Wild Flower (17 page)

“Makoshika,” I repeated. “Sounds Japanese.”

“Lakota,” he corrected. “It means something like ‘big sky badlands,' I think. Isn't it great out here? I knew you'd like it too.”

“It's so hard to imagine you as a business major in Minneapolis,” I marveled, which he had been once upon a time, as a college student before we'd met. I said, “I feel like your soul must have been hibernating.”

“That's exactly what it was doing,” he agreed. “I understood that a little better when I came home to Landon, but I didn't fully realize it until I saw you at Shore Leave that first night. My soul leaped and bounded then, right to yours.”

I squeezed his fingers, clasped around mine. “Oh honey, look,” I said then, with reverence. I nodded towards the east, where a nearly-full moon was lifting from the horizon. “Look at that.”

“You just wait until we stargaze tonight,” he promised, squeezing my fingers back.

We checked in to Makoshika no more than fifteen minutes later and were directed to a campsite. As the sun sank the air grew ever-steadily colder, and I tugged a hooded sweatshirt of Mathias's over my head; instantly enveloped in his scent, I snuggled the collar to my nose for a second.

“Mom must have twenty pictures of us with that Triceratops,” Mathias said, indicating the wooden sign near the entrance as we climbed back into the truck with directions to our campsite.

“Let's get one, quick,” I said, and so we did.

The moon was grand in the sky, a creamy ivory that gilded the edges of the rock formations as we found our campsite and proceeded to unload our gear. The very scent of the air here was wild, full of a sharp sweetness that I had never smelled…and yet, I knew I had, at the same time. It made no sense. But as it had been since first meeting him, everything with Mathias seemed right, way down to the depths of my soul.

I fully intended to help set up camp, but Mathias worked like nobody's business, staking out our insta-tent, hoisting the rain cover, setting up our two little camp chairs and then quickly and skillfully constructing a tepee of kindling, which he had burning even before the light fully faded from the violet and indigo-streaked sky. I did little more than admire him as I perched on a split log and sipped my second beer.

“You're incredible,” I told him as he crouched on the far side of the steadily-growing fire, the red flames highlighting the angles of his face from beneath, and he grinned at me.

“Didn't know your man was so capable, did you?” he asked in response, helping himself to a beer and cracking it open.

“You're a regular pioneer,” I told him, and almost looked around for our horses; surely they were tethered nearby, dozing contentedly after a day spent carrying us west.

“I know, I feel like Aces should be right over there,” Mathias said, indicating with his beer can. He looked beyond my shoulder into the open country, as a log snapped and sent a small shower of red-hot sparks into the night. I shivered again, knowing with more certainty than I had ever known anything that we had been here together before. Near here, at least, in this area. And we had been around a fire then too. I looked back at him at once, to find his gaze upon me, almost severely somber now. He whispered, “I swear he's out there, grazing.”

“I swear it too,” I whispered back, suddenly hard-pressed to remember exactly what year it was. Maybe I was drunk. I reached for Mathias and he came around the fire to me.

“Come here,” he said, cuddling me onto his lap on one of our chairs. I snuggled close and curled my fingers through his, holding tightly.

“Do you believe in past lives, truly, I mean?” I asked him softly, as we studied the flames and the sky grew spangled with an almost unfathomable magnificence of stars. I felt tiny and vulnerable here under so much sky, and yet so very alive, washed out and born anew, somehow. Mathias caught my ring between his thumb and index finger. I had lain awake so many nights, considering the possibility of reincarnation, vacillating between certainty and my own skepticism concerning such things. Though I did believe in Aunt Jilly's abilities with all my heart, and there was hardly a great deal of scientific rationale for sensing the future; most people would just laugh, or outright scorn such a notion.

There's so much more to life than you can see
, I heard my auntie say, and I was only beginning to understand the truth of this.

“A year ago I would have laughed at the idea,” Mathias said, just as softly. “Even having been raised in the same house with Elaine, who's been reading the cards and trying to perform past-life regressions since we were little. A year ago, oh God, I can't even think about where I was without feeling sick. The scariest part is I actually thought I was fairly happy.” His voice grew hoarse with emotion as he went on, “I knew I wasn't
incredibly
happy, but I told myself that no one really is, I mean, come on. I figured life was about as good as it was going to get.” I tightened my grip on his hands. I had been in the same terrible place then, as he well knew. He said, “And then I came home to Landon, but mostly I came home to you. Oh God, honey, I can't bear to think about where I would be if I hadn't. I saw you and I knew you were mine, in every sense of the word.” He whispered passionately, “And I believe to the bottom of my soul that you have been mine since the beginning of time.”

“Thias,” I whispered, turning a little, so that I could press my face to the scent of his neck. “I know it too, love. I know it too.”

“How does it work?” he whispered. “How does a soul find its mate? Is there a celestial roadmap for souls, somewhere? I don't think…what I mean is, I don't think we've been allowed to be together in every life. I know we're young, I know we're healthy, but when I die, where will my soul go? Can it go somewhere to wait for yours? I can't even imagine being apart from you for a few days, let alone a lifetime. Jesus, that scares me so much.”

We'd talked of these things a little, snuggled in our bed, but here under the open sky in a place that held meaning above what we knew as Mathias and Camille, I was certain, there existed an urgency that scared me too. The thought of being separated from him, of death inevitably parting us, made me hollow and cold, elementally frightened. How many more lifetimes would we have to exist, kept apart from one another after that, until our souls could find each other again?

What if we never find each other again?

Oh God…

And the echoing cry of this dreadful thought seemed to lift from me and fly upwards into the vast night sky.

“It scares me too, oh God, it scares me too,” I told him, even held securely in his powerful arms. My throat was sharp with emotion as I whispered, “But we can't think like that, sweetheart. We just can't. It's like you told me, back home. If we thought about everything that could happen, every terrible thing, it would take all of the joy out of life. And I'm not planning to waste one second of this life with you, Thias, not one second.”

“Camille,” he said, around a lump in his throat, crushing me close. “I know you're right, honey.”

For a time we watched the fire in silence, wrapped together beneath the old plaid blanket Mathias grabbed from the truck. At last I observed softly, “Look at the Milky Way. I've never seen it so perfectly clear.”

“I remember lying on my back as a kid, in this very campground, and watching it. Feeling like I could maybe drift up there and swim, or something. It's such an overwhelming feeling, watching the heavens,” he whispered.

“I thought the same thing the other night in the lake,” I told him. “About being able to fly up there and hop from star to star.”

“That's where I'll wait for you,” he said, half-teasing, but my heart clenched up at his words. He whispered, “That one cluster of stars right there,” and he took my right hand in his to indicate. “I'll wait right there for you. No matter how long it takes.”

Tears filled my eyes, but I whispered steadily, “Then I will find you there. Nothing will stop me.”

“Camille,” he whispered, shifting us so that he could look at my eyes. He whispered, “I want to make you pregnant, right now. I want you to have a part of me with you, always.”

There was an urgency in the air; it had been determinedly stalking us and now seized us in its tight-fisted grip. Without a word I stood to spread the blanket on the ground and then we were kissing, deep kisses that spoke of time running out, even as I rebelled against the horror of that thought. With hurried movements we bared our skin from the waist down, my thighs curving fiercely around his hips as I took him into me, our hands joined on either side of my body, fingers linked as Mathias drove intently into my willing body.

“Let me,” I begged then, and he knew what I wanted, turning us so that I could straddle him, where I kept our frantic pace, our hands yet linked. Our eyes held fast and strong; I didn't want to blink. In the moonlight he was achingly beautiful beneath me, so strong and powerful, his cock so hard within me, and yet what we had just talked about created a gaping gulf of vulnerability in my soul, and I felt as though I had no control at all, that events were exploding out of my hands and I was powerless to stop any of it.

“Mathias,” I gasped, curving over him, desperately desiring to take him into my body entirely, to cradle and protect him until the end of time, to force the universe to acknowledge that we belonged together, and could never be separated.

“Come here,” he said breathlessly, gathering me close and rolling so that he was atop once more, again claiming my mouth. The onrushing intensity of him, the scent of his skin and taste of his mouth, the strength of his body within mine, overwhelmed my senses, until the stars appeared ablaze in the sky, whirling faster and brighter, blinding my eyes. Just before he came I thought I saw a shooting star flare across the multi-colored sky, breaking into two distinct tails before shimmering out of existence. And then he cried out harshly and filled me completely, shuddering as we rocked to the side and clung, again wordless; the world around us all at once seemed likewise hushed and expectant, and no words were necessary.

Later, when the fire had been reduced to glowing embers, we curled together in our tent, kept from full darkness by the faint, red-gold glow. Mathias pressed his palm to my belly and kissed my forehead. He whispered, “There. Right there. Can you feel him?”

I smiled sleepily at my man; we were stuffed into one sleeping bag, naked and warm and all tangled together. I murmured honestly, “I can.”

***

When I woke, there was
a third person in our tent. I gasped and tried to sit up, but was too enveloped in both Mathias's arms and the sleeping bag. My heart took up a rapid thundering, my eyes casting wildly about the small space.

Please
, a voice whispered then, and its agony filled my skull. The faintest of outlines shivered beside our sleeping bag, on Mathias's side, and then hands were upon him. I watched in silent stun, the pulse of blood drowning out my ears, obliterating all external sounds; the rush of my breath was absurdly amplified. The voice went on,
Please find me, please, I beg of you. Oh God, I've been waiting so long…

Malcolm?
I gasped, still unable to sit up. I longed to grasp at the figure, contain it; I demanded,
Is that you?

He never found me. He stopped looking
, the voice whispered, its pain ancient and deep, and the outline trembled, allowing me to glimpse long, curling hair, much like my own. It was a girl, I realized, and then for the space of one breath I could see eyes in her hollow white face, one cedar-green and one with an iris so brown it was almost black. She stared fiercely at me and my stomach lurched; a scent as of flowers filled the tent, not one I recognized, though in my mind there was a sudden picture of a blossom with sharp pink edges. A name came stealing from my throat, emerging as both a gasp and an acknowledgement.

Cora
, I said.

Please. You are my only hope. Oh God, please, find me…

Find me…

My head ached the morning of July fifth, but I dragged myself and Rae over to the café to say good-bye to Camille and Mathias, who were leaving for their trip. Jo was there too, Matthew in tow, and Grandma and Aunt Ellen. Camille grew tearful as she clutched Millie Jo close.

I hugged her next, whispering into the soft clouds of her dark hair, “Be careful, and find answers, all right?”

She drew back and looked hard into my eyes, her own so serious and beautifully golden-green, her irises with a ring of darker gold surrounding them, her lashes thick and dark, fan-like on her cheeks when she blinked. I knew she wanted me to tell her that they would, and I wished so badly that I could do that; instead she whispered back, “We'll do our best.”

Later, Jo and I sat with Mom and Aunt Ellen at table three, while the little ones played in a corner booth, Matthew trying valiantly to keep up with Millie Jo and Rae as they played dolls and ordered him like the world's tiniest, busiest butler.

“You need sleep, Jilly Bean,” Joelle observed. “And it's not from staying up watching the fireworks, I know.”

“Everyone needs to back off,” I grumbled, before hiding in a long sip of coffee. I had been forcing my husband to walk on eggshells with my bad attitude, and I felt guilty for that, but was unable yet to relent. Though it had been fun out on the water last night, all of us crowded between the motor boat and the pontoon to watch the Fourth of July spectacular, by morning's light I was still fostering the tension, and Justin's patience was growing thin.

“Baby, this is getting old,” he'd said before leaving for work. “We're talking when I get home.”

“It's pregnancy that does it,” Mom contributed, as though to be helpful. “I know when I was pregnant with you I wanted to pick a fight every other day.” She snorted a laugh and concluded, “Maybe it's no wonder Mick left around then!”

Jo shot Mom a look. I set down my cup with a clack and asked caustically, “Is that supposed to be a hint?”

Mom rolled her eyes, not about to be sucked into my angry vortex. Just to my right, she reached and tipped my chin in her fingers, saying into my eyes, “Jillian Rae, what a ridiculous question. But here's a hint. Justin loves you with all his heart and you're hurting him acting this way. As though he has any control over what his ex-wife does or says.”

I felt the sting of tears, knowing she was right.

“But Aubrey said…” I stammered.

“Who cares what the dumb bitch says?” Jo asked, low. “She hasn't changed a bit. She should be ashamed of herself. I'm glad Justin told her off. He probably wishes he would have years ago.”

They were determined to prove me wrong. I heard myself admit miserably, “I feel like I can't get a sense of things anymore.”

None of them realized what I meant, the depth of my fear over what I'd just said. Gran or Great-Aunt Minnie would have, in a heartbeat, and for a second I missed them so much that I could hardly draw a full breath. Aunt Ellen patted my forearm and said gently, “Sweetie, you're just tired. When Justin comes for lunch, you go hug him and tell him it's all right.”

An ache of longing for my husband formed just at the juncture of my ribcage. I swiped at my eyes and then nodded, determined to do just that. I said, “I will, Ell, don't worry.”

Lunch was extra busy, the tourist season mobilizing into full swing, sending city folk to the lake country in droves. Jo took care of the porch so I wouldn't have so far to walk, though that meant I had the entire counter and all the booths in the main room. And so it was that I was distracted enough that I didn't see Zack Dixon until he was already seated at the counter, on the far end closest to the outer door.

“Are you ready?” I asked him with no hint of recognition. I was sweating, my temples damp, my pale-blue Shore Leave t-shirt limp with the humidity, but he was openly staring at me, his creepy, too-close-together eyes seeming to take their fill. I ignored this against my better judgment and insisted, “Well?”

“You have a minute to sit and chat?” he asked, leaning forward on his elbows, so that I took a small step back; his nose was far too close to my breasts, even at over two feet away. He informed me, “I've been out here a bunch of times, but you either weren't working or Camille took my table.”

“Yep, that's right,” I said rudely.

“I've been enjoying Landon,” he said, choosing to ignore my tone, smiling as though we were having a pleasant conversation. “Even though there's not much to do at night. I get a little bored. What do you do for fun around here? Swim, maybe?”

I looked hard into his silvery-blue eyes, as though to communicate by force that he bugged the shit out of me, and repeated, “Are you ready to order?”

“Jillian,” he said, low and far too intense. His eyes made my stomach feel ill, I could not deny that feeling, though I could not otherwise get any sort of read on him. He told me in the same tone of voice, “You're so completely sexy. Does your husband tell you that enough?”

I blinked and then ordered in no uncertain terms, “Never talk that way to me again.”

I walked away before he could reply, straight through the swinging two-way door to the kitchen, where I found my brother-in-law. I pulled Blythe aside and said, “There's a guy at the counter I don't like, a tourist. Can you take his order?”

Blythe frowned; this kind of thing wasn't like me at all. He patted my shoulder and said, “Sure thing, Jills. Did he say anything you want to tell me about?”

Shit
. Bly was super protective and could not afford to get into a fight for any reason. I said quickly, “No, he's just really annoying. I don't want Jo to have to deal with him either.”

Blythe leaned into the kitchen to tell Rich, “Hey, I'll be right back.”

Huge, strong, intimidating (when he wanted to be) Bly took the order, and I studiously avoided Zack after that, though he watched me with absolutely no outward qualms. When he finally left, I scooped up his basket and restrained the urge to chuck it directly into the trash. It was then that I noticed what appeared to be handwriting on his napkin.

What the hell?
I wondered, turning it so that I could read the words, though probably I should have known better.

Jillian, please don't be mad at me. I feel very drawn to you. Thanks for lunch.

I felt like I might throw up. As though he'd written something much more offensive, I crammed the napkin into the garbage and then went to wash my hands. In the familiar employee bathroom I studied my tense blue eyes, smudged beneath with shadows, and suddenly realized that Justin hadn't shown up for lunch.

Go to your husband. Finish up here and then go to him and make everything all right, and tell him about this shit with Zack.

First I packed a bag of food for him and then pit-stopped at home to change into a maternity sundress, a pretty yellow one, and let down my hair, brushing it silken-smooth over my bare shoulders. Rae was still with Ruthie at Mom and Aunt Ellen's house, so I drove alone around the lake to the filling station, where my husband had worked days ever since he'd graduated high school. The business had originally been his grandpa's, Dodge's father, who'd passed away when we were in junior high. My shoulders relaxed a little as I saw Justin's truck in the familiar parking lot, next to Dodge's work truck. There were three cars in the customer spots, vehicles waiting to be repaired. Justin and Dodge worked on any sort of engine, including boats. Out back, near the huge service dock, was a gasoline pump where all manner of watercraft came to refuel when the station was open.

I parked next to my husband's truck, climbing out into the beat of the sun, feeling an unexpected glow of warmth as my eyes flickered upwards to the red lettering on the white siding above the three service bays, reading MILLER SERVICE STATION, LANDON, MN. Halfway to the front entrance, I realized I had forgotten to grab the lunch I'd packed, and I was about to head back to my car when the sound of a voice from inside the first garage met my ears and my footsteps faltered.

“If you'd just…” and then the rest of the statement was too low for me to make out. But I needed no more than that to understand that Aubrey was here too. A firebomb seemed to explode somewhere between my stomach and my throat.

“Leave, now,” I heard Justin say, and there was a tone in his voice to which I had never been privy, a flat, dark edge that made my stomach twinge.

“Not until you listen, you asshole,” Aubrey said right back, louder this time, and I rounded the corner of the open garage door. Justin was facing away from me, his hands curled around the top edge of his workbench, his shoulders taut with tension. All I could see, however, my gaze narrowing to a pinpoint of white-hot fury, was Aubrey, close behind him and reaching as though to put her hands on his back.

I felt capable of projecting flames from my eyes and was stunned to hear my voice emerge without so much as a tremble, “If you speak to my husband that way again, you will be fucking sorry.”

Aubrey spun to face me. Justin turned more slowly, imploring me with his dark eyes. He shook his head just slightly at me, but I could not spare him a glance at the moment. I felt as if I looked away from Aubrey I would lose some battle with her. I wanted to kill her even more fiercely than I had the other night, some small, detached part of me slightly startled by these bloodthirsty thoughts.

“I need to talk to Justin, and it's none of your business,” she said, enunciating his name, speaking the words with deliberate slowness.

Justin saw that I was very near to doing her bodily harm, as he told her firmly, again with that low, dangerous tone in his voice, “I am not going to ask you again. You have nothing to say that I care to hear.”

“There's plenty I haven't said to you,” she said, stumbling slightly as she turned back to him, and I suddenly realized that she was fairly drunk, just as she'd been the night before last. I could smell booze emanating from her even from where I stood at the open door, a good five paces away. The afternoon sun made a hot oblong shape on the dirty floor at my feet. The air here smelled familiar, of motor oil and turpentine. The baby kicked at my belly and I wanted desperately to start crying, but I would not give Aubrey the satisfaction.

Justin let her comment slide and sidestepped her to come to me, but she snatched out her hands and caught his left bicep; he was wearing an old black t-shirt, one with the sleeves torn off, and that her palms were upon his bare skin created a buzzing force field of rage within my chest. Clinging to him, she said, her voice shrill with insistence, “You screwed me over first, way before I screwed Tim. You know it's true.” She had started crying in little pathetic huffs. She persisted, “I needed someone. It wasn't my fault you looked like a fucking circus freak.”

With a great deal of dignity, Justin detached himself from her grip, but immediately she reached for him again; before I even knew I had moved, my right fist had gripped a large hank of her auburn hair, hard. My husband responded like lightning then, catching me against his chest and carrying me instantly outside and into the brilliant sun. He directed his quiet, intense words into my ear, saying, “Jilly, she's not worth it.”

I struggled furiously, anger clouding all my sensibility, wanting nothing more than to be allowed to finish what I had started with Aubrey, but Justin's arms were iron. He held me close to him despite my inarticulate protests, saying firmly into my ear, “Baby, I won't let you get hurt on account of me.”

Tears gushed over my cheeks and at last I managed to demand breathlessly, “Let me go, Justin, I mean it.”

Aubrey had followed us and she wouldn't quit, standing with her hands on her hips, goading me, “I had him first, Jillian Davis, never forget that. I left
him
. And he begged me to stay.
Begged
me.”

She delivered the words like white-knuckled punches and I felt them in the gut. Behind me I felt Justin tense even further, sensed his anger, though he said with quiet, if forced, calm, “Jilly, she has no power to hurt me except through you. Don't let her.”

“Fuck you,” Aubrey snapped. “You know it's true. Look me in the eye and tell me it's not true.”

At that moment I saw my father-in-law coming up the path from the lake, his aviator sunglasses in place, drying his hands on a frayed blue towel. He was whistling, but the instant he caught sight of the three of us the sound died on his lips. His steps stalled as he appraised the scene; perhaps five seconds passed before he resumed his route. He came to a stop near his son and me, pushing the aviators up on his head. Quietly Dodge asked, “Justin, what's going on here?”

Just the simple fact that he had used Justin's name rather than referring to him as ‘boy,' which was his customary affectionate nickname, belied Dodge's concern.

Justin cleared his throat roughly and said, “Aubrey was just leaving.”

“Dodge, this isn't your business!” Aubrey had the audacity to snap at him, but, like Justin, Dodge retained his cool.

“You've done enough damage to my family in the past that I do believe it is my business, young lady,” Dodge said in reply, and Aubrey's attitude deflated, if just slightly. Dodge continued, “You've clearly had too much to drink on this otherwise fine day, and so I will drive your car, with you in it, back wherever you came from.”

Justin gently released his hold on me. I moved straight into Dodge's arms, clinging tightly to his bulk as I cried, hating myself for breaking down in front of Aubrey this way, too revved up at present to stop. He made a sound of comfort and patted my back. I pressed my face to him, sensing Justin's aching concern behind me; I was hurting my husband by acting this way, but I was too emotional to deal with that knowledge right now. Dodge said soothingly, “Jilly-honey, you head on back to the café and have a cup of coffee, all right? It's all right here.” I nodded inanely as he set me gently back, adding, “Go on now, honey. Justin will be along in a minute.”