Chapter 10 #3
He pulled into a parking lot between a surf shop and a coffee shop and parked next to a green-and-red painted truck with the words Cilantro Tacos painted on the side. Picnic tables painted orange, turquoise, and yellow sat under umbrellas, most of them occupied by people eating tacos.
“You’re going to love this place,” West said.
“I found it last year on a trip south to Mariposa. We overnighted in Miami and decided to check out the strip. This food truck has a sister truck parked near the beach, but it’s impossible to find a parking space there, so…
” He got out and went around to open her door, but she was already out.
She followed him over to the menu board—tacos, burritos, quesadillas—and then she ordered an El Volcán Supremo. He ordered a Lava Loco and three Fiesta Wraps.
She gathered utensils and sat at a table.
It just felt…easy. Like this was how it was supposed to be. And maybe if she were any other person in the entire world…
He sighed, thinking through their conversation—her time at Georgetown Law, his stint with the Marines, first as a sniper and then as an EOD specialist. How he’d liked solving problems despite the danger.
How, yes, EOD might be one of the most lethal jobs in the military, but the guys had steel nerves and didn’t panic…
Which made him then wonder why he’d done exactly that—panicked—with her.
But not today, so he got their order and delivered it to the table.
“I’ll get the drinks,” Britta said as he nodded and walked the three burritos over to the detail in the conspicuous SUV.
“Thanks,” Chávez said.
Patterson had gotten out and gone over to one of the tables, and West stopped at her perch to give her the last burrito.
“This wasn’t the plan,” she said, her mouth tight.
He said nothing and returned to where Britta had set out their picnic on a couple of spread-out napkins.
And she’d taken her first bite. “Okay, I concede. It’s better than a Crunchwrap.”
“Aw, at midnight, a Crunchwrap is delicious. A man’s gotta live a little.” He bit into his Lava Loco.
“You’d think the president’s daughter would know how to do that,” she said, taking another bite. “I mean, I’ve been around the world, met world leaders, and seen places most people only dream of. The Vatican. Buckingham Palace.”
“Cool. Did you meet any royals?”
“Yes, actually.” She wiped her mouth. “But at the end of the day, my favorite times were always back on our ranch in Montana. Especially after my mom died. I always felt closer to her there.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. She was our glue, really. She was the one who pushed Dad into politics.
He was a lawyer before that, in Helena, and she made him run for school board.
One term, and that’s all it took. He won a state seat, then went for a federal senator position and got elected.
Mom said I needed stability, however, so she said we’d stay on the ranch while he went to Washington.
She was killed by a drunk driver. Dad was at a rally in Iowa, campaigning for reelection. ”
“Oh wow.”
“Yeah. I was fourteen. At home alone.”
And the way her eyes shifted to something far away, the way her voice turned hollow…he just wanted to reach out, take her hand. But then she sighed, affected a smile, and turned back to him.
“She’d be really proud of him.”
“She’d be really proud of you,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe. She was always so…true to who she was. A rancher’s daughter. She could ride a horse, of course, and rope a steer. She was a real cowgirl.”
“Did she teach you?”
“What, to ride? Yes. And did I mention I can shoot a gun?” She grinned.
He grinned back, rolled up his wrapper. “I won’t tell anyone.”
She finished her meal, grabbed her drink, and they headed back to the car.
“Next stop, Melbourne Beach.”
“No, next stop is definitely ice cream. And probably a bathroom.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She didn’t tell him to drop the ma’am.
They got in and she rolled down the window, letting the heat of the car escape as the AC caught up. He drove back through the neighborhoods as she pulled up another song. Another Carpenters tune.
She hummed, and the song lyrics wound inside him…something about hope being all she’d had until he came, about how much he’d come to mean to her.
Oh boy.
And then she broke out into the chorus…soft, sweet… “‘Only yesterday when I was sad and I was lonely, you showed me the way to leave the past and all its tears behind me…’”
She stared out the open window, the wind blowing her hair back.
Let’s just say it’ll take a man who doesn’t mind complicated.
Maybe he wouldn’t mind complicated so much.
They drove over a bridge, and she rolled up the window and shifted in her seat.
“So.” Her bare legs crossed at the ankle, the cutoff shorts showing more skin than was good for his focus. “Tell me about growing up.”
“Not much to tell.”
“Not a lot of excitement in Iowa?”
“Truth is, my childhood was about as far from yours as it gets. Dad worked Secret Service when I was a kid, so until I was ten, I lived in DC.” He glanced at her. “Wish our paths had crossed sooner. Dad decided to retire—at least for a while—when I was ten.”
“And that’s when you moved to Iowa.”
“It was my grandpa’s farm. He raised peas.
” He shook his head. “Dad wasn’t a farmer.
He leased the land out and we lived in the farmhouse, and he took a job in Des Moines, working security for the governor.
I went to a small school and was suddenly a big fish in a little pond.
Played football, basketball, and baseball. It was my heyday.”
“And then?”
He sighed, but it was just them, and suddenly John Denver was singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and it was like fate had a plan.
So, “You know, people always remember where they were when something like what I’m about to tell you happens. I was seventeen—just old enough to think I was too cool to be at the fair with my family.”
He merged onto I-95 going north. “Grandpa was determined to prove that the fair was still worth my time. He bought me this huge lemonade and challenged me to out-eat him on corndogs—said it was a family tradition, even if it was really just his excuse to go for seconds.”
And of course, now West was right there, back in the heat, the air thick with farm dust and heavy with the scent of fried food and cows.
“It all felt safe, normal.”
She was leaning back, looking at him, listening.
And maybe this thing between them wasn’t as complicated as he’d made it. “Dad, as usual, was too busy to join us. It was Governor’s Day, so he was on duty, making sure everything was perfect for the governor’s speech about farm subsidies or ethanol or whatever.
“I remember standing in the midway. It was packed, kids playing games and screaming on the rides, the smell of kettle corn, and then—I heard gunshots. But maybe it was just, you know, the sense that you’re always waiting for something to go wrong.
It was sort of like the sound you get when someone drops a stack of metal chairs, only louder, meaner.
For a second, nobody seemed to realize what it was, and then everything just…
shifted. Shouts, distant at first, then closer.
People running the wrong way through the crowd.
Some parents grabbed their kids and sprinted, others just looked around, confused. ”
Maybe he shouldn’t have told her this. “I tried to stay cool, for Grandpa’s sake, but I don’t know—I just knew, you know? Grandpa was right there, and his hand landed on my shoulder, and in that second, it just grounded me. Told me it was going to be okay.”
“Only it wasn’t,” she said quietly.
“No. Sirens cut through the music, and helicopters popped into the sky so fast it felt like the whole fair had suddenly turned inside out. I tried calling Dad—straight to voicemail. I must’ve hit redial a dozen times.”
He passed a car, glanced in the mirror. Yep, the detail stayed on his tail.
“You know, they say time stretches out, and it did—it felt like forever until we got to the grandstand. And they wouldn’t let us in—said there’d been an incident.
So we stood there, and suddenly everything was too bright, and the smell of fried onions made me sick.
Grandpa kept telling me it’d be okay, that Dad was always careful, that these things never happened to people like us.
” He sighed. “But eventually a policeman found us. He took Grandpa aside, and…yeah, Dad had stepped in front of a bullet meant for the governor’s family. ”
“Oh, West.”
“Grandpa just sort of deflated, right before my eyes. Then he came over and hugged me so hard I could barely breathe, and I think—I know—I started shaking, just wishing I’d…
” His stupid eyes filled and he blinked hard, his throat tightening.
“I wish I’d said something different that morning, anything but the stupid joke I made about him working too much. ”
She said nothing.
“Ever since then, I can’t be around carnival food without feeling sick.” He glanced at her. “Sorry, that was a lot.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Yeah, well, I had been angry at him for a long time. He was never there. I resented him for always protecting other people instead of his own family.”
She nodded.
“Duty always came first,” West continued, his voice rough. “The protectee always mattered more than I did. Baseball games. School events. Birthdays. He’d promise to come, then get called away.”
“I’m so sorry.”
West wanted to say it wasn’t her fault—because it wasn’t. But yes, she got it, so he just nodded.
“My mom, however, was so proud of him. To her, he was a hero, and she told me that someday I would understand that some things are bigger than, well, me. And that our faith said we’d see each other again and…she was just so strong. So I decided to be a Marine.”
And of course, she knew the rest, so he didn’t finish.
And right on cue, Simon & Garfunkel came on. That hushed opening about greeting the darkness like an old friend.
She glanced at him, then turned off the music. “Sorry.”