Breathe the Sky

by Michelle Hazen

  “Coming right now,” he said, leaping in his truck and cranking the ignition with his left hand so he wouldn’t have to move the phone from his ear for even a second.

  “I’m sorry, hold on. Marcus keeps calling on my cell and I’ll call him back later but I probably need to just turn my ringer off because it’s so loud. Jack? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here.” He took a breath, his heart beating wildly. “Sorry for what I done, sorry I left, sorry I didn’t listen to you when you said you could handle Rod. Marcus says you kicked Rod’s ass.”

  She laughed again, all sweet and soft, and how had he ever thought a woman like that would hold a grudge against him over one argument? She had a heart bigger than the whole earth, far as he could tell.

  “Sorry about that tortoise he killed, too. Can’t fucking believe it.” He cut off a Honda and accelerated down the street.

  “I wish I’d really kicked Rod’s ass,” she said. “I just filled out a whole lot of paperwork and took a wild guess at his shoe size that paid off. Would you believe it, when I figured out what he’d done and told everybody, he tried to say I just had PMS?”

  “He probably thinks PMS is a TV station, man’s so stupid,” Jack growled.

  “Anyway, you’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Mari said. “I should have listened to you. I thought he’d try to bully me, or make a lot of off-color remarks. I never dreamed he’d go so far in trying to punish me for reporting his son, when Junior was clearly breaking the law, and wow, Marcus is calling again. Maybe I’d better take this. Something might be wrong and—”

  “It ain’t,” Jack interrupted, running a yellow light that was looking pretty damn red. He hoped it still counted as yellow if it was yellow when you first saw it. “He’s calling because I was at his house, pretty much begged him to get ahold of you for me. Helped him with a spatula.”

  “A spatula? He can’t fix his own truck, and now he can’t work a spatula, either?” Mari laughed. “Oh! Is that you pulling into the lot?”

  Jack threw down his phone, stomped the parking brake, and left the truck in the middle of the parking lot. He couldn’t concentrate on lining up with painted lines when she was coming out of the motel office, heading for his truck with a walk that turned faster and faster until she was nearly running. He jumped out of the truck and dashed to meet her, but right before they got there, he stopped dead and threw his hands up, not willing to risk even catching her by the arms.

  His eyes scoured her face—not a dark blue smudge on it. Nothing swollen or cut . . . “You hurt? Did he hit you, shove you around?”

  She was wearing a tank top, and he knew just the spot where the fingertip bruises showed up if someone grabbed you to keep you from running away. He hadn’t wanted to hug her and risk hurting her, and if he caught her arms to stop her so he could look, it would have squeezed right over the tender places her ex might have left.

  Mari shook her head, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Brad never laid a finger on me. In fact, he apologized. He’s been going to therapy, said he’s changed, and I think there’s a chance he really has. He left when I told him to leave, and made a big down payment on my medical bills this morning. Sent a screenshot of that and a gas station receipt from six hundred miles east of here.”

  The words ran over and over through his head on hyperspeed. Her ex reformed, got better, and she still hadn’t gone back. Instead, she’d gone looking for Jack.

  He took the last step forward so fast that he knocked her off-balance, but his arms were already closing around her, so he caught her without even trying and hugged her straight off her feet, his face tucking into her neck, her scent surrounding him like the softest, sweetest moment of his whole life. It washed the Cheesy Charlie’s warehouse smell straight out of his memory.

  Her slender arms bruised his rib cage and the nape of his neck, she was holding on so hard. Dampness touched his scalp where her face was pressed but he didn’t mind because she was laughing, all scratchy and kind of sobbing like, but she sounded happy. Because of him.

  “I love you,” she whispered. “I’ve been so in love with you, and the more right it felt, the more scared I got that anything this good had to be a trick.”

  “Ain’t a trick. I’d kick the fuck out of anybody who ever tried to trick you.”

  She started to laugh again, her shoulders shaking against his chest, and he realized he should have said something romantic, but couldn’t come up with anything to say but the truth.

  His voice came out hoarse against her hair. “Never should have left. Never want to leave you again, Mari. Please,” he said. That was all the vow he could think to make. “Please.”

  And she kissed him so long he forgot it’d ever been a question.

  37

  Keystone Species

  The sunset sky was all yellow and orange, clouds catching the colors and stretching them out across the sky. The roof of the truck radiated heat through the seat of Jack’s jeans, but perched atop the cab, Jack and Mari could see for miles. He propped his boots on the windshield and tightened his arm around Mari’s waist so she’d lean back even more fully against him.

  They’d gone back to their spot, way out in the desert. This time, she’d been very much in the mood to make all his blow job fantasies come true, but he’d made her stop before he finished because he couldn’t stand waiting one more day before making love to her again. Judging by the sounds she made, he hadn’t done a half-bad job of it, either.

  He was feeling pretty fucking smug.

  They’d gotten dressed again to climb up to the top of the truck and watch the sunset, but he barely saw the colorful sky streaking out all around them.

  “It’s sad, you know,” he said.

  She frowned, tilting her head back to look at him. “What?”

  “That you tracked me down before I could track you down. I’m supposed to be the tracker.” He squeezed her a little. He couldn’t seem to get enough of hugging her, holding her, since he got back.

  “Well, I’m a determined woman.”

  “Damn right you are. Every man in our company had been wishing Rod would get knocked off his pedestal for years, but all of us put together couldn’t make it happen. I was only gone a couple of weeks and you had it checked off the list just like that.”

  Mari smiled, but her expression looked a little distracted as she stared out over the desert.

  “What?” He nudged his knee against her thigh.

  “You know why we go to so much trouble to save tortoises?”

  “Because there ain’t that many of them left?”

  The little buggers were cute as hell, but he was pretty sure nobody was funding biological monitors just for cute.

  “No. There are plenty of at-risk species that don’t get much help,” she said. “Tortoises are sort of a keystone species because they dig burrows, which are used by snakes and owls and all these other species. They spread the seeds of native grasses and plants around so the vegetation thrives wherever there are tortoises. You hardly ever spot a tortoise anymore, but where they’re around, the whole desert looks different. I was just thinking it’s funny, how one little thing can change so many things.”

  She paused for a long moment, her fingers toying absently with a fold in his jeans.

  “Just like me. I was different when I was with Brad than when I was with you. Now, I have my own money, a job I’m proud of, and I do it well.”

  “Had that before you met me.”

  “I did,” she said. “But now I also have friends. I dress different, eat different, jeez, I noticed the other day I even walk differently. I laugh, just, all the time now.” She turned a bit to look up at him. “It’s not like you did any of those things for me, told me how to dress or introduced me to my friends. But you change one little thing, and so many ripple effects come of it that you never could have expected. You didn�
�t give me my new life, but you gave me hope.”

  He had no idea how to answer a declaration like that, one that made his chest fill and fill until it felt as big as if he’d breathed in the whole damn sky. Like he might bust with all the happy locked up inside him. Instead, he just kissed her cheek, and she looked over at him and smiled.

  “Maybe hope is a keystone species.”

  Epilogue

  “You don’t think it’s too small?”

  “Are you kidding? I love it.”

  “Ain’t anything special.” He kicked the tire of their new fifth-wheel trailer. He’d bought the most premium model he could find, but now, seeing it next to Mari, it didn’t seem half good enough. Especially since he knew she’d given up a permanent job with a house to be with him.

  “It’s better than anyplace I’ve ever lived in.” She bounded inside. “Look at those gorgeous countertops!”

  “AC, too,” he offered. “Central, so it vents in every room and you don’t have to throw your pillow under the window unit come August.”

  “That’s going to be important, until I get certified to work with some nondesert species.” Mari ran her hand over the creamy paneling. “It’s really beautiful. I can’t believe how big the bathroom is, and this kitchen is a dream. Huge upgrade from my tailgate, and I can even bake in here. Are you sure it wasn’t too much money?”

  “I make a good wage,” he growled. “If I’m gonna live in a trailer again, it better be a damn nice trailer.” He shook back his hair—getting long again already—and squinted at the complicated panel for lighting and climate control options. “I’m not having you living in some shithole with tinfoil on the windows and a hose poked through the wall for a shower.”

  He didn’t want to risk the chance of the smell of a pizza warehouse creeping back into his nose. This was his new life, his choices. He liked the hell out of all of them, but he wanted to make sure Mari liked them, too.

  “Heck, when I was living in my truck, I didn’t even have a shower.” She grinned, dropping to bounce on the thick cushions of the leather couch. “This is practically a palace. And it feels like ours.”

  Her quiet smile made his chest feel tight, like it was growing too big for his ribs, and he glanced down and cleared his throat, trying not to grin like a dope.

  “Well, it’ll work for now, anyhow. Give us a home to take with us. Plenty of power lines being built through the desert to LA and Las Vegas. That’ll keep me busy until you get certified for those other species like you were telling me about.”

  “I love the Mojave Desert, but honestly, I can’t wait. Then we can travel all over the country, see the mountains, the rivers, the coasts . . .” She tugged him onto the couch next to her. He didn’t put up much of a fight. “Besides, there are fewer tortoise jobs all the time.”

  “If you ever get tired of moving around, just say the word,” he insisted. “I can work local distribution lines anywhere. I don’t have to build. Don’t need to bust my back lugging steel into my sixties like Vernon did.”

  “I could get a job with a local fish and wildlife department someday,” Mari suggested. “Maybe somewhere with some big shady trees . . .”

  “House with a porch.” He’d build her a porch swing, buy her some cushions for it so she could sit out there as long as she liked on nice days.

  “I could take some time off, too,” she said. “If you ever get a job somewhere they don’t need biological monitors. Money’s not so tight now that my bills are caught up.”

  Brad paid the medical bills he’d given her, sure. But her ex only lasted a few weeks before he broke his word and showed up again, begging her to come home. Once he saw Jack, he stopped the Mr. Nice Guy act and came back with a gun. They’d already alerted the police and had him on the restraining order violation, but it was the pistol that sent him to prison. Still woke Jack up in a cold sweat some nights, to think how close they’d come to bullets flying before the cops showed up.

  “You shouldn’t have had any medical bills to pay!” he grumbled. “It’ll be a cold day in the devil’s jockey shorts before I give that prick any credit for paying off those bills when he’s the only reason you had ’em to start with.”

  “Oh, I don’t give Brad any credit. But it’s sure nice to have my credit looking better.” She gave Jack a soft smile, her blue eyes glowing the way they did so often now.

  He shook his head with a laugh. “You’ve got to be the nicest damn person ever born. Give Gideon a run for his money.”

  “Oh, Gideon isn’t that nice. Don’t you remember what he said about that referee’s mother when the Packers lost last Sunday?”

  Jack chuckled, and she kissed him, her hand finding his and toying with his fingers.

  “You’re too good to me. I can’t help but tease.”

  “Ain’t too good. You had to take out the trash yourself last week because I forgot.”

  “You’re still upset about that?” She snorted. “Are you going to buy me a trailer every time you forget to take out the trash?”

  “Nope. Only gonna buy one, that way you’ve gotta stay in this one with me.” As soon as he said it, he realized it sounded bad, like he was going to make her or something, but she laughed like that was so far from their reality that it could only be a joke.

  After they’d found each other again, she never took that biologist-in-residence job, or the survey gig in the Chocolate Mountains. Instead, she’d come to monitor a job he took building power lines near Vegas. No matter how often he checked in with her, she never seemed to mind having followed him to that assignment. His whole crew had pretty much come with him from the last job, even Kipp and Joey the apprentice.

  Mari wasn’t always the bio on his crew, but he was pretty sure she ran interference for him with the other bios because they were all real good to him. Explained the reasons for their weirder regulations, which he appreciated. He tried his best never to yell at work anymore, tried to talk soft and let people figure shit out on their own like Vernon had, but every now and again he slipped up when someone did something really stupid.

  After the Vegas job ended, he’d shown her a list of all the places that needed linemen, all mapped out inside the boundaries of the desert tortoise habitat he’d found online. She’d picked their next job and he’d applied, and bought a ring on the drive there. Took him five months to work up the courage to ask her, and only then because he’d found the ring moved from one side of his underwear drawer to the other.

  She hadn’t left him after finding the tiny velvet box, and had made his favorite dinners for the next six consecutive days, so he’d figured it was a pretty safe bet to ask her.

  Turned out, that had been a correct assumption.

  That ring glittered on her finger now as she braced herself on his shoulder to swing a leg over his lap and straddle him. “I’m going to have to stay in this RV with you, huh? Well, we’ve all got problems.” She kissed him with a smile curving her lips. “I sure like mine.”

  Much later, when their clothes had migrated to the floor and the AC was working overtime to catch up, Jack was thinking about their conversations about what made a home, both today and when they first met.

  He stroked a hand over her silver-streaked hair, hugging her closer into his chest. “Just so you know, I don’t care if we get a house or not. Or when.” He laid a kiss on her forehead. “With you, anyplace feels like home to me.”

  Acknowledgments

  For the last ten years, I’ve worked various desert biology jobs that helped inform the details in this book. For the first four of those years, my husband and I lived year-round in the ancient Toyota truck that you can see in the background of my author photo. For the rest of that time, we had a home base but still lived between three to nine months of the year in our Toyota or cheap motels like Mari’s.

  When it comes to the details about desert animals, or bio life, o
r the tasks and dangers of lineman work . . . it’s all as real and accurate as my own experience can make it. A few details have been changed to protect the insiders of turtle club, though none of the people in the book are taken from real life. Lineman work really is crazy dangerous and some companies are careful and care about their workers and some companies don’t, to the extent that it’s literally criminal. As far as the specific laws and rules referenced in this book: some laws are federal, some come from the state, and some guidelines change by the job, according to the restraints of the Biological Opinion written by the supervising agency. Some laws have changed already since this manuscript was written. I based the specific regulations on a power line job I worked several years back, but I’m sure some inaccuracies or mistakes have crept in.

  Desert tortoise populations were documented as declining more than ninety percent in the twentieth century, and continue to decline at a staggering rate, despite efforts to set aside more land for them, and vast improvements in translocation protocols. If you’d like to find out more about how you can help, go to the Desert Tortoise Council’s website at deserttortoise.org.

  The first person I need to thank in these acknowledgments is my husband, for being my partner in this crazy life. Not many couples can hike five meters apart all day, huddle in a truck bed all night, and cook outside in fifty-mile-per-hour winds, without eventually killing each other. You’re the best roommate on earth, and you’re not allowed to die. Ever.

  All my gratitude and awe go to my incredible agent, Naomi Davis of BookEnds Literary, who blows my mind anew every year that we work together. I can’t believe how great you are at making all my writerly dreams come true, over and over again. I will never forget you calling me while I was in a motel room by the sea, to babble about how much you loved this book. Or my husband blushing while he told me to lower my voice because our conversation about Jack’s “attributes” might be scandalizing the motel neighbors.