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“What? You? You got shot at?” I demanded, waiting for the explanation. I was a little surprised at how such a simple confession made me boil with rage. Like I wanted to kill the guy who tried to hurt her.
“Yeah. It was just a graze, nothing too serious.” She pushed up her sleeve and showed me a faint streak that ran just above her elbow. “But it scared my mom out of her wits. And I’ll be honest, it had me a little too shell-shocked, too. I traveled for a while after that, but I never felt at ease again, and I thought it showed in my work. So when she begged me to get out of foreign assignment work and do something safer, it wasn’t too hard to argue. It was the least I could do.”
“And you don’t miss all the adventure and the travel?” A small part of me was asking for myself and not her.
So many times I had heard of others from my unit coming home and being unable to get back into civilian life. I had been shaken from time to time, loud noises and such forth, but I always wondered a little bit if I would ever turn into one of those guys who could only function in the military.
“Well, I still travel. After all, look where I am!” she said, smiling up at me with a knowing look. “But the adventure? That’s a different story. Some of the places were amazing and the people were incredible. Other stories, though… some of the things I photographed and wrote about, they were enough to break your heart. They could also make sure you never got another good night’s sleep as long as you lived. I think that incident happened at just the right time. I’d gotten a few good years of hard-hitting journalism behind me, enough to prove that I’m a serious professional, and then I turned my lens to something a little more artistic. And more lasting, if you ask me.”
She took everything out of the bag one by one, placing them in a straight line on the table. I tried not to pry when the items turned more personal, like her wallet, her phone, and some kind of little makeup bag. But when she shook her head and muttered a very unladylike word under her breath, I watched her intently.
“It’s not here. It must have fallen out when I dropped the bag.”
“What’s that?” I asked, scanning the items on the table for any sign of something missing.
“My notebook. It had my outline for the article, all the questions I’d asked. I mean, it’s all backed up on the recorder, but the notebook is where I put specific points while you were talking, you know, like really important stuff I wanted to highlight. I’ll just have to look for it on my way back to—”
“Oh no, ma’am! You’re not going back out there at this time of night!” I interrupted. “That old car is in no shape to get you anywhere.” I thought back to the glowing eyes surrounding the porch. I wasn’t about to let her go back out there no matter how harmless they were.
“Look, it’s nice of you to let me stay here, but I can’t. I’ve got to get going. I only tried walking back here in the first place so I could use your phone,” Meredith argued, pointing at the desk in the other room.
“Hon, nobody’s gonna come out this far for a service call at this time night, at least not anybody your magazine can afford. Just stay here, and we’ll call in the morning. For that matter, I bet one of my guys can get it up and running. They’ve been fixing every tractor and combine on the place for years, and I’m sure your old Bug won’t give ’em too much trouble, even if it’s a German-made piece of kraut.”
Meredith looked absolutely defeated, and for a second I thought about just sending her back to civilization in the helicopter. Then she shrugged her shoulders and smiled with tired relief. “Thanks, really. Just let me know where I’ll be sleeping, and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“That’s a phrase I haven’t heard in quite a few years,” I said, laughing. “The last time Bryant or I told you to ‘get out of our hair,’ you were young enough to do as you were told! If you’d listened to me tonight, there wouldn’t be a pile of dead scrap metal blocking my road.”
“Hey now, I told you. That’s enough wisecracks about Beatrix! She has gotten me through far more situations than this one!” she answered, smiling bigger now. “But really, I am tired. Just let me know which sofa is mine…”
“And have my mama skin me alive for treating a guest that way? Not a chance, Honey. I’ll show you to one of the guest rooms. If you’re really nice, I might even be able to scrounge up a clean t-shirt and a pair of shorts for you to sleep in.” I grinned, picturing Meredith swallowed up in my clothes. It was an image that got me thinking things I probably shouldn’t.
“But first, you never got to see the best feature of this house. I don’t know that it’ll make it into the magazine, but it’s my absolute favorite part.” I held out my hand to her, and waited while she took it hesitantly. I don’t know why but since she got here I had been needing different little ways to touch, her, any part of her.
I helped her to her feet and led her towards the wall of windows overlooking the back of the property, holding the French doors open for her. Meredith gasped when she saw the back porch, a wide-open area she’d already seen, but now it was dark, lit only by a few strands of soft yellow lights pinned up in the rafters of the eaves. The stars overhead practically poured out onto the ground. I left her standing in awe while I made short work of getting a fire going in the oversized fire pit, dragging two comfortable chaise lounges close enough to enjoy the warmth but not so close that the flickering orange glow would block out the stars.
“This can’t be real,” she said in a whisper. “It’s like I’ve seen this same sky a million times, but at the same, I’ve never seen it before now.”
“That’s because you’ve been away for too long, Honey. This old sky’s been waiting for you to find your way home.” I took her by the hand and pulled her towards a chair, then fixed us both a glass of wine from the bar pushed back under the eaves. I handed her a glass, and sat in the chaise next to her, letting the angle pull me back until I could see straight overhead.
The stars were as familiar to me as ever, but seeing them with Meredith was a whole new experience. She was stunned into silence by the view, and her amazement forced me to see them again with new eyes. Knowing that
my parents and my brothers were looking at the same stars every night was the only thing that got me through my time away from home, and now it was like introducing her to our Texas night sky all over again.
“It’s breathtaking,” she finally said. “If I had my camera, I’d go crazy with a sky like this.” She looked like she might get up, so I put my hand on her arm and gently held her back.
“No. No cameras, no digital crap, no Photoshop, no amazing angles. Just let your eyes tell your mind how beautiful this is. Just enjoy the moment.” I turned to face her, “I know I am.”
I watched her steal a glance at me out of the corner of her eye. She was wondering if I had meant only the sky and I wanted it clear that I had not. I had a tumult of thoughts running through my head. Wondering what Bry would think about right now. How much I had forgotten the little girl with this woman sitting here before me. Wondering if my attraction was simply need or something more. I turned my head back to the stars.
Fuck it! I thought. I reached across without looking and took her hand in mine again. She didn’t pull back. Her smooth palm traced the back of my hand, and I turned my palm to face hers, exposing the rough, work-worn broken skin of my hand.
She looked down as she traced in a particularly deep scar.
“From the farm or…”
I shrugged not wanting to tell her where that scar had come from.
“It was all worth it,” I replied, turning to look at our hands and watching in fascination as she traced her fingertips lightly around the open calluses at the top of my palm. “Maybe a little scratchy though,” I added, by way of apology.
