Alice was shocked when a large red pick-up was pulled around to the front of the hotel.

"Is this yours?"

"It's my brother-in-law's. He's letting me use it while I'm in town."

"How do I get in it?" she looked at the monstrous truck in front of her.

"There is a step right below the door and you can use the handle above the door to pull yourself into the cab." Having already climbed into the truck he leaned against the steering wheel, waiting and watching as he gave her the directions.

Alice knew it was going to be a less than graceful maneuver. "Why on earth would anyone need a vehicle this large?" she said as she huffed and puffed her way into the seat. She was so focused on not falling backwards that she missed Rainer's amused look.

"Brian is in construction and he helps my brother on the ranch when he has the time." He looked at her red face. "You doing alright Al?" she watched as he tried to fight back a grin, nodding mutely while she tried to get used to being up so high. "How can people see around you?"

"This is Texas people are used to large trucks."

He turned on the engine and there was a low rumble as the truck started to vibrate and she quickly buckled her seatbelt as he put it in drive.

"I have driven much worse and in tighter situations than this." He assured her as they pulled out of the hotel parking area. She didn't doubt for a minute that he had and she just nodded as he started to navigate the traffic, he was actually a good driver and handled the truck easily. She watched as his large hands used very little effort to turn the wheel.

"It's called power steering Al. It's the latest thing." He said reading her thoughts, "relax and count the cows."

"Cows!"

"Yes, you'll see some shortly, as soon as we get to the outer limits of the city."

She had noticed that he had started calling her Al at breakfast and it had given her a little thrill.  No one had ever given her a nickname before not even Frank, her ex fiancé.

Rainer seemed to be absorbed in his own thoughts and not inclined to make conversation so she was silent and enjoyed watching the scenery as it flew past.

Maybe she had been too abrupt at breakfast but the fact was that she did feel better for having said it. She had always been a direct and honest person but she seemed to have gotten more so since Frank had hurt her. It was the only way she had been able to deal with and continue to deal with the situation he had dealt her.

She had never thought that she was in love with Frank but she did believe that he was everything she had wanted. He was handsome, smart, and funny, plus her parents approved of him because he came from a good family and had a future as a top lawyer.  She had never believed that she was the type to fall hopelessly in love because it wasn't part of her character but despite this Frank had appeared to be devoted to her; that was until he had met her sister. 

Her sister was the type Rainer would go for, tall, blond, with green eyes and porcelain skin, Madeline was everything Alice had dreamed of being. Her parents had always asked her why she couldn't be more like Madeline and she had asked herself the same thing until she had realized, after some painful soul searching, that she was fine as she was.

Unfortunately, Frank had started to feel the same way as her parents had and in the end he had decided Madeline was better than she was as well.

What hurt the most was that he had broken it to her a week after he had wormed his way into her bed. Alice had her suspicions, after the fact, that he and Madeline had been seeing each other before he left her but it had never been confirmed. She had come to the cold hard realization that she had been used. Perhaps if she had she been a little more honest the situation wouldn't have ended up the way it did, with her losing everything, including herself respect. She wished she could say that he hadn't been any good as a lover but she had no other experience to compare him to which made the wound sting even more.

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.