“A newbie, huh?” He noted, smiling at her in his most charming way, that her hand was warm and firm, and seemed to want to linger in his a little longer than was really necessary.
“Yeah…How’d you guess?” Her voice was breathless, husky and a little shy.
“Tradition. Newbie’s get the food detail.”
“Oh, that’s right, you used to be-”
“Yeah. Guess some things don’t change.”
“You got that right.” Now,
“Hey, Alex.” He made it nice and cool…easygoing. Clint Eastwood would have been proud.
“Hey, Matthew.”
She had some sun wrinkles he didn’t remember, a couple around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes. Maybe a few more freckles, too. She never had been good at remembering sunscreen.
“’Bout time you got around to saying hello.”
“Got things to do. Hey, you think you’re the only customer I’ve got?”
Her tone was light, teasing. Her smile was in place, just like his was. Twin smiles. No getting around it, people were going to be watching this. They’d put on a good show.
He felt as if the paralysis he’d grown accustomed to in his lower half had crept up his body all the way to his chin.
“So-” she turned away from him and raised her head and her voice to encompass Sam and Cory “-in case you didn’t read your information packet yet, this is your ‘pre-trip meeting.’ We’re supposed to go over the details of the trip with you all, but since you probably got that already this afternoon, or from Matt here, I think we can probably skip that. Unless you have any questions?”
She paused, waited, then gestured to Tahoe, who stepped forward to dump some waterproof gear bags on the nearest bed. “Okay, these are for your stuff. Matt can tell you what you need to take and what you should leave behind.” She paused to dust her hands off and grin. “And that, boys and girls, concludes the business portion of our evening. Shall we all adjourn to The Corral for burgers and…whatever?”
There were general cries of approval and seconds to that motion, which got even more enthusiastic when Cory announced he was buying.
Everyone shuffled and jostled their way out of the room and into the soft summer twilight. Nobody was inclined to drive, since The Corral was just across the park and the main road through town. As the group strolled along the roadway, taking the long way around instead of cutting through the park for Matt’s sake, Alex moved in alongside his chair. Making it seem a casual thing, as if it were only the natural ebb and flow of the crowd that had brought her there.
They strolled along in silence for a while. Then Alex said in a low voice, “You do know this is insane.”
He gave a short dry laugh. “Wouldn’t be the first time you and I did something wild and crazy.”
“Yeah, and look where that got us.”
Something in her voice-a slight catch, maybe-made him look up at her, wanting to see what was in her face… her eyes. But she was already moving away from him, into the dusk.
The crowd at The Corral was rowdy; at least some things hadn’t changed-much. The place had gone smoke- free, along with the rest of California, but there was enough of the familiar smells of sweat, booze and charred meat to make up for it, still make it the place he remembered. That, and the noise-laughter and conversation and loud foot-stompin’ country music playing on the jukebox. Matt wondered whether they still had live music on weekends. And whether Alex went there to hear it, and who she danced with these days.
There was a lot of calling out and waving back and forth as their group moved through the crowd to a table near the dance floor. Obviously, the river guides were still regulars here. Several people Matt knew came over to say hello, with varying degrees of awkwardness and constraint. Which he was used to, and had long ago stopped being bothered by. He figured he’d probably be the same way, if the situations had been reversed.
They put in their orders for beer and The Corral’s famous black angus hamburgers, then settled back to watch the raggedy line dance in progress. It ended, to hoots and cheers and some sporadic applause, and a Garth Brooks classic-“The River”-came on. Linda and Sam started to sing along, and then Booker T got up and with old-fashioned courtesy, asked his wife to dance. A respectful silence fell over the table as they all watched Booker T guide his wife around the small dance floor, kind of bent over at the hips like the rump-spring cowboy he’d been in his youth. Then Sam jumped up and grabbed Cory’s arm and hauled him onto the dance floor.
Among the four remaining at the table-Cheryl and Tahoe, Alex and Matt-an awkward silence fell. Tahoe sat sprawled in his chair, nursing his longneck beer and watching the dancers with his usual unreadable gaze. Cheryl tapped her fingers on the table and rocked her body in time to the music. Alex picked up her beer and took a sip.
Matt said, “How ’bout you, Alex-you used to like to dance.” He spoke in an easy drawl, but he could feel his heart thumping, out of sync with the music.
Above the rim of the beer bottle her eyes widened briefly, flared and then faded the way banked coals do when you blow on them. He could see she didn’t know what to say, that he’d surprised her, probably. Hell, for sure, he had. What had he expected her to say? He hadn’t even asked it out loud.
While Alex was hesitating, swallowing her mouthful of beer and evidently trying to think of a reply, Cheryl hopped up and stuck out her hand and said, “Hey, I’ll dance with you.”
So, what could he do? He reached out and took the hand she offered, looked up at her and smiled. “Well, let’s go, then.”
After that, he just concentrated on the music, Cheryl’s warm hand in his, and her pretty baby-blue eyes.
Tried to, anyway. Trouble was, a different pair of eyes kept getting in the way. Hazel-gold eyes filled with fire and fringed with black, and a smart-alecky mouth that never lacked for something bossy to say. He kept remembering how that mouth felt, laughing up against his, how incredibly inventive it could be, exploring his body’s most sensitive places-back when his body had had senses. Kept remembering how her body felt-small, but round where it needed to be, and as she liked to say, “freakishly strong.” One little bitty package made up of muscle and fire-that was Alex.
He rotated his chair in time to the music, one hand guiding Cheryl as she sashayed in a circle around him. She looked down at him, eyes lit up and smiling, and he looked back at her and winked. And his mind followed its own steps…its own dance:
It came to him, finally, sometime out there on that dance floor as he was rocking and swaying to Garth Brooks’s anthem comparing life to the flow of a river. In a way, he’d staked everything on this run down the monster rapids known as the Forks of the Kern. This was it-his one chance to make it all right again. As far as his future happiness was concerned-and that meant his future with Alex Penny-to borrow a poker term (and he’d played a lot of poker during his months in rehab), he was All In.
Alex watched the dancers from a great unbridgeable distance, while thoughts and feelings rocketed through her mind like an oarless boat on a river full of rapids.
