by A. J. Downey
I led her to the upstairs’ bathroom and hit the light on the way in, then I turned and helped myself to a handful of her hips to either side, my hands sliding over her body covered as it was by the flannel of my shirt as I lifted her and sat her on the edge of the counter. She made a slight cry of surprised protest when I did it, her green eyes wide and her pale face draining of color even more, and I crooked a one-sided grin and apologized.
“Sorry.”
Even sitting this high up, her feet dangling over the floor, I still had to look down at her, and she wasn’t exactly a short or even a petite woman… just shorter than me.
I picked up a washcloth off the stack on the back of the john, within reach of the shower without looking.
“Take a deep breath,” I said eying her, and she stared up at me, her green eyes still startled and wide, framed in her wild blond curls, the tinge of red around them from her crying making them somehow more vivid. Bright.
She jumped slightly when I smacked the arm of the faucet up, the cold spray a slight shock against my fingers as it soaked the washcloth I held under it. I wrung the square of rough cloth out, folded it in into a padded quarter of its original size and raised it up. She leaned back, and I gave her a look. I admit, it was stern at first, but it wasn’t my goal to scare her into submitting – I was trying to help, in my own heavy-handed way and shit, I didn’t want to make things worse.
“It’s cool,” I said and tried to keep my tone in check.
She stilled, and I carefully washed her face with the cool cloth as though she were a child.
She broke the silence first, leaning back when she’d had enough, grasping my wrist gently to pull my hand away, putting the other with its perfect, long nails, against the cloth to push it down along with my hand.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, and her voice was distressed.
“It’s not a problem,” I said neutrally, then asked a little more gently, “You want to tell me what that was all about?”
She stared at me mutely for several seconds and I could tell that, yes, yes, she did want to tell me, that she needed to tell someone, but she finally bit her lips together and stayed quiet.
“It’s alright, you don’t need to. Just thought it might help to get it off your chest.”
At the word chest, she crossed her arms over hers, tucking her hands beneath her arms, and I smiled and chuckled.
“You’re a strange woman, Aspen,” I said.
“How did you know my name?” she asked.
“Driver’s license,” I answered, shaking out the washcloth, folding it in half once, and laying it over the faucet’s neck to drip into the sink - if it was going to drip.
“Oh,” she said softly, looking away.
“Couldn’t find your clothes?” I asked.
She looked back at me and blushed faintly.
“I don’t remember what happened,” she said.
“You were pretty drunk.”
“I only had one drink, maybe two, but I never drink more than that when I go out.”
I grunted and gave a nod.
“Your friend left with a couple of guys, think one of them maybe slipped you something?” I asked.
“I don’t know…” she looked on the verge of tears again and I shook my head.
“Doesn’t matter,” I told her with a sniff and she looked back up at me, those clear green eyes of hers slaying me every time they met mine. “You’re safe, nothing happened to you last night. No one touched you but me, and only to get you cleaned up so I could put you to bed. I swear it.”
She swallowed hard, hesitated and finally said, “Thank you.”
“It’s no problem,” I reiterated. “I’ll get you your clothes. You get in the shower and I’ll leave ‘em right outside the door. Uh, keep the shirt – your sweater was marked ‘dry clean only’ and I put it in an oversized Ziploc until you could decide what you wanted to do with it.”
“Okay.” She nodded, wincing as she hit a rough patch in her hair, smoothing it behind her ears with her hands.
“Yeah, I couldn’t keep it out of your hair, sorry.”
“It’s no problem,” she said with a slight smile, and I gave her one back.
“What’s your name?” she asked as I got half way out the door.
I looked back over my shoulder and said, “I go by Fenris.”
“Yeah, but I mean your real name.”
I smiled and I knew it was a bit feral, but I couldn’t help it.
“Not to be alarming, but it’s the only name I need.”
“Okay,” she whispered, her eyes a bit wide.
I shut the door and went up the hall to get her clothes out of the dryer.
“What the fuck was that all about?” my dad groused when I got to the bottom of the stairs.
“No clue,” I said with a shrug. “She’s getting a shower.”
He grunted, slapped some scramble on a plate and set it in front of me at the breakfast bar. I slid into a seat and dug in, elbows to either side of my plate, taking a protective stance over my food. Some old habits die hard.
The squeaky tread on the stairs gave her away as she came down, and my dad and I were both stopped and looking to the mouth of the stairway when she peeked around the corner. She blushed, her hair, which had been full of body and a little wild before her shower, hung lank around her face, heavy with damp.
She put her hands in her back pockets, took a deep breath and emerged more fully into the room.
“Sorry, again, about earlier,” she said shakily, and I shook my head.
“It’s nothing.”
“Come and eat.” My dad echoed the dismissal of her apology and set out a plate for her.
“Oh, I’m not really that hungry—”
My dad snorted and cut her off, “I didn’t cook all this so his big ass could eat it all, now sit down.”
I smirked and shook my head. “Crotchety old bastard,” I muttered.
“You’re just like me, so shut the hell up, boy.”
My smirk turned to a grin and I didn’t say anything about it, just shoveled another bite of food into my mouth.
She slipped onto the stool beside mine, her face a study in beauty and confusion, and I tried not to stare. I didn’t know what her deal was, but clearly, she had some shit going on. I thought back on my sister and shifted slightly in discomfort.
I hadn’t pried back then. I should have, and by letting shit slide, I’d let her slide right into her grave. There wasn’t a day that went by that didn’t weigh on my soul. This chick right here, though? She wasn’t my sister. I didn’t even know her.
“Thank you,” she murmured softly as my pops put a plate in front of her.
“Welcome,” he grunted and started cleaning up between forkfuls off his own plate. I slid my empty one to the side and picked up my cup of coffee, swilling down some of the bitter brew.
“So, what’s yer name?” he asked, drying off the cast-iron skillet he’d cooked up the scramble in a few minutes later. We’d all been silent for the most part – simply eating our food or drinking our coffee as the occasion called for it.
“Aspen,” she said.
“Your parents some kind of hippy peace freaks?” he asked, and Aspen snorted a delicate little laugh.
“Guilty – at least my mom was…” she paused and took a fortifying breath. “Dad wasn’t ever really in the picture.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that.” My dad sounded guilty to my ears, and I sat placidly. Didn’t comment. Didn’t have to. Our family dynamic was complicated on a good day. At least, it’d been a string of them lately. Good days, that is.
“Sorry, um, what’s your name?” she asked.
“Oh, they call me Vyking.”
“They?” she asked curiously.
“People. The club.” My dad shrugged. He took a deep breath and sighed and changed subjects. “I cooked breakfast, why don’t you go on out and feed the goats before you take Aspen home.”
Before I could
say anything, Aspen perked up, “Goats?” she asked, and it was the cutest damn thing.
My dad grunted with a secret smile. “Yeah. You’re on a goat farm,” he said. “Don’t get too attached to any of ‘em, though.”
“Oh…” her excitement diminished some.
“Well, not exactly true,” I said with a sigh, wanting that sparkle to come back to her green eyes for some reason. “There are a few you can get attached to. I’ll show you which ones.”
She finished the last few bites on her plate and my dad reached out and took it away from in front of her.
“You two kids have fun,” he said.
“This way,” I said and jerked my head toward the mudroom off the kitchen.
She’d donned her nice riding boots from the night before and I took down my newer farm jacket, a rusty brown Carhartt I’d bought recently to replace the dingy gray one I took down for myself, the elbow of the sleeve ripped out spectacularly, the padded ticking leaking out of it.
I held it open for her and said, “It’s cold out there, better put this on.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, donning it. “How’d you do that?” she asked with wide eyes at the mangled sleeve of the coat I put on for myself.
“Barbed-wire fencing,” I said, pulling down the old leather American outback crusher hat I used to keep the rain out of my eyes. I donned it and held open the back door, motioning for her to go on ahead.
The chill damp of the fall air rushed in to greet us and she ducked out into the fine misty crap sifting down out of a leaden gray sky to keep the damp and the cold from getting into the house.
I slipped out after her with a sigh. It was gonna be muddy as fuck and I hadn’t bothered switching out my riding boots for my farm boots with the better tread. Too late now.
“Watch yourself,” I cautioned. “Bound to be muddy as hell. I don’t want you to slip.”
“I’ll be careful,” she promised, perking up at the bleating of the goats out in their pasture.
“They act like they never been fed a day in their life,” I groused.
“Poor creatures,” she said lightly with a smile, an edge of teasing to her sweet voice. “They look absolutely starved.”
I chuckled and looked across the yard to the split log fence of the first pasture and the small herd beyond the wire fencing lining we had just behind those logs. Sure enough, the goats were lined up begging at the fence line, waiting for my big ass to get in the barn and get their grain.
“They look it,” I agreed, deadpan. “Just look at those ribs poking out.”
Aspen smiled and I think it was the first genuine one I’d seen thus far, timid as it was.
She huddled in my oversized jacket and shirt and picked her way carefully in my wake through the muddy grass that squished beneath our feet as we made our way to the barn.
“You’re in serious need of some stepping stones,” she said mildly with a laugh and then finished up with, “The flat flagstone kind with the irregular edges would look fantastic with the aesthetic of the house.” She turned back and looked at the weathered brown of my home. It was half log cabin, half weathered cedar shake tiles, and all rustic and as organic as the land around us.
“You might be onto something there,” I said and thought about it. As much of a bitch as it would be to get them in place, it would beat wearing a muddy track in the grass. I’d see what my dad thought about it, but might just do it on my own anyway. He wasn’t getting any younger and had a bad hip – anything to save the stubborn old bastard from a fall and breaking the damn thing. He was getting up there – had just turned seventy-three.
“Do they all have names?” she asked lightly when we ducked into the deep, permanent twilight of the barn. I liked it in here – the smell of fresh, dry straw and alfalfa.
“Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” I said. “The only named ones are Gunnar and Olaf, our two bucks and the girls who are the baby factories.”
“How many mammas?” she asked.
“Seven,” I answered.
“Oh, wow.”
“It gets pretty hairy,” I agreed. “Especially when they go dropping twins quite a bit.”
“I can imagine,” she said, moving a stray damp curl behind one ear.
“Wanna give me a hand? They’ll be your best friend.” I held a metal pail full of grain out to her and she really smiled then and it lit up her whole face with delight.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’d love to.”
I chuckled. “Famous last words,” I said, and she laughed softly. I loaded up another pail for myself, then loaded up two big five-gallon buckets, and a third smaller pail for some of the goats that needed a little extra. I’d let her take care of the permanent stock while I took care of what my pops and I liked to refer to as our disposable little darlings.
Sometimes, it was tough. Once or twice, we had a goat come along that just had the right personality and sweet temperament that we couldn’t do it. Those either got sold, or kept depending on the farm’s needs.
Gunnar and Olaf bleated at us insistently and I stopped her at the gate, setting down my two five gallons and picking up the third pail off the top of one.
“Better let me get in there with the food. These two are around two hundred pounds of stank and attitude where a meal of grain is concerned.”
“Okay,” she agreed and handed one of the buckets over.
“Goats are assholes,” I said with a shrug. “These two would bully you. They know they can’t get one over on me – still hurts when they knock into you a little overenthusiastically, so watch yourself, okay?”
“Got it,” she agreed with a nod.
She ghosted in after me, hanging back with the third bucket, and I smiled and called out, “C’mere, you two ungrateful fucks.”
I hung one bucket on an exposed nail on the outside of their shelter and tipped the other one, emptying it half way while the moms and still-nursing babies trotted up from the lower end of the pasture. When I was sure the boys were engaged with their grain, I handed back the empty pail to Aspen while I took the full one from her and the third off the nail.
“Watch your footing,” I warned, and we went over to the other, bigger shelter to pour grain into the troughs for the ladies.
“Oh my God, they’re so cute!” she cried at the sight of the little babies, and I nodded.
“Yeah, they are. Think we’re gonna keep that one,” I said, pointing a black and white spotted little girl out.
“Have you named it, then?”
“Nope, not yet. You wanna?” I asked.
“Boy or a girl?” she asked, and I grinned.
“Girl.”
She smiled and asked, “Can I think on it?”
“Sure can,” I said and told her, “You can get in there and say ‘hi.’ They’re still curious this young and could use the human interaction.”
I watched her as she went over to the newish baby who wasn’t more than a month old, her little tail set to wagging as she soaked up the pets Aspen gave her.
I couldn’t help but find myself thinking that that was one of the things this place lacked – a woman’s touch. Watching her unfurl, open up and flower with joy at the sight of the goats made putting up with the storm inside earlier worth it. It was like watching a damn rainbow arch across the sky real-time, watching her smile and laugh with the baby and I was almost sad to break it up, but I had to finish feeding the meat stock and get her home at some point today.
“So, what’s your story?” I asked as we made our way to the second, larger pasture across the property.
“Oh, um, geez… where do I even start?” she asked.
“The beginning is as good as place as any innit?” I shot back.
“Um, well, my mom died about a month and a half or so ago,” she said quietly. “Cancer, a long battle with it.”
“Shit, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Oh, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, I’m afraid,” she said with a bitter chuck
le.
“My brother died exactly a month after she did, a freak thing – car accident.”
“Fuck, you kidding me?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder at her as I set down the buckets of grain just the other side of the fence.
Feeding these guys was easier, just had to dump it in the trough over the fence line. Didn’t actually have to go in.
“It gets better,” she said with a dubious tone. “The day after my brother’s funeral, I caught my husband cheating… with other men… I’m going through a divorce right now.” She sniffed and stared off over the rolling green grass and into the tree line of the woods that edged our property.
“The day after?” I asked, stopping and setting the first empty orange bucket down on the ground so I could pick up the other, full one.
“Yep,” she said with a heavy and exhausted sigh.
“What the fuck?” I asked, looking her over. She was fucking gorgeous – why any guy on the planet would pass that shit up for a fuckin’ sausage party was beyond me. He had to be crazy. “He bi and just didn’t want to tell you or something?” I asked.
She pursed her lips and shrugged miserably.
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “I don’t know if anything about our relationship is—” She stopped herself, stumbling over her words. “Or was true anymore.”
“Shit, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You know, I didn’t even want to go out last night,” she confessed, covering her face with her hands. Her next words were half muffled when she said, dragging her hands off her face, “Lindsay practically dragged me out.”
I gave a sardonic half-smile. “And ditched you like that?” I grunted. “You need new friends, baby girl.”
She smiled slightly and bemused asked, “What did you call me?”
I chuckled. “Sorry, force of habit.”
“It’s alright,” she said dismissively, and it was in that way that told me she’d sort of liked it – at least judging by the slight smile on her lips.
“Where you live?” I asked. “I’ll run you home after I’m done here.”
“Oh, I’m all the way over in Tacoma’s north end,” she said. “Um, you don’t have to go to all of that trouble. You’ve already done so much.”
