Chapter 3 #3
It was intimate to share air with him like this. That was maybe the strangest thought she’d ever had.
And she had some strange thoughts.
She thought back to that night in her room, when she had grabbed hold of the crystals on her windowsill, and thought about wishing the curse away.
It was important that she remember exactly who she was. Because wishing wasn’t going to remove the reality of the situation.
Even if she wasn’t cursed, he was Cooper.
And that was an unclimbable mountain, therefore so was he.
It was only a few minutes to the farmhouse, and she felt a sense of comforting familiarity wash over her as they pulled up to the place.
She had always liked Cooper’s family. Even Hank, honestly.
She just would prefer a buffer with Hank.
Because she wasn’t entirely sure if Hank liked her.
She wasn’t entirely sure if Hank liked anybody.
He had just put his truck in park when the front door burst open and Lindsay tumbled out. Eliana smiled and unbuckled, getting out of the car. “Lindsay!”
“Eliana! I’m so glad that you came. And thank you so much for getting this placement for our beer. You did more for us than I’ve been able to do in the last couple of months.”
“Oh. I didn’t really do anything.”
“I swear, you’re charmed.”
Lindsay squeezed Eliana’s arm, and Eliana did her best not to grimace.
Because charmed was not exactly the way she would describe herself.
It was funny, though, that that seemed to be a prevailing idea.
Because Cooper sure seemed to think she had a knack for getting her way, maybe her problem was that she was focused on what she couldn’t seem to get for herself rather than being triumphant about the things she could.
She followed Lindsay into the house and was greeted by warm, homey smells.
Her mother was not a cook. Her grandmother was a bit of a kitchen witch who loved to cook with herbs and make stews and simmer pots.
But still, she could tell a truly hearty home-cooked meal, and it was different than what she was used to.
“It smells great,” she said.
“Steak and mashed potatoes,” Lindsay said. “Butter rolls, macaroni and cheese.”
Eliana’s stomach started growling. “I can’t wait.”
She followed Lindsay into the dining room and sat next to her. Cooper took his seat at the far end of the table, not across from her. And a few moments later, Hank came in holding a bowl of dinner rolls and another of green salad.
“Hey there,” he said.
That was practically a friendly soliloquy from Hank.
“Hi,” Eliana responded.
“Thanks for having me for dinner,” she said, quickly at Hank’s retreating back, and she thought she might have gotten a grunt in return.
“Do you think anyone needs any help?”
“Oh, he won’t accept it,” Lindsay said.
Hank finished bringing all the food to the table, and then Sally Langdon, their mother, came in wearing an apron covered in flour. “Eliana,” she said. “It’s so good to see you. Is Marcus not in town?”
“You know Marcus. He’s rarely in town.”
“Yes. He has those itchy feet.”
“Yes. Not me. I just… Like it here.”
“Of course you do. You’re a town favorite. Everyone loves you.”
Everyone loved her. That was the nicest thing she could’ve possibly said. And maybe it was exactly what Eliana needed to hear. The town loved her. So maybe she was charmed, and not so cursed after all. As long as she was able to look at life a little bit more expansively.
Hank had brought dinner out, and it was Cooper who cleared the table when they were all finished. “Mom,” he said. “I’m going to take Eliana on a wagon ride. Don’t do any dishes while I’m gone. Lindsay and I will help clean up.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said. “If you’re taking Eliana on a wagon ride, I can just do the dishes.”
“No way,” he said.
“I can help with the dishes,” Eliana said.
“Don’t be silly,” Sally said, at the same time Lindsay, Hank, and Cooper all made noises of protest.
“You’re a guest,” Cooper said. “You’re not doing the dishes. This dinner was to thank you. For everything that you’re doing for us. This brewery was really important to Dad. And… This gets us a step closer.”
Eliana looked at Sally, who seemed emotional, but blinked back the evidence of that quickly.
“Come on,” Cooper said. “We’ll go have our ride before it gets dark.”
It was beginning to get darker a whole lot earlier now. The sun set before seven, and already the sky was getting slightly pink. “All right. Thank you. Again. So much.”
“Do you think I could come by the shop for a tarot reading next week?” Lindsay asked.
She could tell that both Cooper and Hank wanted to say something derisive about tarot readings.
“Yeah. Of course. Though you’re very intuitive, Lindsay. You can read your own cards.”
“I’m afraid I end up telling myself what I want to hear. I would rather hear it from you.”
Well, Eliana could definitely relate to that.
That was where she felt like her intuition about herself got a little bit spotty.
It was hard to take what you actually wanted out of an equation like that.
When you started telling yourself you only drew The Tower because something new and exciting was going to breeze into your life and you definitely weren’t going to lose anything you wanted, you could be certain that you were protecting yourself a little bit overly much.
She and Cooper eventually extricated themselves from their goodbyes, and he gestured toward his truck again. She braced herself for that same feeling of being in an enclosed space all over again. “I’ll drive us out to the barn.”
“It’s really lovely the way your family all takes care of each other,” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s always been like that. I mean, after Dad died, there was such a big hole, and I think we all leaned in to try to fill it.”
“I’m sorry. I mean, that’s such a silly thing to say about such an old wound. But, I am.”
“It’s fine.”
“The barn is just this way,” he said, gesturing down the same road she had taken to get to his place. And she focused on driving, rather than his scent, which seemed like the more sane option. If she were honest.
When they pulled up to the barn, she practically tumbled out of her own vehicle, anxious to get a little bit of space between them.
She wasn’t usually quite this ridiculous around him, but it was all the revelations about everything that had just passed between them.
Her intense focus on it. She was basically manifesting awkwardness at this point.
It wasn’t anything magical or unknowable.
It was just her not being able to think about anything else, which was only further entrenching her thoughts, which were that she needed to remember other things about Cooper.
They had a long history together, and it didn’t all include her lusting after him. Some of it was very benign.
She was just having difficulty casting her mind back that far.
She walked into the barn behind him, and he slung the doors open wide, revealing an old wooden wagon. “You know, at Christmas time you could put bells on this and–”
“I am not becoming a community mascot,” he said.
She laughed. “But you’d be such a handsome one.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and her stomach tightened.
She had only meant to say that in the sense that he was objectively handsome, but it had definitely come out a lot more like a personal declaration of his handsomeness.
And if she commented on that, if she tried to backpedal, it would seem like protesting too much. Which she also didn’t want to do.
“Just… consider it,” she said, patting him on the shoulder, and instantly regretting that too, because the touch sent a lightning bolt through her fingertips and down to her stomach.
“We’re going to use Buttercup and Odie for this,” he said. “I’ll get them all hitched up, and then we’ll be good to go.”
“There’s no hay in the back of the wagon.”
“I’m not going to fling you on top of a haybale just yet. Also, we want nice, fresh hay. You can ride up front with me tonight.”
She waited with patience while he hitched the horses up to the wagon, his utter competence at the way he handled the animals making her dizzy.
Or maybe it was just him. The way that he was.
He opened up a set of doors opposite them. “We’ll drive out this way.”
She was about to lift herself up into the wagon when he came around to the other side and held his hand out.
She looked up at him, then down at his offered hand. She accepted it, and he pressed his other hand to her elbow and helped lift her in.
As she settled into her seat, it took her a moment to orient herself. She was all dizzy.
So much so that she barely noticed when he got into the wagon and started to drive the team forward.
“Oh,” she made a startled noise, and clung to the bench as they went forward. “Yeah. I told you, it’s a little loud and bumpy. Do you think you can tell ghost stories in this?”
She laughed. “Yes. I know that I can.”
“You’re just that good at telling ghost stories?”
“We’ll see,” she said.
Silence settled between them, comfortably.
Which was odd. Because so much of the time between them had been uncomfortable this last little bit, but this was lovely.
The scenery around them was glorious. She sniffed the air, taking in the scent of heavy pine, the moisture that was blowing in from the sea, and that sharp, crisp edge of fall.
“It must’ve been fun to grow up here.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It was.”
She felt like a knife blade twisted in her stomach. “I’m sorry. I know your dad…”
“Yeah. He died here. Working this land. That’s definitely complicated. But then, what isn’t?”
“After my dad died, we just left everything behind. The house, everything that had a single memory of him. I don’t know which is better.”
“Not having your dad die?”
She laughed. “Yeah. That would be good. Too bad life didn’t offer us that one.”
“Right? I want my money back.”
“Sadly, there is a no-refund policy on bullshit.”
He chuckled. “Of course not.”
“I have a very real question for you,” she said.
“Okay. Then I’ll give a real answer.”
“Do you think that if your dad had lived, you would still be a cowboy? I mean, do you think this is what you would do, or are you all here because… You feel like you have to be?”
He was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know.
The person that I am, the person that I became after his death, is the only person I can imagine being.
I was only eight. I didn’t really have other aspirations.
And now… This, carrying on his legacy, that’s my purpose.
Turning this place into what he wanted it to be.
Making sure he didn’t die for nothing, that’s who I am.
” He was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know if I would have purpose if I had him. But I would have him.”
She understood what he was saying. The deep, complicated pain that came with the realization that if you could have a person back that you missed very much, you might not be yourself. “If my dad had lived, I don’t know if we would’ve come here. And I love it here.”
“You probably would have at some point. Your grandma has been here all this time.”
“Yeah. But my mom left for a reason. Because she thought she wanted to live in the city. Have a whole different life. I think she wanted to distance herself from the family and curses. She didn’t want to live in that space, and then she lost my dad, and it seemed to prove everything right, so she went back to Wild Rose Point.
Because it didn’t seem like the enemy anymore. It just seemed inevitable.”
“And you really think it’s inevitable.”
“My mom thought it wasn’t,” she said. “And look at what she lost.”
He fixed his gaze on her, and her breath evaporated in her lungs. “But look at what she got. If your mom hadn’t married your dad, she wouldn’t have you and Marcus.”
She blinked hard. “I know.”
“So, can you really say it wasn’t meant to be? What if… What if your dad was always going to have that car accident? No matter who he was with. And because of your mother, he got to have two kids first. He got to be in love first.”
It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to her. She closed her eyes and let the breeze and those words wash through her.
She had always seen her father’s death as a punishment. For him, for her mother, as something that wasn’t supposed to happen, but did because of a curse. She had never seen their intrusion on his life as something beautiful, not when they were potentially what had wrenched his soul from his body.
She blinked back tears. “Thank you for that, Cooper. That’s a really beautiful thought.”
“My dad was committed to his family, to the land. And sometimes I wish he hadn’t died before he was able to get the thing that he really wanted.
But also, we were something he really wanted.
The work that he did was for us. Which is what my family still does for each other.
And in that way, I guess he did die doing something he loved. ”
The wagon stopped, and she experienced a feeling of déjà vu as she stared up at the sunset. It reminded her of that moment. When they had almost…
“Do you remember that night when the horses got out?” She turned to look at him and saw that he was watching her. He turned his face away quickly. “No. I don’t remember that.”
Her stomach clenched with disappointment. “Oh. Okay. Okay.”
So, it really had been nothing. It had not been an almost kiss. It had not been anything of real significance to him. It couldn’t have been. Because if it were, he would remember. And he didn’t.
So she needed to let go of that memory.
“This was great. I’m ready to head back.”
“All right, I’ll bring the wagon down…tomorrow?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Tomorrow. That sounds great.”
“Yes. I’ll bring my decor.”
“Don’t forget the giant spider.”
She stared at him, and his face was so serious that she couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
“I won’t.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “I know.”
He was so beautiful it hurt. But the hurt was the big thing right now.
She wanted a break from him, now, which didn’t feel fair, because he wasn’t trying to hurt her.
She’d felt charmed just a little bit ago.
Now she was back to feeling every bit as cursed as she had before.