“Of course I’m going to tell him,” Justin said, laughing now. “Shit, you think I want him finding out that I didn’t?”
I restrained the urge to take my son by the ear. I ordered, “Go sit at the kitchen table.” Clint obeyed without another word. I stood in our yard and watched Justin climb behind the wheel of his truck. He rolled down the window and I called to him, “Hurry back.”
“I will,” he said, his voice softening, and then I followed in Clint’s footsteps to find him slouched in his chair, watching me with wary eyes. The only illumination in the room came from the small light above the stove.
Instead of pleading with me, Clint said, “I’m sorry. We hardly ever smoke pot, Mom, I promise. We do drink sometimes.”
I sat across from him. “I know, son.”
“Are you disappointed in me?” The question was tinged with plaintive concern.
I reached to curl my hands around Clint’s, experiencing a sting of awareness that his hands felt like a man’s, no longer my little boy’s. “I could never be disappointed in you. Don’t ever think that, sweetheart. But I’m disappointed that you made this choice, especially on the heels of telling Dad and me that you don’t want to go to college. Can you see how we might interpret that as worrisome?”
He exhaled a big breath. “Yeah, I do. But I’m not a pot smoker, Mom, I swear. I don’t even know why we were smoking just now, except that it seemed like fun.”
“Where did you get it?” I asked, releasing his hands.
“From Lisa,” he admitted, naming Jeff’s sister, Wordo’s oldest daughter. Shit, it was just another thing we’d have to tell Wordo and Liz. As if they didn’t have their hands full enough.
I sighed. “No more, all right? For one thing, it’s illegal. Promise me?”
“I promise,” Clint mumbled, knuckling his red-rimmed eyes. “I really do. I’m sorry.” A half-teasing grin lit his face. “You won’t send me away to college, will you?”
“Go to bed, I can’t deal with you anymore tonight!”
Clint stood and walked two steps before turning back. He said, “Hey,” and his eyes held mine, serious and steady. He looked more like a man than ever as he implored, “Mom, you belong with Justin. I can tell you’re mad at him, but don’t be. Please don’t.”
“Clint,” I whispered, aching at his sincere words. “I’m not really mad at him. I’m just mad…at the situation.”
“I’ve never told him that I can see how much he loves you,” Clint whispered, and I heard a lump in his throat. “But I do see it. He loves you so much, Mom. I can only pray that I find a girl I love as much someday. Tell him you’re not mad anymore, promise?”
Tears washed down my cheeks. “I promise.”
It might have been the weed but I heard Clint snoring from his room no more than five minutes later. I slipped from my sundress and into the tank top I favored as a maternity night shirt, and then washed my face, water streaking down my neck. Free from any cosmetics, I studied my somber eyes in the mirror. So much had happened today I couldn’t process all of it, but I knew Clint was right. I knew that I needed to stop being unreasonable; I was so sorry for how I had acted that my throat ached just remembering.
It seemed to take too long for Justin to get back from dropping off the boys, but probably he was stuck in a conversation with his sister and Wordo; I wondered if Jeff had spilled the beans on the way home and Lisa was now in trouble, too. I lay on my back on our bed, smoothing one hand over my belly, listening to the owls in the woods, the wind chimes softly tinkling, restless and sensitized; my thoughts kept circling back to the strangeness of finding my panties on the counter this afternoon. The rock placed on them. The missing key. I’d almost made up my mind that it was nothing; probably Rae had been playing with my things…
But what if it’s not?
What if…
I was still hung up on the fact that I was unduly embarrassed to tell anyone I suspected my underwear had been used as part of a possible threatening message.
It’s all done now, it’s all right. It’s nothing.
The truck grumbled along the driveway then and I rolled to one elbow. Less than a minute later, Justin came in through the door from the garage and I heard him washing his hands at the kitchen sink. Electricity lit my nerves while I waited for him. As he entered our darkened room and closed the door behind him, I sat, with some difficulty; a sob stuck in my throat as I whispered, “Justin.”
Before my next breath I was in his arms. I clung, my cheek on his chest, imbibing his heartbeat as he swept tangled hair from the side of my neck to rest his face there. He lingered, cradling me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered at long last. “I’m so sorry I let Aubrey make me that angry.”
“Baby.” His voice roughened with emotion. “I’m sorry, too. I hate that she upset you this much.”
“It’s because I let her.” I swiped at my tears. “I shouldn’t have let her.”
Justin kissed my forehead. “She wanted to upset you. That was her goal all along.”
“I wanted to kill her for touching you, for saying those things.”
“Yeah, I saw that in your eyes.” There was the faintest hint of humor in his voice. “And a part of me is even appreciative of that. But you’re also carrying my son.” His chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “Besides, do you think I was going to stand by and let you get in a fight with her, over me? Jesus, I just about had a heart attack when you lunged at her.”
I cringed. “I wasn’t thinking straight, not just then.”
“I know what she said hurt you. I do, sweetheart, and I’m so sorry.” He covered my right hand, which was still cupping his jaw, and kissed my palm. “I wish I could make you understand how little her words mean to me. I was in such a bad place back then. I was so fucking angry and bitter. I was scared that when she left I would be alone forever in the dark, scarred up, looking like a monster. Of course I begged her not to leave me with that feeling. But her leaving was a blessing, and I know you know that.”
“I do,” I whispered.
“Jillian, I can’t even begin to explain what you mean to me, how I feel to know that you love me, that you’re mine. I walked on that dark path for years, for so long it was familiar to me, the darkness. It was horrible. And then one day, not long after we talked on the dock that night after Aubrey left, I started to see a light. Pretty soon it was almost blinding me, telling me how stupid I was not to let myself acknowledge the truth. Oh God, Jilly, back in high school I remember thinking you were like this beautiful little wildflower, I had that exact thought. So sweet and sexy, and you were always laughing. I was so jealous of Chris. That night at your wedding when I danced with you, held you in my hands in your wedding dress, I knew I’d made the worst mistake of my life by marrying someone else, and I was so close to telling you so. I would have ruined your wedding, but I couldn’t do that to you.” He smoothed his thumb over my bottom lip. “After that I forced myself to believe I was wrong and that I had to forget those thoughts. And if I’m totally honest, knowing that you loved Chris so much still rips my heart up.”
“Justin,” I whispered, loving him so much it was close to physical pain.
“No, let me finish,” he said intently. “Please, let me tell you. I don’t say that to hurt you. I mean that I understand jealousy. When I look in your eyes and see how much you love me, I can’t describe how my heart feels. I could try, but it wouldn’t do justice. With you, I’m just me. You look at my face and see me, not all the scars. With you I feel whole. I don’t have to hide anything, even the darkest parts of me. I know that I have everything in this world that I could ever need. Jillian, you are my light and my wildflower and my heart. I can’t bear to see you hurting.”
“Justin,” I moaned, tears hot on my face, and he made a sound in his throat as he collected me closer, cupping the back of my head with one hand. He bent his face to my hair. I pressed my mouth to his neck and held him as hard as I could. “I love you
. I did love Chris, but I was born to be yours. You are the love of my life, Justin.”
“I know it to the bottom of my heart, baby. I do.” He stroked the tears from my face. “Do you see why I couldn’t let some asshole talk to you that way? You don’t want me to get in a fight, but you have to know that I would do whatever it took to protect you.”
“I know you would,” I acknowledged. I snuggled closer, whispering “Was your sister upset about the pot?”
Justin snorted a laugh. “Yeah, just a little. Did you talk to Clint about everything? What did he say?”
“He said he was sorry, that they hardly ever do that stuff. I believe him. Then he told me that he can see how much you love me. And that he has never told you how grateful he is for that.”
“I love that kid so much. I’ve told him, but I hope he really knows it. I think…I really believe that Chris would approve of him calling me ‘Dad.’ The first time he said that, Jills, I just about broke down weeping. It was so…it just struck me right across the heart.”
“Thank you for being such a good dad to him. I knew you would be. That night we sat on the dock at the cafe and you told me you wished you had a couple of kids.” I kissed his right eyebrow and his hands anchored around my hips. “I wanted to tell you right then that I would be happy to have your babies. I was sitting there thinking that very thing.”
“I sensed that,” he whispered, husky teasing in his voice as his hands busied themselves on my lower body. “I really did. I should have kissed you right then, I wanted to so bad, but I was too chicken.”
I kissed him, plying the tip of my tongue along the seam of his warm lips, my hands buried deep in his hair. A strand of my hair fell in the way and Justin tucked it behind my ear before claiming my mouth with a deep, all-consuming kiss. I spread around him, cradling his big, strong, nude body as we joined together in a sweet, flowing motion. Justin closed his eyes and uttered a deep, throaty sound of contentment, not breaking our kiss, though he lifted his mouth just a fraction to whisper, “I love you so.”
And then we were lost to the rest of the world.
Chapter Twelve
“HOP ON IN,” CLARK INVITED, AND MATHIAS AND I CLIMBED INTO THE backseat of his two-ton pickup, a beast of a truck with dually wheels and a diesel engine. I scooted to sit on Mathias’s lap and Case clambered in along with us; between the two of them in the cramped backseat, it smelled like a brewery.
“This is so exciting,” Case said for the fourth or fifth time, and he was indeed grinning like a little boy. “I just love mysteries.”
Our things were waiting patiently in the campsite that we’d set up before walking over to The Spoke, just a few hours before, never suspecting how this evening would turn out. Fate, I thought, and shivered as I climbed down from the truck. The men would not let me lift a finger to help, tearing down the tent and loading everything into our truck within minutes.
“I’ll head back to the house,” Clark told us. “Case can ride with you two and show you the way.”
After he drove away, Mathias, Case, and I stood admiring the wide, starry sky, all of us caught up in something we could not explain. Our truck sat idling; I’d told Mathias I would drive us to the Rawleys’ place, since he’d had so much to drink.
“I don’t know why I’m just so happy,” Case muttered, his words distorted from both alcohol and the angle of his throat, tipped back as he studied the heavens. He looked over at us. “Like, we’re on the right path now. Isn’t that crazy as shit?”
Mathias went over to him and hooked an arm about Case’s neck, and this gesture chimed against a memory, a remembrance…something in my mind acknowledged recognition. “Nah, it’s not crazy. I feel the same way.”
“C’mere, Camille,” Case invited, and I tucked myself against Mathias, holding him around the waist. Case reached and ruffled my hair. He said, “It’s crazy. I get that. But I feel like you guys know everything about me and that’s how it should be.”
He was pretty damn drunk, but I understood he was being sincere. And I felt the same. Just as at Makoshika, I recognized at some instinctive level that we’d been here before tonight.
Mathias repeated, “It’s not crazy.”
“Fireflies,” Case mumbled. “I can see a whole field of them.”
I swore for a second that I could too—that the foothills were suddenly awash with millions of them, glowing green and gold, flickering like tiny souls. I held fast to Mathias. I thought the words, Malcolm. Cora…
You know what I mean, don’t you?
The two of you have stood here, just like this.
You understand…I know you do…I can’t bear to imagine the two of you without the other…
“Will you introduce me to Patricia?” Case asked, and there was something so serious and so hopeful, braided together in his voice. He murmured, “I can’t stop thinking about her, I swear on my life.”
“Of course I will,” I whispered. “Someday.”
“Someday soon,” Case insisted. “Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
Mathias said, “Would you look at that moon?”
The three of us held each other.
At last it was more than I could bear—a sense of sadness, of agony, lingered near the back of my neck, and I knew I must keep moving or it would latch a firmer hold, no matter how hard I tried to deny it. I whispered, “We best get going.”
Back in the truck, Mathias slid in beside me and scooted to the middle, while Case took the passenger seat and directed us through the countryside to the Rawleys’ homestead, a few miles from The Spoke.
“It’s a hobby farm these days,” Case explained, sitting with his forearms braced on his thighs. “The Rawleys used to ranch sheep. Clark’s family has owned this acreage since the 1800s.”
“Wow,” I marveled, leaning over the steering wheel to peer at the rambling stone house, the two enormous barns; one was constructed of wood with a steeply-pitched roof, the other of steel-pole construction, much newer and sleeker, connected to a huge expanse of split-rail corral.
“Horses,” Mathias breathed with excitement in his tone. “A whole lot of them.”
“Park over there, hon,” Case told me, pointing at a gravel lot to the left of the older barn. In the distance, the dim outlines of low-lying mountains lent the horizon a majestic and mysterious appearance, ancient and unchanging. It appeared that every light in the house was burning. A couple of dogs galloped to meet us, barking in furious excitement. Behind the older barn, in a stone fire pit the size of Flickertail Lake, a bonfire was blazing. A bunch of people, all male, came running to help us unload. I felt a little like the character, Millie, from the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which Tish and Ruthie and I had watched all the time when we were little; the part when Millie first arrives on her new husband’s farm and is confronted by the reality of all six of his ill-mannered, backwoodsman brothers.
“Hi, ma’am,” they all seemed to be saying, shoving each other around to be the first to shake my hand.
“Jesus, give them some space!” Garth ordered his brothers, laughing. “Mathias, Camille, these are my little brothers. You know Marsh already, and that there is Quinn, there’s Sean, and little Wyatt over there, and this is Case’s little brother, Gus Spicer.”
I knew there was no hope of attaching names to faces. The Rawley boys all resembled each other too much to make distinctions between one another, at least for now, and Case’s brother was also a freckled redhead with merry eyes.
“Boys, help carry their things inside,” Clark instructed, resettling his hat and regarding this pack of boys with a smile lifting his mustache. “Come on inside and make yourselves at home.”
I caught Mathias’s hand in mine as we followed Clark to his house. Though I was no expert, it was surely designed with the local countryside in mind. The ceilings were constructed of gleaming logs, the light fixtures were made from antlers, the fireplace almost certainly built of a native stone. The furnitur
e was substantial and bulky, in dark tones, lots of leather.
“This is like our cabin on steroids,” I whispered to Mathias, who squeezed my fingers in response. Just thinking of our cabin jabbed a small splinter of homesickness into my heart. I pictured my little porch there, back in the north woods of Minnesota, the hammock that Mathias had hung for me between two oaks, and our plans to make it our year-round home.
The boys all piled in behind us, toting our luggage up a sweeping staircase to the second floor. Clark led the way to the kitchen and offered us seats at the dining table. Centered upon it was a long rectangular flower pot, overflowing with a plant bearing small, sharp-edged pink blossoms.
“What kind of flower is that?” I asked Clark.
“Bitterroot,” he explained. “State wildflower and I’m fond of it, I admit.”
I sensed Mathias’s speculative look; he could tell my thoughts were whirling. I’d dreamed of this plant just last night.
I’ll tell you later, I promised him.
“I need to dig out that telegram,” Clark said. “You say that Malcolm Carter is your relation?”
“He was the younger brother of my great-something grandpa,” Mathias explained. “They built my family’s original homestead back in Minnesota, just after the Civil War.”
“Our kin built this place near the same time,” Clark said. “If you’d like to have a drink, relax a bit at the fire, I’ll find that telegram directly.”
I traced my fingertips over the petals of the bitterroot, admiring the tint of the flowers. I said, “That sounds good. I just need to change first,” chilly in my little sundress.
“You two are in the guest room, third door on the right,” Clark directed me.
This room, when I found it minutes later, was decorated with black bears. I giggled at the sight of the twin bed (there was little enough space in our full-size back home) decked in a red quilt with a bear’s head centered upon it; the sheets revealed more black bears, walking in diagonal lines. Our bags were set neatly at the foot of the bed, and I rooted in mine until I found my jeans, a pair of socks, and one of Mathias’s sweatshirts.
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