He’s close…
He’s close to you, right now.
I knew this, just as I had known Tuesday night that I would see him before this Friday at the Rawleys’ house. I sprang to my feet and leaned over the railing, peering into the night, lit only by a lone streetlight on the far side of the parking lot. Rain began striking the ground then, lifting the sharp scent of dust. My heart echoed the increasing intensity of the thunder as I scanned the darkness; did I actually expect him to come walking with that sexy, shoulder-shifting stride, to just beneath the balcony, like a modern-day Romeo?
Oh God, that would be so amazing…
I heard the sound of an engine then and my heart beat a fierce tattoo against my ribs; from my vantage point on the porch, I couldn’t see the vehicle, which was undoubtedly one of my Stone Creek neighbors anyway. I spied taillights then, and though I had no idea if the truck was Case’s, it was indeed a truck. It drove away from the apartment complex and then back towards Jalesville, just as rain began sheeting. I stayed put, watching, pretending that it was Case, out driving, checking on me maybe. Just as restless in the middle of the night, dying for any excuse to see me.
You’re flattering yourself and it’s ridiculous.
I sank back to the chair, wrapping into my own arms, which were cold, cold comfort when I longed for someone else so badly. I thought of everything I had learned about Case since arriving here, since we had reentered each other’s lives. I thought of the things he’d told me. How he stood up for what he felt was right. The way I felt molten all through my center just picturing his face. I thought of his lonely trailer, his barn full of animals that he so obviously loved. How he played his guitar and his fiddle with such quiet passion.
I hugged myself all the harder.
And even knowing all of these things about him, he still confused me terribly. There were times, like today, when I was certain he was just as attracted to me, that desire pulsed through him, just as it did through me at the mere mention of him. In the next moment he came across as though he was trying to convey to me that he was concerned about me the way an older brother might be, a friend.
Do I want his friendship?
Yes.
But, oh God, it’s so terrible of me, but I want a hell of a lot more than that. It’s insane. I have no right to want anything more.
Case.
I repeated his name, whispering it aloud so that I could feel it on my tongue, could taste it in my mouth. I thought of him telling the story of the first girl he’d ever kissed and as unreasonable as I was at present, I was unthinkably jealous of her. I could hardly even manage to acknowledge that another woman had already been married to him, had been pregnant with his child. And she had left him. Clark said they fought a great deal; could there have been a deeper reason?
Don’t even, Tish, you’re wrong.
Go to bed.
It was raining so hard that there was splash-back on my face as I sat there, even under the ceiling that formed the bottom of the balcony on the floor above mine. I let the rain strike me, holding myself as hard as I could, and still it wasn’t even half enough.
***
I spent Friday at the law office with two tasks in mind. First, I looked into the closing of Highland Power. Second, I asked Al about this alleged Yancy ancestor, former landowner in Jalesville. Al told me that I should visit the courthouse on Monday, when Records Office was open. He said it was a musty basement room but it contained microfiche files for all of the newsprint articles that had been published in the greater Jalesville area since 1893, when the town had been founded.
“Microfiche?” I repeated.
“I know, you’d think it was three decades ago down there,” Al joked.
“No, it’s not that I’m complaining. I’m just surprised. I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t know how to use that type of machine,” I told him. My eyes swept up to the clock, which I had been checking all day.
Four hours until I can see him, I thought, drawing a breath.
Al was giving me a strange look when I glanced back at him, but he refrained from commenting. Instead he said, “I was going to ask you to come in for a few hours tomorrow to help me do inventory, but now I’m rethinking. You look exhausted, counselor. I’ve been working you too hard.”
“Al,” I reprimanded. “No such thing. And I’m happy to come in tomorrow. What time?”
“I’ll bring us leftover chocolate cream pie, Helen Anne is just making some as we speak,” he promised. “Maybe four or so hours. You’re my angel, kiddo, no kidding. Let’s say about two or so?”
“I’ll be here,” I said. “You can count on me.”
Driving home two hours later, I gripped the steering wheel tightly and let pure anticipation spike through my blood. I would see Case and tonight we were staking out his property. I kept picturing us in black jumpsuits, with guns strapped to our hips, prowling through the foothills. I giggled then, realizing that I did not care one bit how we looked or what we did exactly, as long as it meant I could be near him.
At my apartment, I dressed in my darkest jeans and a black t-shirt, then grabbed a dark sweatshirt to bring with. I left my hair loose (your hair is beautiful, all down like that may have been echoing in my head), and allowed one concession to femininity in a pair of small silver hoop earrings. I slipped into socks and my heavy-duty hiking boots, and then drove too fast to Clark’s.
I pulled in and saw Wy hanging on the corral fence, lavishing both his horse Oreo and Buck with attention. My heart tripped over itself to see this evidence of Case having already arrived, and I put the car in park and nearly skipped to the fence.
“Hey, Tish!” Wy said brightly as I joined him. He was wearing his cowboy hat and I grinned happily at him, taking Buck’s face between my hands and rubbing him with affection.
“They like it when you blow your breath into their noses,” Wy explained with an air of all-knowing. “See, like this.” He leaned and blew gently into Oreo’s face and the horse nickered quietly and bumped her nose lightly against the boy. Wy ordered, “Now you try.”
I giggled a little and said to Buck, “I hope you don’t mind, buddy,” before pursing my lips and directing a breath between his nostrils, still holding his jaws in both hands. He whooshed air back at me and nudged my face, as though giving me a kiss, and I laughed all the more.
“Now he’ll never forget your scent,” Case said, from just behind me, and my heart detonated like an explosive charge.
I turned to look over my shoulder at him, unable to keep from smiling radiantly. He was hatless, in a black t-shirt and his customary faded jeans. Sunglasses hanging again from the collar of his shirt. I swallowed hard at the sight of him, not quite able to reply, and he said, “You found your hiking boots.”
“Why, are you hiking somewhere?” Wy asked, hooking his elbows over the fence and leaning forward. “Like, into the mountains?”
My gaze flashed at once to Case, who seemed to be telling me something specific with his eyes, radiating with a sense of subtle excitement. By unspoken agreement, neither of us mentioned our plans for later in the evening. Slightly breathless, I said to Wy, “No, I just got sick of wearing inappropriate shoes all the time.” Everyone else was out back, I could hear them, and on inspiration I said to Wy, “Hey, will you grab me a drink?”
“Sure,” he said at once. “What’ll you have?”
“My usual, but not quite so strong,” I told him.
Wy darted inside and immediately I asked Case, “What is it? I can tell there’s something…”
His grin deepened and he said, “You had the same thought as me, about the ninja look,” and he nodded at my black shirt and dark jeans; his eyes stroked over my breasts very subtly, but it was enough that my nipples tightened into gemstone-level hardness and my very vivid dream from Tuesday night came flooding to the forefront of my thoughts. He was already looking back at my eyes, but there was a flash of heat in his, intense heat that burned straight to my toes.
“What else?” I asked softly, knowing there was more. I was stroking Buck’s neck as though it was Case’s chest, I suddenly realized, and stilled my hands.
“I was going to say that after supper, we can meet at my place. It’s less than a ten-minute ride by horseback. I’ll head out when you do. And I found something just this afternoon, out by that rock,” he said, coming closer and putting his hands on Buck’s neck, on the opposite side. He patted his horse, our eyes holding steady, and my heart was frantic with the need to be pressed to his. He said, “It’s the strangest thing. Someone was digging out there.”
“Digging?” I repeated.
He nodded and said, “I took Buck for a ride out there and explored all around, like a kid, not exactly expecting to find anything. But then, near the base of the rock, I saw that the earth had been turned. I could tell. A couple of scrubs uprooted. And there were boot prints, not my own.”
“Did you grab a shovel?” I asked, ready to drive straight over there and put one to use. My imagination was firing on all cylinders. “Do you think they buried something? A body? Maybe Derrick had someone killed —”
Case didn’t make fun of me, didn’t scoff or so much as laugh. He said, “I felt the way I used to when we were kids, Garth and me trying to find mysteries to solve, the legend of the gold all up in our heads. But Tish, I don’t think they were burying something. I think it was that they were —”
“Unburying something,” I finished. Then it struck me and I absolutely babbled without thinking, “You said my name.”
He looked hard at me then, intently, and I was not imagining the flush over his cheekbones. He knitted his eyebrows and I suddenly realized I threw him into a tailspin just as much as he threw me. His voice was soft as he contradicted in his deep voice, “I’ve said your name.”
“Not ‘Tish,’” I disagreed. I couldn’t have torn my eyes from his for the promise of all the gold buried in the foothills through all of Montana.
His eyelashes lowered for a second but then he looked back at me, Buck’s long nose the only thing between us, and our invisible connection sizzled and throbbed, stronger than ever. I knew he felt it, even if he wouldn’t acknowledge it, not yet. I studied his eyes and had the strangest flash of what felt like a memory – Case coming to me while I sat up high on a wagon seat, his shoulders near my ankles. His hand gliding up my leg, under layers of my long skirt, his eyes burning into mine. The strength of this vision was like a striking fist.
Oh God…
What was that?
Did I just have a Notion? I wondered, almost shuddering with its force. Like Aunt Jilly?
“Here you go!” Wy announced, popping back out the front door, a gin and tonic in hand.
“Thanks,” I told him, flustered, sloshing a little onto my hand as Wy passed it to me. I wiped my wrist against my thigh as we walked around the side of the house, to the porch. I knew that Case and I would have to shelve our discussion until later; I was dying to ask him if he’d had the sense of the wagon, of touching my leg, too…
Somehow I was sure the answer to that was yes.
Clark and Wy had spent the day smoking up about ten pounds of pork, and it smelled amazing. It was a full house tonight, all the girlfriends in attendance; I couldn’t help but pretend that Case and I were a couple too. I fantasized about this, watching him covertly. He and Clark talked near the grill for quite a spell, but Case would set his eyes on me every so often, just so, catching me straight in the center each time. Once he smiled, for only me, the kind of private and intimate smile that lovers exchange, and I lost complete track of what Sean’s girlfriend Jessie was saying; luckily she was a little drunk and didn’t exactly notice.
And tonight we were staking out his property. I still wasn’t entirely sure what this would entail; all I knew was that it meant I was allowed to spend extra time with him and I was greedy for every second. By the time dinner was over I was surely visibly resonating with excitement. When Clark asked if I wanted to play cards, which they were setting up even now, I said, with what I prayed was a casual tone, “I’m so tired tonight. I think I might head home.”
“You’ve had a busy week,” Clark allowed. “Come back for dinner tomorrow, if you have a craving for pulled pork sandwiches.”
I went on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, telling him with all sincerity, “Thank you.”
I bid everyone good-night, keeping my eyes from Case with every ounce of effort I possessed. In my car, which smelled deliciously of sagebrush now that I had a sprig of it on the dashboard, I drove with the radio off, through the gorgeous quiet night, out towards Ridge Road. The nearly-full moon was so distracting out the passenger window that I almost drove into the ditch before I reached Case’s house. I took it slowly and carefully through the yard, mindful of the animals; already Mutt and Tiny were crowding the car. I parked on the far side of the trailer; the chili-pepper lights were lit, throwing cheerful red-orange light in a circular splash across the yard.
The air was so still that I could hear the sounds of the fair back in Jalesville, tinkling music, the faint swell of delighted screams from people on a ride, and the sounds of someone speaking through a microphone, bouncing off the foothills and to my ears. I bent and hugged the dogs close to me, letting them lick my face. Cider came out of the barn to greet me and I went to her at once, climbing up the fence and throwing my arms around her neck. I kissed her nose and blew a gentle breath into her left nostril, murmuring, “Now you’ll remember my scent too.”
I kept near her, resting my forehead on her warm neck, the dogs jumping up my legs for attention. I closed my eyes and pictured Case out there in the night, riding towards me on Buck, coming closer even now. I shivered. Waves of heat sliced through me and I clung even more tightly to Cider, who nickered and let me hold her. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed before I heard hoofbeats thudding on the ground, matching the pace of my heart. And then there he came, riding into view.
“That is a hell of a moon,” he said, drawing Buck into the corral. He dismounted with a graceful motion and patted the big buckskin twice, then turned him loose. I could not tear my eyes away as he walked over and hung on the fence beside Cider, inside the corral. He looked at me and smiled a little, his face washed silver-white in the milky moonlight.
“It seems twice as big as I’ve ever seen it,” I agreed, my breath shallow, all charged up now that he was near. Cider belly-bumped him and he elbowed her firmly away, saying, “No crowding now, you know better.”
“I’m nervous, now that we’re here,” I admitted. I rushed on, “I mean, about finding anything out there.”
“Likely no one will even show up,” he said. “I wouldn’t let you come with if I thought it was going to be dangerous, I hope you know. And if we see or hear anyone, I’m calling the police, first thing. Our local sheriff is Travis’s dad, Jerry Woodrow.”
I asked him, softly, “Will we walk?”
Case was watching me intently and didn’t seem to hear my question; I promptly forgot what I had just asked. He was just on the opposite side of the fence, hardly more than an arm’s length away.
Oh God, kiss me, please, just one kiss so I have something to remember…
Oh God…
He blinked then and refocused his attention on Cider, rubbing her neck. He answered me with, “No, we’ll ride. I’ll saddle up Cider for you. She’s a little calmer than Buck, even though she’s younger.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“You ready to ride?” he asked, low and soft.
Oh, if only you knew…if only I could tell you how I feel…what I want…
I nodded again and he pushed off from the fence with both hands. I followed him into the barn, not about to waste a moment in his presence; he clicked a couple of bare, overhead bulbs into life and I turned in a slow circle, admiring the space. It was large and cavernous, with a full loft loaded with bales of hay. I heard a muted clucking coming from somewhere beyond the stalls, one of wh
ich was occupied by Buck, crunching loudly on something as he intermittently stomped his back hooves.
“Can I see the chickens?” I asked excitedly, and Case, who was lifting a saddle from its holder, grinned and shook his head, teasing me.
“You really are a city girl, aren’t you?” he said.
I felt an uncomfortable twinge at those words, deep inside, but said brightly, “It’s not every day you get to see where eggs come from, firsthand.”
“They’re back here,” Case told me, leading the way. “I made them what amounts to a chicken coop.”
I followed close behind, studying the slope of his shoulders, taut now as he continued to carry the saddle, the way his red-gold hair caught the light, how the bottom edge, at the center of his neck, was shaped into a comma. The way his jeans fit just so; I was gazing at his back pockets when he stopped abruptly and I plowed into the back of him, putting my hands up to catch myself against his back.
Hard, warm, solid muscle beneath my hands, though I snatched them away as if I had just touched the surface of a stove. Case looked over his shoulder at me, shifting his grip on the saddle, but I had already composed my face into a look of polite interest, hands safely at my sides. He said, “There they are.”
“Do you have a rooster?” I asked, truthfully fascinated by all these animals. The hens were roosting in an enclosure surrounded by chicken wire, their feathers a combination of soft gold and black.
“No, just these three,” he said.
“Can you get eggs then?” I asked.
He snorted a laugh and I felt my face heat up a thousand degrees. He said, “Just not fertilized ones.”
I laughed then too, rolling my eyes at myself, embarrassed to meet his gaze. He laughed even harder, teasing, “Didn’t you take biology in school?”
The First Law of Love Page 20