by Rayna, Eden
What I don’t see is anything about Danielle. There are no memories of her and our experiences together even though I met her in these boots and I left her in these boots. There’s no mark showing how she convinced me that Friday night dinners should consist of only dessert because you made it through the week. There’s no reminder that a hard rule exists where gin goes with soda and vodka goes with tonic and both take a lime wedge. There are no scuff marks from her sassy quips and no creases from her questions about living on a farm.
If I walk away now, I’ll never get the chance to create those.
My vision starts to blur and my focus fades until a new image is set before me. Her tiny size six sneakers toe-to-toe with my well-worn boots. Her hands linger in the space over my head. I can feel her hesitation as a few of my hairs rustle in the air moving between her fingers and my scalp. After a breath, she rests them gently on my head. They’re warm and soft and I’m angry that I love her touch so much because it takes away all my power. I am strong physically, mentally and emotionally. I have suffered a broken femur from being bucked off a horse. I have delivered dead calves. I have apologized to kids I mistreated all the way back in elementary school. But the second Danielle touches me, I fall apart.
She steps in, pressing my head to her stomach. I see a small wet spot form and spread out on the knee of my jeans and I start to say, “Don’t cry,” when I realise it’s my tear.
Danielle kneels down in front of me and pulls our hands down so my arms lay across my lap. She rubs her cheek up against mine, wiping away my tear with gentle strokes. She nudges my nose with hers and she hovers her lips close to mine.
I feel the moisture from her mouth as she parts her lips. I feel the electricity before we’ve even connected. Her lips land softly on mine, tentatively. She stills, not moving, not even really kissing me. We just pause with our lips touching gently.
"Kirk?" There's restraint to her voice like she's not sure about anything she's about to say or do. I feel just as out of control.
“Yes,” I reply. Our lips flutter faintly against each other like butterfly wings flapping.
Her lips quiver as she tries not to cry. “I’m sorry.” Tears clog her throat and strain her voice.
I pull my hands from her and I cup her cheeks, backing her up a few inches so I can see her face. So I can see if the emotion in her eyes matches the words on her lips. Tears cling to her dark lashes and my heart jumps at the sight. It’s the wrong feeling for me to have, yet it somehow validates the way I’ve been feeling since the last time I saw her.
“I’ve been so miserable without you,” she tells me, choking on a sob.
I nod at her. “That makes two of us.”
“If I promise not to be selfish and scared anymore, will you give me another chance?”
“That’s a pretty big promise to make.”
“I’ll do anything to get you back. Please, Kirk. Tell me what to do to get you back.”
Truthfully, she always had me. Of course, I’m going to give her another chance. And when she makes a mistake, I’ll give her another chance. And another, and another. Then hopefully, when I fuck up she’ll do the same for me.
“Kiss me,” I rasp. She blinks making the tears drip off her lashes. I smile at her confusion. “Kiss me and we’ll call it even.”
I pull her face to mine and we join our mouths together. It’s like the first time all over again. Adrenaline courses through my blood and I get a boost of energy from it. I waste no time driving my tongue into her mouth, exploring her warmth, frolicking with her tongue. I slide my hands from her cheeks to her ribs, motioning for her to stand. With our lips still linked, I pull her up and seat her across my lap.
I run my hands over every possible inch of her recalling to mind what she feels like. How soft she is, where her sensitive places are. When my hands get a little too unpredictable for her place of work, she pulls away. Her eyes are red-rimmed but shimmering with joy. Her lips are also red, which makes me feel a possessive kind of thrill. Falling in love doesn’t mean giving up power, it means joining forces.
“So, about that room?” I joke.
She laughs and runs her hands through my hair making my scalp tingle. “We really are booked out. You’ll have to stay at my place.”
I don’t have a problem with that at all. What I do have a problem with is the fact that she’s working all night and I want to leave first thing in the morning. There is no way I’m sleeping alone tonight. Not after all the other nights I’ve spent by myself wanting her by my side.
“You think I’m going to let you out of my sight? Not a chance, woman.” I pull her in tighter on my lap, gluing her side to my chest, demonstrating to her just how serious I am. “I’m going to curl up right here behind the desk and sleep on the floor.” She looks at me as if I’ve lost the plot and I realise it’s because I haven’t explained my presence to her yet. “I have to leave tomorrow.” Simply saying the words digs into my heart and it hurts. The idea of walking away from Danielle again makes me feel like my body is being ripped in two. That truck is my only way out of town with all the chaos around here and I have no choice but to go. Still, I can’t bear the thought of leaving Danielle.
“But you just got here.” The question is apparent in her statement. If I didn’t come back for her, then why am I here?
“It’s a pretty long story but the short of it is that I sold my house and was just there to pack things up. Justin was going to be my ride out of town only we got separated and he ended up having to leave town without me. So, I’m now hitching a ride with a guy from the trucking company who’s been here for the past few days.”
She presses on my chest to slide off my lap and I brace my hands against her hips, preventing her from moving. Danielle peels at my fingers that I try in vain to keep locked around her body. “Let me up.” Her tone is merciless. I’m in awe of the speed at which anger spreads across her face and also at how I missed the part of the conversation where things turned on me. “You didn’t come back here for me?”
Chapter Nineteen
That’s a loaded question and I walked right into it. “Look, babe,” is all I get to say before she cuts me off with a flourish and a snarl.
“Don’t ‘babe’ me! Did you or did you not come here for me?”
I stand up and throw my hands up to the sky just as exasperated as she is. “It feels like you’re trying to pick a fight with me!” If that’s what she wants, then that’s what she’ll get. I am, after all, the one who bit the bullet and came into the motel when I could have more easily tried getting a spot at the evacuation centre. “Let’s do a quick recap of our history together, shall we? Fun times in Fort Mac on a few occasions. Lots of phone calls and text messages at all hours of the ungodly day and night. You tell me you love me and then when I surprise you with a visit so I can look into your eyes when I say I love you for the first time, you kick me in the shins and tell your friend I am just a fuck buddy!”
I can tell she’s just as spitting mad as I am and she’s waiting for me to stop yelling so she can have her turn at me. Except when I finish talking, she doesn’t yell back. She points her finger at me and tries to talk but no words come out of her mouth. A couple quick breaths escape as though they are the beginnings of words but no sound accompanies them.
Danielle’s hands drop to her sides for a split second before she lifts them, bent at the elbow, tapping a pointed index finger into the palm of the other hand. She’s itemising things. Thoughts maybe. Or maybe she’s counting to ten to calm herself down so she doesn’t jab that finger through my eye. I take a step back just in case.
I count in my head too to see if the silence is really lasting for as long as it feels. I only get to three when she speaks.
“When you say, ‘for the first time,’” she pauses, phrasing her thoughts more carefully and peaceably than at the beginning of this conversation, “you mean for the first time to me, right? Not,” she rolls a finger like a winding spool of fishing lin
e. “Not for the first time ever.” She doesn’t say, “right?” again, but her eyebrows indicate she’s thinking it.
I kick the heel of my boot into the floor and look down as though I have something to be embarrassed about even though I know there’s nothing to be ashamed of.
“No, I meant for the first time ever. It’s not like I haven’t had girlfriends before,” I say defensively. Danielle waves off my comment like that wasn’t what she was thinking. “I’ve simply always believed that you don’t say those words unless you truly mean it. It’s not some pick-up line to me.” I spin around to face the door because it’s hard to look her in the eye when I admit my inexperience. Just as quickly, I turn back to her. She needs to see my face when I say this. “People throw it around like it holds no weight. But it does. When you proclaim those words to someone, you’re taking on a responsibility. A commitment. You’re saying I will always be there for you, I will listen when you talk and I will make sacrifices for you.”
Several heartbeats of silence pass.
“So,” Danielle starts to speak then stops to clear her throat. She begins again, sheepishly. “So, you’re telling me that you did love me and I fucked it up?” Her eyes watch me pleadingly like she is worried I might actually say that I don’t love her anymore. Like I’m some teenager who falls in and out of love based on the outfit she’s wearing.
I stretch my hands forward motioning for her to place hers in mine then I step in, closing the space that I moments ago widened. “It took me thirty years to find someone that I was in love with. You think a few weeks apart is going to make me fall out of love?”
Tears catch on her eyelashes again as she blinks. “So, will you say it to me now?” Her voice is high pitched and pleading. Even if I was still upset with her, I couldn’t say no. There is still a lot I need to learn about this woman, but showing vulnerability is one thing I know she’s not used to doing. I have to honour that.
I wrap her hands around my back then do the same with my own arms around her. Her chin tips way up to see me and I look down at her. “Danielle Cooper, you’ve made me work harder for affection than anyone ever has. I think that’s why I love you the most. You make me want to be better for you.”
She smiles at me and blinks a tear loose down her cheek. “Can you say it again without all the other stuff?”
I chuckle at her and kiss her nose. “I love you.” I kiss her forehead. “I love you.” I kiss her cheek. “I love you.” I kiss the shell of her ear. “I love you.” I kiss her neck. “I love you.”
She hums after each declaration until she’s giggling. Danielle presses her cheek to my chest, clutching me as tightly as she can around my body. I calm my thoughts and take in the moment. The sweet sound of her laughter, the warmth of her body, the smell of her hair. I always thought that my farm was my happy place but it turns out I was wrong. My happy place isn’t a location, it’s a feeling that only Danielle brings me.
“I love you too, by the way,” she says softly.
She doesn’t need to tell me, I know that already.
Chapter Twenty
“They aren’t going to quiz you, you know,” Kirk mocks me. He takes one of my hands in his to stop me from destroying my nails from my nervous biting habit. His other hand remains on the steering wheel of my car as we bump along the gravel road to the main house on his family’s property. Kirk insisted on driving because that’s how it’s done in his family. Men do the long road trips and it’s not up for debate even after I pointed out the mileage on my car, proving how many road trips I have under my belt.
Fort McKay was evacuated two days after Fort Mac. The drive to Edmonton was slow with so many cars on the road and the necessary police escort down the blazing highway for a good portion of it. Throughout the entire drive, Kirk was texting me to please meet him in Edmonton where he had to drop off the rig. Everything happened so quickly, him showing up at the motel and the town being evacuated, that we didn’t really have time to make a plan. I thought about heading back to Vancouver, but Kirk had another idea for us.
When we met up in Edmonton, he pleaded for me to come home to his farm. Watching him beg was a lot of fun, I won’t lie. Especially when his endearing facial expressions made his dimple show. My comment about him sounding like a used car salesman is what got him to finally stop talking his family up. You’ve got to know when to quit selling. His parents sound amazing but the stories he told me about his brothers left me worried I’d get caught in the middle of some prank. I walked away with the promise of getting to name one of the new calves, horse riding lessons and a commitment to multiple orgasms every day, which has kind of become our bargaining chip ever since Carly gave us a hard time on our first weekend together.
The farm is exactly how I pictured it. A beautiful expanse of land accessible only by gravel road sectioned off by low wood and wire fences. The grass, or is it hay, is just starting to green up. Kirk laughs when I ask him, just like he did with every one of the other million questions I had about farms along our five hundred kilometre drive. I think to myself, if I can commit at least some of those answers to memory, I won’t sound too dumb when I meet his family in a few minutes.
The sun is just starting to set, casting a beautiful pinkish glow on everything. It offers an idealistic view of life out here, one that I think I could enjoy.
“Don’t let it fool you,” Kirk points out to me. “Winter is long and cold in this windy part of the country.” I think that’s what I like most: trying to come up with ways to keep warm.
We’ve been kicking up a sizeable cloud of dust for half a kilometre now on the private gravel road, so it doesn’t surprise me to see his entire family standing outside the front door waiting to greet us as we drive the last hundred metres.
“As soon as I open my mouth, they are going to know I’m not farm-girl material.”
He laughs at me and turns his head in my direction. “Who says that’s what they want?”
I’m so nervous I can’t even keep count of my heartbeats. “I’m sure they at the very least want someone who can participate in conversations. I’m not quite that person.” With my hand locked down in Kirk’s, I take to chewing the inside of my cheek.
“Do you think all we do is sit around and talk about cattle and crops?” He laughs at me again. I swear this is like the fortieth time he’s taken the piss at my expense and it’s getting old. He can sense it in the glare I throw his way. “This is a big deal for me too, babe. I’ve never brought anyone home before.”
My eyes snap wide open. “How does that put pressure on you? I’m the one who has to fit into your super tight-knit family. It’s not you who’s going to be asked to leave.”
Kirk tucks my hair behind my ear in a soothing manner then cups my cheek. “There’s a very high likelihood that my mom will like you more than me and do just that.”
It’s a canned response and I don’t believe him. I didn’t know what a heifer was until two months ago, I have never been on a horse before and I can’t cook or bake to save my life. I am a gossip magazine and Skip the Dishes kind of girl, something I don’t think is part of his family’s history.
His older brother, Garrett, married the girl from the farm next door. His sister married a dairy farmer from Saskatchewan, and according to Kirk, his little brother, Dean, is in love with a girl from high school. Their graduating class had eighty people in it; mine had over a thousand and I keep in touch with zero of those people. Didn’t his family expect the same thing from Kirk as from his siblings?
We pull up to the house and I turn to Kirk for one more hit of reassurance but I don’t get it because my door flings open and the cheery sounds of welcome flood the vehicle. A weathered hand reaches out for me to help me out of the car and I look up to see that it is attached to an older gentleman who has some of the same features as Kirk. Tall, broad, boots and hat.
“Mr. Sanders,” I say, accepting his hand and unhinging after the long, stressful drive.
He gives a so
ft chuckle. “Unless you expect me to call you Miss Cooper, I’ll only answer to Matthew.” His joking manner helps to ease my nerves a little. One family member down, five to go.
“Matthew,” I confirm, sheepishly and so uncharacteristically for me.
He leads me away from the custody of Kirk toward the group lined up at the bottom of the stairs. Except for Mrs. Sanders and Garrett’s wife, they are all extraordinarily tall. And very intimidating. I spin around to look for my security blanket, but he has propped his arms on the roof of my car and has settled himself in for a show. I’m about to offer him popcorn for his viewing enjoyment but I don’t have the opportunity as I am guided by Matthew’s strong hand on the small of my back toward the rest of the family.
I’m glad I haven’t had to meet any families in the past. I don’t think my nerves could handle many of these occasions. As a matter of fact, Kirk is never allowed to break up with me because I am never doing this again. Maybe that’s why he brought me here. He knew once I went through this ordeal, I’d think twice about ever leaving him.
“Danielle, dear, you look positively petrified! Kirk!” Mrs. Sanders hollers. “What did you say to her that has her all worked up?”
Kirk leaves his premiere viewing position and brushes past me, intentionally nudging my shoulder on his way to his mom. He’s playing games with me and when the time comes for him to meet my parents, I am going to give it right back to him. Kirk will stand in front of my parents with his hat in hand and his dimpled cheek not knowing if or how to respond to their insanity. All the while, I’ll be standing beside him, not offering a word of advice. From what I know of building solid relationships – which is nothing – the strongest are always built on one-upmanship.