Cowboy Music

Even cowboys need websites. But this particular cowboy needed little else. Six foot one, dark hair, green eyes, and the bull rider’s jaw to match, he strode into my kitchen on a hot summer day. I’m to design a web site for his sponsors and upcoming rodeos. If the ma'am didn’t get me, I knew the slow drawl of a Georgia darlin’ soon would.

It was difficult concentrating on the work at hand with his head bent so close to mine. I could smell the heat between us. It was down right impossible when he started complimenting my blue eyes.

I’m a single mom, the seasoned professional, not prone to fits of sighs and giggles, and skilled at putting a man in his place. But what do you do when the cowboy leans over the back of your chair to kiss your cheek goodbye?

Meeting adjourned.

The next encounter would be a public place, I decided. No more assaults on the senses in my small kitchen. A busy pizza parlor with other people around – discussions of sponsors and banners and advertising among his friends and mine. I smile, remembering his bumper sticker – something about ‘Blood & Bulls’.

He leaves early; doesn’t seem to like the crowd tonight, although he has been the southern gentleman all evening. He’s kept busy pushing in chairs and lighting cigarettes for women who don’t smoke, watching him from calculating eyes. I’m jealous. For no reason. I feel my own eyes twitch a little with guilt. I know the women say things to him under their breath. I’m shocked by what I can make out, and although I’m appalled, I wish I could be so bold.

“When are you going home?” he asks me. “Next” I say. He nods, as if this has some meaning to him. As his boot cut jeans disappear out the glass doors into the sunshine, I inwardly cringe at my total inability to flirt. Destroyed by single mom survival skills or just fear of rejection? I am silent, brooding, when my cell phone rings at the table. It’s him. He thought I would be home by now. Is he at home so soon, I ask. Someone at the table points. I turn, and he is sitting outside the place, there in his cherry red Dodge truck, all male, smiling.

I get up to leave. Nonchalant, I remind myself. Act naturally. The women are chatting with him at his truck door now. I can’t bear it. I walk away. He calls me back, grabs me from his driver side window, and kisses the back of my neck, where my pulse pounds and every nerve in my body seems to surge and sizzle, my back pressed up against the door of his truck. How do I pull away from that? Silent. Wanting. This doesn’t happen to suburban moms. I haven’t been on a date in five years. What am I supposed to do with all of this? He’s playing with me, I think. My friends have told him about my ‘dry spell’ as they call it. I feel insecure, scared of the desire snaking around by belly. If only I were 10 pounds lighter and had thought to put even a hint of make-up on. If only I had worn something more glamorous or appealing, maybe I wouldn’t feel so naked right now.

He brings out the woman in me that I thought I had buried so deep. I know he is a drifter. I can imagine the emotional risk. Who in their right mind would take that leap?

Thankfully, he’s busy that night riding those bulls. I sleep fitfully, dreaming of him. The next night is girls’ night out. No one mentions the cowboy – yet I’m sure all are thinking of him. We laugh, I raise my coke to their pina coladas and smile. I feel like the plain brown wren in a group of beautiful peacocks, their nails and diamonds flashing, a plunging neckline here and there and carefully done up faces. I have come from work, wearing a long jean dress with a side slit showing a nicely tanned leg. It’s my only contribution to the scene.

My coke leaves a bitter taste in my mouth – or is it envy? I have never been pretty. I’m smart. Talented. Tough. It has served me well, I remind myself.

The crowd is parting. In strides our cowboy with another in tow. He’s in full bull riding gear, rope and all. He loves making the scene, loves the attention, makes every woman yearn for him. He touches my arm now and then and I sit silent, laughing at their jokes and watching them watch him…

Dancing is in order, it’s decided. I’m feeling out of place, I am not sure I am even invited. But somehow, I am riding in that big red truck between two singing cowboys. How could he know every song by heart? And of course, his voice is deep and strong and his eyes seem to get even darker and deadlier as he sings to me.

I’m miserable trying not to touch him as the truck takes the corners, but his arms are long and strong around my shoulders, and I start to relax and enjoy it as we get to the dance hall.

He charms everybody. He dances with all, he buys the drinks, he gets one last song from the band. He holds me close as we dance across the floor and he asks me impossibly personal questions and offers up dangerously sexual innuendos. I watch as he moves from woman to woman and I wonder if he says the same things to them to make them want him as badly as I do.

They flirt outrageously. Kiss him openly.

I’m withdrawn on the ride back to the restaurant, sober and silent, left wondering as the night grows to morning.

I leave my friends at the restaurant where we started, some going home to angry husbands, some going on – squeezing just a little more out of this summer night. I drive home, crawl into bed, and I smile, thinking this mom never had it so good, riding down that highway with those eyes and that voice. I wonder who is hearing it now. I shut my eyes against the wave of desire and then the phone rings. I scramble. My heart is pounding, my mouth is dry. I know his voice - “What do you want for breakfast?” And the mom is pushed back by the woman racing to the door and I say “cowboy” and he says “I deliver.”