Disclaimer: You know the drill. Nothing belongs to me. Dang it. No money was made, double dang it.
Author’s Notes: Uhhh, this just sort of popped in my head and wouldn’t leave me alone. If you like it, I’d loved to know. If not, please don’t depress me.
Lucky. That’s what she said. The woman I sat next to on the plane, that is.It was a long ride and we both were tired and anxious to touch down in Denver. For different reasons.
I was heading home from a conference that had left a bad taste in my mouth, and she...she was going to a funeral.
Someone she had once loved. In another time, in another place, and she assured me that they would have been together. If she had listened a little better, to her heart that is, they would have been together.
I didn’t doubt her. The pain behind her green eyes left no room for disbelief.
He’d asked her to marry him, but she hadn’t been sure. Couldn’t risk so much, for so little guarantee. She’d never had anyone love her before. So, she’d run. To a career. To fame and fortune. To a world where she knew he couldn’t fit in. A path he’d never follow.
There wasn’t a day that had gone by in five years that she hadn’t thought of him. That his image hadn’t plagued her dreams. That’s what she told me, as the stewardess served our ginger ale and peanuts.
I felt guilty at that moment. Guilty for relishing in my own good fortune. I knew someone who had considered that same road that she took. Not one as glamorous, I’m sure, but one just as lonely, I’m certain. I’m so glad that he decided against it.
Her finger traced circles on the window as the young mother in front of us argued with her two small twins. He had wanted children, a big ranch, and a wife to be waiting for him when he arrived home from work.
Her mouth twitched and a sad smile had tugged at rosy lips as she made certain she told me that he even wanted a chocolate Lab named Brownie. Could I believe that, she’d asked.
Unfortunately, all she had wanted was to be free.
When she turned to me and asked how love could be both an anchor and wings, I felt my heart skip a beat.
I didn’t have the answers, but damn, if I didn’t understand the question all too well. Love could give breath and smother you in the same fell swoop if you didn’t move quickly enough. At least, that’s what I had been told.
She told me that his name was Ryan and that God had given him a smile that hinted of the devil just so angels wouldn’t get too jealous of his face.
I could imagine that just fine.
She must have read my mind because she went on tell me about how his eyes were as blue and turbulent as the South Carolina seas. That was where she was from. A small town near the popular vacation spot of Myrtle Beach. They’d met there during Spring Break.
Spotted each other across the room. Their eyes had met and they had exchanged a hundred years between them in just that one moment. She didn’t think I understood. But God, I did.
It had been fate, she went on to say. And he had been in her life as far as she could see. I wondered why she laughed at that until she explained how it was a line from a song he had sung for her that night. A badly sang Karaoke rendition of ‘You had me from Hello’. Her man had been a poet, not a singer.
It was true though, she’d avowed. Ryan had her from hello. And she hated him for it.
I didn’t look down on her for the admission. Hell, I’d been there myself.
She told me how he came to her one rainy Monday night in late September, a bottle of sand from the beach where they had first made love in one hand, and a Kenny Chesney CD in the other. There was always treasure to be found in sand, she’d told me, and clicked her tongue reproachfully when I looked doubtful.
From within the pocket of her red suit that I’m sure even Ezra couldn’t have afforded she had pulled a silver chain and dangled it in front of me. A diamond ring hung between us, a glimmering line separating our two seats.
He’d offered her the moon that night, along with a few stars to boot, although not much else, considering he was a poor cowboy from Colorado and all. Her heart had said yes; even as she had listened to her mouth say no.
It hadn’t been the money. She’d been desperate for me to understand that. It was the price.
I know I looked away from her when a tear slipped down her cheek. It wasn’t because I hated to see a lady cry, although I do, but more because I was remembering when I offered someone a piece of the sky on a hope and a prayer, afraid that they couldn’t afford me either.
But I had walked away with the world that night. That, I would never deny.
I felt bad for Ryan as I shifted in my uncomfortable seat and felt the cool metal of my own ring as it slid across my heart, dangling from the chain I wore around my neck. Dangling on a chain, not unlike Anna’s.
She asked me then if I was married, and I had cleared my throat in time to answer a simple yes.
She glanced back out the window, and I know in my meager reply she had heard the richness behind it.
Ryan had been broken-hearted, she went on to tell me. He’d begged her to reconsider, to give him a chance...to give them a chance.
Was I as persistent? Her question had been almost persecutory, a challenge maybe, but when I admitted that I had, Anna’s green eyes had filled again. She asked if I’d brought anything as absurd as sand and laughed despite herself when I unabashedly answered Tequila and a book of Emily Dickinson's finest.
Men. When it comes to love, why must you all play at being poets? It was my turn to laugh. I told her that I was no poet, but I could understand her frustration. They could be moody sons of bitches.
She asked me if we had kids and a huge ranch with a goofy dog named Brownie, and I replied that we had a couple, but that the ranch wasn’t that big and that Brownie was a demon horse named Peso.
After another laugh, she asked me how long and when I told her two years she sighed. Ryan had married someone else, barely two years before.
After the whispered admission, she had wiped at her eyes and asked what was so damn good about being married anyway. I quickly answered that Mondays were it for me.
To that she looked puzzled. Football? She had guessed.
Not unless the Cowboy’s are playing. Had been my initial reply, but then I shrugged and smiled. Truth be known, the only thing that makes me tolerate the damn day is knowing I have someone to go home to at the end of it.
To that Anna had nodded and told me that many days she didn’t go home at all. She explained how her residence was in the hills of LA, a post card for the elite, and how despite the fact that the sun shined there all the time, the sight of it chilled her to the bones.
I didn’t tell her that my house was beautiful not because of the view or what it costed, but for what it sheltered. I didn’t tell her that the sight of it’s glowing lights at night warmed my heart even on the coldest, snowiest days in Colorado either. I believe she probably already knew.
Then as the stewardess reminded me to bring my seat upright for landing, Anna’s long fingers wrapped around my arm and her green eyes met mine. In a desperate whisper she asked me if I believed a person could get as lucky to find someone like Ryan twice in one lifetime.
That was easy.
I smiled and replied, I did.
She smiled back. Then you were damn lucky.
Getting off an airplane had never felt so good, especially when I caught a glimpse of a cowboy with a set of eyes as blue and as turbulent as the sea. Vin was waiting for me at the end of the gate and he grabbed for my bag about the same time that two of ‘our kids’ appeared from behind him.
“’Bout damn time you got here,“ Buck yelled, throwing an arm around JD’s shoulder, “we were fixin’ to go to the Saloon without you.”
“Yeah,” JD chimed in, “we’re starving.”
I ignored them as usual, continuing to look at the only thing I was hungry for.
“Welcome home, Cowboy.”
I grinned and started to reply when I felt a hand on my arm and noticed Buck’s face light up like a kid at Christmas.
“You forgot this.” Anna held out a small bag that I had forgot all about purchasing in Los Angeles. It was a surprise for Vin’s birthday.
She looked past me to the man standing at my side, and I caught a glimpse of recognition and maybe envy in those green eyes as Vin smiled at her and tipped the Stetson he was wearing. Her fingers slightly tightened around my wrist and she waited for me to look at her. “I guess God must have feared for him too.”
When I merely held her gaze, she released me, and smiled knowingly. After she had walked away, both Buck and JD turned to stare at me in shock.
“Do you know who that was?” The kid asked, turning around to get one more glimpse of the leggy blond who was making her way to the luggage claim.
I shrugged, winking at Vin. “Yes, JD, that was the lady I sat next to on the ride home.”
Buck whistled. “Chris, you old dog, you are one lucky man.” My oldest friend shook his head in amazement and followed JD’s lead to see if he could catch another glimpse of Miss Sportsman 2001.
“You’re right, Buck.” I met Vin’s eyes, finding all that I was looking for and shook my own head in wonderment. “I’m definitely one lucky man.”
The End
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