Signs of Love

by Skye, Harper

  “Sure. Yes.” Zach breathed back against her ear as he reached down into her panties, making her gasp with pleasure.

  Afterwards, they lay together catching their breath and enjoying the cozy pockets of warmth back under the covers. Finally Zach rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow. “So…what exactly did I agree to again?” He asked, the edges of his mouth flickering with a smile.

  “You’re going to help me make a table in the workshop,” Ailsa replied looking back at him confidently.

  “Oh good, that’s not too bad.”

  Ailsa laughed. “Maybe I should’ve gone for more…”

  “Probably should have…” Zach agreed laughing back. Kissing her gently he rolled out of bed and began pulling on his clothes. His muscles across his back stretched and rippled under his skin. Ailsa could tell he was still tired from the hard labor of the last few days.

  “I’m starving,” he said turning back towards her and patting her hip. “You’re gonna have to feed me before you drag me back out to the workshop.”

  When she walked through to the kitchen, Zach was already frying six eggs and throwing slices of toast in the toaster as if it was his last meal. Sometimes Ailsa couldn’t believe how much the man could eat.

  “So tell me about this table,” Zach said, piling the eggs on top of the toast and handing her a plate.

  “I don’t know…” Ailsa shrugged. “I just want to make something.”

  “Well, how big is this table going to be? Two-by-two? Two-by-four? What do you want it to look like?”

  “Two-by-two feet?” Ailsa asked. “Yeah, that sounds okay. I’ll start small.”

  “You want the edges square or bevelled? I mean rounded,” he translated.

  “Rounded.”

  Zach was nodding. His wide hands gripped the egg sandwich he had made as he took enormous bites. His eyes narrowed in concentration as he chewed, considering the project.

  “Fine, I’ll show you how to make a design on the legs with a chisel and the lathe. You’ll like that.” Picking up his mug he took a big swig of coffee and then pushed himself away from the table. “Okay, you ready woodswoman?”

  “Ready,” she said smiling.

  Ailsa could not have prepared herself for how much she enjoyed her time in the workshop. Zach showed her how to cut long straight lines through the wood with the table saw and soften the edges with the trim router. After a break for another coffee, they cut the table legs with the band saw, rounded each leg with the lathe and shaped the mortise and tenon joints.

  Gradually, the pieces of wood took on the shapes of the table. Zach moved carefully around her, standing against her waist with his arms securing the slabs of wood as she moved them though the spinning blade of the saw. He pointed out ways he had gone wrong in his early days of woodworking, common mistakes and safety measures she needed to take with each piece of equipment. And by the late-afternoon, Ailsa had some beautiful shapes of wood ready to be assembled.

  “This was amazing!” Ailsa said, peeling her safety goggles off her face as Zach switched off the router. Zach looked over at her in amusement. “I’m glad,” he said simply, rubbing his hands together. He stepped over to her and brought his thumb across one of her cheeks. “You look incredibly sexy covered in sawdust, you know that?”

  Ailsa started to laugh, but then she saw Zach’s eyes grow serious as he continued to look at her. The next minute she felt his hands encircling her waist as he lifted her up onto the worktable behind her. Ailsa spread her knees as Zach stepped into her.

  “You’re getting me all dirty,” Ailsa breathed, leaning back into her hands on the sawdusty table.

  “You’re already dirty,” Zach replied, undeterred.

  Ailsa was waiting for him to kiss her, to touch her. But he didn’t. Instead he stood over her, gazing down with those golden brown eyes as if he were looking down into the depths of her. Ailsa could feel a tingling energy beginning to crawl across her body from his stare. Her mind began to spin, a heady buzzing from the energy of him. Slowly he raised one hand and lightly traced the edge of her face and along her jaw with his fingers. Goosebumps spread across her arms and legs, and she longed for him to kiss her, to release her from this electric tension that held edges of both pleasure and torment. His hand continued down her neck and then across her collarbone, his touch so light she could barely sit still.

  Ailsa released both hands from the table and sat up, reaching out to clasp Zach’s forearms. She needed to touch him. She yearned to feel his heart beat beneath her hand, the solidity of his tall frame against her body. Her legs dangled off the worktable, her jeans brushing against his thighs.

  Reaching up she wrapped both arms around his neck and pulled him towards her. He bent his head but kept his eyes locked onto hers. “I love you,” she heard him say. And before she realized it, she heard her own voice echoing back, “I love you too.”

  His face was only inches from hers, but she saw it break out in a smile as wide as the open sky. “I was hoping you might,” he whispered gruffly. And then he kissed her soft and full on the mouth, and she felt herself surrendering to him and to the freedom she suddenly felt from letting the love in.

  Chapter 30

  Ailsa sat up in the shadows of the bedroom. Beside her, Zach shifted in the bed. She felt his hand reach out for her. It felt like the middle of the night, although it was hard to tell this time of year. There had been almost constant daylight for weeks now, and although the blackout blinds were effective, light still crept in along the edges with thin lines of light.

  “Ailsa…”

  Ailsa rubbed her hands over her face, trying to clear her head.

  “Are you okay?” His voice was gruff with sleep as he sat up next to her. Ailsa could feel his gaze resting on her as he began to stroke her long hair along her shoulders and down her back.

  “Was it the dream?” He asked, and Ailsa realized she still hadn’t answered him. It felt like she was still half-stuck in the dream where the face of the bear stared at her, its face growing angry and moving nearer and nearer as she had backed away.

  She had been trying to ignore her dreams. She was happy here, and she felt so determined not to do anything to threaten what felt like a very fragile joy. Maybe it was simply that she wasn’t used to feeling so good. She hadn’t found anything that could lift her mood quite like Zach. Maybe her fiddle. But even playing music often left her with a quiet and melancholy feeling inside. Whereas with Zach there was warmth and laughter.

  And yet at night the things she was trying harder and harder to avoid crept in. Often now she lay in bed at night nestled against Zach’s body, and even though she tried to listen to his quiet, deep breathing, she couldn’t stop worrying about what lay ahead for them in the future. She had been in Alaska for almost three months now, though at times it seemed much longer. The time she had left suddenly felt like it was shrinking at a frantic pace and though she tried to grasp at it, it continued to slip through her fingers.

  And then there was the bear.

  She hadn’t seen anymore bears near the house, but the black-faced bear continued to visit her in her dreams, more often now than before. It was usually the same kind of dream she’d had in Scotland. She was walking through a woodland and suddenly there was the bear, staring at her. And then she woke up. Again and again the same dream, it taunted her as she struggled to understand its meaning and what it was trying to tell her to do. And then tonight, the bear had roared at her, its mouth opening wide to reveal long white teeth. The noise had thundered against her as the bear shook its head violently. And for the first time, Ailsa had started backing away.

  “Ailsa, talk to me…” Zach had brought a heavy arm around her shoulders and had moved himself closer to her on the bed.

  “I’m okay,” she whispered, leaning her head gratefully into his shoulder.

  “Bad dream?”

  “Yeah,” she nodded. “No…I don’t know.” She sighed letting him engulf her with his
arms. “She roared at me this time. She’s never done that before. I could feel she was angry at me. Like I haven’t been listening to her. But I don’t know how to listen. I don’t know what it all means.” Ailsa ran her fingers through her hair.

  Zach smoothed a wide hand over her head and then reached for one of her hands and held it for a long moment. “Think you can try to go back to sleep?” He asked at last.

  “Maybe. I just want to lay here with you.” Immediately he pulled her back down against the pillows.

  She felt Zach kiss the side of her head, and she tried to relax her mind as he gently ran his thick fingers along her hairline. They were both quiet, but a minute later she felt Zach stir.

  “Let me take you somewhere,” his voice wrapped around her in the semi-darkness of the room. “Maybe if you stop looking so hard things will become more clear.”

  “Where would we go?” She whispered back.

  “Let’s go north. There’s a little town called Nome on the Bering Sea. We’d have to fly there. But it would be an adventure…” He turned slightly and Ailsa naturally tilted her head up to look into his face.

  “I like adventures.”

  Even in the darkened room she saw his eyes smile. “Me too.”

  It seemed like one minute they had been talking in bed in the middle of the night, and the next minute Ailsa found herself boarding a plane to Nome.

  With a detour south to Anchorage, the plane trip had taken longer than Ailsa had expected to get to Nome. But as they finally came in over the small town, Ailsa’s heart began to thump. It was beautiful. The Bering Sea stretched out like a cold whisper to the horizon, and Ailsa thought there was something quite brave about the look of the small cluster of buildings that faced out onto that vast, cold sea. It felt a little like her own small self in the face of the vast unknown.

  Bundled into their rental truck, they grabbed sandwiches at the local cafe, and then headed out to the small cabin Ailsa had found online for them to stay. It was a fair distance out of town, but compared to the unremarkable hotels in Nome, Ailsa had been drawn to the rustic charm of the tiny cabin with its cast iron stove and loft bedroom.

  Zach clearly agreed. He had barely stepped through the front door when he was smiling and nodding at her. “Wow, this place is great!” He set their bags down on the bare wood floor and stepped over to take a closer look at the stove. “Let’s get this going, eh? It’s chilly in here.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Ailsa commented, looking out the window towards the mountains. The view was spectacular.

  “That’s because you still have all your clothes on,” Zach replied, flashing her a look.

  “Cheeky!” Ailsa turned back, narrowing her eyes at him.

  Zach laughed.

  She loved when he laughed like that. It was a laugh of total comfort. A laugh that made it seem as if she could get away with saying almost anything because they were in love and would be together forever. Ailsa bit the inside of her cheek and looked back out towards the mountains so Zach wouldn’t see the flicker of doubt in her eye.

  Within the hour, the cabin was toasty warm, and Ailsa and Zach were cuddled up on the little sofa looking out the window. It still looked like the middle of the day, although the growing heaviness in Ailsa’s eyes told her how looks could be deceiving.

  “Play me something,” Zach suggested, nodding his head towards her fiddle case that was propped up against the wall a few feet away. “Play me Callum’s Road again.”

  So Ailsa had pulled up a chair and had taken her fiddle into her arms. Her left arm curved gently to hold it close as she nestled it under her chin. Her right hand picked up her bow and slowly brought the bow hairs across the strings.

  Sing — high and fragile. She pulled her arm back. Song — low and soft.

  There was a natural human voice in the fiddle, and each time she played she felt as she always had — that she was speaking things that had no words, that it was not the fiddle but the deepest part of her soul that was singing out.

  Zach took a quiet drink of his whiskey that glowed amber in the firelight, watching her as she played. And Ailsa felt herself flowing out with the song, telling Zach, telling Alaska, telling the universe all that she wanted to say about her home in Scotland. And all she wanted to say about dreams that could be broken. And also about the hope of a man who was able to build his own road through the rocky terrain with only a pickaxe and his own determination.

  Chapter 31

  The next morning, Ailsa picked up the white bucket in her hand and stepped off the dirt trail into the long grass and wild land outside of Nome that ironically reminded her so much of Scotland. From a distance, the lack of trees, wide open land covered with greens, oranges and browns didn’t look that different from parts of the Scottish Highlands. Up close however, she quickly saw how much different it felt to walk into this solid land than it did to hike through the often boggy terrain of Scotland.

  White bucket slung over her forearm, Ailsa bent down to pick a handful of bright pink Kamchatka Rhododendron wildflowers. Their petals fluttered delicately in the wind, and she stood and continued to follow an unseen path through the wild. Far off in the distance she could make out a small group of caribou, the browns of their fur blending softly into the landscape.

  “Over here, I found a patch!” Zach waved an arm at her, and Ailsa waded through the grass in her boots towards him. She hit the blueberry patch herself before she reached Zach, and kneeling down she began to pull the tiny berries from among the leaves. They were small but sweeter than any blueberries Ailsa had ever tasted.

  “Do you know that book Blueberries for Sal?” Zach asked. When she shook her head, Zach explained. “My mom used to read it to us as kids. It’s about a little kid and a little bear who both get lost on blueberry hill and they each end up following the wrong mother.”

  “The kid followed the mother bear?” It felt like what Ailsa was doing. Following the bear who continued to disappear behind corners in her mind.

  “Yeah. I love the picture of little Sal in that book, marching along behind the mother bear, totally unafraid. Not that we shouldn’t be cautious of bears…” He added, looking up at her. “But there’s this look in the kid’s face like ‘I belong here. I’m just a creature like the bear walking along eating blueberries before winter.’” Zach poured a wide handful of blueberries into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.

  Ailsa looked at Zach as he knelt in his jeans among the low bushes. All around him the land spread out, allowing the wind to flow uninhibited. Somehow the vastness of the space made Ailsa feel strong. She watched Zach’s arm muscles flex against the sleeves of his teeshirt, his shoulders square and broad as he moved among the blueberry bushes. What was it about this kind of wild land that brought the strength out in a person. It was as if the land had claimed him, for he seemed to hold the power of the wind and the solidity of the mountains in the distance and the openness of the sky.

  “What?”

  Ailsa blinked, and then felt herself blush as she realized he had caught her staring at him.

  “Nothing.”

  Zach crinkled his eyes knowingly and then stood up with his own blueberry bucket. He strode over to her and, reaching out a wide hand, pulled Ailsa to stand. Wrapping his arm around the small of her back he brought her into his chest, her face moving close enough to feel his warm breath despite the wind.

  “You’re staring at me.” He accused in a soft, teasing voice.

  “I’m not.” Ailsa felt herself blush further. She had been staring. She had been watching the way his body moved. She had been remembering the way his body had looked last night moving in the candlelight of their cabin.

  “Liar.” Zach moved his face closer to hers until her vision blurred and she could feel the edges of his rough chin, the whisper of his lips. “You’re after my blueberries. Admit it.”

  Ailsa felt her blue eyes crinkle, and she fought the smile that played at her mouth. “I’m not.” She protested. “I
don’t need your measly blueberries…I’ve got…”

  Without warning Ailsa felt Zach’s fingers digging into her waist to tickle her, and she let out a yelp. Squirming and laughing she pretended to push away from him while he locked her in his arms. “Admit it. You’ve been eyeing my bucket this whole time. Plotting…to steal…”

  Ailsa finally wrenched her arm free and reached her fingers into his waist. Zach jerked back with a laugh and almost released his grip on her.

  But then he was back, both hands tickling her mercilessly as their laughter echoed across the land.

  “Okay…” Ailsa gasped at last. “Okay I give up.”

  Zach eased off his attack. He was still laughing, but Ailsa could hear something else now beneath his heavy breathing.

  “Glad to hear you admit it…” Zach slipped his hand under her shirt at her waistline, and she waited for him to begin tickling her again but he didn’t. He was pulling her against him, and Ailsa realized suddenly how pressing her own body against Zach’s had affected her. The desire she heard wasn’t just in his breath. It was in hers.

  Ailsa felt Zach’s rough muscular hand against the curve of her waist, the cool air flowing around the places where his fingers held her skin. She reached down against him, her hand running across the front of his jeans where she could feel him hard underneath.

  “I do admit it,” she breathed into him, her mouth reaching up to find his. “I was plotting all along…”

  “I knew it…” Zach pressed his mouth into hers, winding his tongue against hers with the rising passion of their game.

  She pulled once and the button of his jeans popped open. Ailsa slipped her hand down into his pants. He was warm and hard against her cool fingers.

  “But I don’t need to steal your blueberries….” She whispered as she pulled a low moan from his throat. “Because you’re going to give them to me…”

  She slid her fingers down, cupping his balls in her palm, and Zach groaned with pleasure. “Take them…” he replied. Breathless he crushed his rough face into hers. “Take them all…”