The Place I Belong

by Inez Kelley

  Jonah jerked upright. “Jesus, you act like we’re going to pour concrete over the entire fucking lot. We’re not monsters.”

  But he was. Or at least his company was to her. They were her own personal boogey men, lying in wait to devour everything she held sacred. When the Canyon land sale had been made public, her heart had cracked painfully before sinking low in her gut. All that night, she’d racked her brain, searching for some last hope.

  She’d spent days contacting environmental protection groups. The better-known organizations such as Earth First, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace had all either ignored her or politely refused to become involved. Hawkins Hardwood had a good reputation with them as forest stewards, protectors of the land. Bullshit. They were going to destroy her Canyon. She’d felt so alone.

  But she hadn’t given up. There were other groups, smaller ones, with names like the Green Wave, Friends of Gaia, the Terran Guards and Clean & Free. She contacted as many as she could find with her web browser’s help. The Green Wave had directed her to an even smaller nature club based in Wheeling called Earth Lines, who’d staged this weekend’s protest rally. It was the best she could do for now.

  Fear, frustration and fury propelled her off the porch. Before she could take another step, he was on his feet and reaching for her arm.

  “Zury, wait.” He blew out a long, low breath. “I’m sorry. I believe in what Hawkins stands for and I get...irritated when I hear anyone spouting false facts about forestry.”

  “False facts?” She jerked her arm from his hand. “Tell me that a year from now, the view from the top of the Falls won’t change. Tell me that the landscape will be the same. Tell me how neat and clean logging is.”

  The only sound was the crickets hidden in the grass.

  “You can’t.” The utter calm in her voice carried a damning judgment. “Those are the facts I know, Jonah.”

  His jaw wobbled as if he chewed on words he wasn’t saying.

  She shook her head, suddenly tired of the argument. “And we’re back to square one.”

  “No.” The moonlight bathed him, catching on his hair and shimmering like glass. “We’re here, together. That’s more than square one, it’s a step forward. I swear I’ll listen to you with an open mind if you can do the same. Maybe we’ll never see eye to eye but I’m willing to bend a little if you are.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Bend how?”

  “Don’t know yet. But the not knowing keeps things interesting.” A wicked light flared in his eyes. “I am nothing if not interesting.”

  She snorted. “Interesting, annoying, they’re both adjectives. I’m going to bed. It’s been a long week.”

  “I’m going to stay out here awhile, brainstorm on some ways to change your opinions.” He settled back on the stoop with a cockiness that was so blatant it was amusing.

  “Brainstorm quietly.” She climbed the two steps beside him and went inside.

  Before the screen door swung closed, he called out, “You could be a good little hostess and bring me a beer.”

  “I could also poke holes in your air mattress.”

  His laugh followed her into the shower and she found herself smiling for no reason whatsoever. The utilitarian shower was small and she took perverse pleasure trying to imagine Jonah squeezing into the tight confines. The image turn erotic, thoughts of frothy soap sliding down his bare back, over a taut ass and across hardened thighs, flushing her body in ways no hot water could. The response surprised her. Scolding herself, she finished washing while deliberately thinking about nothing sexier than trimming her toenails.

  She settled into bed and waited for sleep to come, but it eluded her, chased away by listening for any sound he might make. For over an hour she curled under the blanket and heard nothing. Then a loose board on the porch creaked and she feigned sleep.

  Jonah tiptoed into the room as she watched through lowered lashes. The only light came from the pale moon glow streaming in the windows. He kicked off his boots with a soft thump. Every line in his frame froze. The sound of crickets and her own heartbeat seemed overly loud, seeping into the forced stillness. He glanced over the couch toward the bed and she didn’t move, unwilling to let him know she was awake.

  Satisfied he hadn’t woken her, he reached for his fly. Zury held her breath as he pushed the tight jeans over his hips and down his legs. She abandoned all pretense of faking sleep as her eyes widened. His boxers were dark, maybe black or navy, but they had lipstick prints all over them. Her chest shook with her swallowed laughter.

  He scratched his stomach, then tugged the T-shirt over his head, tossing it on the couch before he turned toward the bathroom. Laughter died in her throat. Somehow the silvery moonbeams danced across his back in a weird way, sculpting the muscles into a play of shadow and light. High on his back, just under his right shoulder blade, she could have sworn she read the word sin. It wasn’t dark like a tattoo or clearly defined like a burn, but more like a carving that had almost healed and obliterated the word.

  Then he moved and the moonlight shifted, erasing it. Zury burrowed into the pillow, wondering if her eyes were playing tricks or if Jonah Alcott really did have sin imprinted onto his body.

  Chapter Three

  Founded in 1877, the Fresh Air Fund has provided free summer experiences in the country to more than 1.7 million New York City children. Thousands of children visit volunteer host families in 13 states from Virginia to Maine.

  The basement was gloomy but Eric Redbear had plastered the concrete block walls with posters in an attempt to cheer up the place. An apple crunched between his teeth as he hunched over the keyboard, enamored by the pristine spread of green mountains and the sparkling shimmer of the Black Cherry Falls.

  Outside, the Oregon rain pelted the window in a rat-a-tat-tat rhythm that mimicked applause in his mind. The Northwest was where he felt most comfortable, where he knew the laws and the lumber companies, as well as every other Earth-raping business that was destroying the planet. But this strange view from the east seemed like the mythical Eden to him.

  “Almost heaven,” he whispered.

  Sucking the last of the pulp from the seeded core, he pecked out a command and his printer stared whirring. As pages filled the tray, he tossed the spindly apple remains in the trash. Above the can, an old poster hung, a bit faded but still poignant. The landfill was massive, full of needless waste and consumerist excess. Atop the filth, a child hunched, tears coursing down his cheeks. The caption read Our Children’s Future Playground.

  It was his finest work, in his opinion. The Green Wave had thought so as well. A small ecologic protection branch affiliated with many of the big groups, they’d welcomed his artistic input for a while. Bitterness rolled in his belly. They’d been a bunch of mouthy, lazy wannabes. Sure, they wanted to save the Earth but weren’t prepared to do what was necessary. They wanted to concentrate on laws and regulations and injunctions and other time-wasting bullshit. Tired of talk, he’d broken away and formed his own group. With his newly created Terran Guards, he’d taken matters into his own hands.

  On one level, he regretted that those two men had died, but mostly they’d deserved it. If they hadn’t been cutting down ancient living trees to make flimsy-assed toothpicks and toilet paper, they would still be alive. It wasn’t his fault. Their own greed had killed them. He stood on the side of moral right. Justice didn’t always mean legal.

  He was good. Rumors floated but no one could prove his Terran Guards had driven those spikes into the tree trunks. But instead of praising him, the more mainstream groups shunned him. Now he was blacklisted and cut off from most of the conservation community.

  At first, the Terran Guards had attracted many young, energetic nature-lovers like himself. They’d proudly chained themselves to the gates of fertilizer factories and marched with signs held h
igh in front of the meat-packaging plants. But then they balked, refusing to follow through with the methods he deemed necessary to stop the barbarians before they polluted every inch of the globe. He’d had to throw the liquid shit and bloody carcasses into the parking lot himself, pour metal ball-bearings into the machinery and set fire to the mounds of cow-manure.

  Now only a few loyal followers remained. Most of them were drones who lacked vision, lacked the brains to figure their way out of a room with one door. But they were warm bodies and that was really all he needed.

  “Eric, did you pick up your vitamins?”

  “Yeah, Mom, I got them,” he called up the stairs, then checked the time and reached for the brown bottle, downing two tablets with a sip of recycled rainwater. He hated living at home, reduced to staying in his parents’ basement apartment at twenty-seven. At one time he’d had a life. An apartment. A girlfriend. A job. A dead-end job.

  He snorted at the ironic turn of phrase. Working at the local chemical factory had been a dead-end job in more ways than one. One experimental chemical spill was all it had taken to make him a relatively rich man. It left him free to do his real work, whatever he had to in order to stop the senseless exploitation of the land.

  “Have you eaten today?”

  Gritting his teeth, he counted to twenty. “I ate.”

  “Do you want some lunch? I made chicken noodle soup.”

  He rubbed his eyes, swallowing his irritation. His mother treated him like he was four. He hadn’t eaten animal flesh since he was a teenager, and had become a vegan ten years ago. The very thought of a pot of dead tissue and fat surrounding preservative-filled noodles and chemically treated carrots turned his stomach.

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  Her footsteps faded as she went back to the kitchen. She loved him, he knew, but she smothered him at times. When he’d gotten the bloodwork back, she’d begged him to move home. He’d caved, although he wasn’t sure why. Guilt, maybe, he wasn’t sure. He’d traded in his freedom and his privacy for clean laundry and rent-free living. She could barely look at him without tears as his muscles turned limp and stringy and his skin sallowed. The weaker his body became, the more his determination grew.

  Using Google maps and an old hardbound encyclopedia from 1974, he pinpointed Black Cherry Canyon. Once he’d read everything he could find on the Canyon, he switched his focus to the criminals who wanted to destroy it, Hawkins Hardwood. Their website was classic and informative but he bypassed all the awards and commendations for forest stewardship and environmental actions.

  Anyone with any brains knew that lumber companies were some of the biggest liars. In his book, they ranked right up there with chemical manufactures, oil companies and sweatshop owners. They had politicians in their pockets, bought and paid for with campaign donations to guarantee their evil schemes were covered up and protected.

  Pain radiated through his leg and he massaged it, pressing hard on the wasting thigh muscles. He knew he was dying and it no longer bothered him. Whatever that weird-smelling liquid had been that spilled down his back, it had seeped into his skin, sunk into his bones and festered there. The doctors had wanted to pump his body full of poisons but he’d refused, instead focusing on a nutrient-rich treatment plan, praying that clean living would save him. The cancer slowed but still spread.

  It had cleared his mind, freeing him from so many rigid morality issues. Human life was so transient, so pathetically short. It really didn’t matter. But nature? That lived on, growing, aging, changing for eons. That was what deserved protection. Not sniveling, whiney, gimme-gimme-gimme humans.

  The day stretched long but Eric was driven. This was golden. He’d do everything he could to answer Ms. Castellano’s cry for help. If he could halt this tragedy, the big ones would have to give him the respect he deserved. The Terran Guards would rank right beside the Sierra Club and Greenpeace. He’d be an activist hero, even if it was posthumously.

  The ache in his bones throbbed and he dug into the desk for a plastic bag of pot. A packet of new rolling papers brought a bittersweet smile to his face. His mom had bought them and tucked them in his drawer. His parents used to bitch when he’d toke but not anymore. Now, they understood it was the only thing that eased the pain. Even the few times he’d caved and let them take him to the ER, the manufactured painkillers only upset his stomach and knocked him out. Eventually they left the decision and homeopathic treatments to him. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d be around too much longer.

  He started to order a book on West Virginia environmental law, then realized there wasn’t much he had to worry about. Legal punishment took time and that was something he simply didn’t have for them to take. There was no penalty any authority could impose on him that was worse than the hand he’d been accidentally dealt. Fines? Worth every penny. Jail time? Whatever. They could try. He’d be long dead before it came to that. The knowledge was moral liberation.

  Black Cherry Canyon. Despite the soothing smoke filling his lungs, excitement made his fingers shake. This was going to be his shining moment, his living legacy. It would long outlive him.

  * * *

  The tantalizing aroma of bacon pulled her from the haze of sleep. The scent of coffee followed. Her fragmented mind slowly pieced together. Jonah...cabin...coffee...morning... Zury stretched, pushing the blankets away. Never a morning person, the intoxicating thought of ready-made caffeine lured her upright. The sun was too bright, too sharp to open her eyes fully, so she stumbled from the bed half-blind and headed toward the bathroom. She was only slightly more aware when she came back out.

  Jonah was barefoot and stood turning the frying bacon with a fork. “Morning, sunshine.”

  Something resembling Spanglish tumbled out of her mouth but she wasn’t awake enough to decipher her own words. Grabbing a cup, she reached for the coffeepot.

  “That’s mine.”

  Zury stiffened. “What?”

  “The coffee. It’s mine. Make your own.” He piled crisp bacon on a paper towel-covered plate before lifting his mug to his mouth, taking a long sip. “Of course, I’m only on my first cup and the pot holds eight, so you might be waiting awhile.”

  Her brain sizzled louder than the fresh bacon he lined in the skillet. “No jury in the world would convict me if I kicked your ass from here to Havana right now.”

  “I might be willing to share my already-brewed coffee and bacon if you share your eggs.” A twitch along his lip hinted at his restrained laughter.

  She was pouring the coffee before he finished speaking. “Take the eggs—just don’t ever get in the way of my morning coffee again.”

  “Deal.” He retrieved the egg carton from the fridge. “I’ll even cook them. Scrambled or fried?”

  “Why are you being so nice?”

  “Fine, forget it. Fix your own damn eggs.”

  “Jeez, bitchy much? Scrambled is fine.”

  The coffee was strong, just as she liked it. Curling her feet up under her, she sat at the table and let the caffeine do its magic. Jonah looked at ease as he fluffed cooking eggs and dropped bread slices in the toaster. He even replenished both their mugs before sliding a plate in front of her.

  “Smells great, Slick. You’d make someone a great wife.”

  “Sorry, darlin’, I have a headache.” Pulling out the chair, he plopped his own plate down. “You snore.”

  “I do not.”

  He buttered his toast. “All. Night. Long. It was like sleeping in a wind tunnel.”

  “You can trot your tight ass home anytime you like. I won’t be the least bit offended.”

  A wolfish grin curled his lip. “You checked out my ass?”

  “Nice lip prints,” she scoffed.

  His laugh echoed in the small room. It should have irritated her but she found it infectious and, damn him, sexy. “They were a
gift, and I’m behind on laundry.”

  Crisp morning mountain air sharpened her appetite and she dug into her plate. The eggs were fluffy and firm and paired perfectly with the salty bacon. Combined with the fact she hadn’t had to cook, her mood was almost buoyant. “So what’re your plans to change my mind today?”

  Jonah chewed carefully. “Still trying to figure that out. I’d like to see some of your favorite spots out here, though.”

  “Sure.”

  Since Jonah had cooked, Zury volunteered to clean up. Behind her, he hummed while deflating his mattress and straightening the living room area. She soaped the dishes and fought the surge of domesticity festering in her belly. This felt like playing house.

  Jonah was a decent guy. He didn’t ignore the housework duties simply because he was a man. Despite their opposite opinions, he treated her with respect, claimed he was willing to hear her out. Something about seeing him in a casual setting defused some of her animosity, and sparring with him was almost fun.

  She had to struggle to remember he was the enemy.

  * * *

  Heat had a scent in the forest. Jonah closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath and letting the sun-baked fragrance fill his lungs. The wind from the mountaintop skated along his skin like a cool breath. Sweat stuck his T-shirt to his back but it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. It made him feel alive and invigorated. A whiff of sunscreen turned his head.

  Zury’s ebony hair was shorter than his, exposing her nape to the sun’s glare. Her top was orange, a color not many women could pull off, but she did with ease. It played off her honey-shaded skin like a flame on gold. A splattering of freckles on her upper chest were just visible above the scoop neckline. A bit of green hid underneath, the edge of a tattoo on her upper breast he couldn’t figure out. It piqued his curiosity until the urge to peel back the material clouded his mind.

  Her shorts were denim, longer than was fashionable but well-suited to hiking. They had huge pockets that she would tuck the odd stray rock into when she thought he wasn’t looking. And that was a problem, because he found himself looking a lot. Raising his Canon camera to his eye, he clicked the shutter, catching a sunbeam embracing her like a halo.