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He made her feel a jumble of confused feelings.
Because he was...
Because when he got close to her now, her heart jumped. Because she was so conscious of the heat of his body as he stood there with his hand in hers.
And she was so aware of the fact that the stakes were high, no matter what he said.
That it wasn’t a transaction. And maybe that was true; maybetransactionwas entirely the wrong word. But she wasn’t worried about that. What she was worried about was messing it up. Because she hadn’t really earned this. She so often struggled to find a way to make things right. But she hadn’t been the one in control of this solution. It was Gus.
He had given her this new lease on life. He had given her the solution. And there were so many possibilities in it. So many things that she was excited about. So many things about it that did make her happy.
From the glory of working the ranch, to enjoying having a house of her own. Even cooking him dinner.
Shelikedbeing Gus McCloud’s wife. And she didn’t want to mess that up by making a move on him. Which may have been one of the weirder things she’d ever thought, but it was a very real issue, all things considered.
She walked into the little tiny grocery store, which had a selection of prepackaged items. And after that she would go to Sullivan’s Point and get some produce from her sisters.
But she would start by getting her milk, her chips and things like that. She might be a farm girl who had access to the freshest meat and vegetables, but she liked junk food. Quite often, actually.
And right now she was really craving Cheetos.
As she went in, there was a knot of young cowboys standing over by the beer. They weren’t from Four Corners; rather, they were from one of the other spreads in the area.
“Howdy,” one of them said, his mouth curving up into a smile.
“Howdy,” she said.
And she felt a little bit pleased to get some attention. Because she was kind of obsessing about Gus, and he was immune to her in that way. Which was good, or it should be. But she was having a lot of trouble actually synthesizing that.
But hey, Gus wanted to do his own thing. And so it seemed...fine for her to get flirted with. She wasn’t going to do anything with anyonenow. That was a bridge too far. But Gus wanted their thing to be separate from romance and sex and all of that. In fact, he found the very idea of them together laughable, and he wanted to go off and be with other women, so what he was suggesting was that the two of them have an open marriage. And if they had an open marriage...
She cleared her throat and tossed her hair, then started to walk toward the chips with her basket. And she ended up getting a little bit overexcited and grabbing more dips than she possibly should have, but she was pregnant. And she was having weird cravings. She also threw in a bag of Oreos. And suddenly, one of the men was standing beside her. “Can I carry that for you, ma’am?”
She didn’t know how she felt about being called ma’am, but she was happy to accept some help.
“Well, thank you,” she said.
Howgallant.
What was wrong with enjoying the moment? It had been a weird day.
And so she put a few extra things in there, and he helped carry the basket up to pay.
John at the register gave her a skeptical look. Well, whatever. He was allowed to be skeptical if he wanted. He knew that she was Gus’s wife, because of course he was a busybody. And there just weren’t that many people to know in Pyrite Falls.
But these guys didn’t know her, because they were seasonal workers. And she was happy with that. It was...it was Gus’s resolute immunity to her that...
It’s good. You are supposed to be feeling good about that.
Yes. She was. She was supposed to be accepting. So she would just not think about Gus. Her whole thing with Gus was about building a life. It was totally different.
They were friends. And that was more than enough. More than enough.
With her groceries back, two of the men went over to the counter, each taking a bag. “Where’s your car at?”
“I just parked out front,” she said.
And she was directing them on where to put the groceries when her husband pulled in in his beat-up truck.
