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Her car was the last one in the dusty patch of dirt that passed for a parking lot at the town swim hole, though she could still hear the yodeling and splashing of a few leftover kids coming from the direction of the main beach. She snorted as she passed by the guidepost announcing "Satan's Hole"; how deliciously and wonderfully inappropriate that it had hosted a group baptism earlier that day. Perhaps the locals were immune to its name after growing up with it; still, she had to wonder.

"Texas," she announced to the empty parking lot, "You will never cease to amaze me."

She reflexively reached for her phone to text her sister about it-only Christie would fully appreciate the irony. Then she remembered what else she should probably text Christie about, and changed her mind.

Texting her sister could wait.

She climbed into her car and threw her damp towel and the unread New Yorker onto the passenger seat. Then she pulled the towel up to her nose and greedily searched for Kyle's scent. She felt a warm buzz radiate throughout her body when she caught a whiff of him, all pheromones and manly sweat.

When Miss Terri had made that "outdoor cat" versus "indoor cat" quip, her first thought was it must be some kind of colorful local saying she had never heard of.

"I'm not sure what that means," she had admitted. She'd never had a cat in her life.

Madysen's mom had taken a long drag of her cigarette and angled her face away to blow the smoke out her window. Outside the flatlands of Texas sped by in a 90 mile per hour blur of drab greens and browns.

"Women think that because he's got kids and a ranch and a business, that he used to be married and all that, that they're going to tame him again, get him back indoors," Miss Terri explained. "But the thing is, no one's ever going to tame that man, not even his wife. And he loved her more than anyone."

"He seems ... pretty settled, with the house and the ranch and business and everything," she replied after a long pause. She had assumed Miss Terri was giving her a warning of some kind, and wanted to tell her not to bother, that there was no way she had any designs on Kyle's father.

Miss Terri nodded, as though she had expected that.

"I hear you honey, I hear you. I should know, I tried to tame him myself at one point, before his wife came along. Everything's going on just fine, you got this handsome hunk on your arm, in your bed, mind you he wasn't no cook back then like he is now, but he'd make an effort, take you to dinner at least. And then one day? Poof!"

Miss Terri took another long drag on her cigarette.

"Poof?"

"Poof. Gone. Sometimes a day, a couple days, you don't hear from him, maybe he went camping and didn't tell you, maybe he decided to go check on all his land and cattle, didn't think to warn you he'd be MIA for a good chunk of time. A week, two weeks even. Or didn't want to warn you more like. It's his way."

"His way?" She knew she probably sounded like an imbecile, but she couldn't help herself.

"His way. His way of reminding you he's an outside cat. Feral. No matter how many times he comes to your back door and meows, eats your food, sleeps on your lap, that's not his home, you're not his home."

She'd had a million questions to ask Miss Terri, beginning with her admission of a previous romantic entanglement with Cam's father, but she'd tried her best to play it cool.

"So you mean he ... cheats?" Maybe not that cool.

"Oh sweetpea, part of me'd wished he did, then it would have all made sense to me. But that's not him. He needs his independence is all. A lot of independence."

Miss Terri was right, she was having a hard time squaring this description of him with the one of loving and protective father, abandoned husband, and ranch and business owner. She remembered the way Kyle Walker had gently cared for her after her bout of sun sickness, how he had made her soup and cleaned her kitchen after her disastrous fall into garbage juice (a memory that would forever make her cringe). His house, though situated off on the wild edges of civilization, had certainly appeared well cared for.

But she hadn't wanted to argue, and she certainly didn't want to seem naïve. Or like she cared that much. She was still smarting from his well-timed warning about his son, and only wanted Miss Terri to drive even faster so as to escape the whole situation, including both the Walker men.

Now, however, as she sat in her car at Satan's Hole parking lot, feeling abandoned by Kyle Walker after an afternoon of vigorous lovemaking, she began to see Miss Terri's point. She had been so absorbed by the trickiness of the whole Cam situation that she hadn't noticed the ... dangerous edge to his father until the night of his thinly-veiled warning for her to treat his son right. In fact, hadn't he come out to the river under the pretense of discussing Cam only to seduce her and then disappear without another word? He hadn't reached out to her once the whole time she was away, and when he did see her again, all he wanted to do was fuck her.

And what did she know about him anyway, come to think of it, aside from what he had decided to tell her about his two kids?

Nothing. She knew nothing about him.

She caught herself holding her breath as she mulled over everything she didn't know about Kyle Walker, and exhaled loudly. Thinking about him wasn't going to solve anything, that was for sure. She had a pee stick waiting for her back at the house, and she couldn't put off its message to her any longer.

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