Chapter 3 #2
“Those words. What language is that?” I call after him.
I scoop up my notebook and run beside him. The air smells like iron and sage, a storm close enough to taste.
He shakes his head. “Never mind.”
Inside the barn, the light is dull, amber slats filtered through boards. Dust motes float like prayers. “You should go,” he warns. But I don’t want to, not until I know what happens to the baby. He sets the calf on a bed of hay, his breath ragged, jaw clenched against the pain in his own torn arm.
“Grandpa would’ve shot him,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he says. “But some things deserve a fighting chance.”
He kneels, presses his broad palm over the wound. A low hum starts—not the mountain, not the wind. It’s him.
The air trembles. For a heartbeat, the veins beneath his skin flare silver-blue, the same glow that crawls through his tattoos.
I stare, mouth dry, pretending it’s a trick of light.
The calf shivers, then stills. Blood flow slows, flesh knitting beneath his hand until only a pale scar remains. When he draws back, his own gash is gone too.
I catch his wrist before he can turn away. “Your arm?—”
He jerks free. “Old ranch trick.”
“It was bleeding a minute ago.”
“Guess it changed its mind.”
Our eyes lock.
“You won’t remember,” he says, somewhere between hypnotism and imperative.
For a brief moment, my mind blurs at the edges. Like something’s trying to scrape over it. I shake my head, break the hold.
His eyes flare with something between fear and curiosity. Like he’s been caught … like maybe he wants to be.
The hum doesn’t stop—it builds, low and steady, thrumming through the hay, through the space between us. I reach to smooth the calf’s ear, but my fingers brush his instead. Sparks. Literal sparks—tiny filaments of light leap from skin to skin.
I gasp, eyes meeting his, alive with fire, wonder, and the flicker of fear.
He inhales sharply, blinks hard like he can’t believe his vision. For a heartbeat, neither of us moves—the whole barn seems to listen.
“Don’t,” he whispers, but his mouth finds mine anyway, a collision of breath and heat and thunder waiting to break.
Sparks sizzle across my skin, incandescence lighting the air where we touch.
My eyes flicker to the sparks like tiny fireflies humming around the barn.
His big hand rises, cups my cheek, vibration trembling through him as he takes my mouth again, sweeping into me.
Sealing some ancient pact I don’t understand, but need more than breath or heartbeat.
Lightning flashes through the open loft window, and he’s on his feet, shaking, furious at himself.
“You should go, Melody.”
My name on his lips is a warning and a prayer.
I rise, stumble back, breathless, mouth tingling with him. The air is charged—alive—the barn vibrating like it remembers what just happened. My fingers brush my lips, half expecting to see light spill from my skin.
“Right,” I manage, though my voice sounds far away, not mine at all.
Outside, the storm has broken. Rain hammers the roof, wind howls through the eaves, and somewhere in that noise I swear I can still hear the vibration— his hum —threading through it, calling me back.
I run anyway, through mud and thunder and the ache in my chest that feels older than my bones.
Behind me, lightning splits the sky, and for an instant his silhouette flashes against it—head bowed, shoulders shaking, as if the storm itself is breaking through him.
Wind threads through wires, pushing me along as I sprint for the ranch house. I have to forget how Maveryk’s lips wrecked mine. How my heartbeat answered. Another kind of tempest building.
Patterns surround me as I near the porch. The snort of a horse, the steady pump of my heart, the pitter-patter of rain. Inside, I hear the hiss of the radio. Then, silence. Grandpa has a headache, decides to lie down for a nap.
Grandma hums an old hymn. Can’t place the name, but the tune somehow matches the low note of the range.
The distant Starborn Mountains shimmer near the cloud line, storm swirling around them. Like they have their own weather. Thunder rolls, a flash of lightning, the eerie range alive with energy. Dangerous. Guarded.
“Then, why do they sound so beautiful?” I whisper under my breath.
Glowing flesh, healing wound, sparks flying. I doubt my own sanity, grabbing my laptop to search WebMD. Are these stress hallucinations? Something more sinister?
But I have no signal, not even with my hotspot. My fingers find my lips, re-tracing the heat of the cowboy’s mouth. Only now the vibration is inside me, too.
I shake my head, come up with a thousand excuses. Try to rationalize the impossible, finding no sanity in logic. Realizing the only thing that could restore my peace of mind is him—the man who stole it.
The house dims, and Grandma flicks on lights. We stand shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen, preparing a simple dinner of bread, cold cuts, thick slices of cheese, and mustard. Grandpa stays upstairs, the pressure of the unending storm tightening around his head like a vise.
“You look a thousand miles away.”
“Light years,” I answer, corners of my mouth tilting up.
The rest of the evening is a blur, blood heated, still sparking with whatever energy that man possesses. Focus distilled down to Maveryk’s closeness, and the sting behind my eyes when he told me to go.
The music on the cowboy’s skin, the glow of his tattoos, the distant mountains that reflect everything swirling inside. All tell me to leave the ranch, go back to city life. Maybe it’s time to listen. Before I lose it for good.
I pack my bags, mind wandering to the disappointment that will pain Grandma and Grandpa’s faces when I tell them I’m leaving. But I can’t stay here a moment longer, not with my grip on reality slipping.
I sleep fitfully, tossing and turning, thinking up a thousand ways to say goodbye before I’ve really had the chance to make amends. And wondering how I’ll ever forgive myself for departing after that otherworldly kiss.
Finally, the worry fades away…
Blackness crowds like an inky pool. Stuck somewhere between dream and wakefulness, a vision wraps me tight.
I stand at the bedroom window, curtains billowing and swirling as I look down.
Maveryk lingers below, chest bare, tattoos pulsing and flickering, like some ancient language that shouldn’t exist. A memory I almost understand.
When I rise the next morning, everything is back in place. The way it should be. Sky unbroken blue, sun shining, mist enveloping the distant mountains as if they might be forgotten. No trace of the cowboy.
Had to be a dream.
But the curtains still stir. And the window—wide open—isn’t how I left it.
Outside, faint and low, the mountain reverberates.