Page 58 of Lone Star Longing
“Gee thanks.”
“I mean, most women would want to go shopping for, you know, clothes, something like that, something you can’t really get online. And you want to go to a grocery store.”
“I think it would be fun. But I would want to go down every aisle, you know. Even the cold aisles. And maybe we’d have to get an ice chest to go back home, but yeah. That’s what I want to do.”
He reached over and stroked a length of her hair, free from its ponytail. “You bet. We’ll hit the biggest grocery store in town before we leave.”
She settled back against the couch, a little closer to him than she had been, feeling the heat of his body, taking comfort in it.
Oh man, did she miss this, taking comfort in a man. Taking comfort in a man who was gentle and generous and...
No. She couldn't think of him that way. He’d saved her once, but she wasn't going to make him save her again.
She was going to save herself.
But she was going to make him take her grocery shopping first.
*****
THE GROCERY STORE WASeven better than she expected. Even more exciting than the mall. And Beck was so nice as she looked down each aisle, the summer stuff, the makeup, the ice cream.
So much ice cream.
He had to talk her out of that. No way would ice cream last the whole drive back to Broken Wheel, not even with ice and a cooler.
She did stock up on cookies and chips and cereal. She didn't buy as much as she expected, despite the variety. She still filled up two big grocery bags and carried them with delight to the truck.
“Just think of how bad I would have been if I wasn't pregnant. All those sodas and coffees and beer and wine. So many options. I’ll have to come back after the baby is born.”
He shook his head. But he made space for her bags in the back of the truck as she climbed in the front, ready to go home.
All the errands they’d run delayed their departure, so now they’d get home well after dark. But her phone was fixed, and they found a chair for his mom that was both sturdy enough and easy for her to sit in for the front porch.
They’d risen early, and she had to admit, sharing a bathroom with someone was weird. Even in the small house she and her father shared, they didn't have to share a bathroom. But Beck was very accommodating of her privacy, even though that fold away bed couldn't have been all that comfortable.
“What ever happened to Debra?” she asked after they stopped to pick up dinner on the highway, an hour or so out of the city.
“Debra?”
“Wasn’t that her name? The girlfriend you had in high school?” Lacey had to admit she hadn’t paid much attention to boys before the accident, but since Beck had been the one to pull her to safety, well, she paid him a lot more attention. She vaguely remembered the dark-haired curvy girl who had moved away almost as soon as he had.
“You mean Diana?”
“Yeah, I guess. Hadn’t you dated all through high school?”
“Yeah, but then I went into the military, and she went to college in El Paso. We tried to see each other, since I was stationed near there, but it got too hard, she was taking like eighteen hours at once so she could get through faster, and we just didn't have time for each other, so we broke off. I heard from a friend that she’s teaching in El Paso now. Bilingual, I think. She always was really smart.” His tone grew nostalgic. “I hadn’t thought of her in a while. Funny you should bring her up.”
“I was thinking about you. You’re like this really nice guy, you’re cute, you have a good job, but you don't have a girlfriend.”
“Hada good job.”
“Well, yeah, but you’ve only been out of it for a couple of weeks. Have you had a girlfriend? I mean?” Maybe he had and of course she didn't know about it because she hadn’t exactly kept up with his life while he was gone. But he knew way too much about her private life and she didn't know much about his.
“I did have a good job. And I’ve had a few girlfriends, but nothing too special. Mostly they didn't like me being away all the time. I mean, I was on the road a lot. I didn't even rent an apartment. I had a post office box for my mail in Tallahassee, I had a friend who let me use his address when I needed a physical address. Not really the best way to run a relationship.”
“I guess. I can’t imagine having no place to call home.”
“It was pretty liberating, you know, after growing up in Broken Wheel. I was born there, so I’d never really seen anything until I joined the army, and then went to college, then worked with Riley. We never even went on vacations when I was a kid, just a couple of day trips to Mexico, you know until you had to have a passport to go. My parents didn't want to go to the trouble or expense of those for the family, so we stopped. When we went, we stopped on the other side of the border, so even that was no big deal. So yeah, it was exciting to see new things, fly in a plane for the first time, see the ocean. We never even went to the Gulf when I was growing up. Never stayed in a hotel. Only ever spent the night at my grandparents’ house in El Paso.”
