Divine Mortals (21 page)

“My turn,” he announced sitting up, he had caught me at my weakest, I nodded slowly, knowing I could never refuse.

“Okay.”

“What made you take Beaut out on your own when you’re so obviously terrified of horses, and more to the point why ride him up here of all places?” The question hit home and I cringed.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured in my ear, “I should have thought that through before just coming out with it, if you don’t want to tell me that’s okay.”

“No. I mean, it’s okay.” I sniffed, trying to sound more confident then I felt, “Are my thoughts that obvious?”

Robert chuckled, “Everything you think shows on your face, you’d make a terrible liar.”

I had known that already, my mother had told me many times, I swallowed and carried on.

“Obviously you know my parents passed away and that’s why I’m here…”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” he breathed into my hair.

I continued though, telling him about my life in Chicago, about my brother and Julia and my other friends and then about the call from the lawyer right before I had decided to ride up here.

When I finished I felt better, telling Robert everything made me feel as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and I felt lighter and in better spirits then I had since arriving.

“So as you can see,” I finally concluded, “I’m a bit of an emotional freak these days.”

“I think you’re braver then you give yourself credit for.” He said softly, holding me close, his fingers curling into mine.

“Soooo,” I turned in his arms until I was facing him again, “let’s not have me bring the mood down with all my problems,” my tears were safely locked away again, for now.

“By the way you’re a master at changing the subject.” I teased.

“A guy can only talk about himself for so long before his ego explodes.” he laughed.

I pulled myself away from him slowly, instantly missing the warmth of his touch,

“Well what are we going to do?” I asked, stretching luxuriously, the day was ours after all.

Robert leapt in the air so quickly my heart almost gave out, the movement so swift, he seemed to vanish for a moment before landing on his feet in front of me again and pulling me quickly to my feet.

“Let’s go for a swim.”

T
he river was just as beautiful as every other time I had been here, although today the water seemed a little clearer, the trees hanging over its banks just a little more majestic. I knew Robert was responsible for making me see everything through rose tinted glasses today, his ecstatic mood was definitely rubbing off.

He had slung me on his back this time, on our race from the top field, talking to me over his shoulder the entire way. I hadn’t made much conversation, it took all my will power not to turn into a quivering mess. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to come to terms with traveling like that.

Lying back on the small sandy bank, stretching out and closing my eyes, I let the sun hit me full on.

“I love the sun.” I sighed, opening my eyes as a shadow fell across the light. Robert had stripped off his shirt and was standing in only jeans before me. His body was incredible, toned and tanned and absolutely breath taking, the sun made the edges of him glow, my heart began to speed.

“You coming in?” he tipped his head exquisitely,

“Or are you going to sit there and bake to a crisp?”

I looked away for a moment, realizing I had been staring. I felt my checks burn, an all too frequent occurrence these days. Robert chuckled again, which didn’t help my blush recede any faster.

“I’ll come in.” I jumped up, stripping my top and shorts quickly and making my way to the water as fast as I could, I was a little uncomfortable being so undressed in front of him and I didn’t want to linger any longer then I had to on the edge of the bank. I got to the waters edge and dove under, the temperature was perfect. Breaking the surface and turning back towards the bank Robert was nowhere to be seen, but his clothes were, his jeans in a pile next to his shirt. I blushed yet again, glad he didn’t see it this time, he must only be in his underwear. My butterflies reared up again, twisting violently in my stomach, this was a little scary, I didn’t know how to react in this situation.

“Where are you now?” I asked with mock irritation.

I felt his lips skim the back of my neck and across my shoulders, I shivered despite the warmth of the water as his arms came around me.

“I’m here,” his voice silky smooth in my ear, I turned in his arms, very aware of my body pressing against the length of his. Even in the cool water his skin seemed to burn.

“I was starting to think you had left without me.” I teased.

“I’ll never leave without you,” he smiled back, but his voice had a serious edge.

“You know I meant what I said Ava, last night, I’ll be here as long as you want me to be.”

“I like the sound of that,” I whispered pressing my toes into the rocky river bed so I could get level with him. Robert leaned in to kiss me before I could do it, his lips like velvet gently teasing mine, answering every unspoken question I asked. His arms held me close to him, low around my waist, and despite our lack of clothing I felt completely comfortable. Robert never moved his arms, never pressed for more, and we completely gave in to the moment, enjoying each other. My heart was beating so hard I was finding it difficult to breathe, I was overwhelmed with happiness and Robert was making me feel incredible. I pulled back for a moment, his lips never left me as he kissed along my jaw, his head moving a little lower as he kissed my neck. I closed my eyes, curling my toes in delight, the breeze was cool on my wet legs making them tingle with goose bumps.

Goosebumps, there was something about goose bumps that I should remember…

My thoughts deserted me again as his lips moved back to mine.

Goosebumps!

It took a few seconds for my mind to register that this was wrong, breeze on my legs? My legs were
in
the water. I opened my eyes again and looked over his shoulder directly into the beady eyes of a crow that sat smugly on a branch halfway up one of the willow trees. Leaning further forward I peeked over his shoulder down towards the river that now swirled about five feet below us.

My scream gave Robert such a shock he let me go, I landed on an awkward angle swallowing a huge mouthful of water. Before I could even maneuver myself toward to the surface Robert was pulling me out, he had me on the beach before I could blink, worry burning in his eyes.

“Are you hurt?”

My head spun, and my throat was scratchy from the water but I felt alright.

“Okay…” I asked, sounding truly annoyed with him for the first time, “So what was that?”

“I have no idea,” Robert shook his head slowly, he looked completely confused, “That has never happened before.”

I leant back on my hands, narrowing my eyes, “I thought you said you can’t fly.”

“I can’t!”

“Well what was that then superman!”

I finally realized how I sounded and paused, trying to contain the frustration in my voice.

I sighed, “Do you have a drink of water?” I asked rubbing my throat, it hurt from the giant gulp of river water I had so unceremoniously swallowed.

“Did you not just drink enough of the river?” Robert laughed, although it sounded a bit strained.

“Apparently not.” I mumbled dryly.

It was only then that I noticed Robert was, as I had guessed, only in his underwear, the muscles of his thighs tight as he crouched next to me. I dipped my eyes quickly, thanking whatever greater being that was out there that I had managed not to blush.

Instantly aware in that same moment of my own state of undress, I snatched at my shirt and shorts, pulling them on over my wet bikini.

“Let’s go home and get dried off.” I couldn’t meet his eyes, I was in a hurry for both of us to be in more clothing, Robert nodded, moving towards his pile of clothes.

“And then you can tell me what just happened.”

I
snorted, sucking the lemonade down my throat which in turn made me start to choke as tears ran down my cheeks from laughter.

We were back in the lounge room at Nan and Pops, the sun had almost set and we hadn’t yet turned on any lights, too busy talking to spare a moment to do it.

My coughing began to recede and I wiped my damp cheeks with the back of my hand.

“Are you okay?” Robert asked still chuckling,

“Yeah, but seriously, you said
that
to Pop.”

“Well yeah, how else was I going to explain it?”

I started to giggle again, my stomach muscles hurt from how many times I had laughed today.

“Good point.”

Robert was telling me about the time Pop had asked him to stack the recently harvested bales of hay into one of the sheds in a paddock on the outskirts of the Ranch. On his own and finding it easier and quicker to lift the one hundred pound bales by hand Robert had proceeded to fill the barn the quickest way
he
knew how.

Pop, however, had forgotten to mention the tractor Robert was supposed to use was out of fuel and after remembering had headed down to the paddock with a few gallons of diesel just twenty minutes after Robert had left on his errand.

Arriving at the Paddock he found only two bales left to stack. A job that should have taken half a day with a tractor was almost finished in just twenty minutes.

When Pop had questioned it Robert just shook his head and said he couldn’t figure it out either, they had been put away when he arrived, perhaps the neighbors were being helpful?

Pop had bought the story and
that
was the part I couldn’t believe.

It turned out there had been a few times in the past where he had almost been caught out.

“Anyway,” the light bulb flashed on, blinding me, but he was already back on the couch next to me.

“What about you? Funny stories, first animal, boyfriends…” his eyes hardened a little on the last word, but he quickly disguised it and was back to his pleasant happy looking self.

‘Okay, funny stories, probably too many to count, I can’t think of one straight off, first animals, I’m sure you’ve meet him his names Beaut and as for…”

“What, you’ve never had a pet, a cat or anything?” he looked scandalized at the thought that everyone didn’t have numerous large farm animals roaming around.

“Nope.”

“That explains it I guess,” he smiled looking thoughtful, happy with himself for having figured something else out about me.

“Explains what?” I leaned closer, he took my hand in his and his thumb absently began stroking the back of it.

“The reason you look petrified whenever you go near anything larger than a rabbit.”

“I do not.” I retorted, aiming a playful punch his way, he grabbed my hand before I could connect in a movement so fluid his own arm seemed to blur around the edges with the speed of it.

“You do, you should have seen your face the day Fred first put you on Beaut, funniest thing I’ve seen in a while.”

“You weren’t there.”

“I was watching,”

“Spying more like, where were you hiding?”

“Oh I wasn’t hiding,” he ducked his head a little, “I was working a couple of paddocks away.”

“Oh right…” I said, pretending that this was totally normal, “The whole crazy eyesight thing, you could see me from there.”

“Ah huh, almost fell off my horse I was laughing so hard.”

“I’m glad you find me so amusing.” I said dryly.

“Oh far more than amusing,” he smirked, leaning forward to kiss me gently on the neck.

“I find you irresistible.”

I shivered under the light touch of his lips,

“Cold?” he murmured pulling away,

“Not at all.”

Chuckling at my answer, he sat back, “So what’s for dinner?”

Dinner, it was decided, was far too hard to make and so we jumped into the old pickup and headed into town. I was silent and thoughtful on the drive in, my mind running slowly over the happenings of the day.

Was it only last night that the stable had burnt to the ground? It seemed like an age ago. I stole a sideways glance at Robert, he caught me and smiled.

He hadn’t said anything more about the fire today, except that I didn’t need to worry.

That in itself threw one hundred more questions into my mind, why did I not need to worry, clearly someone had wanted me dead and yet he was so at ease. When I had asked him he had smiled and simply said,

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

I had asked again, pressing him for a reason, he silenced me with a quick kiss and then promised that I didn’t need to worry about it anymore, that he would never let anything happen to me.

And so I was trying not to, there couldn’t possibly be any other human being on earth that would make me feel as safe as Robert did and I trusted him completely when he told me I would be okay.

It seemed Robert had learnt something about himself today also, he hadn’t been able to explain the small ‘flight’ we had above the river and this had caused him to be quiet for a long while after we had returned from our swim. He claimed it had never happened before and going by his reaction I had no reason to believe that this wasn’t true.

I wondered once more at my calm acceptance of this all, if someone had told me six months ago I would meet someone with Roberts abilities I would have laughed out loud claiming such a person didn’t exist. I had obviously asked a lot of questions, but I wasn’t scared of what I had learnt. Perhaps I should be more confused or afraid, but I wasn’t, I was… happy, really happy, more so then I had been in weeks. This felt… right.

“I can hear you thinking from here,” Roberts voice broke through my thoughts.

“That wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

“You know what I mean,”

“I was just thinking… about this,” my gesture took us both in.

“Ah huh,” his answer was non-committal, he wanted to see where this was leading,

“And how, well, weird it all is.”

His eyes tightened a little at my words although he kept his silence.

“And also how, for some strange unexplainable reason, I must be slightly brain damaged after falling from Beaut, but I’m really happy.”