Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
LUKE
Gabe and Madison leave at dusk.
I walk them out to the truck. Gabe claps me on the shoulder, says he'll see me at the main house tomorrow whenever we're ready to come back, no rush.
Madison hugs Anna on the porch, holds her face between her hands and says something I can't hear that makes Anna laugh once, one that kisses her eyes.
Then they're climbing into the cab and the headlights cut a slow arc through the trees and they're gone.
I stand on the porch and watch the dust hang in the last of the gold light.
Anna's behind me. I can feel her there without turning around. She's wrapped in one of my flannels again, sleeves swallowing her hands, and she's quiet in the way she gets when her head's working harder than her mouth.
She's free.
She's free, and she can go back to Portland.
Get a new job. Find a new apartment. Call her mama in Connecticut and tell her she's been on a work trip and laugh through her teeth about it.
She can put this whole week down like a coat she's done wearing, and walk out of my cabin, and out of my life, and back into the one she actually built.
She is twenty-six years old. She has a marketing degree and parents who set her up on dates and a city she's spent five years making her own. She is twelve years younger than me and she has a whole life that does not include a tattooed ranch hand with a small cabin and a dog buried up the ridge.
She should go.
That's the right answer for a woman like her. Go back. Heal up. Live.
I tell myself that the whole time the dust settles in the trees.
It doesn't take.
I turn around.
She's leaning on the porch rail with her arms crossed, watching me.
The last sun is on her face. Her hair's down.
She's got a smudge of something on her cheek from the earlier, maybe when she rubbed her eye with the cuff of my flannel, I don't know, but I want to thumb it off her skin but I don't trust my hands to stop there.
"Hey, Brown Eyes."
"Hey."
"Hungry?"
"Not really."
"Tea?"
"Sure."
I go inside. She follows. The cabin's small enough that it doesn't really matter where I am, she can stand at the counter and watch me put a kettle on and we're in the same space anyway.
I get the kettle going. Pull two mugs down.
The fire in the wood stove is dying. I crouch and feed it another log.
Behind me she's quiet, leaning on the doorframe, and I can feel her looking at my back.
I don't look up.
"Luke."
"Yeah."
"Are you mad?"
I stand. Turn. Her eyes are wet at the edges.
"What?"
"You haven't said anything to me. Not really. Not since they told us. And I don't know if I'm reading it wrong, but you've been acting like…"
"Like what?"
"Like I already left."
That punches the wind out of me.
I cross the kitchen in two steps. I take her face in my hands. Her cheeks are warm. Her hands come up to grip my wrists.
"Anna."
"Just tell me. If you want me to go, tell me. I'll go. I'll figure it out. I'm not gonna make a thing of it. I just don't want to sit here all night wondering if you're gonna ask me to or if I'm gonna have to ask first and…"
"Anna. Breathe."
"I can't."
I press my forehead to hers. "I'm not mad. I'm…hell. I'm trying to figure out how to be a man about this. That's all."
"About what?"
"About letting you go."
She makes a small sound. Her grip on my wrists tightens.
"Luke."
"Anna. Look at me."
She tips her chin. Eyes wet now. Mouth set.
"You are twenty-six years old. You got an apartment in Portland.
A career. A life. You got a mama in Connecticut who's gonna want to ensure you are truly okay and feed you for a month.
Your friends, your routines, your whole world, it's all up there.
Not here." My thumb brushes her cheekbone.
The smudge's still there. I leave it. "I'm not gonna be the man who looked at a woman with her whole life ahead of her and asked her to throw it in for a cabin in the middle of nowhere and a guy twelve years older than her who doesn't know how to ask for what he wants. "
"Luke."
"Let me finish."
She closes her mouth.
"I fell for you, Brown Eyes."
Her breath catches.
"I fell for you so hard I'm gonna be picking myself up off the ground for a year after you go.
I fell for you the morning I made you coffee on this porch and you called me a deeply unhelpful man.
I fell for you in a hunter's lean-to in the rain.
I fell for you last night when you let me hold you.
I fell for you this morning when you took me down to my knees on my own goddamn floor. "
"Oh my God."
"I have known you nine days. I am thirty-eight years old. I know what love feels like. I have not fallen for anyone in fifteen years and you walked into Gabe's office and you wrecked me."
"Luke."
"I'm not gonna ask you to stay."
Her eyes spill.
"I'm not. Because if you stay, I want it to be because you wanted to. Not because I asked. Not because you felt bad. Not because I'm a man who's good at telling a woman what to do and you got soft about it. I want to be yours. But I want it to be your choice."
She blinks hard. A tear slides down. I catch it with my thumb. Then another. Then I just hold her face and let her cry.
"You done?" she whispers.
"Yeah, Brown Eyes."
"My turn?"
"Your turn."
"Sit down."
"What?"
"Sit. On the couch. Now."
I huff a laugh because I do not see this woman coming half the time and I love it. I sit on the couch. She stays standing in front of me, arms crossed.
"Luke Davis."
"Anna Kim."
"I don’t want to go back to Portland."
I open my mouth. She holds up a finger.
"Hush. I'm not done."
I shut up.
"My apartment is small and I never liked it.
My job, my old job, my dead boss's job, I hated it.
I hated every single hour I spent in that building.
I hated the fluorescent lights and the campaigns I didn't believe in and the man I worked for, who, as it turns out, was a literal criminal, so my instincts on that front were correct. "
I almost laugh.
"My friends in Portland are coworkers I drink with twice a year.
My family is on the other coast. My grandmother is in Texas and my mom wants me to marry a Korean dentist she found on Instagram.
My life up there. Luke. My life up there is a list of things I've been doing because I thought I was supposed to. Not because I wanted to."
She steps closer.
"I have been here nine days."
"Yeah."
"And in nine days, I have eaten the best food I have ever cooked.
In your kitchen. I have ridden the most beautiful horse I've ever sat on.
I have slept harder, the few times I've slept, than I've slept in years.
I have learned how to throw an elbow. I have been held while I cried by a man who didn't try to fix me.
I have been called Brown Eyes more times than I can count, and every single time, I–"
She stops. Swallows.
"Every single time, my heart does something it didn't know how to do before."
"Anna."
"I’m not done."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I’ve, in nine days, fallen so hard for a thirty-eight-year-old grumpy ex-Captain ranch hand cowboy with an old dog buried up the trail and a cabin he keeps too clean and an espresso machine I'm pretty sure he doesn't know how to work, that I cannot, in good conscience, climb in a car tomorrow and drive back to Portland. "
I stare up at her.
"I want to stay."
"Anna."
"I want to stay if you want me. I want to stay if I drive you crazy by reorganizing your spice cabinet again.
I want to stay even if it takes me a year to figure out what I actually want to do for work, because as it turns out, my marketing degree, plus my actual experience, is probably extremely useful to a cattle ranch and a distillery that's been growing fast, and Madison already mentioned it to Gabe in the truck on the way here last night, and –"
"Wait."
"What?"
"Madison already mentioned it to Gabe."
"Yes."
"Last night."
"Yes."
"Were you all in on this?"
"Define 'in on'?"
"Anna."
"Luke."
"You came to that cabin already half-deciding."
"Luke Davis. I came to that cabin running for my life."
"And–"
"And I noticed within seventy-two hours that you're the best man I've ever stood in a room with.
So yes. By the time my friend mentioned, in passing, in a truck, that the ranch could maybe use somebody who knows how to run a website and a social media account and an email campaign, I was already wondering how I'd ask you if I could stay. "
I’m off the couch.
I’m off the couch and across the floor and I have her in my arms before I've thought about it, and I'm kissing her so hard she stumbles back and I catch her with one arm braced behind her shoulders.
I kiss her until she's laughing into my mouth.
"Luke?"
"Mm."
"I want to stay."
"Yeah, Brown Eyes."
"Do you want me to?"
"Anna."
"Say it."
I pull back enough to look at her.
"I want you to stay. I want you in my cabin. I want you in my bed. I want you eating my food and reorganizing my spices and using my coffee machine and learning the name of every cow in that pasture if that's what makes you smile. I want you. I want you for as long as you'll have me."
"That's a long time, Luke."
"Better start now then."
I kiss her again.
She wraps her legs around my hips. I lift her like she weighs nothing. She's laughing and crying at the same time and I'm not far off. I carry her back to the bedroom and shoulder the door open with her mouth on mine.
I lay her on the bed. Stand at the edge. Look at her.
"Luke."
"Hush. I'm looking."
"You're always looking."
"I got a lot to make up for. Twelve years' worth."
She laughs. Wet. Bright.
I peel my shirt off over my head. Toss it. Get my sweats next. She's already working the flannel off her shoulders, but I cross to the bed and stop her hands.
"Let me."
She drops her hands to the quilt.
I undo the buttons one at a time. Slow. Like I'm unwrapping something. The fabric falls open. She's got nothing on under it. I open the flannel like a book and look at her. Pink in the cheeks. Soft in the belly. Tits high and tight. The dark trim of her between her thighs.
"Goddamn, Brown Eyes."
"You said that already."
"Worth saying every time."
I pull the flannel down off her arms. Slide her leggings down her legs. Drop them on the floor. She's bare in the middle of my bed and the firelight from the stove is catching gold along the line of her hip, and I'm gone for it.
I climb up over her. Settle between her thighs. Brace on my forearms.
"Hi, Beautiful"
"Hey, Captain."
I kiss her. Slow. Soft. The kind of kiss I have wanted to give her since the second she said I want to stay. She melts up into me. Her hands find my back. Her thighs come up around my hips and she rocks once, looking for me.
"Patience."
"No."
I laugh against her mouth.
I work my way down her. Mouth on her throat. Her collarbone. The dip between her breasts. I close my lips around one nipple and suck slow, and she sighs my name, and I switch to the other and do it again, until she's arching off the bed and her fingers are in my hair.
"Luke."
"Yeah, baby."
"I want you in me."
"Mm."
"Now."
"Anna Kim. Bossy."
"You like it."
"I do."
I sit back on my heels. Reach for the nightstand. I pull a condom from the strip. Tear it open. She watches me roll it on with her bottom lip caught between her teeth, and I almost lose the thread right there.
I lower back over her.
I notch myself at her entrance. She's so wet I slide just the tip in without trying.
I pause.
"Brown Eyes."
"Yeah."
"You're staying."
A smile breaks across her whole face. Wide. Real.
"I'm staying."
"Christ, Anna, I love you."
It comes out of me before I know I'm saying it. Her eyes go wide. A tear slips out the corner.
"Luke."
"I'm not asking for it back. I just needed you to know."
"You're a goddamn idiot, if you think I don’t."
"Excuse me."
"I love you too Luke. I have loved you since you held me in that lean-to and didn't tell me we shouldn't."
I drop my forehead to hers. Hold there. Breathe.
"Brown Eyes."
"Yeah."
"I'm gonna make love to my woman now."
"Your woman."
I nod as I sink into her tight pussy I’m gonna enjoy for the rest of my life if she lets me. "Mine." I settle in all the way pausing after one long, slow, deep slide. Until I'm seated and her mouth has fallen open and her eyes are full of me.
"Oh my God, Luke."
I start to move. Still slow. Long pulls. Her ankles cross at the small of my back and her hands go to my shoulders and we find a rhythm we don't have to think about. Her body opens for me like she's been doing this with me for years. Like she's been mine forever and we just hadn't met yet.
"Tell me again."
"That you're mine?"
"Yes."
"You're mine, Anna Kim."
"Yours."
"And I'm yours."
I sit back on my heels and pull her up onto my lap without breaking the seal of us.
She wraps her arms around my neck. Her tits are at my mouth and I take one and she rolls her hips and we stay like that, slow, deep, eye to eye, my hands on her hips and her fingers in my hair, her riding me like a slow song.
"Luke…I'm close."
"I know, baby."
"Come with me, again."
"Always." I slide my hand between us, find her clit, work her in slow circles while she rides me, and she comes apart on my lap with her face tucked into my neck, gasping my name, clenching around me so tight I lose the last of my hold.
I follow her over with her name in my mouth and my arms wrapped tight around her ribs and her heart hammering against my chest.
We breathe.
The fire pops in the stove.
After a long minute, I lift her off me. Lay her down. Deal with the condom. Come back. Pull her against my chest with the quilt up around us.
She tucks her head under my chin, slides her leg over mine, and her hand finds my heart and stays there.
"My eomma’s going to lose her mind."
I bark a laugh. "Because of me?"
"Oh yeah. You're a non-Korean, thirty-eight-year-old cowboy with a sexy beard. The jobumo are going to need smelling salts."
“Jobumo?”
“My grandparents.”
"Should I be worried?"
"Eventually.” She laughs. “But I’ll tell them about it later.” She breathes out, long and slow, and I feel her smile against my chest. "Luke?"
"Yeah, Brown Eyes."
"I found my happy."
I kiss the top of her head and hold her tighter and I do not say anything, because if I open my mouth right now the wrong thing's going to come out, and I've already said I love you tonight, and a man should pace himself.
I just hold her.
I hold her until her breathing slows, until her hand goes loose against my heart, until the fire dies down to embers and the cabin goes quiet and the night settles over us like a blanket.
She's happy.
So am I. Truly. For the first time in seven years. For maybe the first time ever, I smile before drifting to sleep.