The Texas Blue Norther. Lass Small

saddle. She was leaning back against him and wonderfully wrapped in his blanket and the shared coat. His right hand was innocently tucked under her left armpit.

      His wrist was resting on the top of her breast, which moved with the horse’s stride. At least the man wasn’t groping her.

      She didn’t realize his wrist was feeling her. Only hands did that. Not wrists or backs or arms.

       Two

      The wind was howling and shrill across the empty land. There was nothing to sieve the sound, but it was moaning and serious.

      The rescuer had turned the horse away from the storm, so the brunt of the wind was on the man’s back. He was Lauren’s.windshield. That was perfectly logical. Any man protected a woman. It probably started in TEXAS, when there were many, many more men than women, and women were precious.

      Of course. Women should always be treated as if they are precious. They are.

      The precious woman peeked around from her limited sanctuary. Where were they going? She was so covered that she couldn’t see ahead, but she remembered there was absolutely nothing ahead of them. They were just drifting as animals drift before a mean wind. That’s how cattle piled up against fences or went off bluffs or fell through ice.

      She had clear memories of hearing her father raising verbal hell over the stupid cattle who’d done that. He’d been furious! Her mother had listened calmly, seated on the sofa, and watched Lauren’s daddy.

      The daughters had been sent from the room. Their mother had said to them, “Hush. Run along.”

      Then when he’d calmed down, and the daughters could hear only the sounds, they would hear their mother’s voice.

      What had their mother said to their father? What had she done to soothe him? Lauren would have to ask her. Until then, it had been something Lauren had never realized she might need to know.

      Her nose was down in the blanket and most of the blanket was surrounded by his opened coat. With all that and the wind, Lauren asked, “What is your name?”

      Oddly enough, he understood her. He said in a questioning statement peculiar to TEXANS, “I’m listed in the book as Kyle Phillips? But I answer to just about anything if the caller is serious.”

      She replied, “How do you do?” And she bowed her head a trifle, as those words had demanded since she’d first been taught the phrase, long ago.

      He replied to her response, “Pretty good, so far. What’s your name, honey?”

      Just the fact that he’d called her ‘honey’ was a clue. He was basic TEXAN. So she said, “I’m not sure I should give it out in these circumstances.”

      “It’s okay.”

      He was saying he was safe for her. If he knew her father’s name, what if he just decided to hold her for ransom? She could give her first name. “I’m called Lauren.”

      “Lauren. That’s a real nice name.”

      How strange to have such a conversation with the wind howling around them and the horse patiently plodding along. Occasionally they moved to one side or the other. It was probably done to avoid something.

      Warm, her stomach growled. Could she ask if he had some tea and cakes?

      She could be flipping out. Dreaming. Hallucinating? Was she actually on a horse riding. “Where are we going?”

      “The place is yonder a ways. We’ll have a fire.”

      “In the—place?”

      “Yeah.”

      Now how big could his place be? She said a nothing, “Oh.” And she knew full well that everybody in TEXAS called their holdings their “place” because that was where they were. It could be a half acre or it could be miles square. She sighed.

      And he heard her defeated sound. “It’ll be okay.”

      Sure it would. Men were not any smarter than women. Their perception of things was unusual and completely different. Even plain, ordinary words had other, changed meanings. And then there was sex.

      Lauren had found that out when she was quite young. Her cousin Theo had played Doctor with the fascinated Davie sisters. At that age, it was just looking.

      Since that introduction by Theo, Lauren had managed to avoid such bold encounters. She was still a virgin.

      Theo had gone on to actually become a doctor. Lauren had never gone to him for medical purposes.

      Being human was one big pain in the neck, or lower. There were all the rules. All the customs. No other mammal had to fool around with all that stuff. The difference was to prove humans are superior beings.

      Even as limited as she was, she could peek around the supposedly virgin land. She wondered what horrific wastes humans had discarded, buried deep in the low, surrounding hills. Were the hills real hills or just earth-covered piles of waste? Animals didn’t pollute the world but briefly. Humans really loused it all up. In some places, the pollution would be dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years.

      How could the people, who lived in that distant future, know? What if the chemical wars wiped out all previous knowledge and future peoples or creatures would have no clue about the dreadful storages of harmful waste?

      Being human wasn’t a brag.

      Being a woman meant you followed all sorts of rules. You either did—or you didn’t. Hadn’t.

      Since Lauren was in the didn’t/hadn’t category, if she was in the middle of dying, right then, and going to freeze into an ice statue, should she take advantage of this opportunity to know what Life Was All About?

      She’d take another look at this person whose name was nicely Kyle Phillips, and she’d decide. Had her guardian angel sent him so that she could experience him? It seemed rather unkind to take advantage of an innocent man.

      Of course, he had asked if she was a streetwalker. He might not be too difficult to lure.

      She lifted her head and therefore straightened her body a bit as she peered around to see if anything was in sight. It was snowing!

      As she said, “It’s snowing in TEXAS!” She became vividly aware that her shift had caused his hand to come free of her armpit and cover her breast! She said, “Sorry,” as if that had been her fault.

      He put his hand back under her armpit and replied, “My fault.”

      How kind of him to take her guilt. She would have to pay attention and move more carefully.

      She was again discreet. With her head back under his chin, she could smell the freshness of him. Obviously, he didn’t smoke. He smelled nicely male and pure. And she began to wonder what he looked like.

      As had happened on occasion, she would more than likely be disappointed.

      She tried to recall how tall he was and how he looked…really. He was becoming quite nice in her mind. When they got to the Place, wherever that could be, she would be able to see if all her thinking about him was true.

      With some tolerance, she considered how like a woman to devise a romance out of absolutely nothing. He’d found some dumb broad out on the land with no means of transport and not dressed for the weather. And he’d managed to get her wrapped up nicely and held warmly.

      So her romance novel mind had gone into overdrive, and she was imagining a Hero with a capital H. How could she possibly be so silly?

      It was the storm. Her circumstances. And the fact that she would have frozen to death without him, and she was grateful? Yes. Umh-mmm. Mmmm.

      Her imagination was really pretty silly. He was silent. He hadn’t