-Charles M. Russell
Mmmm. That smell. I know that smell. I’m just drifting into consciousness when my senses pick up the scent of ambrosia. Coffee. Give me! I must have coffee now! I reach out blindly with my eyes still closed. My hands close around air, but that won’t stop me. I search around some more and end up slapping warm rough skin. God damn it! This is not coffee!
“It would probably help to open your eyes.” The familiar sarcastic humor is definitely not welcome at this moment. No matter how sexy the voice is.
“Give it to me.”
“I’m sorry, did you say, ‘Shiv him do bee?’”
I push my face up off of the pillow and glare at him through my hair. “Do you have a death wish, Thomas?”
Drake chuckles and lifts the mug in the air right by my face and swirls it around in circles. “If you want this, you better sit up like a good girl.”
“Good girl my patutee; you coffee depriving jackass.” I mumble as I sit up.
“I didn’t deprive you of anything,” Drake says as he hands me the cup of steamy goodness. “I made it this morning hoping to avoid your particular brand of morning cheer.”
I ignore his rude comment and take a large gulp, closing my eyes to savor the warmth as it spreads through my body. After two more healthy swallows, the sleep fog clears and I squint over at Drake.
“What are you doing here anyway? You usually pull a Houdini as soon as I fall asleep.”
Drake seems to think about his answer, pulling his cap off to run his fingers through his hair before putting the cap back on. He readjusts the brim several times before he seems to realize what he’s doing.
“I did leave. I came back this morning. The weather is pretty calm right now, so I thought I’d go for a ride.” He says.
“And this required waking me up, why?”
“You know, I’ve never met a country girl who hated getting up early. Didn’t your parents make you get up early for chores when you were little?”
“Why do you think I’m so addicted to coffee? I’ve been drinking it since I was ten.”
Drake chuckles and stands. “Well if you want to join me you better get going. I leave in fifteen with or without you.”
It takes me exactly twelve minutes to gulp down another cup of coffee, brush my teeth, pull my hair up and get dressed. I get outside and walk over to the hitching post, and Drake is leaning against Ruger with his hat pulled down. Standing next to them is Taz, who is already fully brushed and saddled. It seems I was a foregone conclusion.
“What made you think I’d come?” I ask.
Drake’s head snaps up as though he had no idea I was here; which is curious since I had to walk over several yards of snow and rocks to get here. His eyes are totally black beneath the shadow of his hat. He stares into me for several seconds and the sensation is totally unnerving. His face is always so guarded, I usually can’t tell what he’s thinking like with most men. This time there’s a distinct emotion in his gaze I can’t decipher. Before I can think on it further, he pushes up to full height and grabs Ruger’s reins and swings up into a perfect mount.
“You can’t resist this anymore than I can,” he says as I walk over to Taz and push up into the saddle.
“This?” I ask
“Riding,” he says, far too loudly, as though he’s driving the point home, and then gives Ruger one gentle kick and takes off at a trot towards the pasture hills.
We take off galloping through the brush and snow covered crests, with nothing except the sky above us and the earth around us. Usually this time of year is stormy and windy and freezing. This morning it’s cool and calm and totally peaceful. Winter is definitely my least favorite season, but even I will admit there are few things more beautiful than snow covered pine trees under an orange sunrise.
Drake stops at one of the many water troths we have spread throughout the property and jumps down off of Ruger’s back to stab at the think sheet of ice on top just as she leans down to take a drink. I step down from Taz and lead him over next to Ruger, who stops mid drink to whinny and groan at the other horse. Taz affectionately bumps his head into her neck and then leans down to drink from the water.
“Those two are hilarious. It’s like their long lost lovers or something,” I say giggling at the horsey affection.
Drake chuckles and runs his hand down Ruger’s neck. I unbuckle the saddle bag on Taz’s back and pull two biscuits from inside and walk over to Ruger. I pat her on the neck and hold my hand down where she can see it. Her lips tickle my palm as she very gently takes the treat into her mouth. I comb my fingers through her mane, and feel Drake slip his finger into my other hand to pull the second biscuit from me. I look up and see him walk over to Taz and copy my movements almost exactly. It hits me then how alike Taz and Drake are; both dark, strong, loyal, and just a little bit wild.
Drake notices me staring at him with a big goofy grin on my face and he raises his eyebrow in question. “My horse looks like you!” I say laughing. He glances down at Taz and smiles slightly.
“Yea you’re right we…” Drake trails off and his eyes widen as he glances back up. “Fuck.”
“Fuck, what?” I ask.
“Lola, look at Ruger,” he says.
I look down and Ruger is still slurping happily at the water. “What?”
“She’s blonde,” he says with a small smirk on his face. I look back down at her and smile, noting how close our colorings are.
“Wow! I never noticed that before. How crazy is that?!”
Drake takes the reins from me and points over to a tree a few yards away. “Let’s go sit down, I brought some food.” He starts to walk away from me then pauses and turns, “She has blue eyes too,” he adds. I grab the reins of my black eyed, black haired horse and follow him, smiling the whole way.
We tie up the horses loosely, next to each other of course, and eat our sandwiches as we watch the two lovebirds canoodle. The scene has me remembering something my dad had said about Drake not having anyone to help him with Ruger and all the same questions I had then come rushing back.
“Drake, can I ask you something about your parents?” I ask.
Drake stops mid chew and takes a drink of water. “You can always ask.”
“What happened with your dad? I just keep getting the impression you had a hard childhood.”
“What gave you that impression?” I shrug and wait for him to answer my previous question. He sets the rest of his sandwich down and takes another swig of water. “Do you want the condensed version, or all the gory details?” He asks.
“Well, we’ve got time, might as well start at the beginning.” I inch closer to him and steal a drink of his water and wait for him to finish his last bite.
“It’s your typical girl gets pregnant too young and guy wasn’t ready for it tale actually.” He starts out, staring into space. “My father loved the rodeo, and was on his way to going pro when my mother got pregnant with me. It was young love and I think at the time, he really did want to do right by my mom, so he quit the rodeo, got a job selling vacuums and married her.”
“It’s not the prettiest story, but it’s still romantic.” I say. “He must have really loved her.”
Drake laughs and finally looks over at me. “Yea, well love doesn’t always last. Eventually, once the newness wore off, and the optimism faded my father began to realize all that he gave up. I guess what he gained didn’t measure up; I mean what’s a son and wife compared to fame and glory in the arena.” He laughs again, and I find myself scooting even closer.
“He began to resent my mother. At first it would just be a night or two every week where he would get drunk and say some pretty rotten things to her. After a while it escalated. He stopped going to work and stayed drunk. My mother tried to pick up late night shifts at the diner, but she had a son to raise and no help. Then one day, when I was nine years old my mom started wearing sunglasses in the house. I didn’t understand why at the time. That didn’t last long.�
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At some point during his story I had moved right up against him. He pulls his hat down from his head and I grab his hand before he can run it through his hair. I replace it with my own and finger the thick strands. Drake’s eyes are locked on my face and I just sit there and let him gather his thoughts for a few minutes. When I feel the tension slowly ebb from his body, I bring my hand back down and rest it on his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry you’re mother had to go through that, but I’m even more sorry for that little boy who had to watch it all happen.” I say as gently as I can.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, Delilah Thomas was a strong woman given the circumstances. She bore the brunt of it for me, when she could anyways.”
Instantly my sorrow turns to white hot anger at what his words imply. “He hit you too?” I grit out through my teeth.
“I was a big kid, it wasn’t too bad. I think the words were worse actually,” he says. I feel his thumb brush against my palm and I lean forward to press a kiss to his head.
“That’s because he was your dad, and you loved him.” I barely get the words out because Drake pulls away from me so fiercely.
“No. I hated my father! You have no idea the kind of hell he put me through. You have no idea what I did…”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Drake. You were a little boy! Of course you loved your father, all children do. It’s not something you can help.”
Drake jumps to his feet causing me to tumble back and I catch myself on my arms looking up at one angry cowboy.
“I. Did. Not. Love him!” He grits out slowly. He’s leaning over me with his fists bunched at his sides and his face is only inches from mine. He then shakes his head and his eyes widen. “Lola…I…”
“Drake, you didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t your fault. You were so young,” I say softly. I’m not sure why but I know this is what he needs to hear.
He takes a deep breath and opens his mouth to speak, and then closes it. I can tell he’s having a hard time, and I just want to take away the pain of that little boy, so I pull him closer and seal my lips to his. Hoping I give him at least a little comfort.
CHAPTER 10
"Courage is being scared to death - and saddling up anyway."
-John Wayne
“Do you really think he’ll like it?” Nina asks fiddling with the little jeweler’s bag.
“For the love of… Yes, he’ll like it. Jeez, Nins, you could probably give him anything and he’d like it. That man has it bad.”
All of a sudden Nina bursts out laughing. Before I can ask her what her malfunction is, she grabs my hand and drags me into the sports store. She pulls me past the gym equipment and golf section to the back of the store. When I finally realize her destination I burst out laughing right along with her. Hung up on the wall is an electronic talking dart board.
“I’ll never forget his face when he unwrapped that stupid thing,” Nina says, shaking her head. She walks over and grabs the darts from the board and hands me the red ones. Of course she picked the blue for herself.
“What in the hell were you thinking when you bought that thing anyway?” I ask her, trying to ignore the burn in my chest.
“I was ten!” She shouts, aiming up her first dart and letting it fly. It lands sharply in the green part of the twenty. No doubt that’s exactly where she was aiming. “It was better than a stuffed animal.”
“If I remember correctly your mom tried to talk you out of it.”
“Yea, but I wouldn’t budge. I thought it would be the coolest thing ever. I mean, what kind of guy doesn’t want a dart board.”
I line up my shot and let the dart fly. It lands perfectly in the center of the bullseye. While Nina is methodical in her approach, starting with twenty and working her way down, I’ve always been a little more balls to the wall. Get the hard shot out of the way first. “A spoiled fifteen year old boy who thinks of nothing except being the best at everything. Even at that age he didn’t give a shit about anything but taking over the business and he didn’t care who he had to step on to get there.”
I toss out the last dart and it barely misses its mark. I can see Nina out of the corner of my eye, toying with her darts while I pull mine from the board. I turn without looking at her and wait for her to take her spot. She tosses out the first dart, and closes out the nineteen. “You know I had a crush on him right?” She asks before lining up her next shot. “It only lasted that one year…” Eighteen is closed.
“Of course I knew, though I had no idea why.” Nina drops her hand before throwing the dart and turns to face me.
“Lola, you have got to stop that!” She shouts at me. I ignore her and stare just over her shoulder. “He was fifteen that Christmas! A fifteen year old boy who wants to be just like his parents is normal. Nathan might have gone down the wrong path later on in life, but stop making him out to be this evil demon spawn at birth. He was your brother and you loved him.”
I finally make eye contact with her, and I can’t help the anger bubbling to the surface. “How can you say that? You know what he did to that poor girl! You saw the pictures! What do you call that if not evil?”
Nina sighs and turns towards the dart board and chucks her last dart. Bullseye. “What Nathan did is wrong, Lo, of course I know that. It still doesn’t change who he is to you; who he was. I’m not asking you to forgive him, but it’s time you deal with the fact you still have a brother.”
“I don’t want to play anymore.” I toss my darts on the ground and practically sprint towards the doors. I hear Nina’s boots clicking behind me at a normal pace as I walk towards the circle of benches in the middle of the shopping mall. I sit down on one of them and Nina sits behind me so we’re back to back. Leave it to Nina to know I couldn’t look her in the eye for this. So much for being the strong one.
“Do you remember how mad I was at my parents when they died, Mom in particular?” She asks softly.
“Yes, I remember. And you had a right to.” I never expected her to bring up her parents right now. It’s one of her black listed talking subjects. It seems a lot has changed since I’ve been off in Drake Thomas land.
“Do you remember what you told me at their funeral? I was standing at the grave, and I had daisies, because Mom hated roses, and it’s always what my dad used to get her when she was mad at him.” Nina laughs, and the sound is almost wistful, not hallow like I expected. “I thought I would be honoring her and making up for what my dad did at the same time. Anyway, I was standing there and I just couldn’t bring myself to put them on their grave. I don’t remember if I told you why, but you understood either way. I didn’t want them to think it was okay, or that I forgave them. Man, it sounds so awful, but I didn’t think they deserved it. I was just so angry. You walked over to me grabbed the flowers out of my hand and said, “its okay to be mad at them, Nina, how they left you was wrong. Just don’t forget how they lived. It’s not selfish to be mad at them, and still hold on to those happy moments.”
I look up at the lights in the ceiling to keep the tears that are gathering from falling. “It’s not the same thing, Nins.”
“Why not? Who classifies which wrongs are worse than others? What your brother did was horrible in every way. Same for my parents; my mother chose to abandon her daughter just as my father chose to cheat. I’ve only just begun to understand and forgive them.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive him, and neither will my parents,” I say woodenly.
“You don’t have to forgive him, but pretending he doesn’t exist isn’t helping you to move on. You need closure, Lo.”
A part of me knows she’s right, but I’m not ready to acknowledge it yet. There’s too much baggage that comes with that. So I do what I do best, I deflect. “Yea, well, it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to hide it for very long anymore anyway. My mother dearest decided she doesn’t care who knows about the Chase’s delinquent son.”
“What do you mean?”
“
I mean, she blurted out that his sentence was up next month without even blinking right in front of Drake the other day at dinner!”
“No way! That doesn’t sound like Caroline.”
“No shit. She and my dad have both been acting strange as hell lately.”
“Do you think it has something to do with Nathan?”
“I don’t know. I wish it were that simple. I get this feeling it’s more about Drake as weird as that sounds.”
“Well, maybe it’s a sign…”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Nins. I’ll just have to talk to her.” I cringe as I say it, knowing it’s not going to be a pleasant conversation.
“Do you think they’ll ever see him again?” Nina asks.
“I don’t know. I doubt it. It’s hard enough to get them to talk about him.”
“Well, time’s almost up.”
She’s definitely right about that, and I don’t have anything further to say on the subject, so I don’t even try. Instead, I stand up and walk around to stand in front of my best friend. I reach out my hand pull her to her feet a little harder than necessary. “Alright, let’s get you home. We have to make sure everything is perfect for your date tomorrow. You need to look absolutely perfect!”
Nina giggles and I drag her over to the window of the only trendy store we have in our mall. Sitting in the window is a manikin sporting a colorful full length skirt and a white t-shirt tied at the belly. On the shirt is a picture of a lobster and a school of fish, with the words “Fish Aren’t Food” emblazoned across the top.
“Um, they know they are in Wyoming right?” Nina laughs and pulls me away from the window. “Besides, I already have my outfit planned out. I’m going to wear the same outfit I wore on our first date.”
“Bravo! Good choice, girl. Especially since I’m the one who picked it out the first time; you definitely can’t go wrong with that.”
“So modest.”
We both laugh and head towards the parking lot. As soon as we push past the double doors, a man in a baseball cap and a red pullover approaches us with some tickets in his hand. “Would you ladies like to go see a movie tonight? Captured is playing tonight and it’s supposedly the best film of the season.” He says holding a fan of paper strips in front of us.
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