4. Perspective
CHAPTER FOUR
Perspective
P aige sat with a stale bagel and instant coffee at the open window of her parents’ apartment. Never mind the fact that it was almost two in the afternoon; a rocks glass filled to the brim with Caribbean rum and ice was on deck for when she finished her coffee.
Her eyes wandered over the land her folks owned, at what they had built over three decades. They’d bought the place from her grandparents, who’d bought it from their parents, but it wasn’t the epic property it was now when her folks had first purchased it. The barn had been missing the siding on the north-facing exterior wall from a storm that had come through in the late seventies, cracks lined the farmhouse roof, as well as a patch of shingles that had to be replaced. The plumbing had included the original pipes from the rebuild in the 1920s, when the old farmhouse, the homesteading property, had been torn down to make way for something more modern.
She didn’t know what it looked like back then, only that it resulted in an impressive marriage of wilderness and manicured land borne of hard work and loyalty.
Still, to her it was a prison, a wall of mountains and responsibility holding her captive. Beautiful, sure, but claustrophobic.
She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes and letting her other senses take over. She smelled the unmistakable combination of mountain hemlocks and the mustiness of the fields from all the way up there. The town, though cute and not without its charms, didn’t hold a candle to this smell she could place anywhere. It was so unique to west Montana, to the Elkhorns.
She heard the call of a canyon wren in the distance, a call that used to make her hide her head under her pillow in the summers when she’d sleep with the windows open. Now, she let it call to her, willed it to help her answer the question Owen had asked her.
Because prison or not, she couldn’t place why she abhorred the town, the valley that had raised her. Why she couldn’t make it her own.
She’d always been proud of the legacy her mom and dad had built. It just wasn’t her legacy to carry on. But did that mean she had to run from her family just because she didn’t want to inherit the farm?
She cozied up in the armchair by the window, trading her coffee for the glass of rum. What she had to think about required something stronger than what coffee could offer. Sweat dripped down the glass into her lap, leaving a chilly trail of moisture that staved off the heat. It was the same brand of air-conditioning she’d used on super-hot nights in Turks.
She smiled as she sipped the sweet, aromatic liquor, appreciating the slight burn as it slid down her throat, chilly and warm at the same time.
Thinking about Turks, about the farm, brought her back for the umpteenth time to the question Owen had asked her in the truck on their way home the night before. She couldn’t shake it.
This place was decidedly a kind of home she’d never found elsewhere. It always took her back no matter how long she’d been away or how different she’d become, so then what was it about Banberry that shoved her back into the world after a while?
She sighed. It wasn’t the unknown, exotic locales that called to her anymore so much as the small town she’d spent her childhood in pushing her away.
Damn Owen for shaking her beliefs to the core. Because if it wasn’t the world calling to her, could she really answer it by giving herself to it again?
The medicine was the only no-brainer, the one sure thing in the chaos of her thoughts. She loved her practice, the feel of her stethoscope around her shoulders, the way it would swing as she bent down to tickle the children’s tummies, sneaking in a listen to their small, fragile lungs as they squirmed and laughed beneath her healing hands. She missed the importance of her work, of the way she would sleep soundly at night, emotionless and exhausted to the bone, knowing she had done everything in her power to care for those entrusted to her.
Nestled into her parents’ house with its view of everything that had mattered to her as a child, she couldn’t remember a love that had fulfilled her more than medicine, not even travel.
So, what did that mean?
She was no closer to wanting to stay here than she was ready to leave, or motivated to find out what might be next by opening her laptop and getting to work.
In desperate need of a distraction from overthinking her life, she opened her book, a perfectly delightful romance she’d picked up in the airport about a young single mother whose husband was killed in military action. She tried not to imagine her strong, new neighbor, fresh from his own military service, every time she read a line about the protagonist’s “bulging muscles,” or his “steady, strong hands that looked capable of taking Sarah to new heights.”
Only once did she find herself extrapolating from the story, taking a particularly steamy love scene off the page and daydreaming about what she would do with Owen Johnson, hot young Marine, if she had him naked in her room just then. When the heat in her belly sank lower, moisture dampening the lacy panties she wore underneath her cut-off sweats, she threw her book down, frustrated.
Why couldn’t she concentrate? Or at least succumb to the mindless pleasure of reading a good book.
She stood, arching her back, stretching blood back into her upper body, and brought her rum to the window, sipping gingerly on it despite the fact that it had grown lukewarm. So much for her mobile air conditioner.
Penske, her parents’ puppy, was outside, basking in the heat of the evening, his paws outstretched and his ears twitching each time a fly would land on them. Her gaze meandered back over the property, to the main house where her parents lived, where she was raised. She took in the beams on the front porch, remembered her high school crush climbing them till he got to her balcony, only to be met by her father inside the bedroom, having seen the kid coming from a distance. At the time she’d been mortified, but now she could only laugh at the memory. She heard a while back that the kid who’d made the climb had gone on to use those skills on the North Slope of Alaska as an oil rigger. He’d been one of the few from their graduating class to make it out of Montana, along with his sister, a semi-professional rock climber.
Did it count as making it out if she’d never settled down anywhere, even if she’d never called Montana home after college? So many questions plagued her, and she attributed her unease to the handsome though unnerving stranger next door.
Her sights wandered to where his property line began and her folks’ ended. The tall grass between their properties on his side needed to be maintained.
Movement just beyond the grasses piqued her interest. Owen’s screen door opened and he came out, wearing only a tight white undershirt and jeans. Paige took in a long, slow breath, appreciating the coil of muscles under his shirt work as he dragged over a wicker chair to the edge of the porch. He sat down and propped his feet up on the railing.
Paige jumped back a foot, spilling a sip of rum on her shirt, when he looked right at her window, a crooked smile on his face. He waved once, clearly having caught her staring. Her cheeks burned with heat and her stomach flipped over.
“Shit,” she muttered, dabbing at the wasted alcohol on her shirt. She waved back, a tight smile on her lips, muttering a few more obscenities when he rose from his seat, retrieved a couple beers from a cooler she hadn’t seen tucked under the railing, and walked her direction. He crossed the property line without even a pause in the grasslands as she affectionately referred to them.
“Damn, damn, damn,” she hissed, pulling back from the window, tearing off her soiled bed shirt, and finding a cute blue tank to slip into instead. Appraising her sweat shorts, she opted to change those as well and tugged on a pair of jeans that fit her snugly. She raked her hands through her hair, glad that it still had some of the product in it from the night before and stood back to look in the mirror.
She thought about throwing on a light layer of makeup but didn’t want to look like she was trying too hard. She settled for a quick touch-up of mascara instead. Satisfied, she slid into a black pair of sandals she’d found on the island made from rubber tires and twine and headed down the stairs.
Just as she opened the door to the apartment, he headed up the walk. Her breath stopped in her chest, trapped by her inability to move, to exhale even.
She’d underestimated how handsome he was up close in such casual clothes, especially those that showed off the results of his career in the military.
The muscles in his shoulder contracted as he handed her one of the beers, somehow unlatching the gate with his hand that held the beer he’d brought for himself.
She imagined that move being used to remove the lacy bra she’d donned underneath her tank, and despite her best efforts not to blush, heat singed her cheeks. Luckily, it was still warm enough she could blame the color on the abnormal heat trapped in the valley.
Thank God she was leaving before the winter hit—she’d have no excuse for her body’s visceral reaction to him, then.
“Thanks.” She took the ice-cold longneck from him, leaned the top towards him to toast. “Cheers to your new farm.”
They clinked bottles, each taking a swig of the beer, each trying to figure out what to say next. She wondered if the same surge of electricity branded him the way it did her.
“No one told me starting back up a farm in Montana in late summer was a fool’s errand. Or suicide. I haven’t decided which, yet.”
“This isn’t normal. Like ten degrees above normal, more like it.”
She put the beer to her forehead to cool it down, acutely aware of the way his gaze took in all of her. He only paused to follow a bead of sweat from the glass that traveled down her cheek. His hand flinched, like he was fighting the urge to wipe it clean. Sure, it would be a horrible idea, but she still wished he’d give in to that urge, see where it would lead.
Not that she’d let him know that. Her cheeks were red enough as it was.
“That’s what I hear, but I’m wondering why no one bothered to tell me that when I came to check out the place. I might have rethought my exit strategy from the Corps. Like maybe ranching in Phoenix. I hear it’s cool down there this time of year.” They both laughed.
The conversation with this man was easy, light. Comfortable.
Except her body threatened to stop listening to her mind altogether and throw herself at him. Sheer will kept her steady.
“Well, for one, I wasn’t here, or I would have. Plus, they probably took one look at you and figured you knew what you were doing. If I didn’t know about your time in the Marines, I would’ve assumed you were born and bred on a farm.”
She hoped that didn’t come out the way it sounded in her head. Like she’d been caught staring at the pec muscles that flexed under his shirt.
Even though she was. Shamelessly.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean by that, but I’ll take it as a compliment from someone who actually was born and raised on a farm.” She flushed crimson again, sipped at her beer to hide it. “As long as you don’t mean I look like I stepped in cow shit, or anything like that.”
He tossed her an easy smile and her skin tingled, cool in the warm breeze.
“So,” she said, trying to steer the conversation to more benign territory, “why did you choose farming? It isn’t easy, and the money’s crap on a good year.”
He kicked at an aspen stump Paige herself had trimmed that time last year when she’d been home.
“I don’t know. I knew I wanted to get some land, use my body while I still can.” He paused to sip his beer, and she thought of ways he could use his body that would have mortified her if he could read her mind. “But to be honest, it all seemed kinda romantic.”
Chills trickled up her spine despite the heat.
“Romantic? I’ve heard of farming called a lot of things—dirty, tough, impossible, back-breaking, maybe—but never romantic.” She nudged his hips, teasing him.
“Yeah, I know all that’s true, too, more than I care to admit.”
He took off his ball cap and ran his hands through his hair. Paige was secretly thrilled to find that the curls springing from underneath the fabric were soft waves above. She wanted her hands to slide through his hair, grabbing fistfuls of it…
Paige shook her head, trying in vain to erase the ridiculous thoughts of her new neighbor in some sort of compromising position.
“But truthfully,” he continued, looking out over the land now wrapped in darkness, “think about it—the early mornings with just you and the land that survives based on the work you put into it, the fog rolling over the valley that most people sleep through, the sun on my back when I’m in the fields, lemonade in the summer on my porch, the one I build back from matchsticks to a formidable deck, looking out over every inch of my farm knowing it’s mine , that I made it, that no one can take it from me. Seeing the progress I make as I make it. It’s the most real thing I’ve ever done. How’s that not romantic?”
Without thinking, Paige closed the three feet of warm space between them and wrapped her arms around Owen, squeezing tightly. She all but had to jump to do it, but it felt right, his body against hers.
“What was that for?” he asked when she pulled away.
“I don’t know, to be honest. I was halfway to hating you, since you kept me up all night thinking about being pushed or pulled through life. But you’ve just made me see my home for so much more than I’ve ever been able to, and I’m grateful.”
She was embarrassed by her sudden display of emotion.
That is, until Owen smiled, showing off perfect teeth and, Paige noticed, dimples that rivaled Shirley Temple’s. Then she was back to pure, unadulterated appreciation.
Goddamn, he was a fine-looking specimen.
“Well, I’d have gone shouting that from the rooftops if I thought it would have earned a hug from you earlier.”
Paige laughed. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve, uh, been known for my spontaneity.”
“How’s that working out for you?” Owen looked down at Paige and smiled. She breathed him in, catching the scent of sawdust and sweat, not unlike her brother when he worked with her dad, but more… musky, manly. It made her dizzy.
“Good, so far,” she said.
It was innocent enough, but how long had it been since a man had unabashedly flirted with her?
Had made her feel special, attractive?
It felt good . Bordering on dangerous.
“Can I ask you a question?” she added, looking up at him from underneath her lashes.
“I dunno, can you?”
“Ha ha,” she said, her voice light, but serious. “I want to know why you got out. Of the Marines, I mean. Don’t you get to retire if you do twenty years?”
“You do. But I got forced out. Medical retirement.”
Owen’s shoulders tightened as he spoke.
“I’m sorry. Was it, you know, over there?”
“My injury?” he asked.
She nodded, noticing the shift in mood.
“Yeah. Humvee accident. Do you know what an IED is?”
“One of those bombs they hide in the road?” Paige asked.
“Those are the ones. Well, they got to be easy to find, so the Afghanis got better at hiding them. Could be a Coke can on the side of the road, or it could be the grisly end of a tank. We missed one and it lit us up. Like Fourth of July kind of fireworks, but not as pretty. I was one of the lucky ones, but it gave me this.”
He lifted his shirt and she saw a long lightning bolt-shaped scar along his shoulder, several branches leading off towards his bicep and spine.
She shivered.
“And the others?”
He rubbed his thumb along a black bracelet, a straight metal band that wound around his wrist bearing three names that Paige could see, along with dates.
They were all from the same year she’d been in Turks.
Her hands trembled as she made the connection.
He’d been through so much she would never understand, that most people would never understand. And yet he was there, beside her, strong and able and healing, at least on the outside. The rest she’d never fully know, would she? She placed a hand on the bracelet, biting her cheek to fight back tears. He looked down at her, a thin smile on his lips that didn’t reach his eyes, a sadness behind them.
“So, uh, enough about me,” Owen said, clearing his throat and taking a sip of his beer, “tell me about you.”
Paige lifted her hand, used it to bring her bottle to her mouth and take a long drink, feeling it warm her back up in places she’d gone cold the past few minutes. Her hands steadied.
“What would you like to know? I’m a pretty open book.”
“Let’s start with your answer to the question I asked you last night. Since it kept you up all night, I’m curious about where you land. Is it push or pull?”
Paige blew out a puff of air and made a “whoooo” sound that echoed over the fields.
“That’s a tall order. You got plans tonight, Johnson?”
He let out a deep chuckle and her stomach stirred with lust. It might get her into trouble later, but at that moment, Paige wanted to be as close to the cowboy as she could get.
Let her conscience deal with it tomorrow. Tonight, she wanted to have a little fun.