing the right thing for their child and never make any real connections with people. Or I could be honest and deal with the pity. New life, new me. “No. My older brother Austin was. There was so much wrong with him and the only way to keep him alive was to ensure he had healthy parts that were as close to a genetic match as possible.”
“No,” Bo whispered and covered her mouth, eyes wide with shock and dismay.
“Yep. They had me to be all the spare parts he could ever need.” Tears began to well in my eyes but I had to push through. “I don’t hate Austin though. Not at all. He made life as fun as it could be for me, but my parents didn’t care if I was happy, just that I was healthy. When he died and I no longer held a purpose in their lives, I left.” I closed my eyes to ward off all the pity I knew I would see in theirs. I couldn’t handle it.
Nina spoke first. “Those assholes!”
“How could they?” Max said, echoing Nina’s sentiments.
First one eye opened and then the other, surprised to see not one ounce of pity. Only sympathy, kindness, and outrage.
“They wanted to save Austin and I didn’t mind helping him. I loved him. It just would have been nice if they loved me just a little too.”
Penny and Max both reached for me as I reached for the bottle of tequila, finally understanding the anesthetic effect of alcohol on emotions.
“They shouldn’t have done that.” Penny’s words were firm and filled with emotion.
“No, they shouldn’t have. But they did and that’s my story. Now, though, I think I need more tacos and less talking.”
“I never say no to more tacos,” Max said, taking two from the platter and moving them in front of me. “Let’s eat while Penny and Nina make us jealous by talking about all the hot sex they’re getting.”
My face flamed again and this time I didn’t hide it. I just laughed along with my new friends and listened as they shared the highs and lows of their lives without holding back.
It was nice, and for the first time since I got here, Tulip felt like home.