“I’ll take it later,” I said, not answering her, and silenced the phone, sliding it back into my pocket. “Would you like to go down to the lake?” I asked. Her face lit up. The lake was something she was willing to try. She nodded and followed me out of the barn. I walked toward the gate that closed off the dirt track that wound through the rest of the ranch.
“We’re going on foot?” she asked.
“The only other way is by horseback or with the truck. But they’ve taken the truck to pick up feed.” I didn’t offer the horses because I knew she would say no. Alice just wasn’t an outdoors kind of girl. It made me wonder what I saw in her. I’d been spending time with her for around four months now, and it had seemed we could relate.
Then again, it was easy to relate when two people sat together in a quiet room talking about their real lives, instead of fitting into them. It was also easy to relate when we weren’t doing any talking at all, up in her bedroom.
“It’s not far,” I said to her, opening the gate to let her through.
“Why the gate?”
“So the cattle doesn’t come round to the farmhouse and trample the gardens, scare the tourists, that kind of thing,” I said.
We followed the dirt track through the trees that surrounded the farmhouse and surrounding cottages, and suddenly we were in open country. Fields on either side hosted cattle. The earth we walked on was compact enough to pass for a road, but Alice still looked uncomfortable in her shoes. Something told me she wasn’t used to walking long distances. I wore my sneakers, a strange sensation when I lived in my cowboy boots.
“It’s quite far, isn’t it?” she said.
“Just around the bend,” I said and pointed. She nodded and we kept walking in silence. We rounded the bend after a couple of minutes and I walked into the knee-high grass. The area around the lake wasn’t fenced off. I walked up the rise and Alice clung to me to keep her balance in the long grass. When we reached the top, I stopped.
“Oh, Justin, this is beautiful,” she said. We overlooked the lake, laying in front of us like a postcard with weeping willows on the edge here and there and a stretch of green grass that was short enough to walk easy.
“We bring our tourists here for picnics and so on,” I said. “It’s got a nice atmosphere.”
“Oh, it does,” she said and held onto me as I led us down toward the water. It was hot this time of day, creeping up to noon. I stopped underneath a willow and sat down on the grass. Alicia looked at the grass, unsure if she wanted to sit on it, but eventually did. There was nowhere else to sit.
“This is stunning,” she breathed. “I can see why you like the wild life so much.”
I chuckled. Wild life wasn’t exactly how I would paint it, but then again, to her maybe it was wild.
“It’s just all I know,” I said. “I’ve lived in other places before, but all of them were in Texas, doing this.” I waved my hand over the fields that lay scattered around us. “Not always tourists, but always ranching.”
“How long have you lived here?” she asked.
“Eight years, the longest I’ve been anywhere. It’s home now. Maybe I’ll move on eventually, but right now this is fine. And I want to be close to Evelyn.”
“Oh, I’d love to meet her,” Alice said and I groaned inwardly. I shouldn’t have said anything. “Can I meet her later? With me being in town and all?”
“Evelyn’s really busy,” I said.
“With what, her stationary shop?” Alicia asked, and the way she said it was condescending. Her eyes were mocking, and it irritated me.
“She doesn’t have the kind of life you just barge into,” I said tightly.
“Oh come on. I’ve heard so much about her, she’s all you talk about. I’d love to meet more of your family.”
I didn’t want her to meet any of my family. Evelyn would probably be up for a visit. I knew she was as curious about Alice as Alice was about her. But I didn’t want to introduce Alice to Evelyn. I didn’t want things to suddenly be that official between us. As soon as Evelyn and Alice met, it would be real. Until now it had been just a fairy tale, a story I told. I didn’t want that to change.
“I’ll give her a call later,” I said. Alice smiled and let it go. I never called Evelyn before I stopped by, but Alice didn’t need to know that. I saw the group of tourists riding up toward us. Just small specks on the horizon, but I could pick out all the horses. I didn’t want them to see us. I stood up and dusted my jeans.
“Shall we get going?” I asked. “I can make us some lunch.”
Alice nodded and gave me her hand. I helped her up and we started back. The climb back up the rise was a problem with her shoes but we made it onto the flat road and finally back to the cottage. My phone rang again. Grace. I switched the phone onto vibrate. The moment Alice left I was going to call her.
When we climbed the steps onto the porch, she sank into the one chair and let out a groan.
“I don’t know how you do this every day,” she said and sounded like a city girl, thinking that that was it. She was an artist at home, spending her time painting and thinking of new ways to get her ex-husband to pay for things. She had it easy. She was upset about the divorce because being upset about a divorce was how it was done. I doubted she cared that much. Alice just wasn’t the kind of person that invested herself emotionally.
That was what I liked about her, especially when I met her. I’d needed someone uncomplicated, someone that I could sleep with when I needed it and that was always ready to smile afterward. Alice was uncomplicated because there was no need to define our relationship. I didn’t need it the way I’d wanted it with Grace.
Lately though, it felt like it was starting to change. Alice wasn’t just the glorified booty call she’d been at first. And our relationship was beginning to get complicated.
But it still wasn’t nearly as complicated as I was starting to realize she was.
I went to the kitchen and poured us each a glass of orange juice.
“What news?” I asked her, handing her a glass. She took a sip and looked into the glass like she wasn’t sure of the contents.
“Oh, you know. The usual. My ex-husband won’t pay for my lifestyle but he’s the one that married me into it so we’re arguing about that.”
I nodded. I heard about her ex a lot. From what I could hear, he wasn’t the kind of guy that would put up with her nonsense. I didn’t blame him, her nonsense was becoming more and more apparent. But he shouldn’t have married her in the first place. Some people were just the kind of people that didn’t let go once they bit down on you.
I had a feeling Alice was one of those.
I suddenly felt stuck, and my chest tightened. What was I doing with her? What was I doing with my life? I had Grace, and even though our relationship, or what was going to become of it, was unsure, it was something. She was something. Everything. I’d run to Alice when I’d needed consolation. But I didn’t need it anymore.
I just didn’t know how to tell her. I couldn’t do it here, now, when she’d come to see me and I had nowhere to run. I had to talk to her about it when I was in Dayton again. It was bad enough that she knew where I lived now. I’d been hoping to avoid it.
Had I planned on things work out like this all along? Not wanting her in my life permanently? I didn’t know. It almost looked like it, but that would make me a jerk.
“What about you?” Alice asked.
Oh, I just reconciled with the love of my life, nothing monumental, I thought, but I just shrugged. “You’ve seen it. This is pretty much it.”
Alicia finished her juice and got up, walking into the house. She stayed inside for long enough that I wondered where she’d disappeared to. Her empty glass was on the counter and the bathroom door was closed. I took her glass and rinsed both of our glasses in the sink. I was still busy when I heard her come up behind me. She snaked her hands down my waist and leaned her head against my back.
Her skin was warm even through my shirt, and she smelled like apples and perfume. I breathed in. I was aware of the swells of her breasts, pushing against my back, and her body down the length of mine.
I turned in her arms and faced her. She tipped her head up and looked at me, and her pupils were large, her eyes drowning deep. It didn’t matter that I didn’t like her that much as a person, or that I believed we just weren’t that compatible. Whenever I was close to her like this, when her body pressed against mine and I could feel her soft edges, my body responded.
I shifted, my hand on the buckle of my pants to readjust, and I dipped my head and kissed her. The kiss was filled with urgency, and I knew why she’d come. It wasn’t as much about being with me as it was about the fact that she needed a release. It seemed wrong, but I’d been doing the same to her, and it didn’t matter how much a man argued with his mind, when a woman offered herself to him he couldn’t help but take it.