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“They’reallgood,” I correct, because of all one hundred and twenty-seven photos of Hudson that are in this drawer, not a single one of them is anything less than fucking perfect. “But you hate nature,” I remind her, confused. Plus, her area of expertise when it comes to art is violence, darkness, sexy badass women and skulls. A creek with stones? “That makes no sense.”
She sighs, reaching into my drawer to grab another photo, this one of Hud with his back to the camera, far off in the field baling hay. Sweat soaks his shirt, clinging to the center of his back, his hat blocking the sun from the lens. It’s a perfect photo. One that has given me countless orgasms.
“Well,” she says, replacing the photo carefully, holding on to the edges so as not to get screamed at for smudging. “I don’t know what Deuce wants. He won’t tell me anything. So I’m just trying to be prepared. If he does hire me as an apprentice, I wanna be good at everything.”
I drop my brush in the rinse cup and get to my feet, angling my easel to face the sunshine pouring in the open window. “Sure, I’ll go. Let me get a fresh canvas and grab my bag from the barn.”
Under the guise of painting the oak tree, I move around the ranches a lot when I paint. To be fair, I have painted that oak many times. But I also have paintedhimmany times, too. After having a quick lunch to try Juniper’s new Chelan cherry jam, Ivy and I head to the creek, surprised to find Bear there.
Alone.
When Hudson showed up at my door last week, eyes full of fear as he stared at the blood on me, I took it as a sign.
He said he heard me screaming, heard the shatteringglass and the distress and ran over. Still, he scooped me up and took care of me. He took off his belt to make a tourniquet, and he carried me to the truck… into the hospital… he’s just…. The universe is definitely pushing us together. For two years I’ve been waiting for her to help, and now she is. And I’m ready.
I told him my PIN code. And when he said it was his birthday, I told him that I knew that. And the way he looked at me–like he was seeing me, in that split second, for the woman who loves him.
But by the time I’d been stitched and drugged, I’d been rolled back out to a new Hudson. Like that tiny bit of information about my bank card PIN had been rationalized as a fluke or weird coincidence, and that he’d already moved on.
That’s fine.
The universe may have to work harder, and if she doesn’t,I will.
“Is that Bear out here all alone?” Ivy says, shading her eyes from the sun with a hand over her forehead. I drop my bag of supplies and my canvas and slip out of my Birkenstocks, then launch into a full sprint toward the water’s edge. Beneath my ribs, my heart hammers in a way I haven’t felt in years.
Fear echoes through me, a list of what-ifs running like ticker tape behind my eyes. He’s out here alone. If he slipped on a mossy stone and went into the water— “Bear!” I scream as I near the sandbank where he’s playing. He twists, turning around completely when he realizes it's me.
“Dolly! Did you see? That one did three skips!” His eyes are shiny and bright, his accomplishment making him stand taller than usual.
I drop to my knee in front of him, taking his shoulders in my hands as I catch my breath. “Bear, who’s watching you right now?”
“Aunt Everly,” he says simply, unaware that he just gave me the scare of my life and that in a few minutes, when Ev realizes he snuck out, he’s gonna give her a good scare, too.
“Did you sneak out?” I ask, searching his eyes. He’s honest, always has been.
Once, I watched him dump out two of my most expensive paints and mix them up with a stick, in an attempt to make a “pretend cow patty” and when I questioned if he knew what happened to the paint, he fessed up. I don’t expect lies from him, so when he tells me that Aunt Ev was on the phone and he got bored and decided to pick flowers, I believe him.
“But I got tired of picking wildflowers so then I walked to the creek,” he explains, his little voice growing wobbly as he realizes the problem. “Aunt Ev’s gonna be mad, huh?” he asks, tears filling his eyes.
With my hands still on his shoulders, I take a steadying breath and try to explain to him what the problem is. “Yes, Aunt Everly will be upset because she loves you and when she realizes you’re gone and she doesn’t know where you are, she will be scared. And there are scary things out here, Griz, and us grown-ups know that. So we ask you to wait for us to go exploring because we don’t want you to get hurt or lost or both.”
He nods, and I wipe the gentle stream of tears from his soft cheeks as Ivy finally catches up, carrying all of our stuff.
“Thanks,” I say, looking up at her. She narrows her gaze on Bear.
“I had to carry all this stuff because of you, my dude,” she says, “so you owe me a special lemonade today when you get home.”
He grins at my sister. He loves making lemonade and selling it out on the dirt road. Except, no one lives out here but the Ellingtons and Grays. But because a little adorable boy with lemonade tugs at the heartstrings of three women, my sisters and I make multiple trips a day to be his best customers.
At one point, Hud didn’t like any of us up on that road, so to make everyone happy, he moved Bear’s stand in front of the house… but built him a tiny booth, like a miniature version of the farmers market booths. He now delivers straight to our front door.
“I will.” He glances back at the trail where we came from. “Should I go back?”
Ivy and I share a glance. “I’ll take him back,” I tell my sister. “See you in a few.” She nods, ruffling Bear’s hair as she says goodbye. But about three minutes into our trek back to the ranch, Everly appears, hair wild, eyes wide, cheeks stained with tears.
“Bear!” she screams, her voice so frightened and sharp that it echoes through the fields. She collapses to her knees in the field, ten feet back from us, shaking her head that she holds in her hands. “Oh, thank God.”
I nudge Bear. “See?” I whisper. “She was worried. That’s why you can’t sneak off. And you can’t go to the creek alone, either, okay? It’s too dangerous.”
