Chapter 2

Been here ever since, going on two years now.

Up close he’s not so intimidating—you see the pale flesh where his

pants sag a little off his hips, the small paunch that’s begun to

distend those abs, the flab that runs through the muscles in his

arms. If the wind is right, you catch a whiff of something strong

rising from him, tequila or whiskey, something pungent and tart

that makes you swoon in the desert heat. There is no “ma’am” or

“howdy” or shy, slow smile to brighten your day—most of the time he

doesn’t say two words from sun up to sundown, and in the early

morning he’s too hung-over to smile.

The cowboy hat, the boots, the lariat chain

around his neck, it’s all part of the image, the illusion, the same

way his “homegrown” tomatoes are bought at the farm four miles

away, or the flats of perennials purchased at the Wal-Mart in town.

It’s an act, a way to bring in customers and stay in business…he’s

a daydream out there in the sun, hose in hand, watering his plants

and I fell for it so hard, I’m still dusting off my knees.

Two years. And even now when I look out from

the main house, I can still see the man I thought he was, the

cowboy I want him to be.

* * * *

I bring him coffee, black, because that’s the

way he likes it. My own looks like hot cocoa, I use so much milk.

Two steaming mugs, one in each hand, and my fingers start to sweat

from the heat when I step out of the main house and head for the

market lot. It’s already close to seventy degrees outside and it’s

barely eight o’clock yet—by noon it’ll be almost unbearable for a

northern boy like me, and I’ll have to retreat beneath the tent

where I have a cashier’s table and a fan set up, and I’ll sit in

the shade and watch Kent move through his plants like a mirage in

the waves of heat that radiate from the desert sun. How he keeps

anything green in this arid clime, I’ll never know.

He’s watering now, like he always is when I

first come down. Setting my coffee on one of the veggie stands, I

sidle up behind him and snake an arm around his waist—his skin is

already damp with a fine sheen of sweat, I taste it when I kiss the

back of his neck, and a bitter smell rises from him, a mix of work

and alcohol and sex. “Hey babe,” I purr, resting my chin on his

shoulder. He’s a tall man, a head taller than me, and when I lean

on his shoulder, I fit perfectly beneath the brim of his cowboy

hat.

This close I can see his hair, dark and

plastered to his head under the hat, and he has a thin mustache

that makes him look older than his thirty-two years. It makes him

look more western somehow—I think of Dallasand Magnum

P.I.and all those old shows I used to watch as a kid, all

those shows that made me want a man like the one in my arms

now.

From here I can also see his unshaven cheeks,

the stubble laced with a gray fuzz that I won’t point out. Instead

I breathe in the whiskey that rises up from him like the sun off

the road and I hold out his coffee mug where he can see it. “For

you,” I tell him. By noon, it’ll hold more alcohol than java. He

thinks I don’t see when he spikes it.

Kent grunts, not quite the thanks I would

like, and then shrugs out of my embrace. “Don’t hang on me,

Marcus,” he says, his voice bleary and gruff. “It’s hot out

here.”

No shit,I think, but I hold my

tongue. I learned long ago that the best way to deal with a mood

like this is to just keep quiet and let it ride itself out. Once he

wakes up a bit more, shakes off the drink from last night, he’ll be

easier to deal with. He’ll smile for the customers, at least.

They’re the ones that matter.

“Your coffee,” I say, holding out the

mug like a peace offering. He frowns at it a moment, then takes it

and chugs half of it at once—good thing it wasn’t scalding. I doubt

he would’ve felt it, anyway. Shoving my hands into the pockets of

my jeans, I glare at the flowers he’s watering and tell him, “I

have that washtub out—”

“I’m going into town in the morning,”

he mutters. It’s his don’t nag metone of voice, one he’s

been using more and more around me. The showerhead’s been busted

for the past week and I’d swear he hasn’t bathed since then, that’s

the alcohol and sweat I smell on him.