by Theresa Weir
Outside, a wind began to blow in gusts, rattling the windows. This sound, too, was incorporated to her drifting doze, until one particularly violent blast slammed hard into the house and startled her. She sat up, blinking, hearing the surprised laughter of one of the middle-aged women sitting on the other side of the room.
It struck her that she was by herself once again, in a way she hadn’t been for a long time, alone in a place she didn’t know, with few people she knew at all.
She blamed Daniel. Daniel had set her up with a man she had never wanted to see again, bullied her into taking this meeting, and left her alone to deal with everything he’d dredged up.
And she knew he’d done it all on purpose. He didn’t like her to be afraid. From the beginning of their friendship, he had pushed her in little ways, all the time. He dragged her to galleries with her portfolio and made sure she followed up on the calls. He taught Giselle to speak Navajo from the time she was a baby girl, then sometimes refused to speak English at all because he thought Jessie should learn to speak the language, too.
He brought her to the reservation for the early meetings with the weavers, pushed her to talk to gallery owners, and finally insisted she take on the Colorado Springs galleries, knowing she had reasons she didn’t want to go.
Some days she could cheerfully kill Daniel Lynch.
The truth was, most of what he’d done, Jessie had needed, and when her humor was a little lighter, she was able to laugh at it. But he wasn’t always right, even if he thought so. He didn’t really understand the stakes between Luke and Jessie. It bothered her that he’d known of Luke all these years and never let on, then thrust her into a situation where she’d meet him again. She didn’t understand what had made him do all that.
And for all of it, she wished he were here. She felt lonely. She felt like an outsider, even with Luke and Giselle close by. Giselle was wrapped up in the wonder of all the children. And Luke—well, she knew she couldn’t let her guard down with him. It was just too dangerous.
Deeply thirsty, Jessie headed for the kitchen. The old women around the table peeled the skin from roasted chilies as they watched TV Only one of them even glanced up as she came into the room. Feeling self-conscious, Jessie took a glass from the cupboard and poured some water. She drank it, then retreated to the doorway to watch the grandmothers at their task.
If Daniel had been here, he would have been outside now, talking with Mary’s son, or listening to the stories the elders told in the hogan, or joining in the conversation about horses in the other room. Daniel didn’t know what it was like to be the odd man out all the time. He simply couldn’t grasp the idea of having no place to go home. His home was here, forever, no matter how far he strayed. For Jessie, there was no place like that. She was eternally the outsider.
It had been a protective habit, at first. As a child, there had been secrets she was desperate to keep hidden. She couldn’t have friends over because she never knew what her mother might do. Once, her mother had shown up at a parent-teacher conference in fourth grade, drunk and much too loud, her lipstick smeared uncertainly over her mouth. Jessie had wanted to die of embarrassment, and isolated herself even more firmly the next day against the careful sympathy of the teachers and the snickers of the other children.
Only Luke had seemed to understand her isolation. Their shared loss of mothers, coupled with that sense of being set apart from the rest of society, had drawn them together more powerfully than anything else.
When Luke had wanted to return to the reservation upon the death of his father, Jessie had been deeply jealous of the link he had to the land, to a place he could call his own, a place that was home. It shamed her now to realize that she’d wanted him to remain as isolated as she, home only with her, as she was home only with him.
She hadn’t realized the price she would pay for that. The price he would pay.
Suddenly she felt a presence behind her, and Luke’s long fingers fell on her shoulders. She turned, yearning once more for the feeling of wholeness she had known with him—only with him.
“I came in to see how you were doing,” he said quietly, squeezing her shoulder.
“I’m all right,” she replied, and now that he was here with her, she meant it. Where loneliness had been a moment before, there was relief and a hunger as vast as the canyons filling the desert. She stared at him and thought his face seemed to reflect the very land to which he’d been born…
Just like Daniel. Both of them belonged here. She didn’t. She didn’t belong anywhere, not even with Luke. She wasn’t whole like they were. She was rootless and cowardly and afraid to take chances, to be vulnerable enough to belong anywhere.
Through all the pushing Daniel had done, and through the week in Colorado Springs, Jessie had tried to be brave, to do what was required without whining or crying that she was afraid. All at once she saw herself as the fourth grader with her defenses shattered by the gentleness of teachers. She saw herself, too, much later, pulling to the side of the road to release the agonizing sorrow she felt driving away from Colorado Springs—and Luke—with a child in her belly.
If you never let people in, they could never hurt you. If they didn’t know you, they couldn’t wound you, couldn’t reach you.
Luke, after all these years, knew far, far too much.
“What is it, Jessie?” he asked, reaching for her.
Unable to speak, she whirled, grabbed her coat from the couch and bolted out the front door. The wind slammed into her, and Jessie welcomed the ferocity of it—the roaring drowned her thoughts. She tumbled into it, running face first into the violence that so reflected the tumult in her mind. Overhead, thick clouds obscured the stars, as her past overshadowed her present.
Icy snowflakes pelted her cheeks and ears, and still she ran. Ran away from Luke and memories of her mother, ran from the isolation that had dogged her all of her life and seemed as real as any witch or beast that roamed this land.
She heard Luke behind her, his voice a thin cry in the noise of the wind. In panic, she ran harder, stumbling once on a rock and righting herself before she fell.
Abruptly he overtook her, grabbing her shoulders and spinning her around. “You can’t run this time, Jessie!” he cried above the noise of the wind.
With a violent gesture, Jessie flung his hands from her shoulders. “Leave me alone!”
Fury crossed his face. “I can’t believe you lie to yourself this way.”
“It’s my life and my lie.”
“No, it isn’t. Not anymore. The minute I walked into that gallery, it wasn’t all you anymore.”
She stepped backward, breath coming hard, ready to run again at the first chance. He wouldn’t follow her twice.
He grabbed her. “Stop it, Jessie!” He dragged her into his arms, the wind whipping her hair into a wild animal all around them. “I’ve been trying to respect your limits,” he said, and his hands formed an unbreakable vise on her arms, “trying to do what’s best for you, but I’m not going to let you lie to yourself.”
Jessie saw the kiss coming and tried to duck, but he caught her face in his hand. His lips claimed hers and he was kissing her—kissing her mouth and chin and nose, her cheekbones and eyes and forehead, kissing her and kissing her and kissing her until Jessie couldn’t breathe for the fierce gentleness of it.
“Tell me this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,” he said raggedly, pushing her hair from her face. “Tell me this isn’t the way it always was between us.” His mouth touched hers again, and Jessie grabbed his shirtfront, drinking in the taste of him, the feel of his mouth, the smell of his skin, the hard lines of his body.
As if he felt her weakening, his touch gentled and there was now only the sound of the wind and Luke’s arms close around her, his strong, lean body pressed against the length of hers and the taste of his beloved mouth on hers.
Tears flowed from her at the tenderness in him. His honest heart was so open to loving her even when he saw all her flaws,
all her warts and insecurities.
She kissed him, tasting the salt of her tears, drinking him in as if enough would fill her. When he lifted his head and smoothed down the windblown mass of her hair, she looked at him, wishing she could love him back the same way, that she could forget the lessons of her childhood. As if in cooperation, the wind suddenly died for a moment.
“It’s not over,” he said into the quiet.
With a cry, Jessie wrenched herself from him. “It has to be, Luke.” Tears tightened her throat. “I’m not strong enough. Not strong enough to face down the past or face up to the future. I can’t.”
“Jessie—” He swore violently and kicked a good-size rock in his frustration. Jessie watched it tumble over and over until it came to a halt a few feet away.
He turned back, his hands in his pockets. “You know, Jessie, you aren’t the only one who’s afraid. I’m afraid, too—afraid that one morning I’m going to wake up again in a park and won’t remember how I got there.” He stepped forward, intense. “It made me sick to be that man, but I have to face my life one day at a time.”
Her throat felt as if it had closed completely. She couldn’t seem to get any air through it, much less the words Luke seemed to be waiting for.
For a moment longer, he stood there, staring at her intently. Then with a sudden, abrupt shake of his head, he said, “Go off and hide then. I’m tired of fighting.”
He strode off into the darkness. Jessie heard his boots crunching against the rocks until the wind blew to life again and stole the sound away.
Chapter 13
As she walked back toward the house, Jessie tried to keep her mind blank, tried to concentrate upon the way the house looked against the vast night, how the wavering orange light of the fire spilled through the doorway of the hogan, looking warm and friendly. The wind quieted a little, though it still gusted in capricious bursts.
In Albuquerque, she had come to know Indians of many nations—Lakota and Yaqui and Pima, Cheyenne and Comanche. She had come to understand a little of each of their cultures, had learned to paint the differences in their faces. Each face, each culture, was different from the others, linked only by being the original nations of the continent.
But of all of them, she loved the Navajo, and not only because she had first loved Luke. There was something about the nation as a whole that somehow reflected her own nature, something essentially private and reserved—almost shy. And yet they were strong, relentless survivors, as she herself was. There was great beauty in the things that came from them, in the silver and the beads, and above all the weavings.
As she walked back in the wide, open darkness, she thought of the beauty prayer, made famous by writers. Beauty all around me. Yes. And here it was, the beauty. It was in the sheep and the women bent over the stove tonight at supper and the wavering light falling from the door to the hogan; it was in the lilting words she would never speak but would one day understand well. It was in the sky and the rocks around her, and in the sharp song of the wind.
Beauty all around me.
She found Luke sitting on the end of the truck gate, smoking. He glanced up when she approached, then turned his face away again without speaking. Jessie took a breath and sat down beside him, feeling the truck sink a little under the extra weight.
She didn’t speak, but when he passed his cigarette toward her, she took it and inhaled a breath full of the smoke, blowing it out into the cold night.
“I tucked Giselle in,” he said.
“Oh, maybe I ought to—”
“She said she’ll see you in the morning.”
Jessie gave him back the cigarette. “She loves it here.” He inhaled the night air, nodding. “Listen,” he said, inclining his head. “How quiet it is.”
From a distance, a coyote howled. “He must be hungry.”
“Or lonely,” Luke said.
Jessie thought about that, and then looked at him. “Mary told me you ran away when you found out you were going to move to Colorado.”
“Yeah.” The word was soft, self-mocking. “I took my horse and some food and rode to the mountains. I stayed there four days before they came to get me.”
“Wasn’t it lonely? You were so young.”
He shook his head and passed the cigarette back to her. “No. It seemed worse to leave completely. The city seemed so far away. So different.”
Jessie nodded, looking at the glowing ember of the cigarette for a minute before she lifted it to her mouth. The first hit had made her a little dizzy; this one seemed to shoot straight to her brain with a whirl. “That’s enough,” she said.
He gave her a cockeyed grin. “See? You’re learning.”
“Maybe.” She swung her feet back and forth. “Was it because your mother was sick that you left?”
“My father heard of the sanitarium in Colorado. They were just starting to give people the medicine they use now. Mom was pretty sick, and the doctors wanted her to go to the sanitarium.” He shrugged. “It worked. I can’t complain. She lived longer there.”
“Seeing Marcia and Giselle makes me wish I’d known her.”
He chuckled. “Do you know what your daughter told me this afternoon?”
“No telling. What?”
“That you never kiss Daniel like they kiss on TV.”
Jessie felt the heat of embarrassment spread through her cheeks and was grateful for the darkness. “He’s my friend.”
“He was my friend for a long time, too. It was Daniel who helped me run away that time.”
“Really?” She grinned, trying to imagine the two of them as children, plotting a doomed expedition. “I can see that.”
“Giselle thinks a lot of him.”
Jessie pressed her lips together for a minute, knowing this was a sensitive area. “He’s like her uncle, you know? He—” She almost said, “takes the time to be with her,” but knew it would wound Luke.
“I know.” He dropped the cigarette and stood up to crush it beneath the heel of his boot. “I guess we should hit the hay.”
A ripple of awareness spread through Jessie at his words, a slight, quivering heaviness in her breasts and belly. “I guess so,” she agreed, but made no immediate move.
He was very close, close enough for her to smell the scent of him, that foresty note of his skin. “Do you want me to sleep in the cab?” he asked.
Jessie hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“That might be the most honest thing you’ve said to me.” His gaze, dark and liquid, met hers. Against the night, the harsh planes of his face were shadowed, like the mesas all around them, and Jessie caught her breath at the wave of longing she felt. She had to consciously restrain herself from reaching up to touch his jaw.
Beauty all around me.
He took a step closer, and now his body was just barely between her knees. With one hand, he reached out to shift a lock of her hair over her shoulder. “We don’t have to make love.” His voice, quiet with the night, seemed more accented than usual, giving his English a hypnotically musical sound. “Let me hold you. Just for tonight.”
Jessie found she had no will to resist when he swayed forward, his fingers tightening on her shoulder, to kiss the side of her neck. She knew she should tell him to go to the cab, or volunteer to go herself. And yet…and yet…
“Oh, Luke,” she whispered with a hint of despair, her body betraying her. “I can’t stop needing you.”
“Maybe you aren’t supposed to,” he said. Swiftly he gathered her close, wrapping his arms around her, lowering his face to her hair with a sigh. His hair brushed her mouth, coarse and cool.
Even just being next to him made her feel better, made the weariness slip from her shoulders and the anxiety of the past week seem far away. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around his back, hugging him close, unable to turn away from the one thing that would make her feel whole and right. It was only for tonight. One more time she could take what he wanted to give. One more time, she could love him.
Easing away, she scooted back into the truck. Luke waited at the tailgate, and she saw from the hard line of his jaw that he thought she was going to make him go to the cab. She held out her hand.
He stood there a split second longer, as if he regretted his choice; then he jumped into the truck, slamming the barriers closed behind him. An involuntary rush of pure need rippled through Jessie as he bent his head, and the light from beyond caught his hair. She reached for him, putting her hand on his thigh.
He smiled and lifted her hand to his mouth. “Kick off your shoes, honey. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.”
Jessie yanked off her boots and unbuttoned the heavy jacket, then zipped open one of the sleeping bags laid out on the pallet. He stopped her. “Let’s put them together.”
She nodded, lifting her end up so Luke could join it to his. It was a deeply intimate act, especially in the pure, unbroken silence of the desert. They crawled in together, one from each side. Jessie felt deeply shy and didn’t know quite what to do next.
“Come here,” Luke said, lifting the bag to make room for her to ease up next to him. From long habit, she nestled her head in the hollow of his shoulder, and once again all the tension flowed out of her.
He held her close. “That’s it.”
Jessie sighed, letting go. Only with Luke had she ever felt this sense of perfect ease, this perfect safety. Only with him had she ever been able to let down her guard and allow another human being to see her.
It had been so shattering to lose it.
Against her temple she felt a warm triangle of flesh at the opening of his shirt. One of her hands rested on his waist and the other was curled close to her. Idly, he moved his stockinged feet against hers.
But it wasn’t as easy as she had imagined to just lie there. His hands moved on her back, up and down. She found her own hand moving, too, over his ribs and back, to his upper arm below the cloth. The sound of his breath in her ear was intensely personal.