True North

by Liora Blake

  “Yeah. My mom. Why don’t you let that sink in for a minute?” He saunters off to the bed and grabs a cronut out of the box. I watch him take a bite and then lick a swath of frosting off the top. God, I’m starving. Now I’ll have to beg for it. Taking tentative steps, I cross the room and stand awkwardly in front of him.

  “Can I have one of those, please? I’m starving.”

  “One of these? These delicious, sugary, decadent little delights?”

  He holds up the glistening pastry so that it’s right in front of my face. I lean forward and try to take a bite. Jerking his hand back, he takes another bite for himself.

  “Say you’re sorry and I’ll consider it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” Licking more frosting off the top, he looks up at me. “Be specific.”

  I roll my shoulders down and sigh. “I’m sorry I assumed you were married. I’m sorry I accused you of cheating. I’m especially sorry I told you to leave and take breakfast with you.”

  “Here’s a question, Kate. What have I done so far that would make you think I’m that kind of an epic asshole?” Now, he won’t look at me. Instead, he stares at the floor and shakes his head slightly.

  “Nothing. I jumped to conclusions. I’m sorry.”

  Tired of waiting for him to offer me something to eat, I crawl on the bed toward the pastry box and reach for the remaining cronut. Just as I nick the frosting, he grabs me and flips me to my back.

  “Oh, no damn way. I didn’t say you could have one. I’m not sure you’ve apologized enough.”

  Straddling me, he brings my hands over my head, both wrists wrapped in one of his strong hands. In his other hand, he takes another bite of the half-eaten pastry, moaning and chewing.

  “These are so fucking good. You can’t imagine how great they taste after a long night of screwing.”

  Shoving the last bite in his mouth, he brings his hand down to me, and some frosting remains on his fingers. I lick it off greedily, tasting a sugary peach glaze that makes me groan. Glaring, I speak through semiclenched teeth.

  “I said I was sorry. Do you really think I wanted to spend the last half hour freaking out and crying in the shower, thinking last night was some kind of gross affair for you?”

  Trevor lets go of my hands and leans back from me.

  “You were crying while I was gone?”

  “Yes.” I turn my head away and stare out the window.

  “Sit up.”

  I push myself up so I can face him and he gently brushes the hair back off my forehead.

  “I don’t like the idea of you crying about me. Even if I didn’t actually do anything wrong.” Placing a single kiss on my forehead, he tips my chin up so that we are squarely looking at each other. “Here’s what you need to understand. As much as my rep might make you think otherwise, I’m not a complete asshole. Let me spell it out. I. Don’t. Cheat. End of story. No wife, no girlfriend, no kids. After my brother died, my mom started raising his daughter, McKenna, so my sister, Devon, and I help her out as much as we can.”

  Great. His brother died and he helps raise his niece. He’s practically a saint and I just accused him of being every kind of jerk possible. Who’s the jerk now? I picture a large neon flashing sign above my head, with an arrow pointing toward me.

  “What happened to your brother? Where is her mom?”

  Dropping his hand from my chin, Trevor looks down and shakes his head.

  “Long story. I’ll tell you about it sometime. Just not yet, OK?” He raises his face again and there is a concentrated pain etched across his features.

  I nod. “OK.”

  “See? You’re not the only one who has to protect herself. I know just as little about you as you do about me. The only difference is I would give you the benefit of the doubt or at least a chance to explain.”

  Watching his face again, I feel worse and worse. I want to rewind the last hour and shout for another take. At this moment, in his eyes I can see a regular man, with a complicated history and a good heart, who seems to like me. Now I’ve wounded him after he gave me four insane orgasms and brought me coffee and breakfast. Way to go, Kate.

  “I’m so sorry. About everything.” Running my hands over his chest, I unbutton his shirt, dropping my gaze to feast on his body again. Drawing my fingers over his skin, I trace gently just above the waistline of his pants. Peering up through my lashes, I give a sultry doe-eyed look and lick my lips. “Now can I please, please, please have one of those damn cronuts?”

  “Holy shit. You’re trying to use sex for a pastry. You must be starving.” Trevor leans over to the white box and draws out the remaining goodie. “Open your pretty little mouth, baby.”

  Finally. Leaning forward, I take a huge bite, not caring one tiny bit if it’s unladylike or not. Dusted in sugar with a lovely peach glaze, the pillowy concoction is damn good. Buttery and tender. I have to force myself to chew the first bite before lunging at Trevor’s fingers for more.

  “Dear God. Oh God.” I swallow and mumble, drawing my fingers over the corners of my mouth to make sure I don’t miss a morsel. Then I open my mouth again, wide. “More.”

  Grinning, he slowly moves the pastry forward and then jerks it back a few inches.

  “Try not to take my fingers off, OK? You look more rabid than Dax when I give him a treat.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t tease wild animals. We get aggressive.”

  I snap forward and take another bite, chewing and groaning a little. When he places the last bite in my mouth, I try to savor it, closing my eyes, and moving my hands to his open shirt. Trevor pushes me back onto the bed and begins to draw his lips down my neck while a rush of endorphins and sugar sends every part of my body into a tailspin.

  13

  At the airport, Trevor parks in a corner of the parking garage and turns to me. Still dressed in his clothes from last night, he looks just as good this morning, albeit a tiny bit rumpled.

  “I’ll walk you in, but if any photographers show up, I’ll bail, OK? I don’t really want them all over this just yet.”

  Gulping, I stare out the windshield. That part, the gossip mill, the pictures, it’s utterly frightening. Yet, after last night, I’m considering that he might be totally worth it.

  “You don’t need to walk me in. Sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. I’m perfectly capable of getting checked in on my own.” I raise my eyebrows and grin. “I’ve done it before. I can even go to the grocery store on my own. And buy liquor. And vote. I’m a total grown-up.”

  Trevor grabs my hand and sweeps his thumb across the knuckles. With his body turned toward mine, he drops his eyes to our hands wrapped together.

  “I’m sure you can take care of yourself.” Without looking up, he adds something softly. “I know there’s probably nothing you would ever need from a guy like me anyway.”

  I stare at the top of his head for a moment and then return to looking out the window. I’m completely unprepared to comfort him on this level and given my track record this morning, it’s probably better if I just keep my mouth shut.

  I make my tone lighter to brighten the mood a little. “I hope your tour goes well, stay safe and all that. Break a leg or whatever.”

  Grumbling, he shifts to look out the windshield and lays his head back against the seat.

  “Once we’re out on the road I’ll get dialed in, but right now it sounds miserable. I can’t seem to get amped about it this time.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Looking down at my phone, I realize that I can’t dillydally any more. “I’ve got to go or I will actually miss my flight.”

  Moving around to open my door, Trevor sighs and follows me to the back of the car where my suitcase is stowed in the back. Lugging it out and setting it down, he shuts the cargo door and stands uneasily in front of me. Trying to break the weirdness, I want to offer something in the way of a closing. Why the first thing that comes to mind is to shake his hand, I don’t know. It�
�s totally ludicrous. Shake his hand? After all of the other parts of him I recently put my hand on?

  “Thanks for the ride and the cronut. Thanks for everything.” I nod my head at him and it feels like the stupidest gesture possible given how we spent the last eighteen hours.

  “Stop talking like it’s the last time we’re going to see each other.” Stepping closer, he wraps his arms around me and buries his face in my hair. “I’ll call you tonight to make sure you got home safe. Then I’ll call you tomorrow to make sure you slept OK, since I won’t be in bed next to you. Don’t think you can escape me, Mosely. After the way you worked me over last night, it’s going to be impossible for me to think about anything else. This ain’t over, not by a long shot.”

  With my face pressing into his neck and shoulder, I grin. “You sound like a stalker, you know that? An unbelievably hot and sexy one but, still, a complete stalker.”

  “I was going more for a pathetic, pussy-whipped kind of thing, but whatever.”

  Then with one last long, tender, hot, sweet, and mind-boggling kiss, he sends me on my way. Swatting my behind teasingly, he tells me last night was only round one. It takes all my strength to stop from turning around, bounding back into his arms, and letting flight 186 to Denver leave without me.

  Coming back home is both comforting and depressing. My bed feels lumpy and cold, but the fresh air fills my lungs in a way that only Montana can. My body accepts the clean air, unyielding and restorative, as my lungs work to filter out all the smog of LA. The only thing it doesn’t clear out is Trevor. Sitting on my skin, buried in my brain, and hovering over my heart. I can’t shake him, no matter how many deep gulps of air I try to suck in.

  Like a ridiculous baby bird, I wait for him, his voice on the phone, his snarky charm in an e-mail or his suggestive innuendo in a text. Unfortunately, just as the Montana air couldn’t flush him out of my every breath, each time we talk it makes being away from his body worse, compounding the desire until I think I might go insane.

  A few weeks after I arrive home, Sharon and I are sitting in rocking chairs on my front porch, pretending as if we have nothing more important to do than eat cinnamon rolls and sip coffee for hours. When in fact, we should be talking about my upcoming to-do list, the ranch chores I’ve happily agreed to take on so Sharon and Tom can take a long-overdue vacation.

  I’ve taken the week off from the paper, promising Herm that I’ll stop in a couple of times to make sure he doesn’t need anything, but frankly, I know my role at the paper is becoming less and less involved anyway. After my being gone so much for the book publicity, Herm hired a few newbies to pick up the slack. It’s just as well, though. Stephen negotiated another book deal for me, which means I actually need to get serious about writing something.

  I stretch my legs out to the porch railing, letting the morning sun warm my skin. Sharon mimics the posture, letting her head fall back and closing her eyes.

  “I like him.” I break the silence with the perfunctory statement.

  “Huh?” Sharon lifts her head and opens one eye to see me.

  “I like him. Trevor. A lot.”

  Her other eye opens and she nods. “OK.”

  “Come on, I need a little more than that. Help me out here. Am I crazy?”

  Despite how enmeshed Trevor and I have become, I haven’t shared much with anyone. Not even Sharon, because it still feels too tenuous. This thing, whatever it is, is simmering away, but it is unclear whether we will boil over into something real or turn cold after a few weeks.

  “No, you’re not crazy. You’re happy, which is great.” Sharon pauses and looks away. “Just be careful for now. No matter how great he is, dealing with the reality of his world won’t be easy.”

  I know that she’s right. When I think about Trevor as Trax, it’s hard to ignore the possibility that this might never work in the long run, simply because there will be too many ghosts and groupies littering our path.

  Sharon stands and stretches her hands over her head before gathering up our plates and coffee mugs to head into the kitchen. As the screen door to my house thwacks shut behind her, I consider how lopsided our friendship is. Sharon has done more for me in the last few years than anyone should have to. Even now, when the darkest burdens of grief have finally passed, she knows when to buoy me and when to point out the hulking Titanic-worthy roadblocks that might knock me on my ass if I don’t pay attention.

  Once we clean up our dishes and Sharon gives me a rundown of the chore list, we head back outside. She hugs me before driving off, waving out the window of her beat-up Dodge truck while honking the horn.

  I wander back into the house and stand in the middle of my kitchen, looking around. The laundry is clean, the mail handled, the bills paid, the bed made, and I actually have a few edible groceries in the house. There is absolutely nothing I need to do. Except, you know, write that book Stephen sold on my behalf. But a mild melancholy is brewing inside me, so staring at a blinking cursor sounds like a recipe for frustrated tears. All I want to do is lie down and rest my eyes for a bit.

  In my room, the bed faces a large wall of windows. I can lie in bed and stare out the windows, relishing whatever nature has placed there. Sometimes it’s a herd of elk traipsing through the snow-covered yard. Other times it’s a rainstorm pelting against the glass. Today, bright, beautiful sunshine plays off the wildflowers in my yard. I suck in an exaggerated breath and then close my eyes. Before I can drift off into anything resembling a nap, my phone chimes. I gingerly roll over and pull it off the nightstand.

  Two-part question:

  A. What are you doing right now?

  B. What do you wish I were doing to you right now?

  Lying against the pillows, I smile and then close my eyes for another minute or so, giving my dirty mind a chance to consider the possibilities.

  A—Nothing.

  B—Everything.

  A few minutes later, he texts back. I’ve kept the phone in my hand, waiting for his response, so all I have to do is lift it up into my field of vision.

  Me, too. See you soon.

  I knit my brow at his response, not sure how he plans to see me soon, since he’s on the East Coast for the rest of the month. When he left me at the airport, he was adamant we would see each other again, but there was nothing specific. No plans, no dates, nothing. I’ve tried to avoid reading anything into it, but now, with those three words, I realize how much it’s been looming in the back of my mind.

  14

  The next morning, I wake up early and head to the ranch, driving James’s old Ford truck over the deeply rutted road between our houses. I went over last night to check on the house and loaded up their two dogs. Einstein, a gentle yet grossly overfed yellow lab, was thrilled to ride in the front seat, licking my face and practically sitting on my lap for the ride back to my house. Toby, on the other hand, is a typical border collie, and was content to ride in the pickup bed, keeping an eye on everything. Einstein cuddled up with me on the bed and I fell asleep to the cadence of his deep fat-dog snoring.

  It’s nearly noon by the time I finish up everything on my list. After watering all the animals, feeding, and taking a quick ride around some of the pastures, I ramble the truck back over the washboard road, dusty and sweaty from the summer heat. Despite the physical toil of this work, I sometimes miss the certainty of rural life. The simplicity of knowing what has to happen each day, without fail. Others might think it rings of tedious monotony, but there is something reassuring in the predictability of it.

  Even though I lived in town as a kid, in a classic Foursquare that Lacey still lives in, I grew up on my grandparents’ hobby farm a few miles outside of Crowell. My father’s father, the first Duke Mosely, was the original owner of the Crowell Times, but his heart was entrenched in the thirty-five acres where he and my grandmother lived for seventy-five long years. In the summers of my childhood, I spent nearly every day there, riding my bike over at dawn and staying until my dad would swing by and pick m
e up in the evening, tossing my bike into the bed of his truck for the ride home.

  My grandfather had pigs. Lots of pigs. They were willful and filthy and often mean, but by the time I was twelve, I knew how to fatten and cut them, and could watch my grandfather slit their throats without cringing. Once I started high school, I left the farm behind in favor of spending the summer reading books in my room, where it wasn’t so hot and nothing smelled like manure. After college in Missoula I came home, because there was no place else I wanted to go. When James came into my life he insisted that we buy a home with some breathing room, and in that choice, he gave me my roots back. Because living next to Tom and Sharon meant I could get my hands dirty again and learn how to handle cows instead of pigs.

  I like helping when I can. But I’ll never pretend to want that life as a singular forever. While I like some dirt under my nails, I need my fingers against a keyboard just as much.

  Back at my place, I shut the truck off and head into the house. The grime on my body is so heavy that my skin begins to itch in anticipation of a long shower. Making my way through the house without leaving too much filth in my path, I turn the water on in the shower and let it start to warm up. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I’m a sight. My hair sweaty and haphazardly pulled back at the neck, my face and arms bronzed from just a few days out in the sun, and my jeans in need of a bath as badly as I am. I start to strip off my clothes and drop my shirt on the floor.

  Over the sound of the water, I hear the doorbell. Here’s the thing: no one ever rings the doorbell in the country. We knock, if you’re lucky, or just stroll right in. Given that, when a doorbell rings, it usually means bad news, Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses, or a serial killer. I splash my face with some cold water and shut the shower off, pulling on my shirt again. Walking toward the front door, I peer out the window to see if I recognize who it is, but all I can see is a small, cheap-looking car. Ah, Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Mormons are usually on bicycles.