by Pinki Parks
“You’re not so bad.”
“I was. Back then, I was a mess. I got into gambling and fell into this kind of gang, it got real dangerous. She pulled me out of it. Not on purpose. But her light was brighter somehow, all I had to do was ignore everything else and follow her.” He looked over at Brook and said jokingly. “If that makes any sense.”
“I can’t imagine.” Brook had never experience that kind of love before.
“You’ve never felt that before? Not even with your husband?”
“No. With us it was more day to day stuff. We worked well together as a couple. Sounds kinda lame, doesn’t it.”
“I can’t imagine you not having some guy gushing all over you.”
“They did but not in the same way. What was it like, between you and her?”
He looked over at Brook, surprised that she wanted to talk about his wife and how much he loved her. “It was some kind of power outside of me that made me want to go to her. Whenever I lost my way, or got into something bad, I would be in her life, in her presence and I would forget all that other stuff. She was my light, I guess you could say. Then I made the decision to change and get away from all that stuff completely. I didn’t want her to be a part of it and I didn’t want to bring that into her life. I looked forward to every moment with her.”
“It must have been really tough for you when she died, then.”
“It wasn’t easy. Still isn’t.”
“I think that letting go isn’t as hard as people make it out to be.”
“Oh, says the person, whose never been in love.”
“I mean, letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. And moving on, doesn’t mean erasing the past. It will always be exactly what you just told me.”
She sounded so wise for a second, thought Deacon. He sat still and thought about what she just said. It was profound for him to hear it. It suddenly made him happy. He smiled at her and stared a little longer into her eye enjoying her cute outlook on the situation. She was right. And, for once, it felt nice to not feel bad about his story. She had somehow turned it around.
“You’re starting to sound like Sam!” He looked over at her with a big smile, in awe at the effect she just had on him. She was beautiful and the flickering of the distant bond fire lighted her face in a soft yellow glow. He could feel himself kissing her.
They had two more beers together and stay on that benched talking the entire time, until Brook’s ride was leaving. She had to call it a night. It was too soon to be asking Deacon to take her home, she thought.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” She got up.
“Alright. See you tomorrow morning.” He stood up. “Have a good night.”
“You too. Goodnight.”
He stood and watched as she walked away. Every guy there was looking at her ass. It was tight and high, round and beautiful. The kind of ass, a woman would get surgery to achieve. Deacon shook his head in disbelief at how sexy she looked when she walked.
Deacon made his way over to the bond fire and was immediately greeted by everyone there. But he no longer felt like partying now that she left. He was quiet the rest of the night and went home.
Chapter Seven
Brook could see a truck pulling up into the Motel’s parking lot. She was one of two people staying there so there was a fifty-fifty chance it was for her. Sure, enough it was Deacon. Her heart started betting a little faster as she got up with enthusiasm. She grabbed her purse and quickly walked to the door. He got out of the truck and walked towards the main entrance.
He was dressed in another form-fitting T-shirt which showed off pecks, biceps, bulging forearms. As she reached Deacon, Carole ran out to meet them carrying a leather jacket and a basket.
“You might want to put this on. You’ll need it.” Cried out Carole.
Brook looked out towards the mountains. It was just before ten and the sun had been up three hours. It must have been at least eighty outside and most certainly not leather jacket weather.
“Why do I need this? It’s too hot. I thought we were going horseback riding not skiing.”
Deacon smiled at the response. “You’ll regret it if you don’t take it. I promise.”
I haven’t been riding for a couple of years now and the mountains sound like they will be beautiful. It probably is cooler up there isn’t it?”
“A bit. You ready to go?”
“Yes. Bye Carole.”
“I packed you two a lunch. Thought you might get hungry up there. Y’all have a great time and ride carefully. Don’t you go overdoing it Brook if it’s been a while. You don’t want to be limping tomorrow.”
“I won’t. Thanks for the jacket. And lunch. It’s great!”
She started taking steps backwards as she waved goodbye and was about to run right into Deacon, who was just two feet behind her.
Deacon snapped his head back when he felt her touch but his extra weight and the extra half-step he took knocked Brook back, threatening to topple her over onto the dusty sidewalk. He reached out both hands and grabbed the tops one of her forearms in a firm but careful grip and stayed suspended mid-air for a second. Her hair came undone and he noticed her golden waves dangling in the sunlight.
When she had been letting her imagination run riot about Deacon’s muscles she had imagined they would be firm, taut from his physical work. She was wrong they were like slightly pliable steel. Solid, hard, and flexing under her fingers as he held her in close.
She looked up at him as he towered above her, taking in the meltingly gorgeous brown eyes that were gazing down on. She caught a faint smell of sandalwood from his aftershave and despite telling herself not to, she let out just the slightest groan of pleasure at his touch.
“Are you OK? I didn’t hurt you, did I? I wasn’t watching where . . .” His breath was sweet, warm, and minty fresh.
He laughed when he realised what he was saying.
“Are you okay dear?” Carole saw from a few steps back.
“I’m fine!” She shouted at Carole. “Thanks for catching me,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on his, feeling the heat radiating from his body. He pulled her up gently. “You ready to get going?” Brook nodded. She quickly dusted herself off as they walked over to the truck.
Deacon kept a hand hooked under her arm as they walked towards his truck.
“Bye!” Carole shouted.
“Bye, Carole! Thanks again!”
Chapter Eight
As they pulled onto the ranch, surrounded by rolling high mountains and a lush covering of trees, Brook jumped out once Deacon switched off the engine, surprised at the drop-in temperature even though they didn’t seem to have climbed too high. The air had a freshness, a vitality about it, a pureness that filled her lungs with her first breath, energizing her in a way she had never expected.
“You ready to go horse riding?” Deacon said from behind her; close behind her. She smelled like honeysuckle, he thought.
“I’m just taking in the air.” She didn’t turn around, much as she wanted to. When they touched knees at Sam’s, it was electrifying. And when she ran into him this morning, it excited her down to her very core in a way she had never felt before and hadn’t been looking for when she had set off from home to find herself. Instead she had found Deacon. The very thing that she had never dreamed of finding on her trip.
She was realistic. She knew that they were impossible for each other. She, the heiress to a fortune, the city girl who had never done anything remotely useful with her life other than pose for society shots with her daddy then when he’d passed her on to her husband, pose for the same shots with him. The rest of her life was a vacuous existence filled with ways to pass the time. None of those things achieved anything but to see the clock move around another hour or two.
***
“Y’all take care now and enjoy your ride. All the trails are well marked, and you’ve ridden most of them before anyway, Deacon. He l
oaded the picnic into the saddlebags. See you both around six.” The homely woman who had greeted them gave them a cheery wave before heading back to the house she had emerged from when they had arrived.
It had been a couple of years since Brook had ridden and despite being a little rusty, she had immediately felt at home in the saddle. The horse had responded well to her urging when she had taken it around the paddock.
“Now, don’t go racing off at a gallop straight off. Give me a chance to get used to the horse.”
“You got it.” Deacon looked over his shoulder at her and smiled.
Deacon moved off at a slow walk and Brook fell in behind him while they negotiated the gate to the paddock. She looked out at the majestic view of the mountains.
She pushed her horse to walk side-by-side with Deacon’s once they were through the paddock gate and on a wide path, heading for an area of forest.
“It’s so beautiful up here!” She said, taking in the magnificent scene.
The horses emerged from under the cover of the trees into a wide clearing, a meadow where wild flowers bloomed in the summer sun and insects buzzed frenetically, always on the move in their ceaseless meanderings. The air was full of the sweet odour of pollen and the joyous sound of birds whistling and calling as they flit from field to forest.
They had ridden for some time. “I’m ready to eat. How about you?”
“Yes.” They didn’t talk much until then. Both just enjoying the silence.
They laid out the blanket on the lush verdant grass of the meadow and set out their picnic. It was, in truth basic fare but good enough for a lunch in the wide-open spaces of the mountain.
Brook’s mind was a long way from thinking about food. “So…”
“Shush. Just a minute. If we are real quiet, we can hear the country.” Deacon signalling her to be quiet.
She looked at him as though he told her to freeze. They started eating quietly for a good fifteen minutes. Then, Brook noticed the sounds all around her. The trees swaying, the grass dancing in the wind, the bustling in the bushes, the birds chirping, the horses whipping their tails at the bugs. She smiled over at him.
“See.” He broke the silence.
“You love it here, don’t you?”
“Yup.”
“So, if you weren’t a mechanic, what would you do?”
“This. When I was a kid, I dreamed of having a ranch.”
Brook was speechless. She didn’t know what she wanted to be. From the time she was little, she was told what to be. Deacon cut the silence by handing her a glass of wine. “Carole packed us some wine.” He laughed.
“Wow, my mother never even packed my lunch for school.”
“So, she let you starve then?”
“No. She would hand me some money. And she would say, don’t buy any junk food.” He looked at her and looked out at the mountains.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just wondering what you were like as a kid.”
“I was a bit of a nerd. I liked school. Mostly because it made my parents happy when I did well. Then there was dance, and piano and swim…polo, ballet, cello and skiing. Oh, and I also took riding lessons for four years.”
Deacon was dumbfounded. “Is it even possible for one kid to do all that?”
Brook laughed. I didn’t do them all at once. I jumped from one thing to the next. They just kept signing me up for classes. I guess they wanted me to do something other than…” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
“Other than play, you mean.”
She chuckled. “I guess so.” She paused. “It didn’t work though. I still don’t know what I want to do with my life.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Maybe if you weren’t so bombarded with all that stuff, you would have had the chance to figure it out. You know, you are kind of doing it now too.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you drove off, trying to distract yourself. But sometimes, it’s best to stay still and be quiet. Look around you.”
Deacon’s simple way of explaining things shut her up once again. Now that she no longer needed so badly to take action, the anxious feeling that she had been driving around with her all this time was gone. She felt relieved all of a sudden.
Brook remained quiet. She had another sip of wine.
He jumped up and started folding away the blankets and repacking the food. Brook stood watching him work and when he’d packed the last thing. She walked over to the edge of the clearing, put her hands on the wooden rail and stood in silence watching the mountains and listening to the forest.
He walked over to her and stood behind her, knowing she was going through some stuff, “You okay?”
She tilted her head back and looked up at his eyes. She smiled with her entire body. “I feel great.”
He smiled back. “Good.” And for some reason, he put his hands on her shoulders and gave them a little rub. He really wanted to put his arms around her but he held back, not knowing how it would make her feel.
They started riding again. Taking their time.
Deacon started “I’m sorry about what happened to you, Brook. About your husband and losing everything. You seem like a really nice person. You don’t deserve that.”
“Thanks” She looked out at the mountains, and now it was her moment to be silent. He let her have it.
“It must be tough, losing your husband, and your house at the same time.”
“It’s a condo. And no. We were married about a year. And it wasn’t the best marriage, now that I look back. We fought half the time. And the condo, well, it’s attached to him, and I want nothing to do with him, so I don’t really need to be in that condo anymore.”
“Well that’s good.” It amazed him how easily she could move on pass something so hard and with such grace. Most people, himself included, would fight, yell, cry, drink, destroy property. They would do everything they could not to let it happen. Brook just let it happen. She knew she couldn’t control it. He was impressed by the kind of woman she was.
“Deacon”
“Yeah?”
“You’re staring at me.” She said jokingly.
“Oh, sorry.” He was staring. He shifted his glance ahead at the path. “That’s because you are so beautiful.” He was no longer shy about it.
She smiled looking ahead at the path. “You’re beautiful too.” She added jokingly.
It made him chuckle. “Why thank you.”
They followed a track that climbed across the meadow, heading for the long slow climb up a gently sloping ridge to the top of the mountain. It took an hour to reach the wide top of the mountain.
Chapter Nine
“That really is an incredible view.” Brook stood side by side with Deacon as they looked down on a lush, verdant landscape of valley forest, split only by the course of the river that flowed along the valley’s length. Across the valley, great snow-capped peaks towered, dwarfing the modest hill they were standing on. The hill was crowned by a ring of pine trees and further down from the summit a small lake, half dried out by the summer sun, supplied by a thin mountain stream, was where they had left the horses while they clambered to the top.
“The best.” Deacon was quiet and had been since they got to the top.
“Did you come up here with Annabelle?”
Deacon seemed to hesitate for a while before he answered. “Mm. Sorry, no she had no head for heights or horses. This was just something I did when I needed a place to think, especially when she was ill. I’d get her folks to sit in with her while I came up here.”
Brook had to think about that for a moment, feeling almost as though she was intruding on his grief.
“This place is where I’ve always felt happiest,” Deacon said, “I always said that if I ever had enough money I’d buy this ranch. They had been looking to sell for years now.”
Brook turned away from the view, took a sip of water and starte
d to walk back down the narrow path back to the lake. He held out his arm for Brook to hold onto as they scrambled down the stony path.
They sat in silence for quite a while, listening to the gentle rustle of leaves being lightly rocked by the cool breeze circulating around the beautiful spot they found themselves inhabiting in that special moment in time.
Brook was a lost soul, wandering aimlessly both through life and along the highways of America. But now, just having known Deacon for a few days, she felt so completely at ease, she had told him everything that was stopping her from living her life and what kind of life she wants it to be. Inside her head the fog had cleared and for the first time in a long time she could clearly see her path.
Deacon was a broken soul who, despite putting back together some of the parts, was now ready to find the missing part in his life that would make him whole again just as Annabelle had done for him before. But he was afraid, scared of being hurt again although he desperately wanted to move on. Something was still holding him back because when all the words have been spoken, actions are the only thing left.
He wanted Brook. He had done since the first moment he had seen her. He wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms, lay her out on the blanket and hug her for all his worth; to make her feel the love he knew she wanted to feel. But he couldn’t—fear held him back—fear that he would fall for her and then she would disappear, never to be seen again.
When he looked up she was watching him, watching the emotion and fear as it washed across his face but still he stayed where he was.
Brook walked around the point taking in the view. Deacon finally got the nerve to get up and walk with her. He took her hand into his as they walked over to the small waterfall.
A feeling came over Brook. A feeling she had never truly experienced before. Her heart was racing, she could feel it beating in her chest and was sure he could hear it too. Her stomach was buzzing, not just butterflies, but like there was a whole hive of bees inside her trying to get out.
