Chapter 5 Scarlett #2
“Hey!” My voice slices through the air, sharp and to the point.
He flinches, head snapping up, yet his eyes are hidden behind a baseball hat pulled too low for me to see.
He bolts, jumping into a white pickup truck.
Broad in stature, arms hidden by a long-sleeved shirt, but that’s about all I can tell from this distance.
“Yeah, get outta here!” I yell, my voice shaking at the end. I dismount Stella, jogging to the spot where he’d just been and crouch to inspect the damage. The wire’s half cut, curling out like a wayward curl of mine. One glove lies in the grass, torn across the palm.
I’ll have to ask Miller if this is a usual occurrence or if this is something we need to look out for. It’s time I step up and be the leader this ranch needs. I do it at home, so why not do it here, where it actually matters to me?
I’m in the stables stacking bales of hay against the wall when I feel his eyes on me.
The trail of heat they leave in their wake may as well be a visceral touch.
One I pretend to miss. He said he was leaving today, but I guess he didn’t say when.
But that’s just Lucas. It’s the details that surround him that threaten to undo me.
His timing, his mere presence, the way he quietly takes up space until the air feels like it bends to accommodate him.
I try to swallow the annoyance clawing up my throat as I keep stacking, but then the tack room door swings open. The soft creek makes my eyes twitch. He still doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t need to.
There’s a half wall separating the two of us, and as I bend to pick up the next bale, my eyes land on his forearms, tanned, strong, and methodical as they flex to fold hand towels.
“Don’t you have a game to play?” I snap. My adrenaline is still high from the fence encounter, and my patience for human interaction, his interaction, is paper-thin because of it.
He lifts the stack he’s finished, placing it neatly on the shelf before he turns and picks up some more from the pile of clean ones.
“Yeah. Had therapy this morning.” He flaps a towel obnoxiously through the air before making a show of flattening it against the table and folding it to perfection.
“Thought I’d get some work done before hanging out with my favorite cows.
I can leave, though, I didn’t think you’d be here. ”
My hands find my hips, but before I can open my mouth, he chuckles.
“Down, girl.” His eyes dance with amusement, “I’m not looking for a fight.”
I let out a huff before turning back to the piles of hay that still need to be moved. I could ask him to do it. He could knock it out in half the time it’d take me. Heck, he could probably throw them into place and not have to walk back and forth across the stall.
But my pride isn’t about to let me admit that, so instead, I pick up another and walk it to the far wall. I make two more trips before his silence gets the best of me. Or maybe it’s his magical forearms I’m still thinking about. Hard to say.
When I drop the bale, I grab a fistful of hay and turn, launching it at him over the hip-height wall. “Stop staring at me, it’s distracting!”
The hay drifts down like golden confetti, and dread punches me right in the gut because I know the smile that’s growing on his face like the back of my hand. It’s his slow-growing, you-just-started-something-you-can’t-finish smile.
He hops the wall with ease, backing me into the wall of hay I’ve built in the corner. He braces his arm next to my head, his bicep level with my eyes, and my hands immediately settle on his chest. Heat sears my palms, but I don’t pull away.
“Why in the world would I be distracting to you?” he murmurs, lips grazing the shell of my ear. “You don’t even like me anymore.”
“I never said I didn’t like you,” I whisper, but it comes out way more breathy than I meant it to.
He doesn’t speak. Instead, his nose grazes up the outside of my ear, sending a shiver racing down my spine.
My head tilts as the silence stretches between us, until a burst of hay flutters through the air.
It catches in my hair, tickling my face, and forcing a sneeze out of me.
The sudden jerk of my head knocks right into his chin, and he hisses at the impact.
“Oh my God! Lucas, I’m so sorry,” I cry as I watch him cover his face with his hands. Panic rips through me, the kind that tells me I still care maybe a bit more than I thought.
“Lucas…” I say again as he takes a step back. His fingers part, letting me see the humor in his eyes before his hands drop entirely, and his deep laugh carries through the open stable.
“Lucas!” I swat at him, but he dodges me.“I thought I hurt you.”
I charge again, and he side steps me like he’s a football player.
Before long, we’re throwing hay back and forth at one another like we did a thousand times as kids.
We got in trouble for it every single time, but it was one of our favorite games to play.
We’d pretend we were somewhere with snow, and the hay was snowballs.
My laughter mingles with his, bright and unguarded, and for a moment the years of distance between us turn to dust. He dodges every time I try to grab him, taller and faster than he used to be, but still tossing handfuls of straw over my head like yellow snow.
“Come on, Lettie Girl,” he sings, “Hay Snow! Let’s go!” Another handful of hay flies through the air.
“Make it fly, woah-oh-OHH!” His voice cracks on the last oh, making me bend, resting my hands on my knees, to catch my breath. Looking up at him through my lashes as my laughter continues, he winks.
“Hay on my hat, hay on my toes, hay” Clap. “snow!” Clap clap. “Let’s go.” He leaps through the air, then lands with grace as he pushes up on his toes, spinning like a ballerina, all while keeping his smile firmly in place.
“Throw some up in the air,” he points to the ceiling. “Look, Lettie!” He grabs a huge handful and throws it over the two of us, “Look, it’s snowing everywhere.”
Anyone who saw us would think we’d lost our minds, but this has always been us. Him. And maybe we have, or maybe this is what it feels like when my guard slips without permission, when he slips through the cracks that I force myself to ignore.
He always used to make up songs. When I was back home, I found myself wishing someone around the house would sing nonsense over mundane tasks. I tried, but my brain doesn’t work that way. Not freely. Not out of joy, not anymore, at least.
But his does. It’s who he is, or how he survived. Maybe both.
Regardless, it’s one of my favorite things about him. “Gah,” I say as I stand, wiping the tears from underneath my eyes. “I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.” I pull out a few pieces of straw from my hair, then my brows furrow as I look at the mess we’ve made.
My bottom lip juts out before I can think the action through, and he steps closer, placing his thumb on my chin and tilting my head to look at him. “Your laugh is beautiful,” he says softly. “It was an honor to hear again.”
The earnestness in his voice knocks the breath from my lungs. I’m not built for this kind of tenderness. I don’t know where to put the warmth of his words, how to hold on to something so precious without ruining it.
Before I can respond, he steps back, hand floating through the air as it returns to his side. “I’ll clean this up. Get on with your day, I gotta leave in an hour,” he says, already grabbing the broom from the other side of the wall.
I start to say I’d like to help when my phone rings again.
Thinking it’s my father, I pull it out to silence it.
My finger freezes over the red X when I notice it’s Mr. Raynolds.
My brows furrow as I look at it, “It’s the lawyer,” I grunt, holding up the phone like he asked who was calling.
“I’ll be outside.” I don’t wait for his response as I head out the door.
“Hello?” My free hand slides down the outside of my jeans, attempting to keep my palms from sweating.
A heavy sigh sounds from the other side, and my stomach immediately sours. Sweat beads on my forehead, and that awful clammy feeling you get right before you pass out takes over. I quickly run to the corral where I can sit against the fence facing the stables, but be out of earshot of Lucas.
“Your father isn’t taking this well,” Mr. Raynolds' voice calmly states.
I scoff, “But of course. He doesn’t understand the word no.”
“Scarlett, he’s threatening to sue for it.”
My eyes roll. “On what grounds, exactly?”
“He doesn’t have any, I’m just calling you to let you know. It’s probably all for show in an attempt to intimidate you. But if people come sniffing around, I need you to let me know, let Miller know, and don’t be afraid to involve the Sheriff.”
“There was someone here in a white truck earlier. He cut the fence.”
He mutters a curse. “That’s a good start. Document everything, okay?”
“Yes, sir.” The words feel heavy, the levity of the moment shared earlier long gone.
A check back into reality that good things don’t happen to me.
At least not for long. Pushing off the ground, my head hangs heavy in front of me as I walk back to the house.
Praying Lucas has a good game and makes it back in one piece.
I should say bye, wish him luck, but distance feels safer. For now, at least.