Wild Flower (16 page)

“You really love Carter that much?” he asked after a pause, my words floating as though alive in the air around our heads. His voice was rough.

“I do,” I said softly.

Noah's chin jerked upward, quickly, and he looked instantly away from me. His lips twitched, jaw clenching a little, but he said with perfect calm, “I guess I knew that.”

“I appreciate that you're trying more with Millie,” I said. “That's something.”

“I love her,” he said, hardly more than a whisper. “I really do. I want you to know that.”

Tears instantly prickled in my eyes and I replied, “Then show her.”

“She looks just like you,” he said, and then he sat down abruptly on the porch steps and cradled his head in both hands. From that position he added, “I'm so sorry. I wasn't just using you that summer. I know you think that I was. If I could go back and change things, I would.”

“Don't,” I told him, pity rolling around in my stomach.

Just as abruptly he stood, startling me. His eyes were red. He said, a fraction above a whisper, “I won't fight you for custody. I only said that to piss you off.” He cleared his throat roughly and added, “I would still like to see her on the weekends. I'd like to try to be her…dad.” His voice choked on that single word, almost a sob, and my heart clenched. I had no desire to see him in pain, despite everything.

I said with quiet firmness, “You are her dad.”

He closed his eyes briefly. Before I could say another word he walked silently away and seconds after that I watched his car's taillights as he drove out of the parking lot.

***

“I do feel bad for
him,” I told Mathias much later, after the fireworks on the lake, as we sat at the kitchen table with its mallard duck salt and pepper shakers, left over from Aunt Jilly. Millie was soundly sleeping after the evening's excitement, and I was wearing an old t-shirt of Mathias's as a pajama top, over a pair of lacy black g-string undies. It was a strange combo, I knew; I needed to do laundry. I sat with one foot up on the chair, and Mathias, in his faded blue pajama shorts and absolutely nothing else, sat at a right angle to me. I had just told him everything that Noah said earlier, and he'd listened quietly. I sighed then, roughing up my loose hair with both hands, before letting them sink back to the table. I concluded lamely, “I'm so sorry, love.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Mathias said softly, gently cupping my elbow closest to him. He was so warm, his touch so welcome on my bare skin. The back of his neck and the tops of his shoulders were just slightly sunburned, the rest of his powerful torso a rich sun-brown, his dark hair damp from a recent shower, both on his head and chest. His muscular forearms were peppered in similarly thick black hair, and if Bull was any indication of the future, one day his back would be quite covered as well. At the thought, I felt a half-smile tugging at my lips. The gold flecks in his indigo eyes shone in the glow of the light above the kitchen sink, and he repeated, “Nothing at all.”

“Thank you for understanding,” I said then, moving my palm gently over his forearm, just skimming the surface of his skin as I stroked the hair there one way and then the other, almost meditatively. “Thank you for not playing his game.”

“Yeah, it hurt to leave you there with him, I'm not gonna lie,” he said quietly, as though he thought I might be upset. “I didn't want to, but I could tell he was hoping to pick a fight. He wanted me to step in so he'd have a reason to react.”

I nodded at once. I said, “I'm still sorry that you have to put up with that. Thias,” and his eyes held fast to mine at the tone in my voice, “I so wish you were Millie's dad. I would give just about anything.”

“Honey,” he whispered softly.

“She thinks of you as her dad,” I whispered. “And you'll always be more a part of her life than Noah ever will. I don't care how much he claims to regret things,” and I shuddered again at those words, before adding, “Or how much he believes he's sorry. He's not you. He's not half the man you are.” I moved swiftly, tucking my feet beneath me so that I could lean over the table and even closer to Mathias. I tipped my forehead to his and said, “Millie loves you, and I know you love her, and that's all that matters.”

He said, “I don't know how I deserve you, but I thank the powers that be every single day. I hope you know that.”

I put my hands on his shoulders and he reached to lift me so that I was straddling his lap. I pressed close, his old t-shirt riding up my hips. I kissed his cupid's bow, with deliberate care, and then his full bottom lip, again slowly. He drew a deep breath through his nose and whispered intensely, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I whispered, stroking one hand into his chest hair, my other around his waist, and he held me tightly as I tucked my head against his shoulder and held him right back.

***

Later I threw together a
smaller bag of extra clothes and our bathroom things, like travel toothbrushes and my make-up bag. We planned to leave in the mid-morning. Mathias explained that it took a good nine hours to get to our first stop, a state park in eastern Montana.

“And that's not counting rest stops, and sightseeing stops, and stops to get out and smell the sagebrush. And make love,” he added, grinning at me over the unzipped canvas tote on our bed. I was about to zip the top when Mathias leaned forward to extract something from its contents.

“Honey, what's this?” he asked sternly, holding up a tiny pair of transparent, hot-pink undies. I leaned past him to root around in the bag, producing the matching bra, not much more substantial than dental floss. He swallowed hard and tried to keep looking strict, adding, “I don't think these will protect you from ticks.”

I said innocently, “They're rated number one in that outdoor catalogue you had.”

He lunged at me, and I shrieked and evaded, getting the bed between us. He twirled my panties around his index finger, lowering his eyebrows menacingly.

“Do we get to make love before or after we smell the sagebrush?” I asked wickedly. “And isn't that sharp? Prickly, I mean?”

“No, it's not sharp,” he informed me. “It smells incredible. The best is to rub the leaves between your fingers,” and he demonstrated on my panties.

Oh,
I said without sound, and my knees went a little weak.

“I can't wait for you to see the mountains,” he told me, grinning just as wickedly at me as he continued stroking my undergarments. “And we can ride horses if you want.”

“And we're camping where tomorrow night? That place with the funny name…” I trailed off, hardly able to think beyond the promise of his touch, though I was thrilled at the prospect of real camping. I hadn't been on a vacation of that sort in years.

“Makoshika State Park,” he said, his eyes burning blue. He whispered, “You ready for bed?”

“You're ready to sleep?” I asked, feigning surprise. He cleared the bed in one movement and caught me close.

“Not just yet,” he said against my neck.

In the morning, I cried more at leaving Millie Jo than she did at the prospect of me going on a trip without her. I held her close and promised I'd call every night. I breathed the scent of her curly dark hair, kissed her cheeks, and then took her little face in my hands. I said, “I love you, sweetie. You be good for Grandma Jo, all right?”

“I will, Mama!” she said, cheerful as always. And then, as Mathias picked her up to squeeze her close, she added, “Bye, Daddy!”

I saw the way her words affected him; my own heart flooded with emotion. He kissed her cheek and whispered around a lump in his throat, “Bye, my sweetheart.”

By afternoon we were well along on I-94. I had kicked off my shoes and had my bare toes propped on the dashboard. Mathias cranked the radio and we had been singing along with the CD currently spinning in the player, Travis Tritt's greatest hits. The landscape grew ever more rugged as we cruised west, the long, flat expanses of wheat fields in central North Dakota finally giving way to foothills, towering outcroppings of rock that suggested a hint of the mountains to come. I could not wait to lay eyes upon the Rockies. The ridges in the distance were rounded at their peaks, tinted in variegated shades of rich brown, dark as chocolate in one spot, then streaked through with pale amber in another. I rolled the window down, not minding the rushing sound of the wind, and breathed deeply of the scent in the air.

“Sagebrush,” Mathias said. “I told you.”

We had stopped at five different overlooks throughout the day, snapping pictures with the camera that Diana had lent us, Mathias ducking down to my height, both of us laughing as we pressed our cheeks together and he held the camera high to capture yet another shot of ourselves.

“I love that you're such a good sport,” I told him as we drove on from the blue sign welcoming us into Montana in the late afternoon. I felt a jolt of pure excitement at the sight of that state sign, the sense of wildness and wonder that had been growing inside my soul stretching even further outwards. I clicked through the pictures we'd already taken, giggling at one where Mathias was licking my cheek instead of smiling into the camera. I said, “You're such a goofball, and I love it.”

“Sense of humor is crucial,” he said, lifting his eyebrows high and making a face at me as he drove. “And I love that you get mine. Most people just think I'm crazy, as you well know.”

“You are crazy,” I said. “But then you lick me and I'm totally fine with the craziness.”

“Come lick me,” he invited, teasing me, and I scooted across the bench seat and got him good across the ear, so that he yelped and wiped it against his shoulder.

“If I wasn't driving you'd be in trouble,” he warned, as I giggled and shimmied right back to my own side, putting my feet up on the dash again. Out the windshield the sky was bluer than a jay's wing, streaked with a few thin, lacy, fair-weather clouds as the sun began its slow descent towards evening. The temp was perfect, hot but not scorching, and there wasn't one blessed hint of humidity in the air. My hair was as straight as it had been since arriving in Minnesota three years ago.

“We should be at Makoshika in about a half hour, my sweet darlin' lover,” Mathias said. “And then we can set up our tent and go exploring.”

“It is so beautiful here, I can't get over it,” I said, setting aside the camera and staring out the passenger window. The sight of the landscape caught me in the chest, just enough, not quite pain but close. A longing filled me, an ache almost like nostalgia, though I had never before been this far west. I supposed everyone felt this way about certain places, maybe a familiar scent in the air, a particular tint to the sunlight striking the earth. But then I realized I knew the rock formations in the distance, had seen them before, and a sudden twisting in my gut sent me bending forward.

“I feel it too,” Mathias said then, quietly, and in a completely different tone; gone was the light-hearted joking of earlier.

My eyes flashed to his to find the sun casting an auburn beam directly across his face, glinting in his blue eyes and somehow darkening them, highlighting the angles of his nose and chin, his straight black eyebrows. He looked somberly into my eyes and my heart clenched.

Malcolm
, I thought, and a hard shiver tore upwards along my spine.

I blinked then, and he said, low and hoarse, “Come here, let me feel you against me.”

I went to him at once, his right arm collecting me fast and close against him. He shuddered too, as though the shiver leaped from me to him, and pulled over on the shoulder. Before and behind us was what appeared to be an endless stretch of interstate, empty of all vehicles except for our own. The Montana landscape spread as far as the eye could see in every direction, creating the illusion of the truck being huddled in the exact center of a circle.

“Mathias,” I said, clutching him as hard as I could, almost desperately, overwhelmed by something I couldn't fully understand, or articulate. I felt, that was all, felt the fear of loss to the interiors of my bones.

“I'm here,” he said, holding me just as fiercely, as though I just might disappear into a wisp of smoke if he loosened his grip. He said against my hair, “I'm right here.”

The sun lowered a fraction and the angle of the light changed, however subtly. I leaned back enough to see his face, releasing a slow breath. Our eyes held steady, both of us shaken, unable to explain.

“I will never leave you,” he said intently, holding my face in his hands. “Not ever.”

“I know,” I whispered, cupping my right hand over his much larger one, turning my face to kiss his palm. “Thias, I know it with all my heart.”

He smoothed both hands over my hair and then kissed my forehead, whispering as though to lighten the air, “Should we go get some food and then find our campsite, love? I'm starving.”

“Me, too,” I said, though I was reluctant to move fully from his arms; I kept my left hand in his right as we drove on, our fingers tightly linked.

We drove first through the small town of Glendive, Montana, where we stopped to gas up the truck, hit a drive-thru, and buy some beer, and the normality of these things caused the ball of unease in my stomach to dissipate, at least a little.

“This town is so familiar. We always camped out here as kids,” Mathias told me as we shared chicken nuggets and fries, cruising along one of Glendive's main streets, a lovely route bordered by a thin blue strip of river to the right. The low-slung rocky ridges on its far banks were lit a warm caramel by the sun. I kept the windows rolled down, drinking in every sight as Mathias acted as tour guide. “That's the Yellowstone River, there,” he explained, indicating. “And there's the dinosaur museum where we always begged to go. There's a billboard of a T-Rex around here too. Honey, keep an eye out for Snyder Street, that's where we want to turn left to get out to Makoshika.” He pronounced it with the emphasis on the second syllable.