23. Dalton
Dalton
By the time we cleaned ourselves up again and made it out of bunkhouse six and arrived at the dining hall, the dinner hour was indeed nearly over.
And, knowing that Jake was always hungry, I realized his idea of going to the saloon was a good one.
He’d said something about triple cheeseburgers, so that was a big yes for me.
“I can drive us into town,” I said. “Is it too late to call about Daybreak?”
I opened my car, and sure enough, my cell phone was beneath the driver’s seat. Poor little thing was hot as lava, so I held it in my hand and let the breeze wash over it.
“Here,” I said once it had cooled off a bit.
He dialed the number from memory and soon was talking to someone on the other end of the line. “We can pick her up tomorrow, Ezra said,” he told me as he gave me back my phone. “Or Monday, if we’d rather.”
“Any time you like,” I said. I’d drive him to and from town as many times as he wanted me to.
All of this was mundane compared to what we’d just shared. Words weren’t enough to express any of it: a magical time in the half-dark, with the rest of the world so far away it had only been a dot at the back of my mind.
“We could eat at the Dairy Queen,” I said. “Don’t they have food?”
“They do. But we’re heading to the saloon so I could buy you those drinks I promised you.”
The way he said the word you was breathy. Like that word was the center of his focus. His promise to me, and the importance of keeping that promise.
I had never met anybody like him in my life, and all I wanted to do was haul him back into that bunkhouse, strip off his clothes, and kiss him everywhere.
But Jake needed to eat, so that was what we were going to do. At the last minute, he went back into the bunkhouse for his hat, for reasons I didn’t know.
I didn’t mind, though. I thought he was handsome in his clean gray t-shirt that was just a bit too tight around the arms and chest. Those jeans that fit him as well as the t-shirt did. His dusty boots. And that bit of five o’clock shadow around his hard jaw. He was an eyeful, all right.
I drove us into town along the dusty gravel road that led to the main road. Shadows of the trees stretched long across field and road alike, cool air coming down from the foothills as the evening turned to dusk.
Since it was Friday night, the town, for all its smallness, was hopping. We had to go off Old Main Street to find a parking space. Jake pointed me in the right direction, and it was only a short walk to the saloon. And not long to wait, as we stood in line to go inside.
“It’s not much of a place,” Jake said. “But it’s friendly and it’s been here since forever.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
We stepped inside. The ceiling was low, and the floor was patches of plywood and squares of linoleum. Someone greeted Jake from a distance: an older man with a white handlebar mustache.
“That’s Howie, the owner,” Jake said. To the hostess who came up to us, he asked, “Can we get a table?”
We soon had seats, though it was two places at a long table shared with strangers. We agreed on the cheeseburgers—Jake insisted I had to try the triple, even though I doubted I’d eat half of it—and Jake ordered for us, reaching for his wallet before I could.
“They’ve got Stella,” he said. “D’you want that?”
“Sure,” I said. “Sounds good to me. Extra mayo for that burger, please,” I added to the server.
The music was a little loud for talking.
The walls were covered with metal signs advertising beer and tires and gasoline.
To one side of the room was a mechanical bull, tipped forward almost on its horns, waiting for its first daring rider.
On the other side, past the already-crowded bar, was a dance floor, though nobody was on it.
“They got line dancing later,” Jake said. He looked at me as though us dancing together was an astounding idea, and I remembered Jesse had a hard time getting Jake to take time off. So maybe to him, it was.
“I’m game if you are,” I said.
Our orders came on a wide tray carried by a young woman who obviously had muscles I couldn’t even see, because that tray was loaded. The cheeseburgers had three patties each. The beers came with tall frosted glasses, and there were two paper-lined plastic baskets of fries.
She served the dishes and the drinks with ease and departed, saying something about running a tab when Jake flashed his credit card.
I wasn’t going to drink much, but it was easier, sometimes, to run a tab.
“You first,” I said, gazing at the burger in front of me. Three patties high, the cheese melting off the edges of the meat in orange waterfalls. “I don’t think I can get my mouth around something that big.”
“That’s not what he said.” Jake took a large bite of his burger, and I’d be damned if there wasn’t that tiny smile, a small curve on one side of his mouth. In his eyes danced pure joy.
This man. This wonderful man. How was I going to make it so I didn’t have to leave him?
I laughed and nudged him with my elbow, in spite of my inner state, all worked up because here we were on a date. It was a date, wasn’t it?
“Is this a date?” I asked, like I was innocent and simply couldn’t tell.
“I reckon it is,” Jake said. “With you being so pretty, and kind enough to step out with me.”
The music got louder as we ate, and I tried to resist a second beer, but Jake said, “You should get it. I’m paying, so enjoy.”
The second beer was as crisp as the first, and I loved watching Jake’s strong throat work as he tipped back his head, forgoing the frosted glass, and sucked down half a bottle in one swallow. Sitting there with him, I considered myself pretty damn lucky.
Three cowboy-looking fellows were standing around the mechanical bull, their hands in their back pockets, which seemed a common stance for cowboys. And now the reason for Jake wearing his hat became clear to me. A lot of the folks here were wearing straw cowboy hats.
Nobody looked out of place. Except for me, because I didn’t have a cowboy hat, of course.
At least I had the right boots on my feet and dusty jeans to prove that I had contributed and worked hard.
Not as hard as Jake, but then, nobody could match him in that department, at least as far as I was concerned.
“You going to get on the bull?” I asked Jake, just about shouting to be heard.
“No.” He shook his head, looking at me askance, as if I was quite foolish to suggest such a thing. “I get enough of being tossed off an animal in real life.”
“You’ve never been thrown,” I said, now shouting for real because the music had started up.
“Once or twice,” he shouted back. “Not volunteering for more.”
I nodded, because I’d been bucked off and knew how it felt. Somehow I finished my enormous cheeseburger, though most of the french fries were beyond me.
People started heading to the dance floor, and the music became more rhythmic, and maybe a tad less loud.
“Are we going to?” I asked, and when Jake raised his eyebrows at me, licking grease from his fingers and just about driving me mad, I added, “Dance?”
“If you’d like,” he said simply.
I felt a shiver of excitement as I followed him. We were moving through groups of people, and I reached out to grab some of his shirt and ended up hooking my fingers into his belt instead. His hand came back to cover mine, as if he was saying he didn’t mind. That I could hold on to him forever.
The music was louder on the dance floor, on account of the two giant speakers at one end. The wooden planks vibrated with the sound. Then the dance started up.
It was a line dance, which I’d never done before. Jake obviously had, because he knew all the steps and had an awareness of the people around him. Meanwhile, I was tripping over my own toes and bumping into people as I turned the wrong way with pretty much every spin.
I was sweating by the time the song ended, while Jake looked as unruffled as he always did. He was so tall. And handsome, and his eyes twinkled at me. I sensed looks of envy from the women near us, waiting for the next song.
A man came up to the microphone and said something about a two-step, and I was very much lost until Jake took my hands and placed one on his shoulder. He put his free hand on my waist, and I realized I was not about to lead the next dance. Jake was.
He was the man in this scenario, and that was fine by me. The bass notes pounded, and the lyrics were something about Give her a whirl, ’cause she’s Daddy’s girl.
And there was Jake, moving easily to the music, stepping forward while I stepped backward. Compared to him, I was a terrible dancer. Just terrible. But he made it feel okay, even if I stepped on his toes more than once.
When the song finished, I’d had enough of sharing Jake with everyone on the dance floor. When the next song began, another line dance, I pushed on his chest, urging him backward, all the way until we reached a wall.
We were out of the boom of the music, and the shadows of that corner were deep. I rose on my toes and kissed him, sighing with pleasure.
His hat tipped down, the brim hiding his face, but I could still see the glimmer of his eyes from beneath the hat’s shadow. He cupped my hand and held it against his heart, sweeping me to him, his other arm going around my waist. “I love it when you fetch up to me like that,” he said.
I was warm inside and warm all over. Everything he said to me was like a poem he’d written in his heart, to speak aloud only to me.
“Shall we head back?”
“Yes.” He gave me another kiss.
People were watching us, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get back to the ranch for peace and quiet, where my arms could be full of Jake and my ears not be pounding from the noise. Where there was peaceful darkness and a cozy double bed.