Tyler was mulling over the connection between feathers and oil and what that had to do with rain, when Rose said, "If you want the scientific reasoning behind it, by dropping oil on the body from a height of six to eight inches, it's thought that the oils interact with a person's electric field before penetrating the skin, which helps the person relax, while enhancing the electromagnetic properties of the oils as well."
Tyler was about to ask how electrified oil would help a person to relax, when he was distracted by the feel of Rose's hand gliding down his spine to the small of his back, where the tips of her fingers grazed the top of his butt, sending a cocktail of chemicals pumping through him, along with the urge to bond and attach to every part of Rose's body with every part of his.
"Just relax while I drop the oil," Rose said.
Tyler started to inform her that there was only one way to relax a certain part of him, when he felt droplets of oil following the course of his spine. Oddly, the tingles they generated redirected his thoughts. "That feels good," he said, as drops dotted the small of his back.
"I was hoping it would," Rose replied. After setting the bottle aside, she placed her palms against Tyler's back and started moving her hands together in a circular motion over the area between his shoulder blade and ribs on one side, working over the muscles there for a good long time before repeating the circular motions on the other side.
"What's with the feathers?" Tyler asked in a lethargic voice, as Rose's hands did their magic.
"It has to do with a time long ago when the Lakota went up to Canada to experience the Aurora Borealis by raising their hands and breathing in the energy of the lights for healing purposes, but once they were confined to reservations and couldn't go there, they used a feather in a stroking technique along the spine to simulate the healing energy of the Aurora Borealis, and that's the basis of feather stroking," Rose explained, while running the tips of her fingers along the length of his spine to the base of his tailbone, which had a decidedly arousing effect on him, while sending another shot of love chemicals pumping away through his system …
"For thousands of years Indians have been using herbs not only to heal the body, but to purify the spirit," Rose said, as her hands made their way up the muscles along one side of his spine and down the other to return to the small of his back, and as he was lying there, with Rose's hands kneading his muscles, he couldn't help thinking that this must beat anything his brothers had going with their wives. Even their big hot tubs couldn't match having hot rocks and oil and a beautiful woman massaging his hips and butt, except maybe turning over and having her massage the part of him that needed it the most...
"Now that your muscles have relaxed some, I'll increase the pressure, which will help pull out the tension," Rose said. "It's the circular motion that relaxes the muscles."
Yeah, but that circular motion was relaxing every muscle but one, Tyler mused...
While working her way up from the small of his back to his shoulders, and down again, Rose said, "Other benefits of thyme and oregano oils, all of which have been scientifically validated, are that they contain antibacterial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties."
"They're also good aphrodisiacs," Tyler said, as the erotic images of Rose's hands massaging other places grew more graphic.
Rose's hands paused. "You read that?" she asked.
"No, I'm experiencing it," Tyler replied. "It's making me want to do a lot more than just lay here with my skivvies half way down my butt and your hands on it." Rolling onto his side, he grabbed Rose's arm.
"What are you doing?" Rose asked.
"What we both want," Tyler replied. He pulled Rose down so she was stretched alongside him and kissed her deeply, and as the kiss held, he moved his hand along her side and across her back and around front to cover her breast with his palm. She broke the kiss momentarily to suck in some air then continued the kiss, and before long Tyler's hand found its way beneath her shirt to slip inside her bra where his palm was filled with warm, soft flesh. Rose let out a little moan of pleasure as he teased her nipple into a hard nub, and when he began entangling his tongue with hers in a love duel, he could feel Rose's breath quickening, and her tongue becoming more active, and her hand moving down to tuck inside his briefs to rest on his hip.
Fully aroused, he rolled onto his back to give her access, but instead of moving her hand to the front, she broke the kiss and sucked in a long draft of air, and said, "We need to stop. I should never have let things get this far."
"We didn't get all that far," Tyler said. "You still have a half inch more to go." He nudged her hand around until it made contact.
Rose allowed her hand to remain where it was for a moment before removing it from his briefs, and saying, "This is all untimely." She tugged his palm from inside her bra and sat up. After pulling her shirt down, she looked to where his briefs stretched tight across the front, like a tent with a pole, and said, "I'm sorry I'm leaving you like that. When I started your massage I didn't mean for things to go the way they did, but I got carried away. You have a nice body."
"So do you," Tyler replied. "I only just got started learning about it though, and now I want to run my hands over every inch of you and learn what you like and how to satisfy you."
"Maybe someday, but not now," Rose said, "and you'd better put your jeans on because Rick could come anytime."
"True." Tyler stood and grabbed his jeans off the floor, and while he was shoving his legs into them, he said, "Now that I know about hot oils and feather stroking, when someday finally comes, I'm going to massage you, back and front, but instead of massaging, I'll be rubbing rose oil over your body so whenever I see roses, for the rest of my life, I'll also see you the way you'll look when I'm rubbing in the oil." He glanced over to see Rose's eyelids batting rapidly, and her breathing heavy, and her lips parted to accommodate her intake of air, which made him yet more restless for her someday to come.
"What you described sounds heavenly," Rose said, "but before that ever happens we have things to resolve. In the meantime, has the dizziness passed?"
Tyler's mind was filled with so many images he was having trouble concentrating on what, exactly, Rose had asked, except that he had caught the word dizziness. "It's better," he replied, while struggling to close his jeans. "A good frontal massage would fix at least one of my problems."
"Mine too," Rose replied, "but we have things to resolve first."
"But it is in the future," Tyler stated. "I'm not talking frontal massages. I'm talking the whole ball of wax."
Rose looked askance at him. "Sex?" she asked.
"Marriage," Tyler replied, then immediately regretted pushing her. But love was making him crazy, like his brain was in a state of temporary insanity—one minute obsessing over when he'd see her again so he could hold her and kiss her, the next minute fearing he'd never see her again.
"We have a lot of issues to work out and questions to ask each other," Rose said. "Right now I admit that when I think about you I find myself smiling and feeling happy and warm all over, and when Sophie and Emily were teasing me about you I guess I got starry eyed because they both started laughing, and when I'm about to see you I get excited and maybe a little nervous, and then when I'm finally with you it's like being wrapped in a warm blanket. But that's because we're in the beginning stages of our relationship so everything's ecstatic and euphoric."
Tyler had a completely different take on things. He got all the same reactions, big time, but he also felt like his chest lay open and Rose could get inside and mess him up, which made him feel vulnerable and needing to build defenses so he wouldn't go through the kind of hurt he had when kids singled him out, a soul kind of hurt. And he couldn't set aside the maybe-we-should-just-befriends phrase he knew would eventually come, like a thorn working its way into his heart. It was fine when it was just him and his mares, but when Rose wandered into his life, and he gave her a piece of his heart, his life was no longer his...
Rose walke
d up to him and smoothed her hand across his brow, and said, "You're worried, and I don't know what's going on in your head, but given some time, things will work out. There can be no doubts when it comes to marriage, and that can be achieved only through lots of discussions about combining lifestyles and raising kids, which also includes guiding them spiritually."
Tyler knew she was right, but he also realized she wasn't closing any doors to their future, but was leaving them wide open. Feeling emboldened by her willingness to move deeper into their relationship, he pulled her to him, and said, "My body's telling me I need another kiss."
Rose smiled, and when she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, it was magic the way their lips merged, and her body pressed against his, and their breaths seem to go in and out together. As the kiss moved deeper and ultimately climaxed, an overwhelming warmth spread throughout him, along with a nervous feeling that had nothing to do with being nervous but was something so forceful in his brain it affected the rest of his body, and amid all the dizziness and heart-pumping, and clinging to Rose like a lifeline, something inside him changed forever, like his soul was bonding with hers. But with the deep feeling came the need to hold her in his arms forever because to let her go might be to lose her. He'd no doubt obsess over it later, but for the moment he was absorbed in a kiss he wanted to savor for all eternity.
When the kiss was finally spent, Rose looked at him, seeming a little puzzled, just as he was, and he wondered if she had experienced the same soul binding moment as he, yet it had only been a kiss, not two bodies joined in the most intimate way a man and woman could join bodies.
The spell was broken when one of the mares whinnied. "That was Estelle," Tyler said. "She wants me to come out, and I need to check on Gypsy."
"I can check on Gypsy," Rose said. "You should lie down so the dizziness doesn't start up again."
"I'm okay for now and I want to check Gypsy myself," Tyler replied. "Maybe you could talk to her while I check her leg."
Rose nodded and they started out for the passageway.
Tyler found Gypsy still standing where she was earlier, with the weight off her right front leg, so he rolled back the door and stepped inside. Walking up to her, he said, "You're still hurting, angel. Rick should be here soon and we'll find out what's wrong." He glanced into Gypsy's grain bucket and saw that it was untouched. Scooping up a handful, he offered it to her, while saying, "Come on, baby, you've got to eat." Gypsy extended her neck and curled her lips back and took a small nibble, then ignored it and lowered her head again.
Tyler looked at Rose in alarm, and said, "I want to clean the stall and put in fresh straw so she can lie down if she wants."
"I can do that," Rose said.
"So can I," Tyler replied, "but if you want to help, maybe you could get one of the buckets outside the grain room and fill it with water from the faucet there and offer it to Gypsy. She hasn't been going to the waterhole and she needs to drink."
Rose went to fetch the bucket, and Tyler went about the task of cleaning the stall and adding fresh straw. After Rose brought water, which Gypsy touched with her muzzle and sipped, but without draining the bucket, Tyler said, "I'm staying here until Rick comes." He lowered himself in the corner of the stall and rested his back against the wall.
Rose looked down at him, and said, "Then I'll stay too." When she sat beside Tyler, he put his arm around her and drew her against him.
For a few minutes Tyler's mind was divided between his worry over Gypsy's leg, and the fact that he and Rose had actually been discussing marriage, and now he wanted to keep that thread going, if only to solidify in Rose's mind that he was her one true love.
Picking up where they'd left off, he said, "Since you acknowledge that I'm the man in your grandmother's dream, we need to make plans."
"My grandmother's dream was just the beginning," Rose said, "but we can't make plans until we've discussed major things, like how we want to raise our kids."
"That's easy," Tyler replied. "We'll teach them to live a simple life up here on this mountain. They'll learn how to ride horses and live off the land and hike in the mountains, and you'll teach them stories about their ancestors, and how to make toys out of the natural things around them, like you show school kids at the museum, and I'll teach them how to communicate with animals, and you'll teach them how to communicate with spirits, and we'll sleep under the stars in the summer, and they'll learn to identify the planets and pick out the constellations."
"That's all well and good," Rose said, "but they'll still have to go to school where they'll also learn about the world outside of our idealistic life here, and they'll want the things other kids have or they'll feel like outsiders."
"Then we'll homeschool them," Tyler said. "Parents do it all the time. My brothers in Eastern Oregon know many families who do, and the kids do well. By the time our kids finish high school and are faced with the decision of whether to go on to college, they'll have a solid foundation about what's important in life."
"I wish it were that simple," Rose said, "but our kids will also grow up playing with their cousins, who will have the latest of every electronic game, so our kids will either spend their time with them, or they'll want to know why they can't have those things too, and even though I agree with everything you've said about raising kids, there can be no commitment on our parts until we close our spiritual divide."
"There is no spiritual divide because I'm not asking you to change your beliefs in any way," Tyler replied. "I'm fine with your spirits."
"That isn't enough," Rose said. "I know firsthand how differing spiritual beliefs, or lack of spiritual beliefs, can tear a marriage apart. Preston was engaged to a girl from the reservation who left him for a guy she met at work, and the first time she and her husband had a falling out, she was back home asking one of the elders for a vision quest, and her husband thought it was all a bunch of nonsense, and the marriage spiraled downward after that, so now she's back trying to convince Preston that she made a mistake and learned from it, but she has two kids who spend half their time with a father who continues to tell them that their mother's beliefs are nonsense, and Preston's not about to take on a couple of step-kids with the same attitude."
"Couples who share the same beliefs divorce all the time for other reasons," Tyler argued, "usually reasons having to do with opposing viewpoints on raising kids, or disagreements in material wants, or arguments over jobs and money, the things that aren't issues with us. As for your real worry, I might not understand your beliefs but I'd never say anything negative about them to our kids."
"I know you wouldn't," Rose replied, "but you could never look our kids in the eye and tell them that what I believe is something to be accepted as the infallible truth, because it would never come from your heart."
"Then answer one question," Tyler said. "Do you think you could love me if I never believed in spirits?"
"I already love you," Rose replied. "It's hard to disguise. But love isn't enough. Humans are capable of loving many people who come into their lives, but when choosing a mate to spend the rest of my life with, there has to be a spiritual coming together as well as a physical one. There's no question that I feel a strong physical need for you, which would be even stronger if we made love, but there's no spiritual connection between us right now."
"Something happened with that last kiss. You had to have felt it," Tyler said.
"I did," Rose replied, "and I can't explain it because it was a feeling too deep and indefinable to describe, maybe like a bonding of our souls, but that isn't the same as a spiritual union, because that comes from beyond the reach of humans."
Tyler pulled Rose closer to him and kissed her on the temple, and said, "I love you, honey, and I know we can work this out."
But for the life of him he didn't know how to get around her spirits. He could never pretend to believe in something that had no reality to him, but Rose's admittance that she loved him was like the foundation stone in a relationship th
at would eventually lead to marriage, and with time, the rest of the stones would fall in place. But he was restless for that time to be now. After that last kiss he knew his bed would seem lonelier and emptier with each passing night.
.
CHAPTER 16
Tyler met Rick at his truck, and while they were walking toward the stable, Rick said, "How long has Gypsy been lame, and did it come on suddenly or was it gradual?"
"It was sudden," Tyler replied. "Yesterday she was sound, and today she's head-bobbing and three-legged lame."
"Injuries that cause a horse to go suddenly lame can occur at any time, but are more likely when jumping is involved," Rick said. "Your mares jump together in a group when you're working them, so maybe she got a hoof in the leg by one of the other horses, or landed wrong when taking the jump."
"I didn't jump them yesterday or today," Tyler replied. Looking at Rose, who was staring at the vegetable garden, he said, "Honey, come in with us and help distract Gypsy while Rick checks her out."
On hearing Tyler's endearment, Rick looked at him with awareness, which didn't bother Tyler. He wanted it known where he stood with Rose. He wanted the world to know how it was. Yet, he couldn't set aside the fact that marriage was still very uncertain because of a spiritual divide he wasn't sure he could fix. But when Rose smiled at him, he knew he'd go to the ends of the world to have that smile on a daily basis, whatever it took.
After rolling back the door, Tyler walked up to Gypsy, and said, "The Doc's here, baby. He'll fix what's wrong and you'll be good to go." He simultaneously ran both hands down each side of Gypsy's neck and she responded by bracing her forehead against Tyler's chest so he could continue stroking her.
While examining Gypsy's leg, Rick said, "I can't tell what part of the leg is bothering her since she lets me bend it and she doesn't show signs of pain anywhere when I touch her. There's also no swelling or heat. But there are many sources of lameness where there are no outward signs. Have you worked her on a lunge line and watched her?"
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