When Ordinary Isn't Ch. 05

"TIGAP will definitely be a game-changer," Eric agreed before sipping from his glass.

"So, yeah. No surprise that you're an idiot. Now you're plying me with a fantastic cigar and my own whiskey."

"I never thought it would happen again, Lance, but… I'm in love again."

Lance had just taken a drink from his glass, and the words he heard caught him by surprise. He swallowed quickly to avoid choking.

"Did you say what I think you said?" Lance asked, crunching the ice he had in his mouth.

He nodded.

"Do I know her?"

"You talked to her. You talked to Peggy."

"Peg—Margaret Foreman? The doctor?" he gasped, sounding shocked.

"Yep."

"You're serious? You met her, what, three weeks ago? Hell, you didn't even know her last name until just a few days ago."

"Like I said. I wonder if I've gone crazy."

"Now I know you have," Lance scoffed. He sipped, watching a pinpoint of light appear on the horizon as a natural gas flare ignited momentarily at a wellhead a mile away.

"So. You're smitten, huh?" Lance asked.

"No. I was smitten weeks ago. It's much more than that now."

"Tell me about her. All I know is that she's a doctor."

Eric provided a more thorough description. After he completed it, he added, "Lance, she's kind. Funny. Sweet. Her passion for her work is indescribable. It doesn't hurt how she's drop-dead gorgeous. And… she's the real deal. I just keep hearing it in my mind, over and over. She's the real deal ."

"What makes you think that?"

"I told you how she and I had fun together in Florida, with me able to let my guard down a little because she had no clue about my history. I knew I didn't need to worry about her trying to sneak into my wallet. The last thing I wanted was another Kirsten, or… shit. Another Renée."

Lance recalled the fallout of the particular breakup. "That gal really messed you up."

Eric snorted derisively. "Yeah. With Kirsten, I probably should have known better. But Renée? Man. I thought we were there, you know?

"I was so blinded and stupid. I had no idea she had no genuine feelings for me, and it just about killed me when she told me, at what I can only guess was the peak of her frustration, that she would only stick around if I started giving her some 'spreading-around money,'" he air-quoted.

"I'd never in my life ever even thought about raising a hand against a woman until her. I would never do it, but she was the only one I've ever wanted to slap," he said, bitterness lacing his voice. "An effing paycheck ! In my head, it instantly made me feel like I was a disgusting john soliciting a whore. I felt like I was dating a hooker."

"Shit, man, even after all that, you're still being far too kind to her," Lance said.

"I knew I didn't need to worry about any of that with Peggy as soon as I started talking with her that first night.

"Hell. I didn't go to Orlando looking for a hookup. I went to a pharmacy to get an antibiotic is all. I won't get into the circumstances which got us talking. But we… she and I somehow clicked , you know?

"She was… the only word I can think of is 'normal.' She was just normal . And the funny thing is, she kind of pulled me into it simply by being so natural and real and I really enjoyed being with a woman who was simply willing to go out and have a slice of cheesecake with me."

"You keep talking in the past tense, dude. Did something bad happen when you looped her into the research thing? Or was it when she found out you're loaded?"

Lance followed Eric as he walked inside, filled a big plastic cup full of ice and brought it with the bottle of Jack to the porch and refilled their glasses with both.

"Yeah. Something happened, and I have no idea how. When I left Orlando, I was straddling a fence. I'd enjoyed a relaxing week, ending with a very… agreeable couple of days, and I was happy I'd met her. But I was also kind of kicking myself in the ass for not asking her for some way to get in touch with her.

"My left brain was saying, 'That was fun,' while my right brain was sulking in the corner.

"When I brought her to Atlanta to introduce her to a few of the board members while I was wrapping up the endowment paperwork, she seemed a little overwhelmed. I thought I'd ruined everything when I told her about me. She had already read the article in the Oklahoman about it. I was also worried about what she thought after she learned about my status, you know?"

"And it pissed her off or something?"

"No! When she got her head wrapped around it all, she was like right back the way she'd been in Orlando. She was the most relatable person I've spent time with in ages, but all of a sudden, I started seeing Renée in my mind, and I had to force myself back to my corner.

"That's when she told me she wasn't Cinderella. Or Rachel Chu."

"From the movie?"

"Yeah. I watched it on the way back from Orlando this morning. I didn't realize it at the time, but she was trying to tell me my wealth wasn't important or even of significant interest to her."

"No way."

"It's true, dude."

"How do you know for sure? How do you know you're not being played?"

"She invited me to go back to Orlando with her after the board meeting and interviews. It became very, very obvious."

"Uh-oh, that doesn't sound good," Lance groaned.

"No. It was great. Check out her place," Eric said as he brought up a street view on Google maps. "It makes both of mine look like shanties. Hers is probably five or six thousand square feet, on maybe four acres… in Orlando , mind you."

Eric handed Lance his phone as he continued. "I'm thinking the place is probably in the three- to five-million-dollar ballpark. And her pool… Shit, dude, the pool was in-freaking-credible. A cave behind a waterfall and all kinds of cool stuff."

Lance studied the view from several angles. "How on Earth does a doctor afford something like this and not be house-poor?"

"That, my friend, is a very good question. I asked her exactly that, but in a more polite way. She took me into her study and told me to look around. I found precisely what she wanted me to find."

"What was it?"

"A map."

Lance laughed. "Like a freaking treasure map? With an ex on it or something?"

"You know, when you say it like that? Yeah, it was. Sort of."

"Dude, get to the point. What was on it?"

"It was a topographic map of the area around a crap-ton of land she owns."

"Seriously? She owns land, too? Where?"

Eric swallowed the contents of his glass. He was feeling quite, quite relaxed.

He started chuckling, and the chuckles turned into full-on laughter. He pointed directly ahead of him.

"There! Right on the other side of my property line!"

"No. Fucking. Way !" Lance yelped.

"It's true! She owns eighteen sections' worth from all of that way over there to almost six miles that way!" he said, gesticulating wildly to the north of his property. "I bought these two sections of land from Peggy's father !"

Lance stared in disbelief at Eric until his laughter abated.

"Holy hell . How big did you say the checks are you're getting for the wells they drilled a few years ago?"

"There's six of them. They're still bringing in close to a million a year," he answered before he started laughing again. "That means Peggy is getting three million a year, just from my wells, because her father reserved seventy-five percent of the mineral rights when he sold me the land. The craziest thing, though, is that they've drilled a hundred twenty over there!" he pointed again.

"God, man! It sounds like you're the pauper and she's the princess in this fairy tale," Lance said.

"Exactly. She ain't Cinderella or Rachel Chu! And that's why this whole thing is just so cosmically perfect," Eric said through the sigh of his laughter.

"Then she's no Renée," Lance observed, handing Eric's phone back to him.

"No, my friend. She's most certainly not a Renée. I'm in love with her, Lance, and she loves me. I don't care that I've only known her name for four days. I don't care that I've only known her for three weeks. It feels like we were connected a long time ago. I know how crazy it sounds. Like I said, maybe I've gone nuts."

"What are the odds that could have ever happened?"

"I have no idea."

"I've gotta meet her," Lance said.

"Yeah. I think you'll like her. Who knows. She might even think you're okay," he said with a sideways grin.

"Do you have a picture of her?"

He again gave Lance his phone which displayed on the lock screen one of the photos Peggy had taken of them on The Wheel. She'd forwarded them all to him as soon as she'd learned his phone number.

"Jeez, dude, you've got this lovely lass on your lock screen? You might as well change your Facebook relationship status." He laughed.

"That picture doesn't do her justice."

The guys polished off the bottle of Single Barrel while smoking another cigar before they became too inebriated to stand without wavering on their feet.

When Eric proposed they get some sleep, Lance replied, "You're wording your slurs."

The two wobbled to their rooms. Sophie settled into her bed in the corner of Eric's room and gnawed on her toenails. Eric didn't care.

The men occupied the next day riding horses, and entertaining themselves at the shooting range the two had dug with bulldozers into a fallow pasture to shoot pistol targets. They ended their afternoon powdering most of a hundred clay pigeons each with twelve-gauge shotguns. They spent their idle time discussing business.

Izzie had prepared chicken-fried venison steaks with mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner.

While Eric enjoyed a glass of wine, Lance abstained because he would be flying back to Oklahoma the following morning and didn't want even the slightest of residual alcohol in his system.