by Frankie Love
Giving my virginity to Jaxon was an irreversible choice, and I would get on my knees for him all over again if I could.
“I can’t go in there, Luke,” I tell him. “My parents are going to kill me.”
“No one is killing anyone,” he says. “Want me to go talk to them first, alone?”
“No. I mean, unless God is telling you to,” I say smartly.
“Not funny, Harper. What has happened to you? Twenty-four hours, and you’re this completely different person.”
“Well, it started with you ditching me a week before our wedding, Luke.”
“It was God’s will,” Luke started again. “You aren’t the right woman for me, I need someone more.…”
“More what?” I ask, incredulous. Luke ended things with me so quickly that I couldn’t even ask him questions to try to understand.
“More reverent.”
“I didn’t, what, pray enough?” I shake my head, so frustrated. I did everything by the book. I went to services three nights a week, volunteered at the food bank, helped my parents run the household. I had toilet-trained five of my siblings for goodness sakes. Yet I wasn’t holy enough for Luke? “What are you looking for?”
“Not a girl who sleeps with dirty men in the woods,” Luke says, his eyes narrowing in on me.
I have to get out of this car. Facing my parents will be terrible, but staying here with him, being humiliated, is worse.
Unbuckling, I grab my bags, sling a tote over my shoulder, brace myself for my father’s wrath.
“I already called your parents and informed them,” Luke says coolly as I push open the car door.
“Did you…?”
Luke sneers, suddenly a man I can’t believe I ever considered spending my life with.
“I told them I found you naked in the house of a man who claimed he’d had his way with you.”
“That was my story to tell,” I whisper. My eyes fill with tears once more.
I drag my bags from his car, not able to stand being there one more minute.
Standing on the front porch of the house where was raised, I knock the door.
My father answers, his face cold and stern.
“You have shamed us all.” He berates me the moment I walk inside. He turns out the door, toward Luke’s car and I don’t say anything to him.
What is there to say? He runs this house and I have humiliated the family name.
My mother comes to the foyer, her eyes covered in the shadow of disappointment.
“What have you done, Harper?” she asks, shaking her head.
“I didn’t—” I fall into her arms. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”
And I didn’t. I’m not going to apologize for last night, but no one else needs to be hurt as I try to mend what I have broken.
“How will you ever find a husband now?” she asks as we embrace.
“Mother, there must be more to life than that?” I ask, pulling away.
Some of my siblings walk through the hall—James, Jonathan, Jessie, and Hope—heads bowed, not even looking at me.
“Hi, James,” I say to my brother, who is two years younger than me. He’s my closest sibling in age; there’s a three boy, eight-year gap between my sister Hope and I.
James doesn’t meet my eyes, and everyone walks to the schoolroom in the basement without a word to me.
“Why won’t they look at me?” I ask Mother.
“You have disgraced us, and must pray for forgiveness. Your father has required this of all of us.” She won’t meet my eyes, and shame runs deep though my veins.
I can’t reconcile what happened with Jax this morning, the absolute ecstasy, with that I feel now.
I see Father turning back to the house, and I can’t bear his fury.
I take my things and walk to my room. Falling on my bed, I can’t imagine ever bowing my head in prayer. Repenting for being with the bad boy, Jax.
I’m a fool.
A fool now stuck in a house where I’m the bad girl.
10
JAX
Buck shows up at my cabin, telling me I need to come down to the bar, and for some reason I agree.
It’s been four weeks since Harper left. I never learned her last name, her home address. And of course I didn’t. She was a one-night stand.
But she hasn’t left my mind.
The snow has melted, the promise of spring finally poking its way through the forest floor.
As I follow Buck down the mountain in my own truck, I see a beautiful doe on the side of the road, her white spots pointing to her purity, her eyes alert, taking in the world as it passes.
Once again, all I see is Harper.
A tow truck came up the road a few days after last month’s snowstorm passed. They carried Harper’s little hatchback down the mountain and I knew that was that.
I could have been a creeper, gone all stalker-mode in her car, rooted through her glove box, looking for an address, a phone number. But I resisted. She didn’t offer those things, and I could guess she’d gone back home to a family ready to lay it on her.
I didn’t need to show up on her doorstep and get punched by an angry father.
I stayed put.
I’m no love-sick fool. We shared a night I’ll remember, but that’s all.
At the bar, Buck hands me a can of Bud Light and we play a few game of pool with the regulars. Some women ask if I want to go somewhere to talk, and while Buck thinks it’s goddamned amazing having me as his wingman, I pass on the offers.
I’m not ready to get into something with some girl who lives out in the sticks. There aren’t enough houses in these parts to keep my one night stands in order.
When I did that back in the city, it got me in trouble with the Sherriff. It’s the reason I’m out here in the first place.
Better I keep my wood in my pants.
Best I not start in at all.
I help Buck with the women, though. That poor bastard has no game, and the least I can do is put in a good word for him.
Clapping him on the back, I explain his merits to some local girls. “Buck here has had my back for as long as I’ve lived here,” I say.
“And how long has that been?” asks a brunette in a jean skirt and cowboy boots.
“About three months.”
“You the guy living in the woods all alone, chopping trees all day?” her friend asks.
“That’s me,” I say, taking a long pull from the beer. “But Buck here isn’t as sketchy as me. He lives in town, owns the gas station—and last time I checked he had some property out on the lake. Prime for camping. We should all go sometime.”
“That sounds hot,” the cowboy-boot girl says. “Like, so hot I’d have to take my clothes off.” She taunts me by unbuttoning the top button of her shirt.
I don’t take the bait. Instead, I think of how hot Harper got in my cabin, how she stripped to cool off.
How I’d strip her again if I got the chance.
How I’d never let her go again if I did.
Should have never motherfucking let her out of my sight. I should have fought for her.
Only thing is, she didn’t want any saving. She wanted gone.
HARPER
I throw up every day for two weeks. I’m losing weight.
Losing sleep.
I must be dying.
I must be dead.
At least, this must be what death feels like.
I know people really are dying, and I understand it is callous and cruel to speak this way—but, truly, if there was any way I could get out of this life, I would.
I can’t see it happening. I have no money, no experience. And in the meantime, I am getting myself ill. Sick over the prayer-fasting my father requires and the bible studies and the sex-addicts meetings in the church basement.
Yes, my parents thought I needed a twelve-step program for having sex one solitary time. Okay, two times, but they didn’t know the details. Oh, they asked all right. But I refused t
o tell.
Apparently, they thought sex with Jaxon one night was a gateway drug.
They weren’t that far off.
Because, oh my heart, I can’t count the number of times I’ve parted my legs in the dark, under the covers, and imagined him. His hard chest and harder cock and his fingers pulsing in my opening.
I just need a few minutes imagining him covering me with his body, and my fingers slip between my thighs, into my folds. I keep trying to take the edge off the way he could.
But nothing I do to myself feels anything like he felt to me.
I want to be in his cabin. I would ask him how he fingered so well … beg for the magic secret. But there are a thousand reasons I’ll never go back and ask Jaxon, and one of them being I have nothing to offer him.
Luke never called after the day he dropped me off. And good. I don’t need to see him ever again. Last I heard, my father mentioned him going to Bible College in Denver.
Maybe he’ll find a pious woman. A woman I can never be again.
“Harper, you need to clean up after breakfast,” Mother says, knocking on the bathroom door. In the bathroom, I retch up my oatmeal, with the fan on, the faucet in the sink running.
Letting on that I’m sick would just be another way to drag out the consequences they’ve thrown on me.
I’m already on restrictions. My one freedom is when I go to the Food Bank to stock shelves. Besides that, I’m at home 24/7 and pretty much useless.
I’m tired of being a little girl, of not knowing how to do things. So I am trying to be responsible. Prove my worth. The last thing I want is another guy like Luke not wanting to be with me because I wasn’t enough.
Since I came home a month ago, when I’m not cleaning, doing laundry, helping with the dishes and cooking, I make myself scarce and try to rest. I’m always so tired.
But I can’t be tired. I need to get up and start the day and show my family that my foray into the woods was a one-time thing.
It’s not working this morning, because once again I’m sick. No matter how plain my food, I still get sick like clockwork
I go to the kitchen, begin rinsing oatmeal bowls and then eventually stacking the dishes in the cupboard.
Before I have to run out of the room.
And get sick again.
11
JAX
The snow is gone and I’m out back, an axe in hand. My shirt’s off, beads of sweat falling off my back. It’s motherfucking hot out here.
I went into town yesterday, checked my email and bank account. My parents emailed letting me know they were in Florida, in their RV, following their retirement dreams.
I’m happy for them, to have what they want. They say they worry about me, their only son. I emailed back, telling them I’m good. Great, even.
What they don’t know won’t hurt them; it’ll keep them happy. That’s what I want.
I saw the last deposit made to my account from my buddy Dean. It was twice the size it usually is. Guess the trucking company is taking off.
I swing the axe against the massive pine, my eyes burning in jealousy. Anger.
Guess he didn’t need me to be his right hand man after all.
Even though it was my business plan, my love for these old logging roads and these mountains. My desire for people all over the country to have a piece of Idahoan pine and cedar in their custom homes.
Fuck that shit.
I take another swing, like a goddamned lumberjack, not sure what the point is.
I’m out here, because what? I’m being punished for fucking some Sheriff’s daughter?
It’s bullshit.
I don’t want to be a part of a life like that. So rigid, full of rules. I don’t live by the law of anyone.
I live by the law of the mountain.
I take a final swing, and then push against the trunk as the pine falls. I’ve been hacking at this beast for four hours.
Stepping back as it falls, I look around my property. I love this land. And fuck Dean. Fuck our company. Fuck it all.
I don’t need that bullshit.
I pick up the shirt I threw on the ground when I got hot, and wipe my face with it. It may be March, but I’ve worked up a sweat.
As I move toward the cabin for some ice-cold beer, my axe in hand, I see a small car roll up into my driveway.
It’s the last fucking car I ever expected to see again.
It’s Harper’s hatchback, and she’s alone.
She steps out of the car, her face streaked in tears, the same as when she left.
Has this girl been crying for six week straight?
“Harper?” I move toward her and we meet at the steps to my cabin.
“Hey Jaxon … I hope it’s okay that I’m here?”
“You okay?” I ask, shaking my head. She’s wearing a long top over a pair of leggings, boots on her feet. Her long blond hair is braided over her shoulder.
She’s effortless.
“I’ve been better. I didn’t know where to go.”
“Uh, okay, is it your family? That bastard Luke? Did someone hurt you?” I have a million questions for her. Flashes of our time together fill my mind.
Her bare skin, soft and milky. The warm space between her legs. Her wonder, excitement, willingness at the night we shared.
And she’s back. I want to pull her in my cabin, lock the door. Never let her go.
But she doesn’t look alive with the hunger of desire.
Harper looks motherfucking exhausted.
“I don’t even know how to say it,” she says.
“Uh, you hungry? Thirsty?” I ask, trying to remember how to be polite to guests. No woman’s been up here since our time together.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Okay….” This is kind of awkward. I want to kiss her or fuck her, but she came here to talk.
“Can we take a walk?” she asks.
“You drove three hours to take a walk with me in the woods?”
“No,” Harper says, sighing deeply, like this is all too hard. What has her so worked up? “But maybe if we walk it will calm my nerves.”
I bury my ax in a stump and nod toward the path I usually walk on when I want to move my legs.
We walk past my piles of hewn logs, many covered with tarps but others still in the process of being stripped before I send them to the sawmill. Not that I have any motherfucking plan for all this wood.
“You cut trees?” she asks. “Like, is that your job?”
“Sorta.” I shrug.
“Why don’t you use a chainsaw?” she asks, curiosity dancing over her blue eyes. “Wouldn’t that be a lot easier?”
“Easier, yeah, but the point isn’t to do something easy.”
“What is the point, then?” she asks. Her arms are crossed over the jacket she’s now zipped up to her chin.
“The point is to simplify. Cut out all the crap, the bullshit.”
“You want things simple?”
“Yeah,” I say, not sure where she got confused. I’m being pretty damn clear, for a man. “I don’t want drama. I want things easy.”
“Oh.” Harper stops on the path. We haven’t even walked ten yards and already she needs a breather. “You know, Jaxon, maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I should go.”
“What are you doing to me, woman?”
Her eyes fill with tears. I swear there is nothing, no one, more fragile than Harper. It’s like she can’t stand on her own two feet.
“I’m sorry, Jaxon. I just … I can’t. This is too hard. Too much. I should go.”
“You aren’t going anywhere and we both know it.”
She swallows, looking up. As she does, she gasps, points to something behind me.
I turn and see a deer family. A twelve-point buck, a beautiful mama beside him, a small baby deer between them.
“That’s beautiful,” Harper says.
“Sure is,” I agree, knowing if anything is gonna calm Harper down, seeing these creatures will. Our e
yes are still on the family, and we don’t dare move, not wanting to scare them off.
I swear I can hear Harper’s heart beating from where I stand. This girl is so worked up. I take her hand in mine, want her to feel safe. I mean, I’m not the poster child for security but, fuck, this girl came all the way out here to find me, didn’t feel like there was anyone else she could turn to. Might as well not be an ass about it.
“Can you tell me what you’re doing out here?” I ask her, as quiet as possible so as not to disturb the deer.
“It’s bad, Jaxon.” Her words are so delicate they nearly disappear in the air before they reach my ears.
“Nothing can be bad when we’re looking at this,” I say. The deer family stares us at, with the same curiosity we show them.
Her hand shakes in mine. I squeeze it, trying to calm her. It must work, because she opens her mouth in a whisper and says the words I never wanted to hear.
HARPER
This morning I already know the truth before I confirm it. I tell my mother that someone has called in sick at the Food Bank and that I needed to go help, right away. I lie right to her face and get in my car.
I drive three hours. Three hours where my mind is numb and my heart is numb and all I know is that I could never Keep Calm and Carry On. Not now.
Everything has changed.
I drive to Jaxon’s cabin, praying to a God who seems to have left me a long time ago, left me to the devices of a church family who will never accept me.
Where else am I supposed to go?
Jaxon is right where I left him.
I park my car, my whole body on fire the moment I see him in the distance. His arms swing, axe in hand, as a massive tree falls to the ground. The heaviness of the trunk swooshing through the air takes my breath away.
It is so final, so swift.
It took so many years to grow that tree, and then in a few hours it is chopped down to nothing. A fallen log with no life.
The same thing has happened to me, and the realization sends tears to my eyes. I spent twenty-one years working hard to grow into something beautiful and good and strong and sure.