Chapter Thirty-Four #3
At my voice, he stops, and I finally get to see his face.
Under a spotlight, no less, because of the streetlamp I’m standing by.
Despite my anger at him, I can’t help but devour his features with my eyes.
I can’t help but catalog every little detail of them because I didn’t get to do that this past week.
The last time I saw him was in Marsden’s office during Breck’s phone call.
He stood on the other side of the room from me and in a corner that I thought Rad would’ve picked for himself.
He kept his arms folded across his chest and head bent with his Stetson on so there was no chance of me getting to see anything.
Marsden did all the talking on the phone, while the group consisting of Peyton, Rad, Haven, and Axton huddled around the desk.
He spoke only when Breck mentioned his condition for Peyton to visit him.
Which quickly escalated into a heated argument that they had to cut the call to resolve.
Although now that I’m finally able to look at him, I don’t know how it makes me feel.
First, because everything about him is so contradictory in this moment.
His clothes are severely rumpled, but his body seems snapped straight.
His stubble-beard is back, which should make him also look rumpled, but it doesn’t because of his clenched jaw.
And while his eyes are red-rimmed and look utterly exhausted, I can see that they’re alert and awake.
He should look lost like he did the night he rescued me, but somehow, he looks recently found. Which is when it hits me.
I hope it’s because of me. I still hope he wants me.
I hope it’s because he’s getting to look at me probably for the first time in the past week, too; and his eyes are frantically taking me in, devouring me like I’ve been devouring him.
I hate that. I hate that my sight makes him look like he’s found heaven after a long walk scouring the lands when I know it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t want it to mean anything.
“That’s my tree,” I repeat when all he does is stare at me.
“Your favorite,” he tells me like I don’t know. Like it wasn’t me who told him about it in my letters in the first place. “The one you saved.”
Along with telling him that it’s my favorite, I also told him they were going to cut it down.
And it was him who said I should get the neighborhood together and rally.
Which I did and hence saved it. Somehow this piece of information makes me angrier still.
Because what choice did I have but to fall in love with him when he was so…
sweet? I hate that. I hate that he always does things like this.
I hate that I’m curling my bare toes on the concrete at how nostalgic his voice sounds.
It’s ridiculous; I heard it six days ago.
There hasn’t been enough time to establish the stupid nostalgia that’s running through my body.
That’s why I say something completely childish: “You can’t stand under it.”
And yet he responds like it’s the most riveting conversation of all time. “Didn’t know where else to stand where I’d have a clear view of your window.” Before I can say anything to that, he adds, “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“You shouldn’t be out here,” I accuse.
“Why aren’t you sleepin’?”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” I keep accusing, but at this, I realize how ridiculous our exchange is.
I know why he isn’t sleeping. Because he can’t.
Because, apparently, he needs me. I’m his hypnotic.
My scent is what lulls him to sleep; and I hate him, but I don’t hate him enough to make light of something like this.
I go to apologize, but he doesn’t seem to care as he searches my face with a frown. “You… you cryin’?”
This sends me back into the anger mode, and I fist my fingers tighter.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I was.” He flinches and I feel a tiny bit bad for him but not enough to stop myself from continuing, “Because I miss Rawhide. I miss the people I met there. Haven, Ax, Rad. Even Mars. Why, does that bother you? That I miss them and I’m crying about them. ”
I know what I’m doing is petty. He didn’t want me to tell him I was going to miss him when I left, so now, I’m bludgeoning him with the word.
I also know I told myself to be dignified about all this.
About how it’s okay if he doesn’t love me back.
How I’m totally fine and I can handle things.
But it all went poof the moment I saw him standing under my tree.
So fuck being dignified. Fuck him for ruining my plans of being dignified.
He needs to suffer. Although it doesn’t look like he’s suffering.
If anything, he seems to be coming awake and alive even more than before.
With each passing second, the lines around his mouth are becoming slacker.
And his eyes hold more fire and are glittering as he shakes his head slowly.
“Missin’ them, no. Cryin’ over it, yeah. ”
“Well, you don’t get a choice in the matter. If I want to cry, I’ll cry. If I want to fill buckets with my tears, I’ll do that too. You get no say in that.”
His jaw clenches and regret clear as day passes through his features. “I know.”
I harden myself against it. “So then, care to explain to me why you need a clear view of my window?”
“So I can see when you turn out the light.”
“And why do you need to see that?”
He breathes in, his chest swelling. “So I know you’re in bed.”
“Okay but—”
“Safe,” he adds, and I lose my breath.
Because I finally understand what he’s doing, and even though it’s hard, I show no emotion with my tone when I ask, “Is this because of what happened last week? Because they took…”
I don’t complete the sentence and say “took me.” Because just like the night he rescued me, he starts to breathe faster at the mention of my kidnapping.
Like he still isn’t over it. Like it happened only hours ago instead of a week.
And while I can see why he’d feel this way, because I do get spooked from time to time myself, I know I’m safe.
I know they won’t come for me again. Not even my father, who’s lying in a hospital bed right now, in a coma, because of this man standing in front of me. His rescue was absolute.
He gives his head a shake, which more or less is a jerk as he replies, “Can’t get any peace if I don’t know you are where you’re supposed be. In your room or with Haven or Ax. Out takin’ your walks, safe.”
I notice how he said “peace” and not “sleep,” because again, he doesn’t get much of that when I’m away. I also notice the other things he mentioned, and before I can stop myself, I ask, or more like accuse, “You’ve been… You’ve been keeping tabs on me?”
His answer is immediate: “Yeah.”
“How?”
“Just… askin’ about you. To Haven, Ax, Peyton. Rad even.” He licks his lips, and I refuse to acknowledge to myself how shiny they look. “Followin’ you when you’d take your walks. Standin’ outside your door, waitin’ to see the light go out from under the door.”
“And here I thought I told you to keep your distance from me.”
“I did.” He nods. “Made sure to never let you know I was there or run into you.”
So there’s my answer. He was deliberately trying to not be seen.
Although I do want to tell him that I knew.
At least, when I was on my walks. I could feel him.
Granted, I could never confirm it, but I knew.
But that’s not important. What’s important is again, I don’t know how it makes me feel.
On one hand, I’m glad he honored my wishes; and on the other, I’m pissed that he gave me what I wanted.
And since pissed is a bigger emotion for me in the moment, I keep accusing: “So basically, you’ve been stalking me all this time. ”
His breath puffs out as he says, “Stalkin’ is more Rad’s territory but if you wanna call it that, it’s fine.”
I clench my teeth. “Yes, I do want to call it that because that’s what it is.”
“I call it somethin’ else.”
“Yeah? What?”
His eyes flick back and forth between mine as he says in a rough voice, “Me keepin’ tabs on you, watchin’ you from a distance, finally leaving Rawhide to follow you to Bozeman, it’s not stalkin’. I call it living.”
My voice is high and my heart is sitting on the tip of my tongue when I ask, “You… you moved to Bozeman?”
He gives out a short nod. “Yeah.”
“That’s…” I shake my head, looking at him in disbelief. “Are you insane? Have you completely lost your mind?”
“Not yet.”
“I can’t…” I take in a sharp breath. “Do you realize how crazy this is? This is the city. Maybe it’s not the busiest city or the biggest city in the world but it’s crowded.
It’s way more crowded than Black Rock, than your ranch.
And you hate crowds. Not in the way where you find people annoying.
Although, you do find them that but more in a real, symptomatic way. ”
His jaw is hard, and I expect him to wave it off or shut this down. But all he does is shrug—albeit extremely tightly—and reply, “A small price to pay for living.”
This time when he uses that word, I can finally hear it, and it’s not a good thing.
Because I’ve been able to hold on to my ire all this time.
I’ve been able to focus on distracting things instead of the most important fact of all: that he is here in the first place.
But at this, my reprieve is over and I have to face facts.
And the fact is, he’s here for me.
He can see it, too, that I’ve finally accepted the truth, because his chest swells again and he swallows thickly. “Pictured tellin’ you this one day. Didn’t know it’d be tonight though. It wasn’t my intention when I came here. I just… I wanted to thank you.”
“What?”
He swallows with difficulty again. “For savin’ my life.”
“I didn’t—”
“For savin’ her life. My… Rosie.”