by Caroline Lee
“I…I don’t think so.” Something about the woman prompted Okie to answer honestly. “I think I would know.”
“You’re probably right, but I like you anyhow.” Jaclyn studied her eyes. “The fairies haven’t said anything about you, Okie Pucklin, but they don’t have to. You’re right where you belong.”
Before Okie could think of how to respond—she was expected to respond in situations like this, right?—Nick asked the question she probably should have. “What do you mean?”
The old woman smiled softly. “Here on the ranch. This is where you belong, my confused little pixie. You’ve been lost for so long, haven’t you? But here on the ranch, you’re home. Here you’ll find hope. Help. Love and welcoming.”
Home. Help. Hope. Hold hands.
Standing there in the Idaho sunshine, her face smooshed between a fairy-whisperer’s palms, Okie’s brain zoomed in on one of those four-letter words.
“Help? Like professional help?”
She couldn’t stop the shiver that traveled down her spine at the memory of years of psych evals and medication, all forced on her by foster parents who wanted her to be “normal.” Some of them had worked, based on the months of pleasantries from others, but for Okie… Whoever had been inhabiting her body during that time, it hadn’t been her.
Whatever sign she’d shown, Jaclyn’s lips softened, and Nick moved up beside Okie. Before she could wonder what he was doing, he put his arm around her shoulder. She was pinned between the two of them, and even though the old rabbit-woman still confused Okie, she didn’t feel uncomfortable.
“Okie, look at me.”
At Jaclyn’s command, Okie dragged her eyes back to the old woman’s.
“You are not broken. Your brain is different, but that means unique.”
From beside her, Nick spoke in a whisper. “Special.”
Special.
Hold hands, have home. Home. Home.
Jaclyn was nodding. “You are special, Okie Pucklin, and here at the ranch, you have found a place. A home. People here can see that in you.”
Forcing her throat to work, Okie choked out, “Jason?”
Jaclyn couldn’t know who she meant, but she nodded. “And me.”
When she stepped back, she released Okie’s cheeks and nodded to Nick, whose grip only tightened on Okie’s shoulders.
When Okie turned her chin slightly to look at him—well, his jawline, at least—Nick’s lips twitched into his slight smile.
“And me, Okie.” When he inhaled, she felt it too. “I think you’re pretty special, and I’m glad you’re my friend.”
Home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Saturday after their first date—had it really been a date? Just sitting beside one another on the mountain, then meeting that strange rabbit-woman?—Okie met Nick again at the ranch. Jason drove her over, since he had to pick up something from his office. Okie sat in the backseat and cooed at baby Lacey to make her giggle.
“Hey, you’ve been having fun with Nick, right?” Jason asked as he drove.
Okie didn’t bother looking up. “He’s my friend. I like him.” A lot, she added in the privacy of her mind.
Twice this past week she’d gone down to his apartment in the evenings to snuggle with Rajah and play Call of Duty and eat pizza and ice cream sundaes and popcorn. Did those count as dates too? She wasn’t sure, but she also wasn’t sure if it mattered. She had fun with him, and he seemed to have fun with her. They talked about video games and their pasts and their plans for the future. And ate ice cream—that was important.
In between, she’d worked on her portrait of Lacey, the sepia-toned image she’d had printed and now was hanging in a frame on the wall of Dink and Jason’s living room. Once that was finished, she’d worked to turn the same lines into something totally fanciful and fun—the baby dressed as a princess, seated on a throne. Usually her art was more impressions and feelings, but she thought she’d done a pretty good job capturing the baby’s sweet expression in the portrait.
It had been a challenge, different from her usual landscapes. She’d finished the painting of McIver’s Mountain Nick had commissioned last week, and he’d purchased it right away for his website, The Real Bigfoot. Today they were supposed to go to another site—where one of his friends had seen the actual Bigfoot footprint!—so she could paint the mountain from that angle too.
Maybe they’d hold hands again.
“I think he likes you too, Okie.”
She glanced up to meet Jason’s light-brown eyes in the mirror, but she dropped her gaze back to his daughter once more. That’s good, she wanted to say, but it seemed so…inadequate. Instead, she changed the subject.
“If you’re taking this big brother stuff seriously, does that mean I’m Lacey’s aunt?”
“You want to be Aunt Okie?” he asked as he took the turn onto the ranch.
She considered, then shrugged as she examined the baby’s small fingers, wrapped around her own thumb. “No,” she finally said. “I like being just Okie.”
From the front seat, her one-time foster brother snorted softly. “You’ll never be ‘just Okie,’ Okie. You’re special. Family.”
Family.
Okie remembered the strange woman’s declaration about being home.
Home. Help. Hope. Is this where Okie belonged?
Suddenly, she knew what she had to say. “Thank you for letting me be part of your family.”
The words burst out of her, and she met Jason’s startled gaze in the mirror once more. He pulled into a parking spot in front of the café and turned off the car. When he unbuckled his seatbelt and shifted to be able to see her, she knew he had something important to say.
“There’s no ‘letting’ about it, Okie. The last eighteen months… Well, I’d turned my life around years ago in an attempt to prove I had worth—prove to myself.” His eyes burned with sincerity. “But when I met Dink, she showed me what it was like to be part of a real family. Her sister is married to my best friend, and his family is even bigger. They dragged me into that family, whether I wanted to be or not, because that’s what family is, Okie.” He nodded, as if willing her to understand. “And now we have Lacey, and I didn’t think my heart could get any fuller. Dink and I argue, sure—she’s about as different from me as night and day!”
A slight snort, and he shook his head almost ruefully. “But family isn’t a choice. Well, I mean, I guess it could be a choice, but it’s about connections and shared experiences. And you’ve always been a part of my family, even though we’ve been miles apart for so long.”
“Miles and miles and years and eons and even some distances that can’t be named,” she said, dropping her gaze to his daughter’s soft black curls.
But she heard him snort softly again, his version of a laugh. “Yeah. But we were still connected through it all. And now that I’ve found you again, and you’ve found us… I want to help you find yourself too.”
Help. Home. Hope. Finding herself. That sounded nice.
“How?”
“I think Nick can help you figure that out. Figure out what you want in life, and how to get it.”
“Right now, I like just hanging out with him.” Holding hands. “Talking. Playing games.” She fiddled with the baby’s hand, unwilling to admit that there was a part of her which wanted more from Nick.
“Well,” said Jason, a slight smile in his voice, “I think that’s a great place to start.”
It did sound like a nice way to find herself.
As if she’d conjured him, Nick stepped out of the café door and waved to her. Okie’s face split into a grin.
“Bye, Jason!” she called as she threw herself out of the backseat and slammed the door behind her.
Her brother might’ve said something, and the baby might’ve cried, but she couldn’t feel sorry for the noise. All of her attention was on Nick, and it was worth it.
Because he took her hand and led her into the café.
Home. Ho
pe. Hold hands.
Last week, he’d explained that Kelsey’s Kafé had been one of the landmarks of the ranch for years and years, along with a bunch of other information about the people and food and things she couldn’t process or understand, and didn’t bother trying. The bagged lunches they’d picked up had been nice, and that was all Okie needed to know.
Since it was lunch time, there were a lot of people crammed in the eating area, yelling and talking and laughing. Okie gripped Nick’s hand harder as he led her to a stool at one end of the counter, and she was grateful to have the little island of calmness in the sea of noise and stimuli.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said to him, meaning Thank you for protecting me.
He smiled in return, and said, “Me too.”
And maybe they would’ve stood like that for hours, smiling at one another and trying to ignore everyone around them, but they were interrupted by an energetic blonde woman who bounced to a stop entirely too close to them.
“Hi! I’m Kelsi! Are you the Bigfoot believer?”
Okie blinked rapidly a few times, trying to comprehend the sudden change in focus. “Um…what?”
The woman’s smile grew even larger, if possible, and she rubbed her belly. “I know he’s out there, living in the mountains, and I heard Nick was helping someone find him. That’s you, right?” She eyed Okie’s hand, where it gripped Nick’s like a lifeline. “I heard you were an artist or something.”
Okie shrank backwards, away from the woman’s too-bright enthusiasm, until she bumped up against Nick. And when he put his arm around her shoulders, she happily sunk into his warmth and safety, curling in on herself like a turtle.
“Hi, Kelsi,” Nick said softly. “This is my friend, Okie.”
“Friend, huh?” Kelsi smiled as she looked between them. “And Okie’s a really unusual name!” She waggled her eyebrows, probably hoping for an explanation.
Vaguely, Okie remembered Nick’s explanation of the family who owned the ranch. Kelsi’s older brother Will was Jason’s best friend, who he’d been talking about in the car just a few minutes ago. Did that mean Jason and this hyper woman were family? Did that mean Okie was related to her too?
The conversations swirling around them, the frantic energy of this place, they were all too much for Okie. She just stared at Kelsi’s chin with wide eyes, and prayed she could remember how to breathe.
In out in out up down shout shout shout.
The useless rhyme hammered through her head and she swallowed down the panic. Nick’s arm tightened around her, and she forced herself to exhale deeply, to stay calm.
“We’re just waiting on our lunches,” Nick explained. “I paid Rachel already.”
The change of subject didn’t seem to bother Kelsi much.
“And then you’re going to go out to find Bigfoot, right?” she asked excitedly. “Like, really find him? Noah was in here the other day—now that he’s working again and that awful Kassidy women went back where ever she came from—and he was telling me there have been any more mysterious equipment failures. Not that I thought that was Bigfoot to begin with—he’s a nice Sasquatch. But still, I’m certain he’s out there!”
Okie turned her frantic gaze on Nick. How was she supposed to answer this woman? Did Kelsi believe in Bigfoot too? Was Okie supposed to reply?
Thankfully, Nick did instead. “I’ve commissioned Okie to paint the mountains so I can use the images. On the website.” He said that last part with a strange emphasis.
He might as well have been a knight in shining armor, rescuing Okie like that. She nodded gratefully, frantically. “I’m going to see where Nick’s friend found the footprint today.”
“Oh, excellent,” Kelsi gushed with a huge smile and a little bounce. “That was Reggie and Abby. Nick knows exactly where it was, and there’s some beautiful views of the mountains from up there.”
“Yeah,” Nick growled. And there wasn’t another word for it—that was definitely a growl. Why was he irritated? At this woman? At Okie?
Just then, another woman leaned over the counter, waving two white paper sacks. “Here’s your lunches, Nick,” she said, a little harried.
Okie felt the tension leave Nick as he loosened his hold on her to turn and pick up the sacks.
“Thanks, Rachel,” he said gratefully as he shoved them in Okie’s backpack.
Then he took Okie’s hand and nodded once to Kelsi. “Have a good day,” he mumbled as he pulled Okie around the grinning blonde woman and towards the door.
Kelsi waved, and as Okie looked back over her shoulder at the too-friendly woman, called, “Keep me posted on what—and who!—you find!”
The moment they stepped outside, Okie felt the band around her chest release, and she could finally take a deep breath. Being in there—being surrounded by so many people and so much frantic energy and smells and sounds—had been too overwhelming. Next time—assuming they had another date—Okie would just sit outside.
But despite the calmness the spring air blanketed them with, Nick seemed just as agitated. He tugged her across the parking lot towards the path that would eventually lead them across the bridge over the river and up into the mountains. He was practically stomping, his strides long and his shoulders hunched.
Finally, Okie pulled him to a stop. When he glanced over at her, his eyes widened, and he looked away, as if he had forgotten she was there.
“What’s wrong, Nick?” She swung his hand back and forth a few times. “What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” came his prompt reply. But then he sighed and looked up at the mountain. “I’m just thinking about the place where we’re going.”
“Where your roommate found the Bigfoot footprint?”
“Yeah.” Was it her imagination, or did he wince then?
She wanted to make him feel better, even if she didn’t understand what the problem was. “It’s a beautiful day, and we’re out in the middle of nature. What’s not to love?”
He began to walk once more, but huffed. “Well, we’re in the middle of nature, for one thing,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?” Surely she misheard him. Being out here was the best part of painting.
“The mountains are meant to be enjoyed from a distance, Okie. Not all up in them. This is only my second time up in these mountains, and I’m not sure I like it that much.” He was staring up at the path as they walked. “For one thing, cell reception sucks.”
What? Okie was stunned, speechless, and pulled to a stop.
How—?
Why—?
Howcouldhethinkmountainsaremeanttobeenjoyedfromadistance?
Last week, he’d said something similar, when they were sharing ice cream at the Saloon. But she hadn’t really thought about what it would mean to only appreciate art from a distance…
Her heart was hammering in her chest, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She let go of his hand to wrap her arms around her middle. Mountains were art. Landscapes were art. But she couldn’t imagine living her life not in the center of that art. Part of the art. She needed to be there, surrounded by the art, in order to fully breathe it in, to smell it, feel it, capture it. In order to paint it.
Part of the art. Smart heart, part of the art.
But if her heart was being smart, why did it feel so hollow all of a sudden? Meeting Nick, coming here to the ranch…it had fixed her brokenness. But finding out Nick didn’t see the point of painting nature in nature...?
Smart heart?
No. A part of her just broke again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Hey, come on.” Nick reached for Okie’s hand, but she shied away from him. “What’s wrong?”
The expression on her lovely pixyish face told him something was wrong. She looked as if she was about to be ill. He knew her well enough by now to know her mind was spinning, and she was focused inward.
“Okie?” he asked again gently.
He left his hand on her arm, where it was wrap
ped around her middle. But she just stood still, staring at the ground in front of her, rocking gently, the dark slashes of her brows drawn into a little “V” in the center of her forehead.
“Okie, tell me what’s wrong. Please?”
Had it been something he’d said that had set her off? Nick searched his memory, trying to remember what they’d just been talking about. Mountains, right? Had he said something about Bigfoot not being real? Something which bothered her so much, she’d felt the need to retreat?
He squeezed her forearm slightly. “Please?”
Slowly, her eyes lifted to his chin, and he watched her take a deep breath, hating she wasn’t looking him in the eyes again.
“Why do you think mountains are meant to be enjoyed from a distance? Why don’t you like spending time in nature?”
Her question stunned him, and his mind skipped back over all the things he’d said, to figure out why that would bother her so much.
He hesitated, trying to feel his way through his thoughts, and how to justify his casual comment. “I… My mother was an art historian. I told you that. She taught me I should stand back and appreciate art. Allow it to move me the way the artist intended.” He cleared his throat, not sure he was making himself understood. “That’s why I like your paintings so much. When I look at your mountains, I like how you’ve captured the feeling of majesty, of standing there looking up at them. There are different feels to each mountain, each day…and I like that you seem to understand that.”
Her lips tightened into a small frown, and she didn’t lift her gaze, but continued to rock slightly. “How do you think I got that way, Nick? How I understood?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but shut it again thoughtfully. How did she learn how to do that?
“I understand mountains, Nick!” When she finally lifted her hazel eyes to his, he saw the exasperation in them, before they flicked away again, towards the bridge over the river. “I understand them, and rivers, and gorges, and everything else I paint, because…because…”
Taking a deep breath, she pulled away from him, stomping along the path towards the mountain, her backpack slapping against her rear end. Nick hurried to catch up.