by Linko, Gina
“Well, hello,” I said quietly.
It was a beautiful white horse, looking majestic and a bit surreal against the frozen white of the ground and the twinkling of the snowy evergreen branches.
I clicked my tongue toward the animal, approached him slowly, my hands out. I was not familiar with horses. Did they sniff your hand like dogs? I didn’t know. But the horse took a step closer. So I did too. I figured this one must have gotten away from the nearby stables. He was beautifully groomed, well fed, completely clean.
After we spent a few moments dancing around each other, the horse let me get close enough to pet him, to touch his velvety nose, stroke his gorgeous and freshly brushed mane.
“Someone must be sick with worry over you,” I told him, and grabbed the bridle and led him toward the path. He nuzzled next to me, his nose right against my neck. But when I moved ahead on the path, he didn’t follow. My mind flashed to a movie about horses I had seen with Gia when we were younger. In it, a horse followed a little boy around for peppermints. I remembered the lemon drops in my pocket and decided to give it a try.
“You can have these if you let me take you home,” I told him. I held the lemon drops out in my open palm a few feet in front of his nose, and sure enough, he followed me onto the path.
“Okay,” I told him as we took a few steps in the right direction. I let him have one of the candies, and he whinnied slightly in thanks.
“Mr. Winging will be glad to see you.” We walked quietly through the woods, and darkness slowly leaked in around us. I considered going back to the cabin for a flashlight, but I decided against it, just picking up our pace a bit.
The horse whinnied twice as the light faded in the sky, my insides slippery. Stay calm, I told myself. All I needed was to loop out here with the horse.
The woods were silent. I told myself everything was fine, not to worry, I knew where I was going.
It only took five or ten minutes to get the horse back to Winging Stables, but when I saw the floodlights from the outdoor round pen, I was relieved. I opened my palm and gave the horse another lemon drop.
As we emerged from the pathway by the creek, I noticed the flurries of the afternoon had left the farm and all its buildings covered in a soft, cottony pillow of snow. I looked around at the many outbuildings. This was quite an operation here, six buildings in all. I scanned the place and found a swirl of smoke coming from the porch of the old Victorian farmhouse.
We took a few steps toward the farmhouse, and I realized it was Jimmy Winging, smoking his pipe. He raised his arms high in greeting and surprise.
“I found him just out by the lake, by the cabin,” I explained. Jimmy jogged toward us, the sweet smell of his pipe smoke filling the air.
“Ghost! What were you doing out there!” Jimmy grumbled at the horse, taking the bridle from me. “He does this once in a while,” he explained, talking around his pipe. “Thank you, young lady. Thank you.”
“No problem,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets.
Mr. Winging led the horse back toward the round barn. I waited there for a second, in front of the house, unsure if I was ready to trek back through the woods in the dark. I quickly decided I would wait for Mr. Winging to return and ask to borrow a flashlight.
He appeared from the barn in less than a minute, and I waved at him. “I was wondering—”
“Want some dinner?” He cut me off, beckoning me over to the house. “Jeannette would love it if you would, eh?”
“Um.” I considered. “I don’t think so. But I would like a flashlight.”
“Nonsense,” he said, shaking his head, his silver ponytail wagging. “I’ll take you back. I really appreciate you finding Ghost.”
“No, sir. I don’t want to be a bother. I—”
But I was following him even before I could finish protesting. Mr. Winging led me up to the front porch, and I could hear voices laughing in the kitchen, children talking. It heartened me, in a way that I wasn’t used to.
“Go on,” Mr. Winging said, motioning for me to go ahead of him. I put my hand on the screen door then, and in that second, someone—a small blond boy—came slamming through the door from the other side.
“Daddy!” he yelled excitedly. The door swung with a mighty force, and I wasn’t expecting it. It thumped me hard, square in the nose. It sent a sharp, stinging pain right into my head. My hands instantly flew up to my face.
There was blood. Lots of blood.
“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Mr. Winging yelled. “Cody, you knucklehead. Jeannette!” he called. “Can you bring us a dishrag?”
Jeannette appeared and shoved a kitchen towel into my hands, and I held my head back, hoping the bleeding would stop. Blood was everywhere, thick red streams on my hands, my shirt.
“I’m sowwy,” I heard myself saying.
“Sit down, sit down,” Jeannette said, pulling me into the house, into the front hallway. “Emery, put your head forward,” she said, pushing me onto a bench. “You don’t want the blood to go down your throat.”
I was instantly surrounded by the whole family, several children, all eyes and chatter.
“Okay,” I said. This was not a big deal. I was not squeamish about blood. I could handle this. “I’m fine,” I told them.
“Should we take her to the Quick Clinic?” Jeannette asked.
“I don’t think so, Jeannette,” Jimmy said. “It’s just a bloody nose.”
“But, Jimmy, she’s so pale, and Cody—”
“No! I’m fine!” I protested. This couldn’t happen. I could not get checked into any doctor’s office, any emergency room, anywhere. Who knew what these new doctors might find and question.…
I got up quickly from the bench then and felt myself get light-headed. I cannot loop. No! But I steadied my breathing and didn’t feel the thrum. I wasn’t going anywhere. No loop. Just a bad blow to the nose. “I can’t go to the doctor,” I said. “I mean, I don’t need to.”
“I don’t know,” Jeannette said.
The front door opened then, and Ash walked in.
“Hello,” he said, his eyes registering my presence, then quickly looking away.
“Great,” I mumbled to myself.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I hit her with the door,” Cody said. “Sorry, girl.” Cody, who couldn’t have been more than four or five, looked up at me then. And he burst into tears.
Ash didn’t hesitate. “Oh, buddy, it was an accident. It happens,” he told him. He swooped the little boy up over his head and began flying him like an airplane.
“It’s okay,” I told Cody, taking the opportunity to show everyone I was fine. I took the towel from my nose and tried to smile, but Jeannette’s hand went quickly to her mouth.
“Oh!” she said.
“Ouch!” said Jeannette’s daughter.
“You may have a black eye or two,” Jimmy said.
“Sir,” Ash said, ignoring me, putting Cody down, giving him a stick of gum from his pocket, then giving another to his brother. “The mare is going to foal soon. I just thought I would let you know before I left.”
“Jeannette, I’ll be in the gray barn,” Mr. Winging said. “Thanks again,” he said to me, tipping his pipe toward me. “And sorry about the nose.”
Jeannette pushed a bit of hair out of my eyes and tucked it behind my ear in a very motherly fashion. She took my elbow. “Now, I’m not going to take no for an answer. Let’s just go to the doctor, make sure it’s not brok—”
“No,” I told her. “I’m fine. I can take care of it.” I tried to pull my arm from her, to extricate myself without being rude.
I saw Ash looking at me then, and I pleaded with him with my eyes. Maybe he could help me.
“Emery’s tough, Jeannette. She’s the one who bandaged this up,” he said, lying for me, pointing to his eyebrow, a butterfly bandage. He reached over then and took Jeannette’s arm gently from my elbow. “If she says she doesn’t need to go, she doesn’t.�
�
He did this all with a smile and an easy charm.
“Oh, well, you sure, Emery?” Jeannette asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “It’s feeling better already.” I bit my lip and nodded at Ash, trying to convey my thanks.
“Well, Ash, why don’t you walk her home—it’s kind of on your way to your place,” Jeannette said. “It’s supposed to storm. You want to take the truck?”
“No, I’m fine. That’s unnecessary,” I said, wanting to get Ash off the hook.
“We can walk,” Ash said, not meeting my gaze. He nodded at Jeannette. “I mean … if it’s okay with you, Emery?”
“That would be great. Thank you,” I said, agreeing quickly, so relieved that I wouldn’t have to face a doctor’s office. I took a deep breath then and hustled myself toward the door.
“Call me if you don’t feel well!” Jeannette hollered to me from the porch.
“Sorry, girl!” Cody called.
“Thank you,” I told Ash, holding the dish towel to my nose again. It was still bleeding, and, boy, was it starting to throb.
“Thank you,” I said again.
“You’re welcome,” he said, but didn’t look at me.
We entered the pathway, and it was nearly pitch black. Night had completely fallen, and I almost asked Ash if we should go back for a flashlight. But I didn’t.
He walked like he was doing a chore, getting something over with. It didn’t seem so scary to be in the woods, in the dark, as long as Ash was with me.
As we walked, side by side, I tried to think of something to say to him that might lighten what was wound tightly between us. But I couldn’t.
He wasn’t talking to me. And he wasn’t looking at me. The other day, after his drawing of me, I had asked him to leave me alone. Told him to leave me alone. He was doing just that.
In the few minutes that passed since we’d left the Wingings’ house, the wind had picked up, and the snow began to fall. The snowflakes came down in fluffy clusters at first, nonthreatening little cottony flakes, but then the wind came charging out of the east, bearing down on both of us. I had to push my legs against it with each step in order to keep myself from being bowled over. I bent my head down and forced my whole body forward, into the gale.
As we trudged against the wind toward the lake, toward the cabin, Ash did turn my way, but the wind made conversation impossible. When a sudden and ridiculously strong gust of wind caught me off guard, Ash reached his gloved hand back toward me, and I grabbed it. He pulled me behind him down the path.
The wind roared into our faces as we rounded off to the right toward the clearing. The force of the wind blew me back unexpectedly. I lost my footing in the snow, and even with Ash’s hand gripping my mittened hand, I fell back onto my butt with a thud, letting out a surprised shout.
Visibility was now at about zero, with the snow seeming to push every which way. The wind was swirling, and I quickly felt disoriented. I immediately understood the dangers in not giving the weather the respect it deserved, especially somewhere like here in the UP. This blizzard was like nothing I had ever experienced. The term whiteout now truly made sense to me.
Ash stepped from the swirling white nothingness into my vision while I struggled to get up from the snowbank, and I saw the tight-lipped expression on his face.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
Ash helped me up with one gloved hand and curled his arm around me, and we hurried against the wind toward the cabin. I fiddled with the keys in the door, felt the click, and the door ripped open against its hinges, with the wind blowing us both into the tiny cabin.
“Just till this dies down,” Ash muttered, stomping his boots on the welcome mat.
I took my coat and boots off and rubbed my hands together. Ash kept his boots and coat on, staring out the west window, the white swirling snow obscuring any kind of view. “It just came up so quick.” His face was tight, annoyed.
“Yeah,” I answered. I walked toward the hearth. I stacked a few pieces of kindling first, then put a Duraflame log on top, feeling a bit city-slickerish in Ash’s presence.
“I can help you—”
“I don’t need help,” I said, sounding more defensive than I’d meant to.
When I looked up, ready to apologize, he had turned toward the window again, his shoulders squared exactly away from me. “I know you can do it on your own,” he said. “You can do everything on your own, I’m sure.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said indignantly.
“Not a thing.”
“I’m not a damsel in distress, you know.”
“I never said you were.”
“Well, you certainly act like it.” I tried my third match, which would still not light, and bit my lip, trying to calm myself down, telling myself not to get mad at him, not to waste my breath.
“Hold the match nearer toward the head.”
Trying to position myself so he wouldn’t see me take his advice, I tried the match once again, holding it closer to the head. Nothing.
“If you—”
“You do it,” I cut him off, throwing the matches at him. “You constantly need to save me—the bat, this fire, camping out there. You know, maybe I might want to figure things out on my own. I might want to do it all myself. I would be just fine if it weren’t for you here, you know.”
“Clearly,” Ash said, picking the matches up off the floor. He very calmly and slowly walked toward the fire then. He rearranged the logs in the fireplace with his jaw set hard. He replaced the Duraflame log with a few logs and kindling from the hearth, crumpled some newspaper, and put it under the grate. Then he selected a match and lit it on the first try, threw it onto the newspaper, a little smirk on his face. The fire immediately began to burn, great big orange flames licking up the sides of the kindling.
Of course.
He turned toward me and crossed his arms on his chest. “You’re stubborn.”
“W-well, you …,” I stammered, “you are smug.” I squinted and folded my arms right back at him.
The wind ripped under the door then, howling and taking us both by surprise. “And don’t just leave now in a big manly huff either,” I said. “It’s too damn windy.”
“Fine,” he said, and he threw his coat over the back of the chair and sat down cross-legged on the hearth, ignoring me.
I walked into the bathroom then and checked out my nose. It was swollen a bit over the bridge, but not as bad as I expected. My face was red and my eyes wide from fighting with Ash, and my hair made me look like a crazy woman.
I walked quietly back into the kitchen after washing my face, shook two ibuprofen from the bottle for my nose, and gulped them down with a glass of water. Ash was lying on his back on the hearth, his cowboy hat over his face, probably pretending to be asleep.
I grabbed my lantern and tiptoed over to the bed, resisting the urge to give Ash a little kick in the ribs as I walked by. I sat cross-legged on the bedspread and stared at him, sprawled out on the floor. There was no way I could relax with him in here with me, the two of us cramped in this tiny space. The sheer size of him was enough reason for me to be uneasy.
I should be scared of him, I thought. I was annoyed, yes. But not scared.
I looked through the few books on the cabin’s tiny bookshelf and selected one, Pride and Prejudice, although I had read it many times.
I settled back onto the bed. The cabin had an orange glow to it now, with a toasty warmth radiating from the ever-so-perfect fire. Had I been caught in this cabin with Mr. Darcy, I would have found it extremely romantic. I let out a laugh at the thought.
“What’s so funny?” Ash asked from beneath his cowboy hat.
“Nothing,” I said. I cleared my throat. “Thank you for helping me out with Jeannette tonight. I really didn’t want to go to the doctor.”
“I could tell.”
There was an unanswered question between us, an expectation that I would explain why. But I didn’t. Couldn’t
.
We sat for a long while in silence, him with his cowboy hat over his face and me reading and rereading the same three sentences, my eyes flitting toward him every few seconds, his large folded hands on his chest, the dirt under his fingernails, the calm rise and fall of his chest.
“I don’t do anything in a manly huff,” he said out of nowhere.
This caught me off guard. I laughed. “Right.”
He turned onto his side, took the hat off his face, and propped himself on his elbow. I watched him, his face in a slight smirk. I expected him to fill the empty space between us with conversation, with something, but he didn’t.
And I didn’t either. We sat together in silence, him watching the fire, me now actually reading, and the snow falling silently outside all around us.
After a long while, he got up, walked to the window. I couldn’t hear the wind anymore. “It’s dying down,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, relieved that he would be leaving the cabin, but surprised that in some small way, I wished he wouldn’t. His company seemed … comfortable.
I watched as the firelight hit his jawline then. His eyes flicked toward me apologetically for just a moment. I saw something there, something familiar again.
Then we both spoke at the same time:
“I’ll leave—”
“I’m sorry,” I said, getting up from the bed and walking toward him.
He took a few steps toward me, closing the space between us, and suddenly I couldn’t find my words, couldn’t remember what it was I had wanted to say. It felt like there was a tether between us now, pulling me closer. He bent down over me and scanned my face. I held my breath. He peered at my nose closely. “It looks okay,” he said.
And in that moment, breathing in his soap-and-hay-and-skin smell, it was hard to remember, to recall all those many dangerous and realistic reasons that I had listed to myself, that I had used to convince myself to stay away from him.
“Come to the cabin for dinner tomorrow, Ash. I have to make this up to you,” I said, before I even knew what I was saying.
He looked away then. “No,” he answered. “I shouldn’t.”
“Please?” I asked. Because I knew in a few seconds he would walk out of this cabin, and the spell between us would be broken, and at this moment, all I wanted, all I needed, was to make sure, make absolutely certain, that this would not be the last time I felt this. The last time I saw him look at me.