Chapter 27Charlotte Lane
Chapter 27
Birthday Date
Monday
Charlotte Lane
C harlotte looked up from the papers on her desk and realized it was almost dawn. The country kids who drove thirty miles to school were pulling into the parking lot. Most of them ate breakfast in the cafeteria, then finished their homework. Others just talked.
She walked out of the communal classroom she used for first period and jogged down one flight of stairs so she could watch the school come to life. She couldn’t stop smiling. Somehow this small school had become exactly what she needed.
Charlotte could hardly wait to begin first period. She knew her way around. All her lectures were ready. And, best of all, she was no longer a football coach. The season was over, and with Wade’s help, they’d at least won more games than they’d lost. And that was good enough for her.
Wade had been trying to get her to help with the wrestlers, claiming that he and she made a good team. But she was done with coaching. She guessed she’d go to a match now and then, though, and cheer everyone on.
She hadn’t thought she’d love teaching high school, but she did. One minute she was working with kids and the next minute they were turning into adults.
She used to think A&M was her calling. The best she could do. But maybe Crossroads was. Who knows, she might do what Jake said and become a rodeo rider.
“Fat chance,” she said with a smile.
As the school day passed, Charlotte thought of her new life. She’d cleaned the little house and tossed old books, giving others to the library. She knew most of the senior students and all the teachers except the shop teacher. She’d seen him a few times but they rarely crossed paths. She even got the odd high five from the boys who’d been on the football team.
Wade poked his head into her room between classes. “Nachos tonight?”
“Sure. It’s a date.” She bit her lip, but he was already gone.
Wade was a good friend and it seemed to her that a man who became a friend, stayed a friend. What happened on New Year’s Eve had surely been an impulse caused by the excitement of the moment. A fluke. She didn’t need to read a book to figure that out.
The sling on Wade’s arm was gone and she thought he looked younger somehow. Strange, he’d never told her how he’d gotten hurt. An accident? In battle? Falling off a horse the one time he rode one? She didn’t know. She’d asked him, but he never wanted to talk about it.
Lately, when they were together, Charlotte seemed to do most of the talking and she still knew little about him.
He’d told her he was a Texan, but that didn’t mean much to her. The state was so huge he could be a city boy, or maybe he grew up in the country. Though she couldn’t really picture him on a ranch. If he’d had a Texas twang, he’d lost it years ago. She knew he’d been in the Army and that he was a medic, but he didn’t talk much about that either.
Their two usual topics of conversation were either school or the history of the area. Almost every week he’d tell her to ask Staten something about his ancestors. But as far as she could tell, Staten didn’t know much about the first Kirklands who settled the area.
As Wade walked with Charlotte to her car after school, she decided to avoid the subject of the Double K Ranch. “Do you want to try somewhere new tonight?”
The ex-soldier looked like he was confronting the enemy. “Why?”
She tried not to laugh as she added another thing about him to her list. The man was set in his ways. “Just to try something new. Nachos and beer are great and all, but I’m kind of in the mood for a good old-fashioned cheeseburger.”
He watched her closely for a minute more before his lips twitched into a smile. “A cheeseburger, huh? I guess that sounds good. Where to?”
“This small place I found called Dorothy’s Diner. It’s not far from here.”
Wade laughed as he settled into her passenger seat. “Nothing is far from here.”
He was right about that. Charlotte chuckled with him. Crossroads might be small, but it was starting to feel like home.
As they walked into the cozy café, they were greeted by a wide woman with a warm smile. Her brown hair stood straight up like a spiky halo and she wore a nametag that said D OROTHY . “Hi there, folks. Would you like a booth or a table?”
Wade and Charlotte spoke at the same time. “A booth.”
“Please,” Charlotte added.
“Right this way.” They followed Dorothy to a booth tucked into the corner. “I’m Dorothy. I own this joint and do all the cooking, so if you ever have a problem, you just come straight to me.” She reached into the pocket of her floral apron and pulled out two small laminated squares. “Here’s the menu. I’ll give you two a chance to look over everything, but first is there anything you’d like to drink?”
Wade scanned the menu. “Actually, I think we already know what we want, ma’am. We’ll take two cheeseburgers with everything. I’ll have a decaf coffee, and she’ll want a Diet Coke.”
Dorothy collected the menus and smiled. “I’ll have that right out.”
A bell on the door jingled as it was opened, and Charlotte looked up to see Jake Longbow saunter into the restaurant. She patted Wade’s hand across the table. “Look, that’s Jake, the foreman I told you about. He works out on the Double K. He might be able to help with finding your cave.”
She slid from the booth to invite him to their table. But as she took her first steps toward the old cowboy, Dorothy greeted him with a warm smile. Charlotte watched as Jake circled his arms around the curvy woman and kissed her sweetly on the lips. The spiky-haired owner backed away, swatting him lightly with a dish towel. Then she grabbed Jake’s hand and towed him to the back of the diner, away from prying eyes.
Charlotte plopped back into her seat.
Wade whistled low and long. “I guess we’ll have to try and talk with him some other time. He’s a little preoccupied at the moment.”
She nodded, speechless. She hadn’t taken the rough old foreman for the romantic type. She smiled. She was happy for him.
Wade sighed. She knew his research hadn’t dug up anything new. The first Kirklands’ journals had been fascinating, but as far as she could tell, they didn’t mention the location of the cave.
“You’ll find it someday,” she said softly.
“I hope so.”
Charlotte knew he was frustrated that the heir to the huge ranch didn’t know where the cave was that James Kirkland and his wife, Millie, originally lived in before any of the houses were built. She wasn’t sure what he hoped to find there. Artifacts. Treasure. But Wade seemed determined to locate it, and she’d help if she could.
As they finished their meal, she asked if Wade would like to go to Staten’s birthday party with her next week. Jake was sure to be there. Wade could ask about the settlers and the cave then. With all the legends Jake had stored up, she suspected the old foreman knew where it was. And if he didn’t, he might know where to get more information.
“Sure,” Wade said. “I’d love to go and get a look at the place. Maybe I’ll go searching for the cave myself.”
It was the first time she’d ever invited a guy out.
As they walked to her car, Wade asked how well she knew Staten.
“A little bit, not too well. He asks questions about his assignments sometimes, but most of the time he’s busy with running the Double K. I love it when Jake comes along on my rides. He knows a lot about the ranch. I think he’s been around all Staten’s life. He likes to talk about the land and who has changed things over the years. He seems to know a lot of the history. I’m sure he’ll help you if he can.”
In his polite way, Wade took her hand at the driver’s-side door and thanked her again for inviting him to the party.
As he walked around to the passenger side, it occurred to Charlotte that Wade might be a little too polite.