Chapter 24
“All right.” Trap faced the hammock Lila Mae had hung one row of trees back from the edge of the stand of woods that bordered the northern part of her property.
He had chosen the build site for her tiny house here because of its proximity to these trees.
It was also an extremely level part of the ranch, and he didn’t have to deal with the hills and slopes that existed elsewhere on her property.
“The best way to get into a hammock is just to commit yourself to it.” He turned and looked at her. “Do you want to get in first?”
She shook her head. “No, I think you should do it.”
“Yeah, I’ll probably smash you if you go first,” he said, chuckling.
“Smash me?” Lila Mae looked at him with alarm, and he glanced at the hammock, and then back to her.
“Have you ever laid in a hammock, honey?”
She shook her head, and Trap once again marveled at what a perfect creature she was.
“Well, it’s really pretty easy,” he said, his pulse pattering a little bit. “You just lay there and let it hold you up. It’s perfect for a day of rest.”
He turned around and sank into the hammock, coaxing the fabric up under his knees.
“The trickiest part is getting in and out. But like I said, you just commit to it.” He laid back and pulled his feet up, toeing off his cowboy boots as he did so.
The hammock swayed and rocked, but he grinned as he positioned both hands behind his head. “See? All-in.”
“Yeah, you made that look easy.” Lila Mae eyed the hammock with distrust. “Plus there’s not even room for me in that thing.”
“Of course there is,” Trap said. He grabbed the edge of the fabric and pulled it up. “See? It expands.”
She put one hand on her hip and blew out her breath. “I don’t know, Trap.”
He reached for her but couldn’t quite get her hand. “Then let me do it. You just gotta commit,” he said. “It is easier if you go backward.”
“Fine.” Lila Mae turned around. Trap wished he could put one foot down and steady the still-moving hammock for her, but he couldn’t.
She started to sit, and Trap leaned up and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into the hammock and to his side.
She yelped, and her feet flew up, but after only a few tangled, frantic moments, she turned, now nestled into him from shoulder to toe.
“See?” He chuckled at her disgruntled harumph. “Yeah, this is really nice.” He blew out his breath and closed his eyes. “Thank you for lunch,” he said, though he’d already told her how delicious the chicken fried steak and eggs had been.
She claimed to not have learned to cook growing up, but later as an adult. As Trap lay there, breathing in and out with Lila Mae, he realized it didn’t really matter when someone learned to cook, that this difference in their upbringings was inconsequential.
“I’ve been watching this woman online,” Lila Mae said. “She mills her own flour, and makes her own granola bars and things like that. It actually looks pretty easy, and I think I’m going to try that this week.”
“That sounds great,” Trap said. “I’m happy to be a taste-tester anytime.” He couldn’t see Lila Mae, but he somehow felt her smile, and her arm across his waist tightened.
“Trap.” Her voice came out almost as a whisper, and he didn’t want to disturb this leafy, beautiful silence any more than she did.
“Hmm?”
“I don’t know how to say this,” she said. “So I guess I’ll just fumble through it and see where we end up.”
His heartbeat jumped, as he hadn’t thought she would bring up anything unrestful on their day of rest together.
They’d sat together at church again, though he hadn’t made the drive out here to pick her up and take her with him. They’d sat with Ty and Winnie, and Colt and Jonas and his mother, as apparently, Sariah had left that morning for a trip down to the district banking office for training this week.
Trap wanted to ask Colt how his double date with her sister had gone, but since it had just happened last night, he hadn’t wanted to be too nosy.
“I guess I’ve just been thinking about what your daddy said,” Lila Mae said. “And then you going to look at a farm this week, and I don’t know, it seems kind of silly.”
“What does?” Trap asked, because she’d brought a lot of ideas together into that single sentence.
“You buying your own place,” she said. “I have eight hundred acres here, Trap, and what am I going to do with all that?”
“I thought you had a pretty solid plan for the cat sanctuary,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “But I could definitely dedicate fifty acres, even one hundred, for personal use.”
Trap chuckled. “You need one hundred acres of lawn, Lila Mae?”
“Of course not.” She lifted her head and pushed herself up on her elbow, using his ribs as her solid foundation.
He grunted. “That doesn’t feel great.”
“I’m not saying it right.”
“Well, use different words then.” He grinned at her. “That’s something my momma would always say when I was frustrated that what I was saying wasn’t coming across right.”
She made a frustrated sound and sank back down to his side, turning slightly so she could look up into the treetops as well.
“What I mean is, are you thinking this is long term, and we’ll end up together?
And I know that’s really hard to predict right now—anything could happen—but let’s say that we do, and that your daddy is right, and if he’s right, then you’ll move here to this ranch and live in this tiny house with me, and then you don’t need your own place. ”
The pieces started coming together even as Lila Mae continued with, “So, I don’t know.
I guess that’s why I was surprised you were going to go look at a farm.
Because if we end up together, then we have two ranches, and the cat sanctuary will be really hard to move.
And I don’t know, maybe you hate this place and—”
“Lila Mae.” Trap spoke quietly, but it cut her off all the same. “I see what you’re saying.” He closed his eyes again, wishing a road map for his life would appear on the backs of his eyelids.
“It’s impossible to know what will happen,” he said. “With us, with this ranch, with anything.”
“I know,” Lila Mae said. “But I guess I’m wondering if you think you could maybe just stay in that tiny cowboy cabin on your cousin’s ranch until we know a little bit more.”
Trap didn’t hate it in the cowboy cabin; he just didn’t feel like a full-grown adult, a real man. He didn’t quite know how to explain that to Lila Mae, and his mind buzzed as the breeze continued to play with his hair and the hammock gently rocked.
“I’m sure I could,” he said. “JJ will let me live there as long as I want, and my momma loves having me just down the road.”
Lila Mae took a breath, but didn’t speak right away, and that alone told Trap how hesitant she felt.
“Do you think this place could ever feel like home to you?” she asked.
“We could build a real house, a full-size one, and put it anywhere on the property, and it won’t be the dry dung heap that you described to me when I first bought it. ”
“I was just trying to be really honest,” Trap said, suddenly defensive for his description of this ranch that had sat dormant for fifteen years before Lila Mae had swooped in and purchased it for Feline Friends.
“And I appreciate that,” she said. “I wanted you to be truthful with me, and you told me everything I needed to know to make a wise purchase.”
She took a moment to breathe. “We obviously can’t have all the answers right now, but I wanted to bring it up so that you can make the wisest decision about that property you and your daddy are going to go see on Tuesday.”
Foolishness filled Trap, because everything Lila Mae said rang right in his heart. He didn’t need a two-hundred-acre property just to live on it for a year until they got married.
“How long do you think it takes for two people to fall in love?” he whispered.
“I think that’s different for everyone,” she said. “Donovan dated his wife for five years before he asked her to marry him. But that was fast for some people in the stuffy circles in the south in which we ran.”
“Have you ever been in love?” Trap asked.
Lila Mae didn’t answer right away, and Trap wasn’t sure if he should be happy about that or not.
“I don’t know,” Lila Mae finally said. “I know that’s a weird answer, but I had a boyfriend in Baltimore for a couple of years, and I know my momma wanted me to marry him.”
“Why didn’t you?” Trap asked.
“I just don’t think I liked him as much as she did,” Lila Mae said, as if just now realizing it. “Maybe a little bit like what you think Colt is doing with Sariah.”
“I don’t really know what I’m talking about with them,” he said.
“Rob and I got along great. He was sweet and smart, and the reason my mother liked him was because he was the CEO of a successful steel works company. They built fences and gazebos and those big outdoor things that people have, you know?”
“Sure,” Trap said. “Like a trellis.”
Lila Mae giggled. “Yeah, like a trellis.” She exhaled again, and this time it sounded happy. “And, like I said, we got along, and he was sweet and handsome and rich, but there was never really a super hot spark between us.” She paused for a moment. “He was comfortable.”
“Don’t you want to be comfortable with your partner?” Trap asked.
“Of course,” Lila Mae said. “But I want it to be exciting too, and Rob was not exciting.”
“In the lectures on marriage I’ve heard,” Trap said, his voice turning a little bit dry. “From my uncles and such—sometimes that excitement dies and you have to figure out how to get it back and how to honor your promises without it.”
“Sure,” Lila Mae said, and when she didn’t go on, Trap figured she’d let thoughts of her past fill her mind.
He let her have the silence, because she’d brought up plenty of things that he needed to think about too, and thankfully, none of them were about MSW, expanding the business, hiring new people, or his forthcoming schedule for the week.
He simply let himself be with Lila Mae, with the warmth of her body against his and the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. He listened to the sounds of the wind in the trees, and the whole world slowed down to the point where Trap could hear and feel God talking to him.
The pastor’s sermon that morning had been on seeking for and taking counsel, not only from those here on earth, but from God Himself.
Trap felt like he did a good job involving his parents in the major decisions of his life, but he had room to improve on kneeling down before the Lord and asking for His guidance and help.
Pastor Glover had pointed out several instances in the scriptures where God had invited his sons and daughters to walk with Him. Trap closed his eyes and prayed silently. If You will light my way, I will go where You want me to go, Trap thought. And I will do what You want me to do.
A voice from the heavens didn’t shake the trees, and no thoughts entered Trap’s mind. But he stayed in that moment, leaving the option open for his Heavenly Father to communicate with him.
He felt himself drifting, and he simply let it happen, because he hadn’t felt this relaxed in a long, long time, and he knew that had everything to do with the woman in his arms.
Trap started to feel like he was falling, and one of his legs jerked.
He opened his eyes, realized where he was—still in the hammock with Lila Mae with a blue sky peeking through the leaves—and he let his eyes drift closed again.
He wasn’t physically falling, but he was definitely falling in love with Lila Mae right there on a ranch he’d once thought should be condemned, in something as simple as a hammock strung between two trees.