You Belong to Me (Stevens Book 6)

Chapter 5

Her parents had thought that Madeline was better suited for Frank so the two were married and Alice saw them as little as possible. Her father, who was a trader on Wall Street, had made good money and was financing his son-in-law's career into politics and the one thing Alice was sure of was that she would not be voting for him.

"You look like you are having serious thoughts over there." Rainer said turning down the radio. He had been listening to a local country station and the music was not familiar to Alice.

"Yes, serious. Speaking of serious when will I get your notes on Steven Douglas." She asked eager to see them. She wanted to work on her dissertation some that week.

"Remind me when we get to the hotel. I have it ready for you on a thumb drive.  I also have my notes for this project on there as well."

Alice couldn't help comparing him to Frank since he was uppermost in her thoughts. Rainer wasn't wearing sunglasses so his eyes were squinting against the sun. He had worn a pair of well-worn blue jeans that pulled tight across his thighs, a pair of ratty old cowboy boots and a blue cotton t-shirt and he looked sexy as hell.

"Where is your cowboy hat?" Alice asked half-jokingly.

He motioned to the back seat. Alice looked over her shoulder and there on the seat was a cowboy hat. "Hmmm.... Its black, doesn't that mean that you're one of the bad guys?"

He gave a low husky laugh that made Alice's toes curl. "Now that depends on which one of my brothers you choose to ask. What about you, do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"I have a sister." She said with as little emotion as possible.

"And I'm guessing, by your response, that you two are not close."

"No, we aren't close, we never have been.  She's three years older than me and my exact opposite."

He thankfully let the subject drop but not before he sent her a curious glance.

The scenery had changed to beautiful hills and valleys. "It's beautiful here." She said as they were taking a deep descent down one of the hills.

"You should see it in April when it is covered in blue from all of the Bluebonnets."

"I've seen pictures." Alice assured him.

"It's not the same thing. That's like saying you've seen pictures of the Eiffel Tower."

"I wasn't impressed by the Eiffel Tower." Alice said.

Rainer just stared at her for a second before turning his eyes back to the road with a shake of his head.

"Well I wasn't."  She said defensively.

"Then you weren't there with the right person."

"I was there with twenty other students. It was a school trip and it was absolutely horrible. By the end of the trip most of the students had paired off, even though they wouldn't have anything to do with each other in the real world."

"And you didn't end up in one of the pairs I take it?"

"Something like that." She smiled remembering that there were a few boys who had tried their luck but she had quickly squashed their attempts.

They slowed down as they were entered a small town then, just as quickly as they had entered it, they were through it.

"We're going to go a little out of the way for a few of these stops but you'll get to some of the prettiest parts of the state as compensation."

He wasn't wrong for the next hour she was mesmerized by the scenery.  Towns would spring out of nowhere, some of them had squares with grand court houses in the center standing guard, then there were hills and valleys so vast that she could see the shadows left by the clouds as they moved overhead, and there were lots and lots of cows.  They were in the fields, in trucks, and on the road side.  Alice was amazed when Rainer pulled up behind an old truck or tractor, she still couldn't believe that there were tractors being driven on the road, and they would pull on the shoulder of the highway with a wave to let him pass.

"Do they all know you?" Alice asked not understanding why they were waving.

"Nope never meet any of them that I can recall they're just being neighborly."

"But they're not your neighbors."

"In Texas everyone is your neighbor." Rainer waved his thanks as he passed a truck just as large as the one in which they were travelling.

"How on earth did you adapt to living in the rest of the world where people are normal?" Alice asked in disbelief.

"Al sweetie, this is normal, the rest of the world is not." He said completely serious.

Alice's heart did a little dip when he called her sweetie.

"Besides I grew up all over the world and I spent just as much time here as I did in New York and London."

"London!" Alice couldn't fathom a childhood like that. "No wonder you like to travel so much."

"It's not about liking it. I'm just used to it."

Alice just shook her head wondering what a childhood like his would have been like

"Texas is home though and always will be. Growing up we would always refer to Texas as coming home. The Ranch my brother runs is our family home.  He takes care of it for us and we all try to pitch in and help out when we can."

"Even your brother-in-law," Alice remembered. "So you're close to your family."

"This week." He grinned "Next week I'm sure we'll be on the outs. We have a few drama queens among us."

Alice was silent at that. She wondered what it would have been like to have a family that was close. She couldn't imagine having lunch with Madeline or her parents just because she hadn't seen them in a while. Generally she was summoned by her parents when it was time to behave as a family unit which, thankfully, was only a few times a year.