Gambling On A Secret. Sara Walter Ellwood
“Why?”
He exchanged the pen for his mug. “I was always something of a loner. Tracy was often my only friend. Anyway, Karl saw that and decided to take me under his wing, I guess. In the three years we lived in Germany, he taught me everything he knew. Including a very colorful vocabulary of German curses.”
“You learned enough to build the beautiful house near Killeen?”
“So, you went to the ranch?”
“Yes. Tracy said it’s Italian.”
Nodding, he looked into his mug, then took a drink. “Brenda and I were stationed in Italy for about a year before Nine-Eleven. It’s a sized-down replica of a villa we saw there.”
She had to press him despite the dangerous ground. Understanding his relationship with his ex-wife meant she’d begin to understand what happened to him. “How long were you married?”
He didn’t look at her, and for a long time, he didn’t speak. He tensed, and she knew she’d overstepped. She was about to tell him he didn’t have to answer when he said, “Eleven years. We met my first day of high school. Brenda was the prettiest girl in Colton High and was the head cheerleader. I was the new kid no one knew, a geek actually.”
“You, a geek? Never.”
“Oh, I was. I may not have been the stereotypical geek with the thick glasses and a calculator tucked into my shirt pocket, but I was an outsider. I could speak German and a few other languages, too, better than I could ride a horse.”
He stood and took his mug to the coffee maker beside the sink. His back muscles flexed under his t-shirt as he refilled his cup. An eagle and flag tat moved under his right sleeve as he slid the pot back on the hotplate. “Brenda and I had biology together. I loved it. She hated it. By the second term, I was her tutor and quite infatuated. By the end of the year, she was my girlfriend, and we both had a much better understanding of biology.”
He took a long draw on the mug and turned to face her.
Dylan didn’t enjoy talking about his ex, she could tell, but healing required discussing and dealing with the things causing the pain. Wasn’t she still learning that lesson herself?
He leaned against the edge of the counter. “We broke up a half dozen times. The longest time occurred while I went to Texas A & M and she went to Texas Tech. The last time was when I told her I was commissioning into the Army. But we always got back together.” He stared into his mug, and his already deep voice dropped an octave. “Now, she’s married to another geek.”
“High school sweethearts,” she muttered. She couldn’t begin to relate. Her high school sweetheart had been an older cowhand on the Long Arrow. Danny introduced her to sex and marijuana. With him, she could forget the grief and the hatred of her new life, but there was a price. She had to steal from her grandfather.
When Hank had caught her with him, he’d fired Danny and threatened to send her to boarding school if she didn’t straighten out. He refused to provide for another whore like her mother. So, she pretended to be the model granddaughter while waiting for Danny to come for her. When the loser hadn’t come, she’d run away to Las Vegas two months before her sixteenth birthday with an even bigger loser. There she’d met the ultimate loser, Ricardo Rodriguez.
Oh, yeah, she understood losers. Sweethearts–not so much.
He downed his coffee, put the mug in the sink, and turned to her. “After we get the stables ready, which room do you want to start in?”
She stood and tapped her fingers on the table’s edge. “I think probably the bathroom off my bedroom. I want to totally remodel it. For a house as big as this one, I can’t believe it doesn’t have more modern conveniences.”
“Jock’s parents added the first floor master bedroom suite. But Jock never did anything more to the house after they died. Okay, we’ll start in your bath.” He paused at the kitchen door onto the back porch. With an unsteady hand, he removed the brown Stetson from the peg by the screen door. “Miss Monroe, thanks for the coffee.”
“You’re welcome, but please, call me Charli.”
He nodded once and donned his hat. “Likewise call me Dylan or Quinn.”
She held out her hand. “Sounds good to me, Dylan. So, Monday we go shopping?”
His hand shook as he took hers. The sensation of his callused fingers brushing against hers sent tingles to her wrists. His eyes locked with hers, and he held her hand a heartbeat longer than needed.
“That’s the plan. I’ll be here at seven. Be ready to go.” He stepped through the door. “Goodnight, Charli.”
“‘Night.”
His warm touch tingled in her hand even after the door closed.
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