The Story of Us - By Susan Wiggs Page 0,6

me up.

I worked for a good two hours getting ready. Shampoo, hot rollers, makeup, the works. After much internal debate, I settled on jeans, cowboy boots and a pink T-shirt from a Willie Nelson concert up in Luckenbach. I wanted to look casual, as though going on a date on the spur of the moment was nothing new to me.

Steve looked wonderful when he showed up, freshly showered, wearing clean jeans and a cowboy shirt and boots. In fact, he looked so good I almost wished I’d dressed a little better myself. Like in a white organdy gown with a twelve-foot train, I thought fancifully.

I was slightly disappointed to see he’d borrowed the Plawski’s Plymouth instead of bringing the Harley.

During the overly long conversation in the parlor, where my mother served iced tea and the frosted lemon bars my grandmother had made that afternoon, I squirmed in my chair. My father opened fire with the questions at Steve Bennett.

“Where’d you grow up, son?”

“Houston, sir.”

Everyone waited for him to elaborate, but he simply sat patiently while I squirmed.

“And who are your people?” asked Gran.

Oh, lord. My grandmother still lived in a different era.

Steve gave a quick, enigmatic smile, though he looked Gran in the eye. “Ma’am, I have no family to speak of. I was a ward of the state and lived in a series of foster homes until I was old enough to enlist in the Navy.”

A shifting, uncomfortable silence greeted this disclosure. Kids grew up in foster homes for a variety of reasons, none of them good. I felt an odd ache in the pit of my stomach as I tried to read between the lines of what he’d said. A person’s childhood defined him, didn’t it? I wondered how deeply those early years had shaped this man’s character. What was etched on his soul?

Gran said, “How sad for you, having no family.”

My mother was silent, but I could feel her disapproval growing and swelling like an invisible tumor.

My father cleared his throat. “So you’re in the service.” He jumped right on that. I could tell he was toying with liking Steve Bennett.

“Yes, sir.”

“And what do you do in the Navy?” my father inquired.

“I’m a second lieutenant, sir. I’m finishing up pilot training.”

Well, well, well. I sat up a little taller on Aunt Mamie’s Duncan Phyfe divan, which she’d given to my mother before going to live at a retirement home. An officer and a pilot. My instincts about this man were even better than I thought.

Chapter Eight

People toss around the term “whirlwind courtship,” but I don’t think anyone really understands what it means unless they’ve experienced it. Surely that’s what happened to me, right at a moment in my life when I didn’t think anything interesting would ever come along.

Whirlwind. It’s one of those words you take for granted, assuming you know what it is. Well, I certainly found out first hand the weekend I met Steve Bennett. I had the sensation of stepping out into a storm during hurricane season, swept up into a dizzying rush of tingling emotions.

Falling in love with him was easy. Too easy, perhaps. I was incautious, willfully so. I wanted everything he was and all that he stood for and never paused to consider if a headlong rush was the best way to shape my future.

That night, we went to Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin. Townes Van Zandt was playing. His mournful, thin-voiced rendition of “Pancho and Lefty” brought tears to my eyes, and when I looked over at Steve, I saw a faraway expression on his face and wondered what he was thinking. Then, as if he felt my stare, he reached over and squeezed my hand.

That was it. That was the moment I started to love him. It felt so real to me. I’ll always keep that moment folded away in my heart, like the pressed flowers of a homecoming corsage. I remember perfectly the twang of the guitar and the notes of the sad song, and gazing into a face that was new to me, yet that I felt I’d always known.

My hormones raged. There was such a sense of wanting in me that I could hardly catch my breath. I wondered if it was as magical for him as it was for me. I suppose men think differently. Maybe they don’t count the moments the way a woman does.

We held hands for a time and then went to the beer garden annex to share a pitcher of Lone