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She ignored me until we made it to Star Valley, and then suddenly, she lowered her headphones around her neck and stared in wonder at the green, towering mountains and gentle ripple of hills and farms. We crawled through small, touristy towns, and then, as we rounded a bend through a canyon, she shouted, “Stop the car!”
I fought the urge to panic. “What’s wrong?” I asked calmly.
“Stop, stop, stop!” she urged, looking over her shoulder at me and then turning back to the window, hands plastered against the glass.
I cringed at the finger marks she left behind. “Okay, okay, chill out.” I pushed the hazards button again and pulled off the road. There was a generous shoulder, at least, and before us, the mountains had opened up, making way for distant, white-tipped monoliths and craggy towers of red and gray stone around us.
Before the car had even come to a full stop, she opened the door and tripped out.
“Hey, whoa, Jesus,” I said, slamming the car into park, and hurrying after her.
She fell onto her knees, but quickly righted herself. She had a sketchbook and black pencil, and immediately started to sketch with staccato scratches and swooping lines. Her eyes stayed riveted on the scene before us, only jumping down to her sketch pad briefly while she tried to replicate the shapes and contours of the majestic Teton Mountains.
I watched her for a minute and then bent over to get a look at her knees. She had a scrape on her right shin that was bleeding, but she paid it no mind. I rested my hands on my hips. “How long is this field trip going to take, Matthews?”
“Shh,” she said. I watched as the random shapes and sharp outlines began to take on the appearance of mountains. She dropped expert shadows, and then like the wave of a magic wand, turned a five-year-old’s impression of mountain shapes into hyper-realistic sketches. She coughed into her arm, rattling her chest with the intensity of it, and then inhaled with a wheezing sound.
I gave her a speculative look. “You okay?”
She coughed into her arm again, eyes still on the mountains and pencil moving fast. “Allergies,” she muttered absently.
She did seem like the type of woman who forgot to take her allergy pills. Figured. I looked around, taking in the view as we approached evening. The air was clear and cool with a slight breeze rolling off the mountains that filled my senses with crispy, snow-scented air.
June had trees and smaller plants sketched out by the time she turned around with an apologetic smile. “Okay, sorry. I really want to paint this later. It’s gorgeous.”
“If we stop every time you like a mountain,” I said, holding out a hand to guide her back to the car, “we’re going to get there after midnight.”
“I’ve never been up this way,” she confessed. She had the sketchbook pressed to her chest like she didn’t want me to see it.
I had watched her draw the whole thing, but okay. I hooked a hand around her elbow before she got in the car. “Hold up, Monet. You’re going to bleed on my leather seats. Wait here.”
She looked down at the gash that ran down her shin. “Oh,” she said.
I leaned around her to open the passenger-side door, keeping a grip on her with my left hand and then reaching into the glove compartment to pull out the travel-size first aid kit I kept on hand. I wasn’t sure why I kept a hold on her arm while I did that. Maybe because she felt like a loose coil liable to spring away at any moment.
Or I wanted to shake her. Hard to say for sure.
I steered her to the open passenger-side door and had her lean against the seat. I kneeled in the biting gravel, and my well-worn hiking shoes crunched as I shifted my weight to get a good look at the scrape. It was impressively deep for something she’d done tripping over her own feet. I glanced up at her from below.
She gazed back, her expression wavering between sheepish and wary.
I felt something dangerously close to infatuation wriggle around inside my chest, and quickly looked back down. Blood. Wounds. I could handle those. I unzipped the red first aid kit and found a cleansing wipe. Gently, I swiped around the gash, cleaning up the blood that had wept all the way down to her dingy white canvas shoes. I ripped open another one, this time focusing on the debris that clung to the broken skin.
She sucked in a breath, and her leg twitched away from me.
I placed a hand under her smooth calf and pulled it back down with a stony glance upward again. “You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes,” I said, quoting my jerk father.
“Do you ever say anything remotely pleasant?” she shot back.
I cleaned the rest of the wound, keeping a hand on her calf when she tried to jerk away, and gave it a good once-over. Oof, that was deep. She’d been a millimeter away from needing Steri Strips. Which I did not have in a car first aid kit. Instead, I smeared it with antibiotic ointment and let it be. “Put more of this on it tonight before bed,” I said, giving her the ointment. “But otherwise, leave it alone.”
She took the small, yellow tube and hitched herself onto the seat. “Thanks.”
I zipped up the first aid kit, giving her a slow blink. “You’re a mess, Matthews.”
“Thank you,” she said, like she was accepting an award.
I tossed the kit back into the glove compartment, started the car again, and stole another glance at June as she stared lovingly out the windows.
