Remember Tonight

  Something Worth Saving

  Come Sundown

  Forever Dark

  The summer Alanna Rodger turned eighteen, she thought it would be just like the rest of the summers spent on her parent’s farm in Amarillo Texas. That was until champion bull rider Callan James returned home.

  Everyone in town knows about the James’ boys and why they disappeared four years ago.

  Everyone but Alanna.

  She’s warned to keep her distance but there’s something about Callan’s allure that has her wanting a closer look to unravel all of the reasons that he left — ensuring he stays long after his eight seconds in this town are up.

  And when he finally does leave town, she knows exactly where to find him.

  There’s nothing that can stop her from wanting him… even the four year age difference won’t prevent her from pursuing him. When Callan can’t get past the age difference, he does everything within his power to show her just how dangerous his lifestyle is.

  Can she break through his rough exterior?

  Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyways.

  ~ John Wayne

  Everywhere I look I see dark blue, pinks, reds, all the colors that make this world beautiful.

  A summer sunrise in North Texas.

  If you’ve never seen one, it’s beautiful.

  No. Beautiful is not the right word.

  Sitting at the window in my bedroom, I pull my bare legs to my chest and open the window. The wind is blowing, as usual, but I don’t mind. I don’t because it gives me the fresh breath I’m looking for. Something pure.

  I believe there are parts of this world that are pure. Like a sunset over the flat plains of Texas. Or the sunrise on a crisp fall morning just as the early morning fog clears.

  Or Stars. They’re pure. When you think about what they offer you. Light through darkness.

  Marilyn Monroe once said: I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.

  I have a lot of respect for that woman but what was she talking about?

  I stare at the clock on my nightstand. It’s nearing four in the morning and I know it’s time to get on with the day. Living on a farm, there’s a good amount of work to be done during the day.

  It was late August and so far my summer was the same it had always been. Just like this morning. Working on the farm and not much else. I have dreams, things I want out of life, but I’m not sure.

  I’m just not sure anymore.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” I hear that so often I’m tempted not to reply to him but I know exactly where that will lead.

  “Out.” I know this dance, his game, it’s meant to make me think I can’t get away from this place. In the distance, I hear the rumble of an ’89 Chevy short bed that’s rescuing me.

  “And that is?” his eyes penetrate, he’s searching for my lie knowing damn well he can’t trust me.

  In some ways, he’s a man in complete denial that his only daughter graduated last month and she’s turning eighteen in a week. Deep down, he’s scared I’m leaving and never coming back.

  He should be scared. I want to leave and never come back.

  “Dad. . .” My eyes are on my phone, certainly not on my dad. If he sees my eyes, he will know I’m lying. Without looking up, I sigh and grab my bag by the door letting the screen door slam behind me.

  “Be back by midnight.” He orders from the porch, kicking open the creaking door with his foot, then without another glance, turns and walks inside the house. I don’t know why he cares, but he acts like he does. I know he means well, but he’s overbearing and completely unreasonable.

  Midnight? He’s lucky if I make it home before the sun rises tomorrow. You’d think there’d be some leeway there since I’ve graduated and I’m turning eighteen soon but not with Adam Rodger.

  My night starts the moment Jessie picks me up. Dressed in her blue jeans and cowboy boots, I know she’s ready to let loose. She doesn’t bother with a shirt, never usually does once she leaves her house settling on her American flag bikini top. You’ll never catch Jessie fully clothed, other than in school.

  Jessie Gayle is the girl most girls stay away from in fear she’ll kick your ass. She’s never anything anyone expects her to be. She’s tiny but tough. Sweet but sassy and cold but, well, caring. If you ever want to know what she’s thinking, ask. She’ll tell you and then some. I’ve known Jessie about two years. She moved here with her mom when her dad left to “head into town for some things” and never came home. She’s the only person who knows almost every secret I have and I have more than my share of a few. Probably more than most seventeen-year-olds. Jessie doesn’t judge me. She never will. She and I are kindred spirits in more ways than one, and my closest confidante in this hell hole. I honestly don’t think I can live without Jessie. Her sharp tongue and determination, we’re inseparable in our ways.

  When I get in, she tips her red trucker hat at me as the door closes, dirt kicking up as she speeds down the driveway before I even have the door closed.

  “Daddy givin’ ya shit?” Jessie asks one hand on the wheel, the other rolling down her window.

  “Always.”

  It’s a familiar sight down this long gravel driveway. I know every pothole just like I know every scar on my body. Behind me sits the house that I was born in—modest white with visibly cracked paint—a house that has seen better days. Next to it stands a barn that was hit by numerous storms this past spring, but somehow is still standing. It’s not much, but it’s still home in many ways, a place that when I do leave, I will remember.

  I’m trapped in Amarillo in more ways than I can say. It’s a dusty farm that’s been my home since I was born and I want away from it, as far away as any four wheels can take me. I want freedom and a chance to be anything but a farmer’s daughter. I want out of this culturally poor town with its extreme weather. The summers are unbearable and the winters just the same.

  “Just a few more days,” I tell myself when we hit the main road. I feel at times that my life is hanging on by threads until I turn eighteen and I’m able to decide for myself, what I want.

  It’s my age holding me hostage in this place and I feel like I have to get out of here. It’s this farm and these life sucking cowboys that seem to find me and make their way between my legs. It makes me think that if I don’t leave, I never will and it will always be this way. I’ll live the life my dad wants for me and be what these guys need, and nothing more.

  “Think he’ll bring it up?” Jessie asks me, lighting the cigarette she’s holding between two fingers, steering the truck with her knees. When she has it lit, she tosses the lighter on the floor at my feet.

  We’re flying down the road and I’m taking my pants off and changing into my jean shorts and old flannel my dad won’t let me wear because it’s too low, too much, too anything. Once I have it on, I take the ends of my flannel and twist them up revealing the tanned skin of my stomach.

  Jessie takes a few drags from her cigarette and hands it to me. “I won’t be surprised if he says something.”

  “I’ll kick his ass if he does.” I take a drag as well, and then again knowing this is my only time to smoke, or do anything other than be the homemaker they expect me to be. Smoke rolls over me as I inhale and slowly exhale.

  “Alanna,” Light green eyes like a spring grass find mine, “you know Harrison isn’t keeping any secrets for you. If he thinks it’ll get him in good with your daddy, he’d tell him.”

  Harrison means well, h
e just can’t keep his mouth shut. I know this, but I still hope that maybe he will do me this one favor. Just this once. Since the third grade, he’s been hung up on me thinking we would someday be what he’s hoping for. Together.

  It’ll never happen. Harrison’s good hearted and nice. I’m not and I’m not about to destroy another innocent heart.

  Jessie leans forward and turns down the Pistol Annies blaring through the cab. “Have you heard from Kasey since then?”

  “Nope.” Spreading my legs, I gesture to the bruise on my inner thigh. “Haven’t seen him since Sunday but I have this reminder.”

  With her cigarette dangling from her cherry red lips, Jessie rolls her eyes as I close my thighs. “Figures.” Jessie snorts, an aggravated edge to her gesture. She hates Kasey for what he’s doing. I could say the same for her “arrangement” with Cody. “He’s an ass.”

  So is Cody.

  I don’t say that because she doesn’t need to hear it. She knows it already. When Jessie got involved with Cody, she didn’t know he was married. That news came later. But still, she didn’t stop what was happening because she was in love by that point.

  We pass by a section of road that turns my stomach and brings my heart a pain that’s so intense my breath is stolen from me. I’m instantly caught in the past as we pass the white cross surrounded by flowers his mama plants each year. The memory—much like the flowers—is fading with the light of the day and the wilted blooms that have fallen like the tears that have long since been shed. It’s been years, but that stretch of road will never get easier.

  When we’ve made it to Harrison’s house, my hands shake when I reach for the door handle, my worn cowboy boots sliding over the rusty clay spread over Jessie’s floor mats. When I close my door, the sound carries through the field, rust shaking loose on the bed of her Chevy that’s as old as she is. As I walk, wind whips at my face giving me a rush of what smells like dirt and cow shit carrying through the air.

  Jessie rolls her eyes at the smell, flicking her cigarette in a nearby mud puddle. “I hate this place.”

  Together we approach the field where the party’s just getting started, an overgrown wheat field lined with trucks blaring country music. A light haze moves in the air, combination of the smoke from the fire and exhaust from the trucks. My eyes drop to the ground as I walk, dry and dusty, cracked from the blazing heat of the day.

  As I look around, everything about this place is just another indicator that this town is—in more ways than one—the town that time forgot.

  Once near the barn, there are about ten people already standing around drinking and smoking. It’s what we do here. Sugarland is blaring through two large black speakers against the wall, shaking the wood floor of the barn and rattling the broken windows loose. The barn’s seen better days—much like everything else in this town—but it’s a refuge for us. A way to forget that the majority of us will still be in this town twenty, thirty, even fifty years from now probably doing the same thing then as we are doing today. Drinking and smoking not accomplishing much of anything. This barn allows us a sanctuary where we can just be kids. It’s a small way for us to be away from the judgmental eyes and voices that always accompany being around our parents and other adults. Just a way out. . .even if it’s just tonight.

  Within minutes, Harrison finds me, he’s drunk and wraps his arms around mine. “I’m not going to tell anyone. Just stay away from him.”

  I’ll never understand why Harrison cares so much. He shouldn’t.

  “Don’t worry.” I roll my eyes taking the beer he hands me. “It was nothing.”

  He’s telling me to stay away from Kasey because he’s taken by the preacher’s daughter. He’s forever off limits. It’s not like I care though. Ashley can have his lying, cheating ass. Maybe him being with a preacher’s daughter affords some sort of forgiveness and salvation that I can’t offer. Fuck ‘em all is my motto. I’m leaving soon anyways.

  Harrison gives a beer to Jessie, who snatches it out of his hand and looks in the direction of Cody standing near an old worn down tractor that hasn’t run in years. I hate that she’s drawn to him, about as much as she hates Kasey.

  Cody’s a guy she’s been passing time with, a boy from the south that’s got no business messing around with Jessie. He’s thirty-one and married. Yeah, married. I would have run far away from him, but Jessie just can’t help herself. I think she’s convinced that someday, somehow he might leave his wife for her.

  Kasey—who’s in the corner of the barn with his girl who’s never seen a dick before—wraps her in his arms heading for the field where a bonfire lights the night’s sky. Some think the guys go for the sluts. An easy score. They do. But only for a night. It’s the girls like the one in Kasey’s arms tonight that he’ll never push too far. He’ll respect her, give her what she needs and eventually marry her.

  I mean, look at her. She’s beautiful. And in a simple yet pure way. I keep looking for her halo or angel wings to peep out at me, she’s that pure. I bet she’d stay with him if she found out about me, and all the other girls he’s been with. She’d probably smile and take it to heart, give him another chance knowing damn well all she’s ever gonna give a guy like Kasey Peterson is a chance.

  But it’s girls like me who are never appreciated. It’s me who gives them their pleasure, their wild fantasies they’re never gonna get with that too good, too pretty, too innocent one in their arms ready to meet their mama. I’m never gonna meet his mom. I’m the girl he fucks on Sunday morning when his girl’s in church. The one he only pays attention to when he needs something. I’m not the “keeper” that he’ll tell his friends about, I’m the one he will tell his friends to fuck next.

  There’s a lot of double standards here when it comes to women sleeping around. Like because they’re women themselves, they gotta have more self-respect than a guy would.

  Why?

  I’ll never understand it. Kasey has slept with more girls in our high school than I have boys, yet he never gets the looks I do. He gets high-fives and give me details, bro.

  I get looks.

  Around the fire, long tan legs dangling from a tailgate, I listen closely to the song playing. I hate it so I tune it out. With a sigh, I bring the beer in my hand to my lips, my attention draws from Kasey to a man standing to my left leaning against his truck. There’s a lot of commotion in the field, but my attention is on him. He’s that train wreck I can’t seem to look away from. I’m not sure why other than his stunning good looks that keep my eyes riveted; however, I know it’s more, so much more.

  The bonfire lights his eyes and it’s clear that while he’s very aware of his appeal, he’s humble, yet, strangely familiar like I’ve seen him before. Bloodshot eyes find mine and I see that humbleness in the way he smiles at me. His body leans casually to one side with a beer in his hand. At first glance, he’s not overly tall but enough that he would hover over me if I were standing next to him or, better yet, if he were hovering over me say in a bed, or in a field.

  When he feels my eyes on him, he tips his black cowboy hat, winking, but there’s sadness there. An overwhelming sadness that has me wanting to touch him is there. I want to show him comfort, but I can’t, I’m not “that girl” who comforts men in that way.

  It’s obvious he’s not here for the girls. He’s here to forget and that’s what he’s doing bringing a half empty bottle to his lips every few minutes. He never flinches at the burn as it gives him the pleasure he’s looking for. I watch his eyes as they scan the field and stay on the pasture. There’s a memory there, one that keeps his stare on that field longer than I would expect.

  More people have shown up but there’s about ten of us standing around the fire, some talking while others keep their eyes and voices silent, captured by a crackling fire and a feeling of isolation from the rest of this world this place offers.

  Some nights this field is so loud I’m convinced you can hear the sound five miles away. Tonight’s not like that. There
’s a laying-low feel to it that I appreciate. Sometimes it’s nice to just be here and appreciate not having to entertain or talk to anyone. The man shifts his stance, his worn boots scrape against the dirt and gravel. My eyes are drawn to him when I finally figure out where I know him from.

  He’s Callan James, the rowdy middle James brother who left town four years ago.

  When I glance up from my beer, his smile draws me in first, captivating, and then the way he keeps it at bay under the firelight has me mesmerized. It tugs at the corners of his mouth and then fades, only to return a moment later. His hat tips up and I see his eyes, once just a shadow, they’re alive and bright, blue stones like diamonds under that black cowboy hat. It reminds me of a starry night. It’s then I’m offered a better look at his face. His nose is a tad crooked, probably broken a few times. None of that changes the fact that he’s got a rugged sexiness about him.

  He seems distant, never keeping conversation long with the ones that make their way to him, no doubt a product of returning home. I don’t know the story behind the James’ brothers. Some do. I was too young at the time to know. They’re mysterious, I know that much. And I think that’s how they want everyone to see them. I may say I know this town, the people in it, but there’s still some mystery.

  When he feels I’m staring because I am, his eyes travel the length of my body with no amount of discretion. It’s like he’s letting me know he sees me and this could go somewhere, should I want it.

  He’s leaning against the black truck in a relaxed manner. He’s still trouble. I know this when I see his eyes make another pass over my body. When I watch him, the confidence returns. He knows he’s just been caught checking me out only he doesn’t care.

  The crowd wanders, most everyone finding their place to either get high or laid. Callan looks around, his eyes shifting around the fire and then land on me. With a smile, he gives me a nod to his truck, his hand on the door.

  It’s an invitation, should I want it.