Taken By A Texan. Lass Small

any warning, Rip found himself blurting, “I never knew my parents.” His teeth went back into his lower lip. They should have stayed there.

      Lu guessed. “You left home as soon as you could.”

      “Yeah.” They’d left him. He watched her a minute with his eyes slitted. He’d never given his phone number to any woman. “Don’t you give my number to anybody, do you hear me?”

      She began to smile. “Women throw themselves in front of your car?”

      “Any man gets tired of being hounded.”

      “Hounded.” She tasted the word. Then she inquired with the slightest smile, “You’re implying women are...hounds?”

      Rip slowly shook his head, as he said very seriously, “Not all of them. Some really good women live in this world.”

      She was curious about his replies so she asked, “But there are...females who...hound you?”

      Rip shrugged logically. “—and there’re the male variety of—hounds,” he admitted. “I’m one every now and again.” He watched her. He became aware that she was tired and had been concerned and worried about that stupid brother of hers. “You got a place here to stay that’s convenient?”

      “Yes. Just down the block, there’s a hospice. This hospital services a large area.”

      “Yeah. People like Chuck who come a long way.”

      “He’s a nice little boy. I met his mother.”

      “How’d you do that?”

      “I can’t just sit in Andrew’s room. So these last few days, I’ve helped out... distributed books, that sort of thing.”

      Rip didn’t verbally praise her but his smile was a benediction. He gave her his phone number. Just doing that, wobbled him. He told her, “Remember, you don’t give that to anybody, do you hear me?”

      Very seriously she replied, “I’ll have a blind tattooer put it on my body in a discreet place.”

      Rip groused, “And you’ll tell him what to tattoo. He’ll know the number.”

      She licked her smile. “I’ll do the tattooing. He won’t have a clue.”

      Rip tilted his head back and squinted his eyes. “Where you gonna put my number?”

      “No one will ever know.”

      “Remember to burn the paper.”

      “Of course.”

      Again Rip squinted his eyes at her and asked softly, “How you gonna see the number if you’re in public?”

      She considered. “Be sure the telephone booth door is closed?”

      “That’s when the light goes on. When the door’s closed.” He watched her more closely.

      “I’ll find a private phone, if it’s important to call you.”

      “Oh.” He studied her with a serious face. “I thought you just meant that you’d want to talk to me.”

      “No,” she reminded him. “The phone number is because I might need to cancel you coming here if Andrew is out of it or something like that.”

      “Well.” He hesitated and looked around rather stubbornly. “I thought you were interested in... uh...the boy.”

      “Chuck.”

      “Yeah. Him. Don’t you think it’s important for Buddy to come visit the kid? Even if your brother’s out, the kid might like to see Buddy.”

      She considered that quite seriously and finally nodded just a tad. “You could be right.”

      “So we’ll see you this afternoon. Uh. You wanna go out for lunch?”

      “With the dog?”

      “We can go to a drive-in.”

      “I don’t think I can even look at another hamburger”

      “There’re drive-ins that have Mexican food.”

      “Anything else?”

      “Soup?”

      “My stomach might accept soup.”

      He considered her with a still face. He understood that she loved her brother. Her stomach was scared over him and she was having trouble eating. He’d take her to Marge’s. She’d get the soup.

      

      Well, Marge was in a tizzy with Rip’s phone call. Rip was bringing a woman to her stand for soup! He was bringing along a woman! For Pete’s sakes alive, who’d ever believe that Rip would bring a woman out at noon! What the hell was happening?

      And there he came in his pickup. He had a dog with him and a woman. She was there! A woman in broad daylight! And she looked like a normal woman. No exotic makeup, all smeared. Her clothes were simple and rather blah. What was happening to Rip!

      The woman was kin? She was someone else’s wife? He was responsible for some guy’s wife? Or lover? The woman didn’t look like a lover. She looked more like she’d been pulled through a knothole. She looked tired and quite pale.

      So Marge figured they’d been in bed together for at least a day or two. It made Marge a little jealous. She called out to her husband, Hank. He needed to see what could happen between couples.

      Marge said to the pale woman when she and Rip walked in, “I’m Marge. This here’s my husband, Hank.”

      The pale woman said, “How do you do?”

      She was a lady. Marge knew that right away, but what in the world was Rip doing with a lady, for Pete’s sake? If he stayed around something like her for very long he’d be ruined!

      Rip told Hank, who was the real cook in the place, “How about some kind of gentle soup for her?” Then wanting to make an impression on Lu, he added kindly, “She’s been through a lot these last several days.”

      Marge knew it! The two had been holed up in Rip’s bed all that while and the woman was starving! It was no wonder that she looked so tired.

      Marge looked over at Rip with a serious frown for such a greedy man, but her wrinkled face smoothed out and she smiled just a little. No woman would complain, even after being in bed with Rip for three days running. Three days of being moved around on a bed by him. Ahhh. He was really something.

      Marge smiled at the woman and asked softly, “You okay?”

      And the woman replied, “I’m fine.”

      Marge laughed. Any woman would’ve answered thata way.

      But Marge’s laughing response made Lu blink. What could be so amusing about having a brother in a hospital?

      The soup came with crackers and there was a glass of milk. As anyone would, Rip had two hamburgers and a beer. On the side he asked for a double patty of raw meat with milk.

      Hank was forced to inquire, “That raw meat help?”

      Marge immediately knew Hank was aware the couple had spent three days in bed together, and—

      Rip mentioned kindly, “The dog’s in the truck. He needs food just like the rest of us.”

      Marge understood the dog had been neglected during that three-day bed marathon. She said to Rip, “Next time you two get together, bring the dog here, and we’ll take care of him.”

      That left the couple blank-faced. Although male and female, their faces were very similar. While Rip’s eyes squinted a little as he tried to understand Marge’s offer, Lu just went back to her soup. She’d found West TEXANS were a little strange and there was no purpose in trying to sort them out and finding a way to understand them. She’d