by Dana Pratola
She leaned in incrementally, about three inches, and I was sure she wanted to kiss me. Then suddenly, she pulled back and blinked, coming to her senses, gripping the steering wheel, straightening her spine.
“I’m probably being paranoid,” she said.
I laughed nervously. Disappointed. “Yeah. They’re going to love you.”
“Oh, speaking of paranoid, I had a little chat with Wally before I left.”
I hoped she didn’t see the flicker of my jaw muscle. I’d been told by my momma it was a dead giveaway when I was lying, and I felt one coming on. “Oh?”
“He told me he had a run-in with you,” she said.
“Right, I told you.”
She nodded. “Yeah, according to the story I got, there’s more to it.”
All right, here it was. Another chance to come clean. “I—”
“I know.”
I looked at her. “You know? What?”
“Ben’s as protective of you as Eliza is of me.”
“Ben.” Where was she going with this?
“He’s an intimidating guy. I’m sure he never meant to scare the crap out of…. Okay, I’m sure he did, but no harm done. In fact, it kept Wally away from me until today.”
“What did Wally say that Ben said?”
“To stay away from me.”
“And did he mention me?”
“He said he was knocked to the ground and threatened.” She tried unsuccessfully to hide a giggle. “The knocked down I gather was you.” I gave her a single nod. “Of course, he swore it was an attack. The threat had to be Ben, obviously. He had the two of you confused, you guys rattled him pretty good.”
“Uh huh….”
“Anyway, I want to thank Ben. I appreciate him looking out for me, seeing a man wandering around the house and handling it.”
“Ben,” I repeated.
Her head pivoted to me, then back to the view ahead. “Well, I’m sure you would have said something—hey, you know what?” she interrupted herself.
“What?”
“I don’t need to think the job over any longer. I’ll take it.”
“You will?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “I’m just now realizing that if Ben went out of his way to protect me, maybe I can fit in. He doesn’t even know me, yet he took the time to handle Wally. From what I’ve seen so far, he’s harder to win over than everyone.”
Tell her. Tell her, you idiot. Though it will come off as wanting credit for being a hero.
“I’ll need two weeks though.”
“Not a problem,” I said, wanting to be relieved.
“I know you’re short-handed—”
I shook my head. “You’re loyal to your obligations, that’s what matters. Says a lot about you.”
She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “Until then, what else can I do?”
The answer tumbled from my mouth as if it had been waiting for the right question to be asked. “Read to me.”
Her eyes widened, then widened a little more as she smiled. “Read to you?”
“Like you did last night,” I said. I’d been thinking about it all day. Listening to her melodic voice, watching her, just being with her in a setting that wasn’t physically intimate, yet somehow emotionally more so than I’d been with any woman. I’d never had one—even my own mother—read aloud to me before, and odd as it seemed, it was something I wanted more of.
A look of confusion passed over her face to be replaced by what I can only describe as delight, making me believe she’d enjoyed it as much as me. Interesting.
“You want me….”
“Yes. To read to me, yes.” I flipped a palm over. “If you don’t mind.”
“No! I liked it, I really did.” She tapped the wheel lightly. “So, your place or mine?”
I chuckled. “We’ll stop at mine, grab the book, then go to yours.”
CHAPTER 24
I assumed it was even colder this couple miles north because it was out in the open, compared to the main house and operating areas, which were nestled behind the hills on one side, and cut off from the west winds by a forest. The sparseness and dampness could make the temperature terribly uncomfortable out here, even in August. I forgot the chill entirely when I saw the cabin.
When I thought of a cabin, I thought wood, weathered and splintered, like something you see on a prairie in an old western. Sturdy wood structure, wood porch, wood stairs, wood door. I wasn’t disappointed, but this was more an HGTV version than rustic ranch, with clean lines, a large bay window, and a roof covered in solar panels. Inside, the house had everything a girl could ask for, including updated appliances and furniture that looked like it had never been used. Most importantly, heat.
Josiah gave me the tour surprising me with how detailed he was, considering he couldn’t see. He even explained how to set the thermostat and work the microwave, before swinging open cabinet doors to expose the newly added contents, some of which I didn’t have time to identify before he shut them and flung open the refrigerator to reveal its holdings.
“I don’t know what’s in there, so whatever you need we’ll get, just ask,” he said. “I had your stuff brought over. It’s all in your room. I think your bike is on the side of the house.”
“Yes, I saw it there. Thank you.”
I couldn’t help it. It felt like the natural thing to do, so I did it. I leaned in, stood on tiptoes, and kissed his now heavily stubbled cheek. He didn’t expect it, which I took as the reason his hands came instantly around my waist. He didn’t squeeze or grope, just wrapped his strong arms around me and held on, keeping several inches between our bodies as we stood face to face.
I held my breath, afraid to move for fear of doing something stupid, like I’d almost done in the truck. I’d nearly kissed him! How could I have done that? What was wrong with me?!
He swallowed. “Thank you, Brenna. For being here. Being with me.”
The words sounded innocent enough, like one person might say to another they were thankful to, but in his arms, this near—and I don’t know if I imagined it or not—I felt much more behind them. Especially since he made no more move to release me than I did to be released.
Seconds stretched, during which I also imagined he was staring into my eyes. I stared back, but when our faces began to gradually drift closer, I sucked in a gulp of air and shifted, his arms separating instantly to allow me to step back. Kissing him would be completely inappropriate, and crazy!
He was obviously experiencing comfort and gratitude. Those were not things to base a kiss on, particularly with someone he’d never seen. I was experiencing…. Well, I couldn’t say what. Security was one thing, but that was no reason to kiss someone, either. Not the way I knew we would kiss.
My skin heated from my shoulders to the tips of my ears and I suddenly lost my breath. I was so relieved he didn’t know I was blushing.
“I uh…. I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything….”
I shook my head and waved off his apology, realizing after that he was unaware of it. I tried a giggle to ease the awkwardness. “No, uh … no problem, it’s just one of those … things. Strange situation, you know.”
“I just don’t want things to be weird between us.”
“No, don’t think anything of it.” I tried the wave thing again, then straightened my arms at my sides.
Next, he suggested I go check out my room. He made no move to follow me, giving me space to regroup my scattered thoughts. I couldn’t take in the room now. I knew the bed squeaked slightly when I fell back on it, and it was soft beneath me, but focusing on wall color or window placement was beyond me.
He’d almost kissed me! And I would have kissed him right back! Whether due to misinterpreted feelings, or the thrill of the moment, I would have. Even now I almost felt his lips on mine and along with it, the tug of disappointment for the missed opportunity.
I pressed my hands over my eyes and let my feet dangle above the floor, sw
inging them back and forth as I pondered my wayward thoughts and perplexing feelings. I was pretty sure I was falling for Josiah. I couldn’t let that happen. Not now!
“Brenna.”
I bolted upright to find him standing in the doorway.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked.
“No!” I answered, a little too brightly, and stood up.
“I just … you’ve been in here a few minutes. Thought you got lost.”
We both chuckled, and both knew it was fake.
“I just … needed a minute,” I said.
He nodded. “Sure. Uh, I think I’ll go. Let you settle in.”
“No!” His eyebrows went up. “I thought we were going to read?” I asked.
“You must be tired,” he said. “You worked all day. We can read some other time.”
Oh no. He wasn’t going to leave me here feeling like I’d disappointed him. And why? Because I was worrying about some fantastic, emerging crush? No thank you. Besides, I did want to continue the stories in the book.
“I want to read. Really, Josiah. Come on.” I took his hand and walked him from the room. His fingers wrapped around mine, warm and hard. I tried to ignore the heat climbing my arm into my chest.
“You must be hungry,” he said.
“Uh … yeah.” Now that he mentioned it.
He took out his phone and glanced at it—habit I guessed—before staring straight ahead, feeling with his fingers until the screen came on. I was awestruck, as the phone told him what to do, and in a few seconds, Tory answered on speaker. He asked her to arrange something for us to eat, then hung up.
“That’s amazing,” I said. “That the phone can help blind people like that.”
He licked his lips as his gaze fell to the floor, and I hoped I hadn’t hurt his feelings by labeling him blind. It must be brutal, accepting his state. Though I had to say, he was handling it far better than I would. I didn’t see much of the frustration or anger I’d expect, though I didn’t know much about the psychology of the circumstances. Maybe it was building and would come out at a later time. I hoped not. It hurt my heart to think of him bitter and depressed. Who would help him?
I pushed the thought away. “Okay, let’s read a little until the food comes,” I said, taking a place at the end of the couch near a lamp, as I had at his house last night. Josiah lowered himself into an uncomfortable looking chair and waited for me to start.
*****
Over dinner of burgers and tater tots, we discussed friendships. Hers with Eliza reminded me so much of mine with Ben. I admired Eliza’s loyalty and protectiveness, but as with Ben, it sounded as though Brenna sometimes felt smothered by the intensity. Of course, I may have been projecting.
Though I did wonder how she would feel if I made her aware of Eliza’s pointless phone call. Pointless, because I already knew what kind of woman Brenna was. I saw it plainly in her words and actions, in what she said and did, as much as in what she didn’t.
For one thing, her words were never phony. She didn’t try to kiss up to me or give me unauthentic compliments. She didn’t ask how much land I owned or try to nudge my net worth out of me. I guess I compared her to Tracy every step. Yeah, sure. And by comparison, what had I seen in Tracy?
Even in the bedroom. Physical relations came easily enough if someone wanted that. Big deal. Why had I spent two years with a woman who so obviously and consistently held her own best interests above mine? By comparison, there was so much more sitting here in front of me than I’d ever had with Tracy.
“I understand, though,” I said, chuckling when she told me Eliza sometimes acted more like her mother than friend. “Ben had an older brother who died when Ben was eight.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” she said.
I nodded my agreement. “Raif was eleven. He drowned on the family’s property. I don’t remember him much, except he used to bust my chops by calling me Josie. When he bothered to talk to me at all.” I rolled my eyes. “He was older, therefore far cooler.”
“Naturally. Can’t be seen talking to babies,” she said.
I smiled. “But when he died, Ben latched tighter to me. We were inseparable, whether I wanted to be or not.”
“Aww, that’s sweet. He needed you.”
I let out a gruff sigh. Yeah. He needed me then to be someone he could watch out for. That had never gone away even though we were grown and I was older by a year. “You have brothers or sisters?”
“Not growing up. Just me and my mom.” She clutched the napkin tighter in her hand. “I have one half-sister that I know of. I might have others by now, I don’t know. My dad remarried again. We don’t keep in touch.”
Her tone said she’d rather not talk about that, and I didn’t want to bring her mood down when I was having a good time in her company, so we changed the topic to horses and talked another half hour about types of saddles and gear.
Feigning blindness was mentally exhausting, not only having to remember to let my eyes wander, or feel around for my burger, or pretend to almost knock over my water bottle, mostly because I felt like a jerk for deceiving her. No matter my reasons for lying in the first place, if she found out now, it would look like I’d intended to kiss her when I’d had her in my arms earlier.
I reenacted the scenario in my head. If I confessed I could see, but claimed I hadn’t planned anything romantic, would I believe me? Definitely not. Picking the perfect time to tell her was now somehow more vital. I’d crossed an invisible boundary at some point, between when it was right and natural to tell her, and when the lie had become bizarre and useless. It was only a matter of time before someone ruined my charade anyway.
I sneaked a look at the clock on the wall behind her. It was nine o’clock. I pushed away from the table and stood. “It must be late. I’ll head back to my place.”
She stood. “Uh … a few things wrong with that statement. First, you can’t just leave, you have no way to get home.”
Right.
“Next, it’s not that late.” She glanced at the clock. “It’s only nine. And, I thought we were going to read?”
I was pretty beat, myself, but didn’t want to disappoint her. It seemed she was enjoying the book more than I was. “Okay,” I said. “If you’re sure you’re not too tired.”
“No. I mean, are you?”
“No, I’m good.”
She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, her expression gleeful. She naturally didn’t think I saw her excitement, but it was evident, giving me cause to consider, seriously, that this was about more than reading. Could I be leading her on after all?
We returned to our seats in the living room, and she picked up the book, only instead of starting in, Brenna held silent. She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip, staring at me. It might be nerves. It might also be attraction. Whatever it was, my mouth went dry.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
She straightened in her place and transferred the book to her other hand. “You look a little uncomfortable there.”
“Uncomfortable?”
“Yes. That chair looks stiff.”
I gripped the arms, moving around a bit. I’d left a few pieces when I moved to the big house, like that awesome couch, but this chair was something Brew had brought in. “It is pretty hard.” Like the man himself.
“Come over here.”
I didn’t need to be coaxed before I got up and started feeling my way. She met me half way and led me to the couch, depositing me on the opposite end with a cushion between us. I nestled in, shifting my weight to the right against the back for a better look at her.
“Better?” she asked.
“Much. Thanks.”
She started to read, the words flowing as they had last night, and before long I’d forgotten to watch her lips forming them, or her brows lifting when she read an interesting or curious bit of information. I closed my eyes and followed in my mind’s eye as she relayed a dark tale of a wandering clan in the late 1800s who came to a
violent end in a clash with local authorities just fifteen miles from here.
“That’s pretty grisly,” she said. “Townspeople gathering to kill a whole family.”
I opened my eyes in time to see a shudder course down her shoulders. “Townsfolk can be pretty harsh when it comes to what they consider strange,” I said. “And the clan was hunting on their land, stealing their animals, killing them with their bare hands, and eating them raw. That’s beyond strange.”
“True.”
“And howling at the moon while they did it.”
“Still no reason to hang them all,” she said.
“No.”
“Even the children.”
“It’s horrible, I know. You have to remember, though, people weren’t educated like they are now. They’d probably never seen anybody like them, and there wasn’t much in the way of mental help or behavioral therapy or rehabilitation.”
“Still. The youngest was six. How can anyone justify hanging a six-year-old?”
“I can’t. But according to the book, a few got away and continue breeding to this day. Maybe we can round up a few and start a hill clan rescue.”
She laughed. “I think I may know at least one. My Uncle Brew.”
My heart stopped; it must have. “Brew?”
She nodded. “Brewster. My mother’s oldest brother. One of those low-life skeletons every family keeps locked up tight in their closet. You know the ones.”
I couldn’t respond. Brewster’s niece? Brenna?
“In fact, this place kind of reminds me of my uncle Dean’s ranch over in Townsend County.”
Townsend? That’s where Brew’s place was.
“He died last year and Uncle Brew took it over.” She shook her head. “Probably ran it into the ground by now.”
My hands were already shaking. I had to force a breath out before dragging another in.
“Are you alright?” she asked, half turning to look at me.
