Parting Glass

by Dani Wyatt

  My body has changed, but Brann never lets a day end without letting me know how stunning he thinks I am. He is the most perfect husband and father. Taking care of me, the kids, the house, the business as well as our extended family and friends whenever the need arises.

  “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” He chuckles. “And if we keep making more babies like this one, that could be sooner than I thought.”

  “Oh, stop you big baby. Thought you were tougher than that.”

  He shakes his head. “You girls are out to get me I think.”

  I yawn and shift on the bed laying on my side and feeling so lucky.

  I pat the bed beside me. “Put her in the bassinet and come here. I need you.”

  Brann slowly gets to his feet, taking Natalie to the bassinet and wrapping her tightly in a blanket before gently setting her inside and slipping into the bed behind me.

  He’s as gorgeous as the first day he walked in the pub. A touch of gray peppers his temples and his face has a more rugged look. But, as unfair as it is, he is becoming more sexy and attractive with each passing year. His body is as hard and massive as ever and he works hard around the house and horse ranch keeping himself as fit as any twenty-year old. He’s go the sex drive of a sixteen-year-old as well, so I’m a very lucky girl.

  His enormous arms snake around me and his lips settle on my neck making me sigh as he starts humming then singing.

  “But if I should die and you should not, I gently sigh and softly call, good night and joy be to you all. Good night and joy be too you all…”

  He starts over and softly sings The Parting Glass to me from beginning to end as I drift into sleep knowing that destiny is real and dreams do come true.

  HARD CUT

  C H A P T E R O N E

  Flint

  “Flint!” Danny Wilson’s voice rises, but I hear it as a kind of distant echo inside my head, like when a movie goes into slow motion and all the voices sound like that teacher from Charlie Brown. “Where the hell are you going? You gotta pay for the fucking food, man.”

  On automatic, I reach into my back pocket and tug out my wallet. With a quick glance over my shoulder to check he’s looking my way, I cock my arm back and send the worn folded leather in an arc through the air. He catches it and grumbles something to the cashier, but I don’t care. Something far more important is going on across the street, and I need to get over there more than I need the months’ worth of groceries I just stocked up on.

  “You okay, man?” Danny squints an eye at me when I glance over then back across the street. “You see a ghost?”

  “I’m fine. I’ll be right back…” My voice trails off as I stumble away, my legs numb with adrenaline like I’m back in the marines and walking into some fucked up fight.

  A light just turned on inside of me, and it’s starting to thaw some of the ice that’s formed over my heart. It’s a light I didn’t even know was there until about sixty seconds ago when I saw the world’s finest ass climb up on a ladder outside the new salon that’s opened up across the street from Ollie’s Market. That salon wasn’t there on my last monthly trip into town.

  She wasn’t there.

  She’s wearing these tight white capri jeans, a lavender checked oxford, and a generous helping of fresh innocence that has things waking up inside of me I never knew were asleep. Physically, she’s full and womanly, but there’s an air of sweetness in how she’s dressed and the way she moves, a kind of youthful exuberance that makes my heart pump like a steam train. Her ass fills out the pockets and more on her pants and her curves have my hands clutching to dig into her soft flesh.

  Her chocolate brown hair falls to the middle of her back in ringlets and waves, catching in the wind so it’s sent flying in a swirl around her shoulders. Caramel-colored highlights catch the sun and send my dick into overdrive.

  Blood slams through my veins, filling my entire length in a matter of a few seconds and the loss of blood to my brain makes the whole world feel like a kind of dream. But if it’s a dream, I want to stay in it forever. I reach into my back pocket, pull out my phone, and hold it up, snapping a picture of her as she looks right now. I want to remember this moment for the rest of my life. The first moment she graced my eyes and made my fucking heart pound.

  I slam my way out the glass front door of the market, leaving Danny to deal with the finances. I know he will handle everything. He’s one of my very few friends, and that’s only because he’s dumb enough to put up with me. I’ve never really needed anyone else in my life, not friends, not family, certainly not women. Not that I don’t like them—I do, it’s just there’s never been one that interested me enough to want her around. I’m self-sufficient. Solitary life suits me.

  Danny was one of the first people I met in Emmetsville. I was in town, at this same grocery, laying in some supplies for my first week on the property in my trailer. He helped me load up the back of my pickup that day, talking nonstop the whole time. Something about him both annoyed and endeared him to me, and we’ve had this odd friendship ever since.

  He also introduced me to the owner of Rickson’s that same day as he walked down the street. Danny waved him over and told him I was one of the three that won the land lottery.

  Rickson’s is the company I still work for today. So as much as I’d never tell Danny, I owe him for that connection. I love what I do. Swinging the ax. Being in the woods. It’s my life. My church. The place where I find my peace. To be able to live and work where my heart feels most at home is a gift for sure.

  Whenever I come out of my solitude to run into town, we usually get together for lunch, and he helps me load up the supplies I’ll need for another month or more of being alone on the island.

  I venture into town as rarely as possible, preferring my solitude, chopping down the trees on my land to complete the log cabin I’ve been working on for almost two years.

  And when I’m not chopping trees for my cabin, I’m chopping them with the crew of the company I work for on the mainland, in the dense woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Rickson’s specializes in selective and rare lumber. We scour the miles of forests and only take what’s sustainable; a few specialist species of trees and the exotic burl wood knots that sell for thousands of dollars for a few hundred pounds.

  That’s pretty much all I’ve thought about for years. Day in and day out. Trees. Lumber. Swinging my ax. After serving my time overseas, I craved the solitude. The things I saw—the things I did—out there in the desert…they’ll haunt me forever. I didn’t know such evil existed in this world, but it turned what was left of my soul into stone, and I focused on being alone and forgetting it all.

  Until now.

  Never in my twenty-seven years has anything happened like this.

  Out in the last spring warmth, a breeze carries the faint hint of her to me. It can’t be anything else. No other aromas have ever sent waves of lust and possessive rage through me like those I’m drawing into my nose right now.

  Even from across the street, I know the scent is hers. It has to be hers. And I’m intoxicated by it. I keep my expression as controlled as I can, but it’s fucking hard not to snarl and snap at the air that swirls around my head.

  Another young woman, a blonde, emerges from the front door of the salon carrying some sort of flat sign. She stands next to the ladder where my girl has now climbed to the top step. She says something, drawing my girl’s attention, and then raises the sign upward.

  When the dark-haired beauty leans over and reaches down to retrieve the sign, my heart catches in my chest. The world’s ugliest dog has just slipped out through the open door of the salon, yapping like the place is on fire, catching her attention as she’s taking hold of the sign. The dog comes up to about mid-calf on the blonde, fur in patches of gray and brown. Looking more like he—or she—has done a few rounds of chemo. His head is too big for his body, nose scrunched, and even from here the jaw juts out in a hell of an underbite, showing off a few crooked and missing t
eeth.

  The beauty on the ladder shouts something, and the blonde jumps back as the dog nips at her feet, causing her to jerk the sign backward right along with her.

  My girl leans farther over, reaching out for the sign as the dog runs and spins in circles, unaware of the chaos he’s causing on top of the unfolding disaster. The scrape of the metal ladder as it shifts against the roof gutter fills the air and sends bolts of panic down the already tense muscle in my back.

  I’m at a dead run by the time I hit the street. Car horns go off, and brakes squeal. The air is filled with the sound of locals screaming at me, interspersed with a stream of expletives, but I don’t give a shit.

  The blonde lets out a high-pitched yelp and her arms dart out, but it’s not enough. The ladder teeters for a second, frozen in that moment of balance as gravity decides which direction will win.

  Then, just before the ladder topples, my girl’s head spins around, and her fear-filled eyes latch on to mine as I run toward her. I swear in that split second there’s the hint of a smile, and the fear in her eyes drains away, replaced by something more like recognition. Not the kind of recognition when you see someone you know, but the kind when you see something you just realized you want.

  Physics takes over and sends her airborne, and that magical connection is broken. Both girls start screaming, but I have my arms out already as I hurtle towards them. I catch the dark-haired beauty mid-stride, my momentum carrying me on, and I nearly collide with the brick building before I can get my feet back under us both. No orchestrated symphony could have timed it better. My heart races in my chest as I gather her against my body, turning hard as the metal ladder clatters onto the sidewalk in front of us.

  My panic bursts out of me in a furious tirade. “What the hell were you thinking?” My words are sharp, a harsh, clipped burst of pent-up emotion, but her shimmering gray eyes melt my heart in a single blink.

  She glances from me to where the blonde is standing, then back with a furrow forming on her brow.

  “I was hanging a sign on my shop. That’s what the hell I was doing.” Her eyes narrow, then as quickly as they darkened, they twinkle again, and a smile curves lips that were made to rim my cock. “But thanks for showing up just in the nick of time.” She flicks her head back and forth to clear the hair away from her face before continuing. “Where’d you park your white horse, oh ye knight in shining armor?”

  Holding her in my arms, I realize I’m squeezing her against me. Hard. She feels so perfect here. Softer than I’d imagined, melding exactly into the hardness of my torso. And her scent—holy shit, her scent—has things happening down below the belt I’ve never felt before.

  I note that the furious dog is now sitting quietly by the door to the salon, staring at me.

  I’m not sure how long I stand there holding her, but it’s long enough that she bites down on her lip, crinkles her nose, and brings a hand up to lightly tap on my chest.

  “I’m fine. You can put me down now.” She flutters her dark lashes, and heat rises across my chest and up my throat. “Or, you can just carry me to my next appointment across town. Better run though, or I’ll be late.”

  The blonde laughs, and I clear my throat, setting her back down on the sidewalk and immediately feeling empty at the loss of her next to me.

  “If you need that sign up, I’ll do it.” I reach over to snatch the sign back from the blonde and flip it over.

  Free shampoo, cut, or set—at home or in salon for senior citizens. Call 517-900-3444 to set up your appointment!

  “Okay, well, I’ll let you. But only because I should go. And I can’t pay you.” She turns to the blonde. “I’ll be at Mrs. Field’s in the Carson Building. Shouldn’t be more than an hour or so.”

  She swipes her hands down the length of her hair, making the sunlight cascade over it as she gathers and smooths it over the front of her right shoulder before turning her head and looking at me.

  “Thanks again.” She looks me up and down, then bites into her lower lip again. That thing right there surfaces my inner caveman. If only she knew what was going on inside me, she’d run. “I wish I could stay. You were great. I mean, catching me and all.”

  “I’m glad I was here. Don’t do that again, you promise? I’ll put the sign up. It’ll be my pleasure. But promise me you won’t get up on that ladder again. Or do anything dangerous.”

  She looks at me like I’ve grown a second head, and I realize what I’m saying to a stranger may sound odd to most. But I mean that shit; I don’t want her doing anything that could get her hurt.

  An awkward moment passes, but I’m calm. Happier than I think I’ve ever been just standing here with her. The blonde rolls her eyes and huffs out a sigh as she steps back in through the door to the salon, the ugly dog again hot on her heels. He starts running in and out of the salon, growling at her like she’s some sort of intruder, then yapping at me and the brunette before disappearing into the salon.

  “I’m Flint Rendell. I live over on the island.”

  Most around here know the island. Formally, it’s Bellsay Point, but everyone around here just refers to it as “the island.” It’s a five-mile by three-mile stretch of wooded land, barely touched by humans, and something so beautiful that only God deserves. It’s about as remote as you can get, and up here in the Upper Peninsula, that is saying something. The whole thing used to belong to one man who lives somewhere on the other side of the world now. His family from generations ago staked their claim in this area, but he’s been gone for a couple decades. No one knows why, but a few years ago, he decided to let that land go. The frenzy that ensued around here was just another sign of how little excitement touches this pristine part of the world.

  They had a lottery for three parcels of land, each a hundred acres of woods, and I was one of the lucky winners. I bought my hundred acres outright, purchased it for cash, and lived out of a trailer for the first year while I planned and began work on my cabin. The rest of the island is now held in a conservation trust that will never allow any more to be sold, so it’s just the three of us out there, and not one of us is the social type.

  “Well, nice to meet you, Flint Rendell.” She wipes her hands together, and pink rises on her cheeks. The swell of her breasts catches my eye as they rise with a deep breath. “I’m Wren. Wren Reynolds. And I really have to go. But thank you again.”

  She flips her hair around, looking from me to the door, then back again with an anxious smile. She’s flustered, and it’s cute as fuck. There’s barking behind the glass door of the salon, and the other girl pushes it open just enough to let the scroungy thing back out with an eye roll, leaving the door propped open this time.

  The mutt looks up at me and stops barking. It looks at Wren and growls, then mounts her leg.

  “Hercules,” she snips, trying to sound commanding but coming across as anything but. “Stop. Bad dog.” She reaches down to try to scoop up the furry barracuda, but he snaps at her then runs back inside the salon, leaving her shaking her head with an apologetic shrug. “I have to go.”

  With that, she turns on her toe and disappears in through the front door of the shop, pulling it closed behind her and leaving me standing there with a hard-on and a whole new outlook on life.

  C H A P T E R T W O

  Wren

  There’s a flush on my chest still as I set Mrs. Field under the hair dryer and raise my hands in front of her face with all my fingers splayed outward.

  “Ten minutes!” I mouth the words, knowing she won’t hear me but feeling like it’s my duty nonetheless. Even without the noise from the hair dryer, I’d have to nearly scream to get her to hear anything, but we’ve done this drill before, so she understands. She nods happily, smiling as she goes back to her article.

  With her shampoo and set done, she’s reading her People magazine under the warmth of her dryer, so I gather my purse, and I’m out the door. I had put Hercules in his cage at the salon before I left, but I know if he’s in there mor
e than an hour or so, he will start chewing on the bars and raising eight kinds of hell. The small staff I have tolerates him. After all, it’s my salon, and he’s my dog. But they have their limits, and boy do I understand.

  The Carson building is subsidized housing at the south end of Emmetsville, the small town I picked at random from the open Michigan map I laid out on the hotel room bed. The map was in the dresser drawer, though God only knows when it was put there—or by whom. Yellowed edges, folds brown with dust, and the paper going soft from years of being unfolded and wrongly refolded.

  Hmmph. I still remember booking in to that fleapit of a hotel room. I’d wound up there after a fight with Sabrina left me homeless. Not that she kicked me out, but I told myself I wasn’t going back there. Her sisterly insistence that I bend to the upscale, one-percent lifestyle pushed me over the edge that day. I got in my Volvo and hit the freeway, drove three hours north before I found a motel and tried to picture my future.

  Enter a cheap roadside room, the map in the dresser drawer next to a Bible, and my eventual arrival here.

  My finger landed on the Upper Peninsula, about as far north as possible on that map, in this town. Nothing out here is exactly what you’d call big city, not by most people’s standards. But as far as towns here go, Emmetsville is on the big side thanks to a fairly well-attended technical university and a robust logging trade that takes in the entire UP. A nice downtown area and a few satellite towns not far away make this remote part of the country a nice blend of solitude with a sprinkling of action, if you are so inclined.