The Texas Blue Norther

She was kind. “It was a woman’s joke.”

And he asked, “About. men?”

And she was gentle. “No. About another woman who couldn’t cook at all. Like I am.”

His face changed. He was interested. He considered and told her seriously, “You could learn.”

“I am really a peanut-butter woman.”

And he complimented her. “You did nice with the tortillas and cheese.”

She scoffed, laughing. “It was the onions chopped in the cheese that caught your taste buds. You like onions and hot pepper. You’re a chili man.”

He nodded as he considered her with a nice smile. And he told her, “Yeah.”

It was only then, with the exchange, that she understood he was vulnerable, and she couldn’t taste him without hurting his opinion of himself.

It was a giant step forward for Lauren to understand that. She had never really thought about other people that way. They could be hurt. The realization of his being vulnerable was sobering.

With the meal finished, Lauren sat back in her chair and sighed. “I was starved. You are a wonderful cook.”

He said it quite nicely, “That fruit thing was nice. Pretty.” He appeared lost for words, so he declared, “You got a good appetite.”

She assumed he meant her table manners. His elbows were on the table. Could she tolerate that? And she considered manners and mores.

He’d saved her neck. He’d rescued her…and horses! The horses that had gone in the barn gate! He’d been rounding up horses! So that’s why he’d been out there! He had known about the storm and he’d gone out to get his horses!

Of course.

He hadn’t just been moseying along. He’d been there for a purpose. That’s why he shifted their course a time or two. He had been monitoring the horses.

And by the greatest chance, he had ran into her out there, on foot. Alone. He could have just gone on and left her there. And she was not dressed for, nor capable of surviving, such a storm. But he’d seen her and been committed. He’d brought her back with him, there to the house where he was living.