She didn’t want him to offer to walk her back down. She wanted him to insist they go dance beside the cabin again, just the two of them. But she was tired, and he looked tired too, and the night had to end at some point. “I have to get my bag,” she said.
He walked her to the table, where a few of the guests’ belongings remained, and she found her bag and water bottle. She slung the bag over her shoulder and glanced up to see Gage staring at the grassy spot where they had been dancing. When his eyes turned to her, they were shadowed and impossible to read in the darkness.
Her heart was pounding. The night is over, she reminded herself. She didn’t want him to ask her to dance again, because she wouldn’t say no. “Ready to head out?” she asked.
He took her elbow. They passed the meadow, and she noticed that some of the light strings were beginning to dim. She stopped and turned. She wanted to remember this—the lights and music in the middle of the forest, on the side of the mountain, in a dead-end valley at the end of rough gravel roads. Then they headed down Joshua’s long, steep driveway. Gage didn’t ask why she had stopped.
As soon as the road started getting steep, she began to slip. At first she worried about scuffing her shoes, although her feet were sore enough now that she considered throwing them away. Then after a couple close calls, she wondered if she was going to break an ankle or somersault down the road. She laughed at herself. Gage took a firmer grasp of her elbow until she slipped again on the loose gravel and he almost pulled her arm out if its socket trying to keep her upright.
After that, he put one arm around her waist and held on to her other hand in his. It seemed to her that he was holding her hands just like the promenade position from contra dancing the night before. Had it only been one day since then?
“Am I going to have to give you my boots to get you down this mountain?” he teased. Then he slipped himself, nearly taking her down with him.
“Leather soles, eh? Forget it. At least my heels are working a little like cleats.” They were deep in the darkness, now, and the starlight and the glow from a moon she couldn’t see was their only guide on the road. They giggled and held on to each other, stopping frequently. She imagined they must look like a little old couple, hobbling down the road together.
She heard a sound behind her but ignored it until Gage stopped. He held up one hand to keep her silent. Her eyes strained in the darkness. There it was again, a sound that was something between a breath and a step. He turned to face the sound. When his arm reached back to shove her behind him, Meg was afraid. She wanted to ask him what it was, what he saw. Instead she slowly reached into her bag. Water bottle, sweater… where was the flashlight? She felt something cold and hard and grabbed hold.
At that moment Gage threw his hands out. “Don’t run, Meg,” he said in a low growl. She pulled up what she thought was a flashlight, but it was too big. She had the bear spray. Just as well. She reached into her bag with the other hand as he pushed her backward to the side of the road.
“Get away!” Gage yelled in a deep voice. “Back off, get away! Don’t mess with us, we are huge!”
Huge? Meg got the hint. She held the bear-spray hand out, trying to make them look like one large animal. She held out the messenger bag with her other hand. She stared at the darkness that was Gage’s back and prayed. Please, God, keep us safe. “Bear spray’s in my hand,” she said.
He jerked backward and she almost tumbled to the ground when he ran into her, but as he spun around to put his arms around her, she got her first glance as the shadow flashed past. She saw the shape, the speed, and a moonlit tail. She couldn’t breathe. It was on the run down the driveway now, but the fear wasn’t fading. She had been one step away from a mountain lion.
She stood shaking. Gage watched the lion go, then grabbed her by the arm and marched her slipping and tripping down the driveway. When they reached the old logging road, she could finally put words together. “Was it a mountain lion?”
“Yes. A little one.”
Little? There was nothing little about it! She had to jog to keep up with Gage. She looked over her shoulder again and again, listening for the sound of cat paws in the dark, but all she could hear was the rustle of their own steps through the tall grass. He reached the camper first and jerked the door open, and she was relieved she hadn’t locked it. He half helped, half pushed her inside, then followed and shut the door.
For the one second that they stood there in the dark and quiet of the camper, she realized how hard he was breathing. He had been scared, too. Meg reached for the DC light switch, and comforting light flooded the little camper. Fear was still running through her veins, and she looked around nervously. “He won’t come in through the camper, will he? Gage, we have to go up and warn the others!”
“I don’t think so.” Gage pushed forward until he could sit down at the tiny table. “It was a juvenile, probably out on his own for the first time, looking for his own territory. He was pretty freaked out. And most importantly, he was heading down into the valley. I can’t imagine he wants to go back into the chaos up there.” He looked at her and his eyes smiled. “Besides, the mean lady with the bear spray might get him.”
“Hey! I couldn’t tell what it was, bear, human, or whatever.” He reached across the table and closed his hand over hers, but she didn’t feel any better. “I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have any idea what to do.”
It was infuriating to look up and see a smile on his face, no matter how kind it was. “It’s hard being a planner, isn’t it? You spend so much time preparing. You’ve probably saved people from trouble they’ll never even know about. My sister’s a planner, so is my mom. What you need is a fixer.”
“A fixer?”
“A fixer. You don’t need another planner; you guys would just be butting heads all the time about how to plan. You need a fixer. So when things fall apart and it looks like you can’t pick up the pieces, instead of feeling bad about it, you can step back and let someone else fix it all. Someone who likes challenges a lot more than he likes avoiding them.”
She leaned back, pulling her hand with her. “I suppose you know one of these fixers.”
“I know a few.” Oh, those sparkling amber eyes. “But I still think the kitty wouldn’t have liked that bear spray. Besides, we did very well. We looked big and sounded intimidating. Just never let them circle behind you, that’s how they kill you.”
“What?”
“They bite you on the back of your neck and puncture your spinal cord.”
Meg looked at him in horror. “Too much information. And how do you know that? Are there mountain lions in Austin?”
He laughed. “Maybe not in the city. But they’re all over the west. Puma, panther, mountain lion—all the same bad kitty. You handle them a little differently than a bear, but I’d be interested to try the bear spray theory out. Maybe when I walk back up I’ll get a chance to test it out.”
“No!” she said, too loudly. She knew he was teasing her, but she was too scared not to take the bait. “Please don’t walk up there alone. You could take my Jeep. No, there’s no top on it, the mountain lion could jump right in and get you. I think you should stay a little while, until he’s gone.”
“I’m sure he’s long gone.”
Meg didn’t answer. The thought of Gage being out there in the dark with that mountain lion was awful. Being alone in her camper with the mountain lion out there wasn’t much better.
He must have seen the look in her eyes, because he suddenly changed his tune. “Well, I suppose I could stay a little while. It might set tongues wagging.”
“I’d rather face a little gossip than a mountain lion.” Her legs were still shaky, so she sat down across the table from him.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “I’ve been on the tail end of it even more than I deserved, and it can be grim.” Then with a look of surprise he noticed the drawings spread across the table. “Are these new?”
“I did them earlier today.”
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br /> He looked surprised. “Really? All of this? You must work fast.” He chuckled at one of the drawings. “Is this for Christmas? Mouse looks like he has Christmas trees on his antlers.” He picked up another drawing. “Oh, who’s the horse? I like him.”
Of course you do. “That’s a wild mustang. He hasn’t got a name yet.”
“And a fox, too. The forest is getting bigger.” He glanced up at her. “No mountain lion?”
“No, and there probably never will be! I don’t like making scary animals look cute to little kids.”
“A moose is pretty scary. A mustang stallion will kill you, too. And if that fox has rabies—”
“I think I know why you don’t write children’s stories, Gage. No one really wants to read the scene where the bad kitty severs the spinal cord of some innocent forest creature.”
Gage laughed long and hard over that one. She liked making him laugh. Finally he said, “Could you draw something tiny for my nephew? Cole would love it.”
“What animal does he like best?”
“Well, he likes Mouse the Moose best. Other than that he likes bears, mountain lions, bobcats—”
“I like bobcats. They have fluffy paws and ears.”
“They eat happy little forest critters.”
She glowered at him and pulled a pencil and the drawing tablet in front of her. She thought for a while. Of course a little boy would like a bobcat. They are small but powerful, and they move silently. And like little boys, they are really cute in a dangerous way. She drew one standing triumphantly, and put one of Gage’s sneaky grins on its face, just in case that ran in the family. He was on a rocky ledge, and she drew it as if he was above the viewer. She got up to rummage for her tin of pencils and dug through it for midnight blues. It would have to be nighttime. A golden crescent moon, a few glittering stars. His tan fur would have blue shadows in the nighttime. Claws? No claws. He had a full belly and was only out for fun. Behind him were the black treetops with silver highlights, and an owl silhouetted against the dark blue sky.
The drawing was done, and Meg had no idea how much time she had spent making it. She might have forgotten she wasn’t alone, but there was something deeply satisfying in the way Gage concentrated on her drawing the whole time. At the bottom of the drawing she wrote, “Cole the Ninja Bobcat” and signed her name. Then she ripped it off the drawing pad and handed it to Gage. He almost looked afraid to take it from her. “He’s going to love this,” he said. “It’s amazing.” All trace of joking was gone.
Meg felt a little embarrassed. “It’s not high art,” she said.
“Who gets to say what high art is? When I hang something on my wall I’d rather it didn’t make me feel depressed, irritated, or scared all day.”
“So I shouldn’t draw you a mountain lion?”
His eyes lit up. “Would you draw something for me? Really? I don’t want to push you, the drawing for Cole is amazing enough.”
She smiled. “I like doing it.”
“It shows. No mountain lion, though. I want a drawing of the wild mustang… if it’s not too much to ask, of course. Should I commission you? I mean, I’d be willing to pay.”
She kicked him under the table, which wasn’t hard because in that tiny space their legs overlapped anyway. “Wild mustang it is.” Of course.
She stared at the blank paper, but in her mind she was watching a movie. Wild mustang stallion. Nighttime wasn’t his time, daytime was. No, sunrise, the beginning of an adventure. Green grass, but instead of eating it, he’d be dancing. How do horses dance? She pictured rodeo bucking horses. No, that wasn’t quite right. Racehorses, reining horses, barrel racers, rodeo horses—they were all wrong. She pictured a rodeo bucking horse, but the head down, the desperation, just didn’t fit. But jumping did. This mustang would be jumping just for the fun of it. Leaping. Not head down for the balance and force of it, but head up, just enjoying the feel of stretching out long legs, catching the scent of the Montana air.
She sketched the horse coming down between leaps, front hooves together and reaching for the grass, back legs bucking free, head up and tilted, picking a cloud to aim for with his next jump.
“He doesn’t look like a planner,” Gage asked.
“Very funny.”
“Is he alone?” Gage asked. She could hear a little disappointment in his voice.
She looked up at him. “Who would he be hanging out with, a bobcat?” He shook his head. “A fox?” He shook his head again. Good.
“No, another horse. A pretty little mustang mare.”
“And what is she doing?”
He stared at her drawing. He seemed to be thinking about it very seriously. “Probably laughing at him,” he said. “But not really.”
Meg could see that clearly in her mind. She drew another mustang, smaller and rounder, a pale palomino the same color as the famous stallion Cloud in Montana’s Pryor Mountains. She was looking at the stallion over her shoulder, pretty mane and tail flowing in the breeze. She didn’t want to act like she was impressed by his antics, but she was.
The rest came fast, or at least it seemed that way to Meg. She saw the blue sky with the golden hint of sunrise in the horizon, long blue-green patches of pines bordered by patches of white snow still left in the shadows, wide green meadows with infinite purple lupines. Her favorite memories of seeing the mustangs in the Pryor Mountains came together all in one place, in one image. This was the reason she usually didn’t use a camera. The camera never captured things the way she remembered. The stallion was buckskin with a shock of unruly black mane and tail. And just below their hooves, scattered through the green grass, she drew tiny white flowers.
As the drawing came together Meg realized that she had been sitting in one place for a long time, perhaps even hours. Her legs were stiff, and her right shoulder ached. All the while Gage had barely moved. He laughed at the look on the mare’s face, oohed over the sunrise, aahed as simple pencil strokes turned into a field of lupines in the distance. “Done,” she finally said.
“Sign it.”
She did, though she felt self-conscious about it.
“What are you going to call it?”
She thought about that for a while. She wrote “Gage’s Mustang” at the bottom. It was vague enough, but she knew what it meant.
He took it from her and set it in front of him, then started to laugh softly. “It’s even better right side up,” he said. The smile lingered on his face. “I could watch you draw forever.”
It was one of the most romantic things she had ever heard.
There wasn’t anything she could say. She sat lost in the look of his amber eyes and the warmth of his admiration. She drew silly critters, and he admired her for it. Things didn’t get much better than this.
Gage finally broke the silence. He took his drawing, put it next to Cole’s, and put them both safely aside. “Tell me what’s going on with Mouse and the antler Christmas trees,” he said.
They talked for a while about the bones of her story idea. He had lots of questions and even some suggestions. Of the suggestions some were good, some were awful, and all of them made her think. Her mind was buzzing with ideas. But even as they spoke they were trading contagious yawns back and forth across the table. Finally Gage rubbed his eyes and asked, “Have you got any tea? I know I should go. But if you don’t kick me out, I don’t want to. I’m having too much fun.”
This handsome man was having too much fun talking about her children’s books characters. Even though she was tired, Meg wasn’t ready to call it a night either. She filled a small pan with some drinking water and turned on the burner. Deep in thought about her story, she got lost for a while waiting for the specks on the bottom of the pan to turn into real bubbles. A funny sound made her turn around, and she saw Gage face down on the table. He was deeply asleep, and snoring.
Meg turned off the burner and stared at him. She should wake him up this instant, send him off in her Jeep. She knew that. But instead she watched
the rise and fall of his steady breaths under the gabardine jacket. It stretched across his broad shoulders and his long arms. She thought of how it felt to be circled by those arms, dancing to songs older than either of them.
She backed up a few steps and took a fleece throw from her bed. She put it over his shoulders while her mind was saying no, it was past time to wake him up, and who did she think she was tucking him in like a boyfriend—or a husband? No, she reasoned, she’d wake him up in a second. She just didn’t want him to get cold in the meantime.
She sat down on the edge of her bed just a couple feet away from him. She wondered why there was so much comfort in his presence. It changed everything. Her book looked brilliant with him around, and her camper was an enviable work of art. She stared at him. Then she flopped back onto her back and thought, I really don’t want him to go back to Texas.
And that was the last thing she remembered thinking on the night of Joshua and Leah’s wedding.
Sunday
Bang bang bang! The old aluminum door of her camper rattled with every strike. Meg’s first conscious thought was that the mountain lion was trying to get in. She tried to get up but found herself tangled in blankets. By the time the sound ended she was sitting upright, wondering if she’d been dreaming.
There was a man getting up from her floor, rubbing his wild black hair, wearing a nice wedding jacket that was now quite dusty and half covered with a fleece throw. It was a shocking scene. He caught sight of her, looked confused for a split second, and then gave her that troublesome grin. “Hi,” he said. It was all he had time to say before the banging on the camper door resumed.
Meg jumped to her bare feet, but he was faster. Gage went for the door as if it was his camper. “Hold your horses!” he shouted. As he opened it he looked at her and grinned, “Get it? Horses?”
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