When we got to the top, Ava slipped her dress over her head and shivered. “I’m freezing. I have a blanket if you want to ride with me. We can pony Tequila back.”
I wasn’t sure what she was asking. She handed me the rolled-up blanket and then climbed up into the saddle on Dancer’s back. I quickly put my jeans, shirt, and shoes on then looked up at her. She leaned down and tied Tequila’s reins to Dancer’s saddle. “Well, are you gonna get up here and keep me warm or what?”
“Oh.” I climbed up into the saddle behind her. She scooted forward for me to slide in and then sat back. Her tiny ass was right against my crotch. Oh fuck, don’t get hard. I wrapped the blanket around both of us and with one hand pulled her toward me so her back was flush against my chest. I reached around her waist and took the reins without argument from her.
Pulling the blanket tight around our shoulders, she leaned her head back to rest just below my chin. I made a clicking sound and Dancer started to move forward, towing Tequila behind us. I didn’t know if I should speak; if I brought Ava back to reality, maybe she would freak out. She was tucked against me so nicely inside our little blanket cocoon. Dancer walked slowly and I didn’t encourage her to go any faster.
“You’re getting the hang of this, cowboy,” she said in a lazy voice.
Doctor cowboy?
“Do you love it here?” I wondered if Ava ever wanted to leave.
“It’s hard to tell now but I know I loved it here before. Look around and take a deep breath. It’s beautiful. Why would anyone want to live anywhere else?”
“Do you plan to stay here forever?” Though I had only known her a couple of weeks, I wanted to take her away from it all back to L.A.
She didn’t answer; she just shrugged. After a few moments, she said, “Nate?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know that I don’t even have a high school diploma?”
Some distant memory surfaced of my mother reminding me that degrees were much easier to strip away than integrity. “That doesn’t matter, Ava. Have you thought about getting your GED?”
“What for?”
I couldn’t answer the question. There was a part of me that wanted to suggest that it would be helpful in the future, but honestly I couldn’t think of why unless she wanted to find a different kind of job.
Leaning down, I kissed her shoulder. She shivered but didn’t object or respond. “Ava, if you ever want to get your GED I can help you study, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.” Her tone was inscrutable. “What was it like growing up in the city?”
“I didn’t really. You know how spread out L.A. is. We lived in a rural part of the county on a big piece of property for much of my childhood, so I grew up with land. I even did 4-H.”
“What did you have to do for 4-H?”
“I had to raise a pig. Worst experience of my life.” I felt her laughter vibrate against my chest.
“Why do you say that?”
“I loved that pig. Wonka. He happily followed me around the property and we used to take naps together—I’d sleep on his big belly. He was my buddy. And then there was the auction.”
“You had to sell him to slaughter, right?”
I put my hand over my aching heart. “The worst part was that my next-door neighbors bought him and their son, little Johnny Shithead, would come to school every day and say, ‘Hey, Nate, guess what? I had bacon again for breakfast. Ha ha.’ That little fucker. I wanted to poke his eyes out with my mechanical pencil.”
She laughed again and then put her hand over mine and squeezed. I leaned in and kissed her right behind her ear. She shivered so I pulled her tighter against me. I couldn’t get close enough to her.
CHAPTER 9
Comes and Goes
Avelina
Nate was a perfect gentleman after the hot spring. He took me to my cabin and then rode the horses back to the barn to brush them out. I stayed in that night, finally feeling tired enough and relaxed to sleep without the whiskey. Over the next several days I had many lessons and Nate helped Dale a lot. I rarely saw him except at Bea’s dinner table. She was so happy that I was finally joining them on a regular basis. She’d even ask me to make a side dish once in a while, and I was happy to do it.
One night, Redman, Bea, Dale, and Trish all went into town for the monthly antique auction. Caleb politely declined dinner with us, leaving Nate and me alone. Nate secretly admitted that he was a vegetarian but didn’t want to tell Bea so I made pasta with vegetables and mushrooms in a red sauce. He hovered over me at the stove and watched as I stirred the sauce. “That smells amazing. How about we open a bottle of Bea’s wine?”
“Just make sure it’s not a good one. She’ll kill us.”
As we left the kitchen and headed toward the dining room balancing our full plates and glasses, Pistol began whimpering from outside of the screen door. Without prompting, Nate walked over and let Pistol in, even though the ornery little dog growled at him.
Nate just smiled and followed me into the dining room. Pistol took up residence under my feet at the table. After a few moments of silence, something came over me and I blurted out, “Do you have a girlfriend in L.A.?”
He set his fork down and took a sip of his wine. “No, Ava, I don’t have a girlfriend. I wouldn’t have kissed you if I did.”
“Technically I kissed you.”
“I wouldn’t have let you.”
“Do you date a lot of women? I bet you have women flocking around you all the time.” As soon as I let the words out, I slapped my hand over my mouth and felt a blush creep over my face. I couldn’t believe I had said that to him.
He looked up pensively like he was trying to decide how to answer a question I shouldn’t have asked.
“I haven’t been with anyone in almost five years.” He lifted his eyebrows and looked me dead in the eye.
“Wow. Why?”
“I’ve been busy becoming a surgeon. It consumed me, but I don’t regret it. I never really clicked with anyone in L.A. anyway.”
“Oh.”
“This is delicious,” he said, changing the subject.
“Thank you. Can I ask you something, Nate?”
“Sure.”
“Are you trying to fix me and my heart because of what happened with your patient?”
His fork clanked to the plate loudly. Picking up the napkin and wiping his mouth, he shook his head slowly. He looked penitent and lost in thought. “I don’t know. I mean, no, I don’t think so.”
“The only people you’ve bothered with in five years are people with broken hearts.”
His nostrils flared, his jaw flexed, and he sucked his bottom lip into his mouth.
“I’m sorry, did I offend you?”
“No.” He shook his head as if he were trying to convince himself.
“I just don’t understand why you enjoy being around me.”
“I have no idea why you have such a low opinion of yourself. You’re beautiful and kind, Ava.”
“But . . . I must seem ignorant to you.”
“Don’t say that,” he whispered, looking pained. “That’s far from true. College degrees don’t make you smart, life experiences do. Honestly, that’s something I’ve lacked and it’s probably responsible for much of the reason I failed as a doctor. Since I’ve been here, around you, I’ve learned more about myself and the heart than I did in all my years in college.”
“It’s hard for me to believe that.”
“It’s true, Ava. I’m drawn to you but I don’t think you’re broken, so no, I’m not trying to fix you. I just wish you could see that you still have so much of your life to live. And you have so many people here who care about you.”
I started to tear up. “I guess I do see that now, but what about you? You’re going to leave and then . . .” Tears began filling my eyes before one escaped down my cheek.
Reaching out and wiping it away with the pad of his thumb, he shook his head. “Don’t think about that right now. Can we
enjoy being together?” I nodded. “I plan to make some big changes in my life, too, but I won’t forget about you.”
I looked down at my plate but felt ill. I couldn’t take another bite.
He slid his chair away from the table. “Come here, Ava.”
My legs were wobbly as I stood. He gently tugged on my arm, pulling me down onto his lap. I went boneless in his strong arms. Bracing me around my back and neck, he nestled his face near my ear. “You smell so good,” he said. “I won’t ever hurt you, I promise. Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything.”
I sniffled. “Just hold me.” The skin on his face looked rough with a day’s worth of beard growth. Reaching up, I ran my fingers through his clean hair. It was free of any products and perfectly messy. I leaned over and rubbed my cheek against his rough jawline.
We were startled by the sound of a man clearing his throat behind us. I turned to see a spitting image of Dale, but it wasn’t him. The man I was looking at was older, with more gray hair, and slightly overweight.
“Dad?” Nate said.
“Sorry to interrupt. Where is everyone?”
I immediately bolted up from Nate’s lap and stood next to him awkwardly.
“They’re in town. What are you doing here?”
He walked toward us. “What a nice, polite welcome. Have you learned nothing out here?” He chuckled and the heaviness of the moment was lifted.
Nate stood and hugged his father. Turning toward me, he said, “This is Ava McCrea. Ava, this is Dr. Jeffrey Meyers, the head of cardiothoracic surgery and—”
“More importantly, I’m Nate’s dad. You can call me Jeff,” Nate’s father interjected.
I reached my hand out. “Nice to meet you.”
“Dad, Ava made pasta. It’s delicious. Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving. That sounds perfect.”
“I’ll get a plate for you. Have a seat,” I said nervously.
Jeff went to the dining table but Nate followed me into the kitchen. Standing behind me at the stove, he said, “You don’t have to serve him.”
“I don’t mind. I’ll head back to my cabin so you two can have some time together.”
“Absolutely not. Please, join us, I insist.” I looked up into his pleading eyes. “Please?” he asked again.
“Okay.” Apprehension raced through me but it was overcome almost instantly with the desire to please Nate. I was nervous about how his father would perceive me, and I was surprised that I cared so much. I wondered if he would be able to tell that I was uneducated, or if he would think I wasn’t good enough to be around his son. Part of me wanted to run away and never find out what he thought, but then both men had such sincere looks in their eyes, making me feel welcome and not judged. So I decided to stay.
I sat at the table while he and his father talked about sports and fishing and riding horses. Nate seemed lighthearted and happy to be discussing the simpler things in his life. “So, Dad, seriously though, what brought you out here?”
“Well, I rented a car and I thought we could drive down through Wyoming and go to Yellowstone together.”
Nate’s green eyes lit up even brighter. “I would love that.” I reached under the table to his hand and squeezed it. He shot me the purest, most uninhibited smile.
“We’re meeting with the board Friday so we have almost a week to get back.”
Nate’s face fell. “Oh,” he said, suddenly looking very disappointed. I knew he was running away from what he perceived was a monumental career fail. Yet I didn’t get the sense that his father agreed. He seemed very matter-of-fact about it, as if losing patients was just part of the job. But Nate was clearly beating himself up over it.
We wrapped up dinner and did the dishes, then Nate offered to walk me back to my cabin. At the door, he asked if he could come in. I showed him around the inside, which I had recently rid of Jake’s belongings. He held up a picture of me standing in front of Dancer and holding a trophy from the rodeo where I’d met Jake.
“What did you win?”
“I used to barrel race. You know what that is?”
“Of course I do. I live in Los Angeles, not under a rock. Why don’t you race anymore?”
“Dancer is too old, and anyway I used to go to the rodeos with Jake.”
“Oh. Well you can always train a new horse, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” But what about the other part?
He moved toward several stacks of books crowding my small dining area. “You like to read?”
“Yes.”
“What do you like to read?”
“Everything.” I stood right behind him and when he turned, we were face-to-face.
“Everything?”
“Except romance.”
I looked at his lips. One side of his mouth turned up very subtly and he looked deep into my eyes. My own eyes darted to the ceiling nervously. He took a step toward me and bent his body so that he hovered over me and all I could see was him. I attempted to drop my head down to look at the floor but his fingers tipped my chin up. “Don’t look away. I want to look at you. Can I do that?”
I nodded slowly.
He leaned in and kissed my cheek with a delicate ease before moving to my neck. Near my ear he whispered, “Is this okay?”
“Yes,” I said, breathing heavily.
When he tugged on my earlobe with his teeth, I moaned so quietly I thought only I heard it, but he gripped me tighter and whispered, “I like that sound, Ava.”
A tingling heat raged through me, pulsing through my veins from the center of my body and outward to my limbs like tiny stars exploding under my skin.
“I want you. Maybe someday I can have you?”
“Maybe,” I said, breathless.
“We can go slow.”
I let him kiss my mouth and then I pulled away. “But, you’re leaving tomorrow.”
Instead of answering me, he kissed me on the mouth again and I opened for him, our tongues and arms and hands twisted up in each other, full of a passion I hadn’t felt in years. Then he abruptly stepped back and put a hand over his heart. “Come with me. Come with us.”
“I . . . I . . .”
Moving swiftly toward me, he swept me up and against the wall. “God, I have to have you.” He was out of breath. “Please.”
“Nate, I . . .”
He pulled away again and braced my shoulders. “Forget about him.”
My eyes shot open. I was shocked by the harshness of his statement. “What are you saying? How could I forget about him? He was my husband and I loved him. I still love him.”
Anyway, what happened to taking it slow?
He dropped his head in dejection. When he glanced back up, he looked absolutely shattered. Yet he remained undeterred in his pleas. “He killed himself, Ava. He left you behind.”
The passionate heat I felt before boiled over into anger. When he arched his eyebrows as if he wanted a response, I lost it. “I remember! I remember every moment before and every heart-shattering moment after. You don’t because you weren’t there. You don’t know what it feels like to watch your soul leave your body and drive away in the back of a coroner’s van. Don’t ever tell me to forget. I will never forget. I don’t know how I’ll ever be normal again when I still see his dead body on my floor every time I walk through that door. What’s worse is that I’m the reason he did it. Did you know that, Nate?” He took a step back but I didn’t let up. “Did you know that Jake would be alive right now, walking around like the rest of us, if it weren’t for me? Did you know that? Huh?” He didn’t respond, just cringed like the sound of my voice pained him. I let out a heavy breath. “I can never forget,” I said and then collapsed to the floor, dropped my head in my hands, and began sobbing.
He bent down toward me, placing his hand on my back and rubbing up and down. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say or how to make it better.” I shook my head, letting him know there was nothing he could do. A moment later, all I heard was his fo
otsteps retreating. In a low voice he said, “I’m sorry,” again and then I heard the sound of the door shutting behind him.
It was hard for me to explain to Nate that every time I thought about moving on with my life, I would think about the last words Jake had spoken to me. You want to come with me, don’t you? he’d said over and over. It played in my mind like a broken record. I constantly wondered what Jake was thinking in those final days or even the final moments right before he mouthed, I love you, then put a gun in his mouth.
I remembered one time, before his accident, when he told me that he felt like we were born as two halves of the same heart, like one of those friendship trinkets with two pieces that interlock along a fractured edge. When we came together, we fused so tightly that the heart became solid again, no visible signs or even the memory of a fracture. When Jake pulled the trigger, the sound of that gunshot shattered our shared heart into a million pieces. After his death, I searched for those pieces for years. I was desperate to find them, just as a reminder that our love had existed.
One time Bea told me to say a Catholic prayer but to substitute the word God with love. The first line I said was, “I believe in love.”
She said, “See, same thing.”
How do we keep going knowing that the same love that brought us here could push us apart? How could I call that love?
When you lose faith in love, you lose a sense of who you are. I was smart enough to know that what Jake did was selfish but was also sad for him. His pathetic legacy had left me feeling sorry for him for what felt like an eternity. It made me resent him. I tried to hear Trish’s words, to remember Jake during the good times, but when he took his life he destroyed my sense of self-worth, and for that I was angry. I was mad, heartbroken, and guilt-ridden, which left me too paralyzed to move forward. How ironic.
CHAPTER 10
From Where I Stand
Nathanial
“You enjoying your steak and eggs?”
“Mmm, Bea’s still got it,” my father said from the round breakfast table in the kitchen the next morning. Bea and Redman had already gone out to work, leaving my father alone in his joyful gluttony. I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down with him.