by Joanna Bell
I did not anticipate my own ruin, is what I'm saying. I'm from out west. We're scared of grizzly bears out here. Grizzly bears and flash floods and getting caught out in a winter storm. We're not scared of pretty girls. I wasn't scared of pretty girls.
Not until I met her.
Chapter 5: Astrid
There was a boy in high school who made me feel a little like Cillian Devlin did during that drive into Sweetgrass Ridge.
His name was James Houghton and he was the captain of the water polo team – until he got kicked off for smoking marijuana on a school trip. I had a couple of classes with James and we used to talk a bit. Just a bit, though, because something about him made me flustered and tongue-tied and unable to think of anything to say every time there was a lull in the conversation. I remember whiling away whole hours staring at his water-polo-honed shoulders under his t-shirt, dreaming innocent teenage dreams about holding his hand or cheering for him at a tournament.
James Houghton had a girlfriend, though – and that was probably a good thing. My parents wouldn't have been happy about even a friendship with someone like him. But it was more than that. It was the fact that he was – until I met Cillian Devlin – the only guy who ever made me slightly afraid of myself. I was nervous around James because some part of even the innocent, younger me understood that there was something dangerous about him. Or – more accurately – something dangerous about me when I was around him.
I never felt that with anyone else. Not with anyone in college – not even with Julian. Which isn't to say we didn't have a sex life. We did. But Julian Acton-Hayes III never made me physically tremble just from sitting next to him. Neither did James, now that I think about it.
Only Cillian Devlin did that.
I put it down to nerves at first. Nerves and insecurity. He was just so hot, for one thing. I'm not hot. Not like Cillian is, not in that obvious, magazine-cover way. I have mousey brown hair and small boobs and a minor overbite. If I've ever been attractive it's only to certain people, in certain lights. I'm black licorice – an acquired taste. Cillian is a chocolate chip cookie, warm and fresh from the oven.
He even asked me if I was cold at one point, so noticeable was the shaking.
"Yes," I lied, looking down at my own trembling hands on my thighs. "A little."
He reached out to turn the heat up in the truck and it took a real effort to pull my gaze away from his forearm, as tanned and corded with muscle as an athlete's.
"There it is."
I snapped out of my forearm-based reverie and looked ahead, to where Cillian was pointing.
"What?" I asked, not sure what he was pointing at.
"Sweetgrass Ridge!"
It was so small, my possible future home, that I didn't even see it at first. But as we got closer the few buildings taller than a single story became clearer. There was a gas station and a diner on the road into town and then a Main Street lined with the kind of flat-fronted buildings I didn't even think existed anymore outside of old western movies. The air was hazy with prairie dust and I coughed when some of it got into the truck.
"It's been a dry spring," Cillian commented, flipping a switch so the truck was no longer taking in air from outside. "Dusty as late summer already – if it doesn't rain soon the feed crops will fail."
I looked over at him, wondering if he was putting on an act. He didn't seem to be. Sweetgrass Ridge, Montana really was another world – a world I wasn't fully convinced even existed until I saw it with my own eyes.
I laughed a little nervously, suddenly aware of how out of place I was.
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing," I replied. "I just – I've never been somewhere like this before."
I could feel him looking at me as I gawked at all the pick-up trucks and 'feed stores' and pedestrians in cowboy hats.
And then before he could accuse me of being the city-girl I so profoundly was, a sudden loud banging on the window next to me almost made me jump out of my skin.
"Shit – you're a jumpy one aren't ya?" Cillian observed, opening the window and leaning forward to greet an older man who had appeared beside the truck.
"Cillian," the older man nodded respectfully and then turned to me. "And who's this pretty lady?"
"Astrid," Cillian told him as I held out my hand to shake. "Astrid Walker. She's a – a friend of mine. Just visiting for a few days. Astrid, this is Bob Cromer."
The two men proceeded to engage in a short conversation about organic silage prices that ended with Bob warning that others were interested in his silage and exhorting Cillian to pass that fact on to his dad if the Devlins were serious about placing a large order.
The window slid back up when the conversation was over.
"Fuckin' Bob," Cillian commented as we continued along Main Street. "Always trying to get the highest prices."
"Wouldn't you?" I replied, turning my head at the sight of two actual horses tied up outside a store.
He shrugged. "Cromer's lucky the Devlins even deal with him and his shitty silage."
There was a real sharpness to his tone, enough to make me curious about where it was coming from.
"I don't even know what silage is," I offered, when no further explanation was forthcoming.
"Feed," he replied. "Preserved feed, for livestock. If you store it a certain way it ferments and you don't lose the nutrition."
"Like kimchi?"
"Like what?"
We looked at each other for a few seconds, confused.
"You don't know what kimchi is?" I asked eventually.
Cillian laughed. "And you don't know what silage is."
I don't think either of us had any idea, in that moment, how symbolic it was. Or how much deeper the differences between us ran than our knowledge of various fermented foods. I want to say we still could have called it off – right then, at that exact moment. Cillian could have pulled his truck over and told me politely but firmly that he didn't see it going anywhere. Or I could have asked to be taken back to the airport and flown back to Miami thoroughly disabused of my idiotic notions about arranged marriages.
But you know what? I think even then, a few short hours into our acquaintance, it was already too late. Cillian Devlin already had some kind of hold over me.
I could not take my attention – or my eyes – off him. He just had an air about him, some casual but at the same time utterly competent masculine ease. I didn't quite recognize it for what it was at first. My body did – that's why I was trembling. That's why I had to tense the muscles in my jaw to keep my teeth from audibly chattering.
I snuck little glances in his direction as we made our way through town. He was relaxed in the driver's seat, leaned back and, every now and again, doing this funny little one-fingered forehead-touch-and-point gesture at various other drivers or people on the street.
"Do you know them?" I asked when he did it for about the tenth time.
"Uh-huh," he replied. "This isn't Miami, girl. Everybody knows everybody in Sweetgrass Ridge."
I liked it when Cillian Devlin called me 'girl.' It sent a happy, fizzy little thrill right through me. Maybe it shouldn't have – but I was already way past 'should.'
Chapter 6: Astrid
I spent that first night at the Rocky Mountain Inn – Sweetgrass Ridge's only "5 star luxury resort." And luckily for the Rocky Mountain Inn's online review average, I was too distracted by Cillian Devlin to take any real notice of the decidedly un-luxurious lumpiness of their bed, or the fact that the view was of a parking lot rather than the alpine vista their website promised.
Cillian Devlin, though. Yeah, he was going to be a problem. Even I could see it – and I'm not very good at foreseeing things like that. I could feel it, too. I felt it that evening, after he dropped me off at the hotel and I couldn't get to sleep until well past midnight. And then I felt it again the next morning when I bounced out of bed at 7 a.m., wired with excitement at the prospect of seeing him again.
We were going hik
ing in the foothills outside town. I wasn't much of a hiker then, but I was the owner of a brand new pair of hiking boots. It was those boots that Cillian eyed when we met up in the hotel lobby.
"What are those?" He asked, not quite managing to hide a look of what I might call amused disapproval.
He was wearing jeans again, and another t-shirt that fit him like t-shirts shouldn't even be allowed to fit men like him in public.
"Hiking boots," I replied. "It said you liked hiking in your questionnaire so I bought these."
"Are those heels?"
I stuck one of my feet out and turned it to the side. "Just little ones. And they're wedges, so they're easy to walk in."
Cillian guffawed. "How much did you pay for those?"
"I can't remember. Five hundred, maybe? Six hundred? Why? Is something wrong with them?"
He kept staring at my footwear, chuckling and shaking his head from side to side. "Have you ever been hiking before?"
"Yes!" I replied, still not entirely sure what was so wrong with my shoes, but starting to suspect it might be the heels. "I have! Me and my mom went on a spa retreat in Nepal a few years ago and –"
"Come with me," he interrupted, taking my hand before I could even finish and leading me out of the lobby. "You're going to have two broken ankles by noon if you wear those."
On the way out of town, we stopped at what looked like Sweetgrass Ridge, Montana's only shoe store and got me a pair of hiking boots without high heels. They cost $54.99.
"Darcy is going to love you," Cillian commented as we pulled onto an unpaved road that led into the foothills. "And by love you I mean she's secretly going to hate you."
"Darcy?" I asked, wondering if there were rattlesnakes lurking in the grass and thinking maybe I wasn't cut out for hiking.
"My stepmother. She lives for things like 600 dollar hiking boots."
***
We parked in the shade of a tall tree, its leaves bright green with spring newness, and I sat on a rock to put on my new boots.
"See how they feel," Cillian said. "If anything starts to hurt just tell me."
"I didn't buy those other shoes because they were expensive."
We were walking single file – Cillian in front, me bringing up the rear – down a narrow path that wound its way around and over the grassy hills, and I was ruminating on his comment about his stepmother and her love of pricey shoes.
"I didn't even check the price," I continued, eager not to be lumped into some group of shallow, luxury-obsessed women in the cowboy's mind. "I was just looking for hiking boots and they were the first ones I found."
We made our way up a gentle slope and the sun was rising higher in the sky. Cillian stopped when we reached the top and turned back towards me.
"You don't have to pretend like you're not a rich girl with me, you know."
I peered back at him, lifting one hand to my brow to shield my eyes from the sunshine. "I know. I'm not pretending. I just didn't want you to think I got those boots because they were expensive. I didn't even –"
"You didn't even check the price."
"No."
"That's what rich girls do. It's OK – I don't check prices either. I was just talking about Darcy – and it's not like she doesn't earn it."
"What do you mean?" I asked, intrigued by the hint at Devlin family life.
"Nothing," he replied, swatting an insect away from his face and turning back towards the path.
Cillian was a fast hiker – so fast I almost had to jog to keep up. And he walked in the same way he seemed to do everything else. There was that same ease I recognized from the day before and the drive to Sweetgrass Ridge. His strides were long and purposeful, and there was a deceptive quickness to the way he navigated the path, jumping over a dead tree branch here or swerving around a large rock there. He moved like a man who knew the terrain.
I stumbled and bumbled along behind him as best I could, grateful for the view – and I don't just mean of the mountains.
"Are you OK?" He asked when we reached the top of another hill and I had to take a moment to catch my breath. "You look –"
"Sweaty?" I replied, running the back of my wrist over my damp forehead and thinking a hike might not have been the best way to begin our first full day together.
"A little," he laughed. "Maybe we should rest."
We found a creek with a single, spindly tree growing beside it, in whose sparse shade we took refuge from the heat of the day. When I went to sit down in a place that would allow us to share the shade, Cillian insisted that I take it all for myself.
"I've got a hat," he said. "You don't. I should have told you to bring one. We probably shouldn't even have come out today – I forget how hot these spring days can get."
It really was very hot that day. I could feel the warmth emanating from my cheeks as the sun beat down on the mostly treeless hills.
"What's that noise?" I asked as a high-pitched buzzing set up nearby.
"June bug."
Some people just make you happy to be near them. I could have had a conversation about June bugs and the dry heat of Montana vs. Florida with anyone else. I could have had it sitting beside that same creek with anyone else and it wouldn't have felt the same. That low-level hum in my blood wouldn't have been there, for one thing. Nor would I have spent so much time trying to sound as casual as possible. With someone else, there would have been no need to try to sound casual because I simply would have felt it.
I did not feel casual with Cillian Devlin. I felt bright and sparkly and very awake.
I also felt hot and sweaty.
"OK," he said, after a few minutes' rest failed to cool me off. "Take off your shirt."
My eyes widened. "What?"
"Your shirt," he chuckled. "Just your t-shirt. You've got a tank-top on underneath."
Oh yeah. I did have a tank-top on underneath. I smiled at my own presumption.
"What? You think I'm trying to put the moves on you in this heat?"
Our eyes met briefly when he asked me that question, his dancing with playful, amused energy.
"No. I – uh, no I didn't –"
"Just take off your t-shirt and give it to me."
I did what I was told and pulled my shirt off. Cillian knelt down beside the stream and submerged it in the water, holding it under it was soaked through. It was so hot by then and I was so breathless from the hike and the sun and the cowboy that everything seemed to be moving in a kind of dreamy slow motion. If I try I can still picture Cillian beside that creek, rivulets of sparkling water running off his hands and down his wrists as he wrung my t-shirt out, the muscles in his shoulders tensing and releasing.
"Lean forward," he instructed, sitting down beside me.
I leaned forward and then gasped loudly as he placed the wet shirt against the back of my neck.
"Oh my God! That's cold!"
"You're damn right it's cold – just came off a glacier. Stay still."
I don't generally take well to being commanded. It isn't how I was raised, especially as a girl born in America in the waning years of the 20th century. I was raised to always speak up, to never simply submit to others telling me what to do.
So when Cillian Devlin took a commanding tone with me, I knew what my reaction should have been. I knew I should have reached back, taken the t-shirt out of his hands, thanked him for his help, and done the rest of it myself.
I didn't do any of those things, though. Instead I just stayed where I was, my head bowed forward as he gently moved the cold, damp t-shirt from my neck to my shoulders and then down each arm and back up again. He may have been commanding me, but the ire I expected to rise up in return simply wasn't there. In its place was a kind of softness, an almost guilty enjoyment at feeling cared for, attended to.
My ex-fiancé was never the attentive type. I thought that was how it was supposed to be. I thought I didn't need to be attended to or fussed over or treated like a fragile, breakable thing. Young women weren't supposed
to need those things – and so I didn't.
Except I did, though. And all it took to reveal my own folly to me was a wet t-shirt applied to the back of my neck on a hot day in Montana.
Cillian knelt behind me in the dust, pressing the t-shirt against my flesh until cold creek water dripped down my back, and even though I couldn't see him I could feel him. I could feel how close he was.
"How's that?"
I looked back at him, dazed. "Uh –"
"Do you feel any cooler?"
"I think so."
"You don't look cooler. Your face is really red. Maybe you should take your shoes off and stand in the water for a few minutes?"
I glanced at the creek. "I don't know..."
"Come on," Cillian cajoled. "I'm actually not joking – it's easier than you think to get sunstroke. The heat is deceiving, especially with a breeze. I shouldn't have brought you out here at this time of day – especially without a hat."
The next thing I knew I was stepping into the stream, shrieking at the numbing cold of the water and the odd feeling of my feet sinking into the fine gravel on the bottom. Cillian stood on the shore holding my hand and watching me closely.
"Is that better? Splash some of it on your face."
"You splash some of it on your face!" I shot back, laughing. "It's freezing!"
"Don't mind if I do."
I watched him bend down and scoop the icy water up between his cupped hands. That was the day I discovered that Cillian Devlin with his hair slicked back off his face was so ridiculously, almost disastrously handsome I could barely look at him. Droplets of creek water glistened on the ends of his eyelashes, and when he looked down all I could see were planes and angles, his strong features echoing the rock faces of the mountains in the distance.
I looked away. I had to. And when I did I spotted, not even two feet away, the smooth, rounded top of a boulder visible above the water. I don't know why I thought I needed to perch on that boulder in particular – but I did. I let go of Cillian's hand and took a step towards it.
