by Diana Palmer
“Oh, Mom, that’s awesome!” She hugged her mother, who stiffened. She drew away at once, embarrassed. But she recovered quickly. “Mmmm.” She sighed. “You smell nice. Like flowers.”
“It’s cologne. I haven’t worn any in a long time.” Katy felt uneasy. She’d never told Teddie why she didn’t hug her like her father had. Someday . . .
“I like it when you dress up,” Teddie said. She didn’t add that she suspected it was for Parker’s benefit, but that was what she was thinking. She grinned. “I’ll just go check on Bartholomew.”
“Okay.”
Teddie went into the barn and Katy sat down in the porch swing and closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of nature all around her. It was the nicest place to live, she thought. She wondered how she’d ever endured city noise. She was certain that she couldn’t go back to it after this.
“Asleep, are we?”
Her eyes flew open and her heart skipped. She hadn’t even heard Parker come up on the porch. He was wearing boots, too.
“Goodness, you startled me.” She laughed, putting a hand to her chest. “No, I was drinking in the sounds. It’s so nice here. So different from the city.”
“Amen,” he agreed. He dropped down in the swing beside her, noting her long, soft hair with a warm smile. “You look pretty today.”
She flushed and cleared her throat.
“Too much too soon?” he asked softly. “No sweat. You look cool, kid. How’s that?”
She laughed. “Sorry. I was feeling a little self-conscious.”
“Oh, I like the new look, don’t get me wrong,” he said. He cocked his head. “You and Teddie going trick-or-treating next week?”
“We were just talking about that,” she replied. “They’re having a big deal downtown in Benton. All the stores will be open and giving out candy. We’re having a harvest festival at our school, too.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Did you go trick-or-treating in town when you were a kid?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Too dangerous.”
She frowned and her eyes asked the question.
He looked older than his years as he looked down at her. “I look like my people,” he said delicately. “Back in 1876, some of my ancestors rode with the Cheyenne and the Sioux and the Arapaho and a few other tribes against Colonel George Custer. Old hatreds lingered, especially around the battlefield. We didn’t come off the rez much when we were kids. Not until we were teenagers, at least. I got in a lot of trouble, and I got given a choice—go in the army or go to jail.”
She whistled. “Good choice,” she said.
He shrugged. “It was the making of me,” he said. “After the first couple of weeks, I settled down and really enjoyed the routine. I stopped being a juvenile delinquent and turned into a soldier.”
She studied him curiously. “I thought we were getting away from prejudice,” she said softly. “I have students from all races, all walks of life. They get along well.”
“They do, if they’re taught to, while they’re young. You have to remember that the rez is for one race only: ours. We don’t mix well.”
“I’m sorry about that,” she said with genuine feeling. “Someday, I hope we can look at qualifications and personality instead of gender or race or religion.”
“Pipe dreams,” he said gently. “People are what they are. Most don’t change.”
She made a face. “I guess I’ve lived a sheltered life.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
She looked up into large, dark eyes. “The story of your life is in your eyes,” she said quietly, and she grimaced. “Sorry. I blurt out things sometimes.”
He smiled. “I don’t mind. I’m pretty blunt myself from time to time. It sort of goes with the job description.”
“And which one would that be?” she teased. “Breaking horses or working on a new unified field theory?”
He laughed. “Both, I suppose.” He rocked the swing into motion and looked straight ahead. “The feds noticed that I had a gift for algorithms, so they send a black sedan to pick me up in the summer and take me off to D.C.”
“Wow,” she said softly. “What do you do there?”
He sighed. “It’s all classified. Very top secret. I do code work. I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
She winced. “I put my foot in my mouth again.”
“Not at all. You didn’t know.” His dark eyes slid over her face intently. “Your major was what, English or education?”
“I did a double major,” she said. “Both.”
“What about your minor?”
She hesitated.
His thick black eyebrows lifted and he smiled. “Hmmm?”
She cleared her throat. “Anthropology. Specifically, archaeology. I went on digs for four years.” She gave him an apologetic glance. “I know, your people think of archaeology as grave digging. . . .”
“I don’t,” he said. “I minored in anthropology, too, as well as biology,” he said surprisingly. “I loved being able to date projectile points and pottery sherds. It was fascinating. You forget, I’m not all Crow. My mother was born on the reservation, near Hardin, Montana. But my father was white.” His face closed up at the memory.
She never touched people. But her small hand went to his shoulder and rested there, lightly, feeling the taut muscles. “We all have bad memories.”
His head turned. “I’ll bet you don’t.”
“Well, my parents loved each other, they said, but they still had knock-down, drag-out fights every so often,” she said. “I learned to hide in the stable until they calmed down.”
He chuckled. “I never had to do that. But my father wasn’t much of a father.”
“Was he a teacher?”
He shook his head. “An astrophysicist,” he said with distaste. “He still works in the aerospace industry. NASA, I think. I haven’t had any contact with him since.”
“I’ll bet he’d be proud of the man you became,” she said, and then flushed, because it was a little forward.
He looked down at her and frowned. “You think so?” he asked, surprising her.
“You’re kind to strangers, you love children, you break horses without harming their spirit, you know about Schrodinger’s cat. . . .”
He chuckled. “You’re good for my ego. You know that?” he teased. “I guess a lot of us are prey to low self-image, especially people of color.”
“You’re a nice color,” she said warmly. “Light olive skin. I’m just pink. I can’t even tan.”
He studied her fair hair, long around her shoulders, and her pretty, pink face. He smiled slowly, a smile that made her toes curl inside her shoes. “You’re a nice color, too,” he said huskily. His fingers went to her hair and touched it softly. “Your hair is naturally this color, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes.” Was that high, squeaky tone her actual voice? She was surprised at the way it sounded. “Well, I do use a highlighting shampoo, but I don’t color it.”
“It’s beautiful.”
Her breath was coming like a distance runner’s. Her eyes fell on his mouth. It was chiseled, with a thin upper lip and a full square lower one. It was a mouth that made her hungry for things she barely remembered. Her late husband had been gone so much that intimacy had gone by the wayside, for the most part. At the end, they were more friends than lovers. And she couldn’t remember ever feeling such hunger, even for him. Perhaps it was her age, or that she’d been alone too long. She felt guilty, too, just for entertaining the thought that Parker would be heaven to kiss.
He was staring at her mouth, too. His fingers tightened on her hair. “This would be,” he whispered, “a very bad idea.”
“Oh, yes,” she whispered back, shakily. “A very, very bad idea.”
But even as they spoke, they were bending toward each other. Her head tilted naturally to the side, inviting his mouth closer.
“I might become addicted,” he whispered a little unst
eadily.
“Me, too . . .”
He leaned closer, his big hand clutching her hair, positioning her face. His head bent. She could almost taste the coffee on his mouth. She was hungry. So hungry!
“Katy,” he breathed, and his lips started to touch hers.
“Mom? Parker? Where are you guys?”
They broke apart, both flushed and uneasy. Parker got to his feet and moved away from Katy without looking at her.
“We’re out here, sprout!” he called. “Ready to go?”
Teddie came barreling out the front door, dressed to ride. “Yes! I’m so excited!”
“We’ll take it slow and easy the first time,” he told her, grinning, although he was churning inside about what had almost happened. He managed to get himself together in the small space of time he had while Teddie rushed toward the stable.
He turned and looked at Katy, who was standing up, looking all at sea and guilty.
He went back to her, towering over her. “It’s okay,” he said softly.
She swallowed. “I’m . . . I mean . . . I think . . .” She looked up at him with her face taut with indecision, hunger, fear, guilt.
He touched her cheek gently. “We’ll take it slow and easy, Katy,” he said huskily. “No pressure. Okay?”
She took a deep breath. “Okay,” she agreed, and her eyes grew soft.
He smiled in a way he never had. “Suppose I pick you and Teddie up on Halloween night and drive you around to the venues for candy?”
She hesitated just a second too long.
His face tautened. “Or is that a bad idea? You’d rather not be seen with me in public . . . ?”
She went right up to him and reached up to touch his hard cheek. “You know me better than that already. I know you do!”
He let out the breath he’d been holding. “Sorry,” he bit off. “Life is hard sometimes when you’re a minority.”
“I’ve never been like that,” she said. “I’d be proud to be seen with you anywhere. I was just worried about, well, gossip. Small towns run on it. You might not like being talked about. . . .”
He actually laughed. “I’ve been talked about for years. I don’t mind gossip. If you don’t.” He hesitated. “That lawyer’s coming out here next month, isn’t he?”
“He’s a pest,” she said shortly. “He invited himself and I can’t convince him that I’m not interested.”
“No worries, kid,” he teased. “I’ll convince him for you.”
She smiled slowly. “Okay,” she said.
He chuckled. “I’d better go help Teddie saddle Bartholomew before she ends up in a pile of something nasty.”
She smiled from ear to ear. “She’ll love riding. Until she gets off the horse,” she added, because she knew how sore riding made people who weren’t used to it.
“You could come, too,” he invited.
Her eyes were full of affection and something else. “Next time,” she said.
He nodded. “Next time.”
He turned and went toward the stable.
* * *
“Mom got all dressed up and let her hair down,” Teddie said as she and Parker rode down the fence line, she on Bartholomew and he on Wings.
“I noticed. Your mom’s pretty.”
She laughed. “She thinks you’re awesome, but don’t tell her I told you.”
“She does?” he asked, astonished.
“It was the cat,” she volunteered. “She’s keen on brainy people.”
“It’s a conundrum, the cat,” he replied. “Einstein did thought experiments like that. Most theoretical physicists do. In fact. I follow two of them–Michio Kaku and Miguel Alcubierre. Alcubierre came up with the idea for a speculative faster-than-light speed warp drive. In fact, they call it the Alcubierre drive. One day, it may take mankind to the stars.”
“Gosh, I didn’t know that. You follow them? You mean, when you go back East to D.C.?” she wondered.
He chuckled. “I follow them on Twitter.”
“Oh! Theoretical physics.” She rode silently for a few minutes. “I still want to fly jet fighter planes.”
“I knew a guy who did that, years ago. He said that when those things take off, your stomach glues itself to your backbone and you have to fight the urge to throw up. It’s like going up in a rocket. The gravitational pull is awesome.”
“I didn’t realize that. Goodness!”
“It’s something you get used to. Like the “raptor cough,” if you fly F-22 Raptors.”
She frowned. “Raptor cough?”
“That’s what they call it. Nobody knows what causes it. But the guys who fly those things all develop it.”
“Maybe I can get used to it,” she said. “I love Raptors,” she added with a sigh. “I think they’re the most beautiful planes on earth.”
He grinned. “They’re not bad. But I like horses.”
“Me, too!”
They rode along for a few minutes in silence. Bartholomew took his time, and he wasn’t particularly nervous. Hopefully, being around Teddie relaxed him, because he didn’t try to bolt with her. All the same, Parker was watchful.
“Will it offend you if I ask you something?” Teddie asked as they were on their way back to the stables.
“Of course not,” he replied with a smile. “What do you want to know?”
“We learned at school that all Native Americans have legends about animals and constellations and stuff. Do the Crow have them?”
He grinned. “We do. My favorite is the Nirumbee.”
“Nirumbee?”
He nodded. “They’re a race of little people, under two feet tall. Some of the tales we have about them are violent and gory, but they’ve also been known to help people. I had a Cherokee friend in the service, and he said they also had a legend about little people that they called the Nunnehi.”
“Do you think they really exist?”
“Some credible people have claimed to see them,” he said. “My friend swore that he heard them singing in the mountains of North Carolina, where he grew up. And here’s what’s interesting. Archaeologists actually found evidence of a race of little people, no taller than three feet high. It made the major news outlets. They were called the “Hobbit” species, after Tolkien’s race from the films,” he said, chuckling.
“Wow.”
“I think all legends have some basis in fact,” he continued. “Like the Thunderbird. It’s a staple of Native American legends, a huge bird that casts giant shadows on the ground. There was a lot of controversy about a photograph, a very old one, of several men holding what looked like a pterodactyl stretched out. I don’t know if it was Photoshopped or legitimate, but it looked authentic to me. I saw it on the Internet years ago.”
“I’ll have to go looking for that!”
“I like legends,” he said softly. “Living in a world that has no make-believe, no fantasy, is cold.”
“I think so, too.” She paused. “Do you speak Crow?”
He nodded. “A lot of us do.”
“Is it hard to learn?”
“Compared to Dutch and Finnish, it’s simple. Compared to Spanish or French, it’s hard.” He glanced at her whimsically. “We have glottal stops and high tones and low tones, double vowels, even a sound like the ach in German. It’s difficult. Not so much if you learn it from the ground up as a child.”
“I’d like to study languages in college,” Teddie said.
“In between flying F-22s?” he teased.
She laughed. “In between that. I could go in the Air Force and go to college, couldn’t I?”
“You could.”
“Then I’ll study real hard, so that I can get in.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
She fingered the reins gingerly. “Do you like my mom?”
He hesitated.
She glanced at him and saw his discomfort. “Sorry. I just meant she likes you. I hoped maybe you liked her, too.”
“I do like her,
” he said. He sighed. “But you guys are getting over a big loss, a really big loss.”
“She misses Daddy,” she agreed. “But he wasn’t the sort of person who’d want her to grieve forever or spend the rest of her life alone. He was always doing things for other people. Always.”
“I wish I could have known him, Teddie,” he said solemnly.
“Me, too.”
“You’re doing very well at riding, you know,” he said after a minute.
“I am?”
He smiled at her enthusiasm. “Very well, indeed.” He grimaced. “But you may not think so when we get back.”
She didn’t understand why, until they were at the stable and he reached up to lift her down. She stood on her feet and made a terrible face.
“You need to soak in a hot tub,” he told her. “It will help the soreness.”
“Mom never said it was going to hurt so much,” she groaned.
“It only hurts when you haven’t done it for a while,” he explained. “Riding takes practice. You’re using muscles you don’t normally use, so they get stretched and they protest.”
“I see.”
“It will get better,” he promised.
She drew in a breath. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure. Go on in. I’ll unsaddle Bartholomew for you and rub him down, okay?”
“Thanks!”
“No problem.”
She walked like an old woman all the way to the house. Katy was waiting on the porch and she made a face.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “I should have told you.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. Honest. I’d have gone anyway. Parker said I’m doing great! I didn’t fall off or spook Bart even one time!”
She laughed. “Good for you.”
“He said I should soak in a hot tub, so I’m going to.”
“Good idea,” she replied. “Want me to run the bath for you?”
“I can do that. Thanks, Mom.”
“You’re welcome.”
She hesitated and grinned wickedly. “He likes you,” she said, and walked away before her mother had time to react.