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Five
When she woke up the next morning, she was breathing hard. Because the lingering effects of the dream that she’d had last night were still making themselves known in her body. She was tingling. All over. Because there had been a moment downstairs right before she had gone up to her room when she had imagined what it would be like if she crossed the space and kissed Kit Carson. She didn’t let herself have those thoughts. She’d had them, yes, but she considered them to be intrusive thoughts. In the minute she was aware of them, she shut them down. But he was under her defenses, and he had been nice to talk to, which was maybe the most surprising thing. And that had opened up this floodgate. And her dream had been about a whole lot more than kissing. Her dream had been about scorching, hot, naked...
No. No. She wasn’t doing that. She wasn’t indulging it. Because she was going to have to go downstairs and head back over to the farmhouse, and she was probably going to see him. And she really didn’t want to. She really did not want to have all this in her head when she did see him. That was going to make things impossible, and awful, and she really wanted to avoid impossible and awful.
So she got up, and got dressed, and shoved all of that out of her mind.
As she looked in the mirror, clipping a beaded barrette into her hair, she just stopped for a moment and stared at herself. Why had she shared all of those things with him?
It was being out of her house. Out of her empty house, and realizing that she hadn’t done that in far too long. That her life was divided so firmly into this before and after that she had lost a lot of different pieces of herself. She didn’t go out with her friends anymore. She’d done that when she was married. Had gone out sometimes with the girls, had dinner, had drinks. She had gone on weekends to vacation houses, and hung out and talked and laughed and ate food. She’d gone on dates with Chuck, and even though she wasn’t... Even though she didn’t have him, and even though she didn’t really want to date, it just represented another thing that she had lost along with him. Because she had stripped herself down almost so she could focus on what she didn’t have. Almost so she could hold the loss keenly against her chest and simply cling to it. Because who was she without it.
She hadn’t known who she was without Chuck, and somehow that had morphed into her life being about the lack of him. And sitting in this completely different environment with Kit Carson, of all people, had spurred those questions. Maybe because she did know he knew about loss. And he’d been so surprisingly giving with what he’d said.
Well, don’t go romanticizing it.
You think he’s hot. You think he’s hot, and that is a little bit dangerous.
She hoped that she would listen to her own scolding.
She shoved her pajamas into the duffel bag and went downstairs. And she didn’t get a chance to breathe, didn’t get a reprieve at all, because there was Kit, standing by the coffee maker, a mug in his hand.
“Good morning, sunshine.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“Busy day of wedding prep ahead,” he said. “Though I figure we ought to check and see what’s up with the power at your place.”
“Yes. That would be good.”
“Probably the fuse box.”
“I wouldn’t know where to find it or what to do.” She felt slightly embarrassed by that.
“I was married for a long time. My husband did all of that. And now my dad does it because he feels sorry for me and I lean into that.”
He laughed. “I have to say, I kind of respect that.”
“If you have to go through something terrible you might as well take all the help that comes your way.”
And she had shrunk her life so fiercely, down to just her family, down to that house, that it seemed fair enough to take all the sympathy that her parents were willing to dole out.
The field was bright green in the daylight, the sun illuminating each blade of grass, fiery-gold-tipped green all around them. There were purple flowers scattered throughout, and she wondered why it suddenly felt like she was waking up along with the world.
Like she hadn’t really breathed or seen these things around her in the years since...
She looked over at Kit. And he was just as striking as all the natural beauty around them. He was wearing a black cowboy hat, a black T-shirt. It outlined his broad shoulders, his muscular chest and slim waist. He was tall. She was tiny next to him. Chuck had only been a couple of inches taller than her.
Kit Carson had always seemed like an entirely different species to her. The kind of man who could just as easily be on the silver screen, he was so much larger than life. He was not the kind of guy you could say vows to, live a life with in a modest home. Dream of warmth and comfort and children with.
He was a mountain. And she was not a mountain climber by nature.
But then, that was the before Shelby, she supposed. She had never needed to climb a mountain.
Why are you thinking about mountain climbing? It sounds sexual.
Yeah. It did. But there was a part of her that was still humming with feelings that were decidedly sexual. So why not?
They didn’t speak as they crossed the field. And the only sound when they approached the house was their shoes on the porch steps.
