Change of mind

 Things changed a bit at some point when she found out that yeah, he was pretentious but no red flags were risen at all.  Not a creep, a weirdo or a psycho.  It all changed the night she was taking a shower and when she finished, found a text message and a missed call.  The message said "this is your neighbor.  One of your horses is near my pond"   

She felt like all of her blood fell to her feet.  She apologized, wrapped her hair in a towel, and ran toward her neighbor's house with a bucket half full of sweet feed.  Of course, it had to be Peanut, a black miniature horse, the one who invaded the yard with fancy green grass.  She cursed a lot on the way to gather him.  "Why here, why precisely here, this house, the house of this idiot?"
Once again, and having put Peanut in a stall, she apologized to her neighbor and thanked him for not getting mad at the intruder or at her.

There was one thing that would always make a difference for Carmen and her perception of someone and that was the way that someone spoke about and treated animals.  Specially her animals.  Anybody being nice to her animals was going to be her friend.  And you don't want to know about the opposite.

Well, they started exchanging some messages and she didn't even think she would look like a cheating wife.  Because she was already legally separated but of course people didn't know that.  Not that it's none of their business, but we all know how people can be and how some other people care about the judgmental ones.

To thank him for being nice and all that, and of course because she had noticed in the meantime that the guy was not bad looking at all, she proposed getting together to have lunch in Dallas.  A little conversation, lots of insecurity on her part, she was used to meet people for lunch, snacks or dinner to discuss business or just with old friends.  But this was different.  And it was the first time in many years that she felt attracted to someone different than her ex-husband.

After lunch he offered to take her to her car and during that drive things tangled a little and what happened was, they ended up going to a hotel.  And this would haunt her later when she wondered if things would have been different if she didn't give herself so easily.  
But she was not judgmental, she was not a prude and above all, she was free and old enough to know what she wanted and how she wanted it. To fuel even more her insecurity, she hadn't had sex in months, could be probably close to a whole year.  

This is when the first tiny, cute red flag popped in.  When afterwards and going back to her car, she told him she could have picked up in Rowlett, where she didn't know until now it was where he had his business' offices.  His answer: "I don't think my daughter would approve" Wow...

That could mean many things, but of course, the first ones that came to mind were: either his daughter is a frigid prude or he is a whole mess and if they had to say hello or see women picking him up, the parade would have no end so he had that thing forbidden.  Whatever the cause was, it was not normal.  But let's say it's ok and let's overlook it.