Run To You

pinot. “What about your family?”
    “What about them?”
    “Any of them able to drive you to Texas?”
    “My mother can’t leave my grandmother.” She took a few bites of ceviche and swallowed. She hadn’t spoken to some of her uncles in about ten years. She didn’t see any reason to reconnect now. “There’s no other family.”
    He stared at her with cool gray eyes that knew better. “Friends?”
    She could probably shake loose a friend or two who might want to get out of town for a few. The Texas panhandle wasn’t exactly a vacation destination, but it wasn’t an armpit. Of course, she’d never been in the panhandle and couldn’t say for sure. “No.” She looked into her glass and swirled her wine. But she did know one thing for sure, she’d never said she wanted to go to Lovett, Texas. Never said she wanted a long-lost sister reunion.
    “Where in Texas are you planning to visit?” Naomi asked.
    It was a normal question. One that anyone would naturally ask. “My father’s cattle ranch just outside of Lovett.” She looked up and frowned at the man half covered in shadow and eating his salmon and ceviche like it was his favorite meal. As if he hadn’t just been complaining about it. “At least I assume that’s where Sadie is living in Texas.”
    He nodded his head as he ate but he didn’t look up.
    For the first eighteen years of her life, men had tried to control her, never really caring what she wanted or how she felt. “What if I say no?”
    He lifted his gaze, and his gray eyes locked with hers as he chewed. “Do you want to go back to your apartment?”
    That wasn’t an option and he knew it.
    “I’m sure Beau would never force you to go somewhere you didn’t want to go. Isn’t that right?”
    “Right,” he answered, but he didn’t bother to sound very convincing. He looked down at his plate and stabbed an avocado.
    Naomi raised a slim hand, and her fingers played with the collar of her yellow blouse. “I’ve never heard of Lovett.”
    “It’s a little town in the panhandle about fifty miles north of Amarillo.” Stella took a big bite of shrimp salad and washed it down with a bigger swallow of wine.
    “I was born and raised in a town no bigger than a speck on a map. Growing up, I hated it.” Naomi rose and returned with the bottle of wine. “Now looking back, some of my fondest memories are of Mama and Daddy dancing at the Grange and us kids packed up tight in the back of Daddy’s truck.” She poured out and added, “I love everything big cities have to offer, but small towns are a great place to grow up. Don’t you think?”
    Naomi assumed Stella had lived in Lovett. That was a normal assumption, she supposed. “I was born and raised in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I’ve never been near Lovett.” She picked up her glass. She’d eaten very little that day and could feel the beginning of a nice warm glow. “Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome.” Naomi set the bottle on the table and looked from Stella to Beau, then back again. “Never?”
    Stella didn’t usually talk about her personal life with people she didn’t know. Some of it was embarrassing, but no doubt Beau had plugged her name into some super-secret spy software that he’d bought along with his flashbang, and he already knew everything about her. The good, the bad, and the ugly. He’d probably seen her third grade report card and the balance on her Victoria’s Secret credit card. Beau would know if she was omitting, fudging, or outright lying. “Well, technically, I suppose I have been on the ranch,” she said as Naomi took her seat. “I was conceived there.” She reached for her glass and smiled. “Obviously, I was too young to remember the event. Thank God.” No one laughed at her little joke, but she thought she was pretty dang funny. She took a drink and looked over the rim into Naomi’s calm gaze. Curiosity lined her brow as she patiently waited for Stella to continue. “Sadie’s mama died when she was five, and my mother was her nanny.” Stella set the glass back on the table and decided just to share the short version. “To make a short story even shorter, my mother grew up really poor,” she said, repeating what she’d heard too many times to count. “From the time she was able, she worked at the Super 8 and El Sombrero. The only way out of her family’s house was to marry one of the neighborhood boys and have five children in as many years.” She gathered her hair at the