May 23, 2440
With the sun sinking low forty minutes later, Matt pulled into the driveway and just sat there for a moment, his arm around his girl, watching the day fade away.
“Are you coming in?” Angelina called from the porch.
“I got a present for you,” he called, coming around the front of the truck to open T’mari’s door.
Every woman who had ever mattered in his life had been fiercely independent and perfectly capable of opening her own damned door. Every single one of them would also have given him endless amounts of shit if he stopped opening it for them.
“I hope it is the deer and not the ruined shoes,” Angelina said with exasperation, already wondering what the story was.
There was always a story when dead deer, trucks, and country boys were involved. She had married a Texan, after all.
She smirked when Matt lifted T’mari out of the truck and carried her across the gravel before carefully setting her down on the grass, which was oddly close to the same color as her skin.
Angelina would have howled with laughter had she known that this particular country boy had just brought home a wife who was simultaneously being called the Alien Princess on the internet and was also barefoot and pregnant.
She had once entertained hopes of becoming a trashy romance author.
Sadly, this scenario had never occurred to her.
“Hey, Floyd, strip the loins out of my two-lane trophy and you can have the rest,” Matt called as his farm boss, neighbor, and brother from another mother came around the corner of the house. “Ange, I’m planning something special with the loins. See if anyone has mushrooms to go with them. Fresh cream too.”
Angelina watched him shift subjects without changing gears and decided, as she had many times before, that he either suffered from some profound form of ADHD or was simply a superior multitasker.
“Did you break the truck?” Floyd asked. “Need a new one?”
“I’d tell you just to wash the blood off, but I think the rain will take care of that in an hour or so.”
Matt shook his hand and received a clap on the shoulder and a deep Texas chuckle in return.
Angelina caught the amused look from Floyd before he went to work on the deer. For all the degrees and years since Amarillo, there were some things a cowboy never needed explained.
“How did the trip go?” Angelina asked.
She sat at the kitchen table and casually poured wine for herself and T’mari while Matt started cleaning the organ meat. It needed to be seen to tonight, which meant it would be eaten tonight.
Angelina looked at the bottle.
Then at Matt.
Then took a swig directly from it.
She handed it to T’mari while his back was turned and gave her an encouraging nod.
“He taught me to make grilled cheese when I insisted I would not remain forever in his culinary debt,” T’mari said after polishing off the bottle.
Matt grabbed another bottle, poured himself a glass, dumped half the remainder into a bowl with the liver, then walked what was left over to the table.
“Might as well swill the rest of that one too before it goes bad.”
He returned to the sink with a pair of onions.
“I really don’t know how he does it either,” Angelina said as they watched the fully adequate cook simultaneously manage three dishes while keeping his workspace clean. “I do appreciate it, though.”
The kitchen was, and had been for many years, her domain.
“The view isn’t bad from this angle either,” T’mari said.
Angelina snorted wine.
“Ready to go home, honey?” Floyd asked, sliding a container with the loins down the counter.
Without looking, Matt stuck one hand behind himself and stopped it almost magically before it reached the edge.
“Thought you would never ask,” Matt said dryly.
He completely missed Angelina shooting wine out her nose.
He was nevertheless satisfied knowing it had happened.
“See you tomorrow,” Floyd called, throwing a wave over his shoulder as he left.
