Near and Far

Page 17

Truer words had never been said. “You sure have a way with words, Walker. If I wasn’t fully committed to not letting you lose this bet with Garth, you’d be getting so lucky right now.”
He groaned so loudly the ranch hands in the bunk house probably heard it. “Not the thing to say to a guy who’s holding on by a thread.”
I curled into a ball on the swing and dropped my head on his lap. Best pillow ever.
We were quiet for a while, just the occasional creak of the swing as Jesse rocked us and the distant echo of the cattle. I was at my favorite place in the whole world, beside my favorite person in the universe . . . I felt a rare form of contentment in moments like those. Like there was nothing more I could want. Like death could come knocking on my door and I’d cross into the hereafter knowing I’d lived a full life.
Feeling those kinds of things for one person was different, and intense, and even a bit scary at times, but no matter what, I knew it was one thing above all: special. So much that I’d lump it into the category of sacred.
Jesse Walker was sacred to me.
“I love you, Rowen.” So much silence had passed that his words came over me like a tsunami.
I tangled my fingers with his and smiled in my half-asleep state. “I love you, too, Jesse.” I nudged his leg with my shoulder. “But you’re still not getting laid tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” He chuckled softly and gave my fingers a squeeze. “But this isn’t exactly a poor substitute.”
After that, I surrendered to sleep quickly. I never had bad dreams when Jesse was close by. He chased them all away.
Chapter Ten
I WAS DREAMING. I knew what was happening wasn’t real. It might have been real years ago, but it wasn’t my reality anymore. The scared boy chained to the water pipe in that dark, wet basement wasn’t me anymore. The boy covered in his own filth, more animal than human, wasn’t the man I’d grown into. The boy guarding the only thing he could claim as his own, ready and willing to tear into whomever or whatever might try to take it from him, had been my life at one time. It wasn’t any longer.
I’d gone for years without dreaming of my life before my real family had found me. My true family. But the dreams had come back. In the past couple of weeks, they’d increased in frequency. I’d never had one while sleeping beside Rowen . . . but that had changed.
I jolted awake in a cold sweat, almost panting. It took me a minute to realize I was safe and another minute to remember where I was. My gaze jumped to Rowen, and my arms tightened protectively around her. She was still curled up, asleep, and half on the swing, half on my lap. A peaceful expression covered her face. The blanket I’d grabbed from the chest on the porch had slipped almost completely off of her. I grabbed the corner and pulled it up, tucking it under her chin.
I studied her for a minute, unable to shake my growing sense of protectiveness. As someone who cared about Rowen, of course I was concerned with keeping her safe, but my desperation went beyond that. It was something a bit darker, something not quite so benign and selfless. I’d warred with it in the past, that protectiveness that toed the line of possessiveness. My protective feelings for her didn’t just stem from her benefit, as they had until recently. The new sense of protection cropped up from feeling like she was mine, no one else’s, and not wanting anything else to find out about her for fear of her being taken away.
I recognized that staggering feeling as a demon from my past. One I thought I’d buried. One I obviously hadn’t. It unsettled me to the core, but I reassured myself that I’d caught the demon before it had taken over. Knowledge was power, and knowing that the little boy of my past was trying to possess Rowen in a way that wasn’t acceptable or healthy meant I would be on my guard to stop it from going any further. I’d rather remove myself from her life completely than strangle the life right out of Rowen. I’d kill myself trying if need be. I wouldn’t go back to that life. I wouldn’t drag what was most special to me back either.
“You look like you need this, sweetie.” A steaming cup of coffee appeared in front of my face. “And this, too. It might be unseasonably warm, but the nights are still plenty chilly.” A heavy blanket dropped over me.
“Thanks, Mom.” I yawned, took the cup of coffee, and forced the dark thoughts back where they belonged: in the grave I’d buried them in years ago.
“Look at that hair.” Mom teased with a few pieces, trying to get them to behave, then gave up. “It didn’t matter what I put in your hair when you were younger; it always had a mind of its own.”
“Good thing I pretty much live in a hat.” I took a long drink of coffee, retrieved my hat from where it had fallen off last night, and slid it into position.
“Did you two stay out here all night?”
I nodded. “All night. I’ve got the bug bites and frost bite to prove it.”
“Good thing you’re a rough and tough cowboy then.” Mom gave me a smile before sipping her own coffee.
“Good thing.” I stretched my arms high above my head. I was stiff, too. “What time is it?”
“Almost six.”
“Was there a day off announced I wasn’t made aware of?” The fact that I hadn’t been woken up with a cold bucket of water meant I’d missed some kind of memo.
“Not so much a day off, but your dad decided today would be a fun day to have all the guys make breakfast for us girls.” Just then, a crashing sound came from the kitchen. “They’re working a bit slower than we do. Breakfast might be ready by dinnertime.” Another crash, that one even louder. Mom grimaced. “Or maybe in time for tomorrow’s breakfast.”
“Sounds like I’d better get in there and throw my pathetic cooking skills into the mix. I’m pretty sure I can manage to not ruin toast.”
“No. Stay.” Mom shoved off the railing like she was going to physically stop me if I tried moving. “It’s nice to see you like this. When she’s with you.”
It was kind of nice to feel like this when Rowen was around. “What? Am I hopeless or something the rest of the time?”
She laughed a few notes, her smile shifting from me to Rowen. “Not hopeless. Just kind of . . . lost.”
“I feel a bit lost when she’s not around.” My arms tightened around her instinctually. I couldn’t decide if that was the possessiveness from my past or of today.
“I know you do, Jess.” The corners of Mom’s eyes creased, like she was concentrating on what to say, but after a moment, they ironed out.
When she didn’t speak, I said, “Well, it will be summer break soon, and she’ll be back for a long time. You won’t have to put up with me wandering around like a lost puppy dog.”
“And after summer break? What then?”
“Then she’ll go back to school. We’ll see each other as often as we can, and the rest of the time, I’ll be a lost puppy.”
Mom took a long drink of her coffee. She didn’t normally down it in one long sip like the guys, which meant she was stalling. She was looking for just the right way to word what she wanted to say. “And when Rowen finishes up school in a few years . . . then what?”
I had a reply on the tip of my tongue for most any question—I’d been given the gift of gab after all—but that one stumped me. I had given it plenty of thought, but I didn’t have an answer to that question. I knew what I wanted. I also knew what Rowen wanted. Pretty much most of her wants and my wants aligned, but our commitments columns had a tough time aligning.
I worked at Willow Springs. Ranching was what I knew. It was in my blood, and I knew it always would be. Rowen lived, breathed, and dreamed art. That’s what she knew, and that’s what was in her blood. If five hundred miles of land separating us decided to up and relocate one day, that would make Rowen’s and my future a lot easier to piece together. If Seattle and its vibrant art scene was an easy drive from Willow Springs, our problems would be solved. Maybe not all of them, but at least some of them.
“I guess we haven’t really worked out the details yet,” I answered Mom. I would have scratched my head if it hadn’t been such a terrible cliché.
“It’s time you start thinking about what you think you can’t live without and what you actually can’t live without.” When Mom’s face got all serious like that, I’d learned to sit up and listen.
“I knew I must have inherited my genius from you.”
Her face softened when she smiled. “And your dashing good looks.”
I motioned between Mom and me who were, as two people could go, about as opposite as opposite could get. I doubted we had a single strand of DNA that was even close to matching. “Obviously.”
She patted my cheek as she headed for the door. “I’ll let you get back to your bug bites and frost bite, sweetie.”
“Mom?” I glanced down at Rowen and swallowed.
She paused with her hand on the door and smiled, waiting. I wanted to tell her about the dreams . . . the nightmares. I wanted to admit my fears about why they’d come back. I wanted her to comfort me the way she had that first year I’d come to Willow Springs and woken up every night screaming. I wanted someone to know . . .
But admitting them out loud to another person seemed like I was giving power to my fears. If I kept them to myself, would they eventually die off? Or would keeping them to myself make them that much worse? I didn’t know, and I hated that feeling. So instead of bringing Mom into the dark world I’d resurrected, I forced a smile. “Never mind.”
She was observant, though. Always had been, and my weak attempt to reassure her had done nothing but put her on alert. Just then, another loud sound came from the kitchen: shattering. Mom and I winced.
“I’d better get in there.” I shifted nice and slow so I didn’t disturb Rowen, who hadn’t even stirred from the noise. “If everything turns into a burnt, inedible mess, I’ll at least make sure there’s toast and coffee.”
Mom wiped her brow. “You’re a good son.”
Before heading through the door, I glanced back at Rowen, peaceful, resting, not a worry in the world. And there I was—anxious, troubled, unsure.
Not wanting to give it any more thought, I headed for the kitchen. None of the smells I associated with breakfast were present when I stepped into the kitchen-slash-chaos room. The air was permeated with the scent of burnt, and the smoke curling from the fry pan and toaster oven told the rest of the story. That wasn’t breakfast; it was a massacre.
We hadn’t hired on all of our hands for the summer yet, so about ten guys, plus Dad and Garth, were fumbling around like domestic was a foreign concept.
“It’s breakfast, guys. Not open heart surgery.” I went to the sink to wash my hands, dodging piles of batter and raw egg on the floor. By the time all was said and done, Mom and the girls had about ten times as much work whenever us guys made them breakfast. Mom had complained about finding dried pancake batter weeks after the last breakfast we’d “made.”