One

      Stefan Szyszko was a TEXAN, born and bred. From his parents to his great-great-grandparents, the Szyszkos had fit their lives into the town of Blink, near Fredricksburg, TEXAS. When the town was established, it was so small that if you blinked, you missed seeing the town.

      Times, population growth and new migrations had changed that, but the name stuck.

      While Stefan Szyszko’s last name was spelled in that remarkable way, its pronunciation was only subtly different from Cisco which is a very comfortable name in the state of TEXAS. The gently shaded difference could be discerned, and Stefan’s ear caught which way he was being addressed.

      Stefan Syzszko got a lot of mail addressed to Steve Cisco.

      The Szyszkos were Polish. Not just in ancestral roots but in attitude. They were humorous. Their eyes twinkled, their mouths quirked and their laughs were deep and sincere. They were stubborn and independent. They backed what they believed with their talk or fists or their lives.

      That probably explains why, in World War II, Germany killed fifteen thousand captive Polish officers, at one time, in one place, deliberately. The Germans knew they couldn’t keep the Poles captive. The Polish officers would do their damnedest to escape and fight them again.

      All that explained Stefan Szyszko. He was a cheerful, gregarious, stubborn man. He was tall. He stood exactly six feet. He had black hair, which ducktailed. His eyes were blue. He was built like a woman’s dream of a man.

      He had a rift scar through his right eyebrow. He’d gotten it in a fight over an eleven-year-old girl back when he was about twelve. And in his left earlobe, Stefan wore the plain, wide gold wedding band of his great-grandmother. It balanced the eyebrow scar for the look of a benign pirate.

      Nobody had ever seen Stefan really angry. He visited and laughed and gestured and listened. He had one problem. For a TEXAN it was pretty bad. He was allergic to horses.

      Pepper Hodges was Stefan’s erstwhile good friend who, since puberty, had become his competitor. After Pepper learned of Stefan’s allergy, he’d just about always smelled of horses. Then, some of the females had mentioned Pepper always smelled like a horse barn.

      Since Pepper was very interested in being close to females, he bathed and changed clothes before any gathering. While it had helped Stefan, it hadn’t been for him that Pepper had changed.

      So what does a TEXAN do when he’s allergic to horses? Stefan had an automobile franchise. Among the Chrysler products, he sold Jeeps. This especially touched his grandfather’s heart because he’d used one in Europe in World War II. So nostalgically, he bought a Jeep from his grandson, but he had expected a very large discount.

      Bending to kinsmen was one of the debit sides of living in a community that held generations of relatives. Everybody felt they should have a discount on purchases, and they felt free to tell Stefan how to live.

      “When are you going to marry?” Stefan’s mother asked periodically.

      “When I find her,” he gave the same, old reply.

      “That’s not soon enough.”

      With tested patience, he told his mother, “I’m only thirty.”

      “Find a good Polish girl and get us some grandchildren.”

      “I’m to look for a baby maker?”

      His mother shrugged. “You can find one. A good, sturdy girl with nice, wide hips.”

      “If I go around measuring hips, I could have trouble with the daddies.”

      “No. You’re such a good catch, the papas would help you measure and cheat with the tape.”

      Stefan looked patient. He mentioned, “It’s possible that hips aren’t the most vital part of a marriageable woman.”

      His mother gave him a side-eyed look and scolded in her humorous nudging, “You want more?”

      “Well, her face would have to pass —at least basics.”

      She waved the idea aside, as if discouraging a nasty fly. “Picky, picky.”

      Not quite a swear word, he said to his mother, “Dam’d right.”

      His dad came into the room, and Stefan’s mother turned to Stefan’s father to complain, “He’s looking for a beauty.”

      Mr. Szyszko raised his eyebrows and looked down his nose at his wife as he replied, “Well, I got one, so why shouldn’t he?”

      And his wife grinned, tilted up her chin and looked smugly at her son as her head indicated the father. She told the son, “He’s smooth. Take lessons.”

      * * *

      Stefan figured thirty was too young to get serious. There were too many women to choose from, and all were so delightful that the choosing was an engrossing chore. Well, there were a couple of burrs he’d met, but all the rest were pure delight.

      As he drove his new Jeep in the direction of his car lot, his mind came to one of the burrs. She was the most irritating woman God had ever concocted. She worked for the local TV station and was serious about it. She’d be an old maid, a reject. She was already one of his discards.

      Ah, but she was something to look at. Her name was Carrie Pierce, and she didn’t have the hip measure to please his mother. Carrie was slender. More like a long-legged reed. She had no bosom to speak of, and her hips were narrow. There was no way a man could get a hold on her.

      Her hair was strawberry blond. She wore it long, and it was soft and wavy and got tangled up in everything. The wind teased it around so’s a man’s eyes watched, and his hands would curl for the wanting to get tangled up with her, hair and all.

      But the brain under that lure was Carrie’s. It was sharp and snotty.

      She’d look at a man with those dark brown eyes of hers, and her eyelashes would call attention to themselves in a total lack of modesty. Her brown