“I’m Kevan.” He said it with a short ‘a’ in the first syllable, “Kav-an,” and spelled it for me. “Irish pronunciation and spelling.” He grimaced. “In case you were wondering.”
I shook his hand; a spark fired when our skin touched, like we were poised above an electrical current. I withdrew my hand, settling it in my lap like I might if I’d almost burned it on something. “I’m Blythe. Spelled with a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i.’ I have no idea about the origin of the name or the spelling.”
He smiled, again with that face that turned into a half-dozen quarter moons. For the third time that evening, I had the impression of the outside, the side of a mountain, the edges of a creek bank, and then there was the color of his eyes, which were now just slightly darker than the Idaho sky. “My parents were of Irish descent, and my mother was obsessed with Irish spellings and meanings, so much so she didn’t name any of us until she could decide what name fit our personality.”
“How old were you when she decided your names, then?”
“Usually around two, although one of my brothers was almost four. He’s the most elusive of us, I guess.”
“So you guys just walked around with no name? What did she call you?”
He shook his head, looking disgusted. “Baby. We were all Baby, all five of us, until she decided our names. My mother’s eccentric, to say the least.”
“I have one of those too. Some might say eccentric, others crazy.”
He laughed. “It’s a fine distinction. Although mine is more mean than crazy.”
“So I have to ask. What’s the meaning of the name Kevan?”
“Technically it means either ‘grassy knoll’ or ‘of the beasts,’ or something like that.”
“Of the beasts?” I laughed. “Really?”
“No, that’s not it exactly.” He paused, glancing at the ceiling as if there were a description written on a beam. “It really means someone more comfortable in the presence of animals than people.”
“And is that true of you?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“All animals?”
“Horses and dogs especially.”
“Well, you know what they say. No one is better at judging a man’s character than a dog or a child.”
He smiled. “My father used to say that all the time when he was still alive. He passed away four years ago. Just a year before my wife.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He died in his sleep. Can you imagine a better way to go?”
“No, I suppose not. As long as you’d said what you needed to say before you went.”
“He wasn’t big on sharing his feelings but I think he felt he’d accomplished what he needed to accomplish before he left us. He was seventy-six when he passed. Built a company from nothing. I suppose he was the most proud of that than anything else.”
“And his son, too?” I gestured toward him with my glass. “I bet he was proud of him too.”
“In theory it sounds plausible but he never said it to me.” He tapped his index finger on the counter. “Would you like another drink?”
“No, I better stop while I’m still able to walk back to the hotel. Plus, Jackson said there’s karaoke coming later. I’ll want to miss that.”
He laughed. “Oh, God, yes. Nothing worse than drunk people who think they can sing.”
“Where’s your daughter tonight?”
His eyes clouded over. “At her boyfriend’s house.”
“A boyfriend?”
“Yes, it’s awful. He’s a drug arrest from a jail cell.”
“Really? Is it that bad? Or are you just an overprotective father?”
“I don’t know. I know I can’t talk to her about anything and I never know what’s going on with her. If her mother were still alive, she would know what to say to get through to her. Everything I say is wrong.” He gestured toward his burger. “Even what I eat is wrong. She’s a vegan suddenly. She does the exact opposite of anything I do. I’m fairly certain she hates me. When she was little she was Daddy’s little girl. God, I miss that.” He said this with almost no emotion, but the pain was in his eyes. He bit into his burger and chewed, slowly, the muscle in his cheek moving up and down.
“I’m sorry. It’s so hard to be a parent.” My heart was soft then, moved by this man and his motherless daughter.
“You got that right.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin, his blue eyes a shade darker than the moment before. “She blames me for her mother’s death.”
“My dad passed away when I was fourteen. I blamed my mother even though they hadn’t been married to one another for seven years. It’s just her age. You think you know things that you don’t.”
“I always have my dog. Shakespeare loves me no matter what.”
“Nothing better than a dog,” I said, nodding.
Neither of us spoke for a moment. He pushed his plate away, even though he’d eaten only half his burger.
“Where are your children?”
“Hawaii. He took them on his honeymoon.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised the child bride allowed the other children to attend the honeymoon.”
I laughed, loud, with my head thrown back. “She’s thirty. He’s fifty. He left me for her. The triteness of it all is embarrassing, to say the least.”
Nodding his head, he smiled in a way that seemed sympathetic but what came out of his mouth surprised me. “A man who leaves a woman like you for a thirty-year-old is merely trying to find a woman more suited to his own maturity.” He raised his glass. “Good riddance.”
My eyes welled. It was the nicest thing anyone had said to me in a long time. I thanked him and hid my face by busying myself with my empty glass.
“But it still doesn’t explain how you ended up here,” he said after a moment.
“In this bar?” The martinis had made me slightly daft.
“Peregrine. Most tourists drive the extra thirty minutes to Sun Valley.”
“Well, I’m just exploring the area, so to speak.”
“I’m suspicious.” He smiled, the creases running from the corners of his eyes to his mouth. “There’s more to your story.”
“I like this part of the country.”
“You ski, then?” he asked.
“No, not really.”
“You either ski or you don’t.”
“I have skied but I don’t any longer.” I put the emphasis on have. “I used to do a lot of things and then I had children. And now I have three long weeks to myself.” I stopped, feeling my voice break and pesky tears itching the corners of my eyes.
“It’ll get easier.” His voice was gentle. With soft eyes, he tilted his head.
My heart fluttered. “What will?”
“The being alone part.”
“When?”
“I’m not sure.” He looked away, picking up his beer and taking a long sip. “That’s what they tell me anyway.”
Just then Jackson set another martini in front of me. He pointed to an older man with a handlebar mustache at the other end of the bar. “From Homer.” Homer raised his drink toward me and mouthed, “Hello beautiful. Welcome to town.” One of the straps was unhooked from his overalls.
I waved back, feeling ridiculous, before leaning closer to Kevan and whispering near his ear, “Of course his name’s Homer.” Kevan smelled even better at this proximity. I moved away, adjusting my legs under the seat. What was I doing? One night out and two martinis later, I’d started smelling men in a strange bar in a town no one had ever heard of.
“Why’s that funny?” Kevan nudged my shoulder with his elbow, his eyes with the same twinkle as before.
“I didn’t say it was.” I hid my mouth behind my hand to hide my smile. There was no reason to make poor Homer feel badly. It was nice of him to send a drink. It wasn’t like a man bought me a drink every day or anything.
“Come on now, city girl, make a joke about our little town. I know you want to,” said Kevan.
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br /> “I’m not a city girl, I just live in one. I’m from a small town in Oregon called River Valley. Full of Homers.” I took a sip of the third martini. “And Dairy Queens. All small towns have Dairy Queens.”
“Not this one.”
I snapped my finger and thumb together. “You’re right. I take it all back.”
“What exactly is a Homer?” Kevan seemed amused, staring into my eyes.
“Just a silly joke I used to have with my dad the year he died. It’s from this English movie we watched about a guy named Homer. It just stuck. My dad used to call any boys who showed an interest in me ‘Homer.’” I moved my hand under the bar and pointed toward the man with the handlebar mustache. My finger was only inches from Kevan’s thigh. “But now here’s the real Homer.”
“The real Homer.” He said almost under his breath as he raised his beer glass. “Let’s drink to that.”
We toasted. I took another sip of the martini. It tasted like water now. I sipped again. I was loose. “I never have fun like this,” I said to him; it sounded like a confession.
“Me either.” His eyes were sober and intently focused on my face.
Was having fun a serious matter? The thought of this made me giggle.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“You.”
“Me?”
“You look very serious for someone having fun.”
His mouth twitched into a smile before he chuckled. “Well, having fun makes you realize how long it’s been since you’ve had it.”
Just then I started to really feel the third martini. I felt bold and ironic. “My ex-husband said I was no fun.” I thought for a moment. “He’s right, unfortunately. But I was tired all the time, especially when the kids were young. Some evenings all I could do was count the minutes until they would go to bed so I could go there myself.”
“Every mother feels that way, I think. My wife did and we only had one.”
“Well, tonight I’m just me, no kids to worry over. Tonight I’m fun.” I pointed toward the windows. “Tonight I might howl at the moon.”
“I’d pay money to see that.”
I laughed. “Or maybe I’ll just take a photo of the moon.”
“Are you a photographer?”
“I used to be. I was a wedding photographer before I was married. Ironically, working weekends taking photos of other people’s weddings wasn’t a top priority for my husband after our wedding.”
“So he told you to quit?”
“Basically.”
Several months before our wedding, Michael and I had been in bed when he first expressed his opinion about my photography. “Are you happy your illustrious wedding photography career is almost over?” he asked, running his finger up my arm.
“What do you mean?”
“You won’t need to work, sweetheart. You can focus on taking care of me and having children.”
“But I love what I do.” It was a chilly night, despite being late spring, and my feet were cold. I moved them from where they were tucked under his calf muscle.
“Honey, this whole barista thing is something college kids do for money, not grown women.”
“I meant my photography. I’m starting to build a reputation.”
“I’ve looked at your taxes. It’s a hobby, babe, not a career.”
I turned away from him, staring at the wall riddled with shadows from the streetlights. The red heat of insidious shame and doubt filled me. A hobby, not a career. And in the middle of the red shame that made me hot and cold all at once, he started to snore. I felt myself shrink. My dream wasn’t serious enough to warrant a conversation that would keep him awake. I’m silly to think I could have a serious career, I told myself. I’m not that good. It is only a hobby. He was right. Of course he was right. Art school was full of people like me: mediocre talent and no connections.
I didn’t decide right there in the moment of that dark night to tuck away my dreams. It took subsequent conversations, similar in tone, to squelch and diminish me further. The final nail in the proverbial coffin was the day I said goodbye to Finn. The last photographs I ever took were of Finn and the Idaho landscape. It was never my intention, exactly, to give it up altogether. But my life with Michael had a way of sucking things dry until there wasn’t even a hint of dew on autumn grass to remind me of what I once loved. So, like many other items I put in the category of “things I used to do,” my aspirations slipped away without my full consciousness until one day they no longer existed. It’s like water, this life, the way it evaporates when you’re not looking.
Now, sitting at an unfamiliar bar next to a man I didn’t know, I thought about my camera, waiting for me in my room. When I’d left for dinner, I’d thought about bringing it, like I used to in the old days. It used to go everywhere with me, a constant companion—my way to frame the world from chaos.
Kevan said, “The light in your eyes goes out every time you talk about your ex-husband. Therefore, I declare a moratorium on further discussion of him for the rest of the evening.” He picked up his beer glass, which was almost empty, and held it up. “Agreed?”
I clanked my martini glass against his. “Agreed.”
He twisted on the barstool and gestured toward the door. “Come on then, let’s go look at the moon. I’ll howl if you howl.”
Outside, old-fashioned lampposts lining the street dimly lit the summer night. “I love those lampposts.”
“Ah, well, you can thank my mother. She had them put in.”
“She has good taste.”
“That she does.”
The air was fresh and dry and still. I took in a deep breath, feeling air fill my lungs. Low on the horizon, against a blue-black sky, a sliver of moon shone silver. I tugged on his arm. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yes, it is. Quarter moon in a ten cent town.”
“Emmylou Harris,” I whispered. “I used to listen to her every day when I was a kid.”
“Susanna Clark wrote it, you know. Guy Clark’s wife.”
“I knew that,” I said. “But I’d forgotten it. Sometimes I think of all the things I once knew that I’ve now forgotten. They’re like all the missing socks.”
“Missing socks?”
“You know, how you end up with only one sock from a pair. Where do all the socks go? A black hole?”
He smiled. “Well, maybe there’s a portal in the dryer or something.”
I looked up at him. My vision saw only his face and that sky above us. My heart unexpectedly pounded in my chest. I pointed upward. “There’s a crayon called Blue Midnight that’s the exact color of this sky.”
“I think it’s Midnight Blue, actually. The name of the crayon, I mean.”
“Is it? I should know; my daughters love to color and I’m forever putting those crayons back in the box.”
“I like Blue Midnight better. There’s poetry in it.” He repeated it, moving his right hand like he was conducting with a musical baton. “Blue Midnight. Sounds like a title of a song.” He moved to stand beside me and nearly made me jump when he was close enough that my shoulder was against his arm. We stood for a moment, gazing up toward the sky and its sliver of moon and the stars that seemed to multiply before my eyes. The melody and words of the old country song drifted through my mind.
I looked to the pavement beneath my feet, thinking of Finn, all those years ago. It had started on a night just like this one, under the same moon, under the same blue midnight sky. The world had gone around a lot of times since then and although the moon remained the same, I was no longer a young woman. I shivered.
“Are you cold?” he asked. “Shall we go back inside?”
“Yes, good idea.”
We went back to our seats. They’d taken his plate, and his beer glass was empty. He ordered another from Jackson as I sipped the last of my martini.
“What do you do?” I asked. “We’ve talked enough about me.”
“I’m retired and I have a small ranch where I board
horses for owners. I take in older horses no one wants anymore.”
“Horses. Big, scary animals.” I gestured with my hands for emphasis.
“Have you ever been on one?”
“No. I wanted one when I was young. You know, like most girls. When I grew up I realized that was just another silly dream that doesn’t come true.”
“Never too late for a girl to ride a horse.” He said it perhaps a bit too casually. “You could ride one of mine, if you wanted. I have a couple of old ladies who’re too tired to be dangerous.”
“Sounds like me.”
He looked at me. “No, not anything like you.”
I blushed. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be in town.” I drank the rest of the martini and ate both olives. They were bitter and gritty. “But I’ll keep that in mind.”
He shifted in his seat. “You could come out and take photos, maybe?”
“Some photos of old lady horses and their hunky owner?” I giggled. “Does anyone use the word hunky anymore?”
“I don’t believe they do, no.”
I looked over at him and suddenly there were two Kevans. “I think I’m a little drunk.” I put my hand over one eye. “A lot drunk. There’s two of you, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
Looking somewhere between concerned and amused, he gestured toward the door. “Better get you back to the hotel, huh?”
“Bed and Breakfast,” I said. Had I just slurred my words? “With Moonstone. She’s a witch.” Yes, definite slurrage. Or, slurring. Yes, the word was slurring.
“I’m familiar with Moonstone. She rides with us sometimes.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash in a bill holder clip. My gaze fixed for a moment on his thigh, now two thighs, which would make four thighs in total. I squeezed one eye shut. Now it was one thigh again. And such a nice thigh. What would it feel like to put my fingers in his pocket? He slapped some bills on the bar and put his hand on my arm, guiding me up and off the barstool, draping his arm around my shoulders. “Easy does it, now. Just hold on tight to me.”
Blue Midnight (Blue Mountain Book 1) Page 7
