Chapter 13
LEXI
Morning sunlight filters through the window, warming my cheek as I swim into consciousness. Someone has pulled the curtains, and through the window, the mountain sits majestic and silent, as if watching over us.
“Morning, beautiful.”
There’s the rattle of plates as Aiden enters the bedroom, bringing with him the smell of fried bacon and fresh coffee. He carries a tray piled high with bacon and scrambled eggs and slices of thick tomato.
My body aches as I sit up in bed, and I blush, remembering all the things we did together last night. Everything apart from have sex.
Aiden places the tray on the side of the bed and swoops in to kiss me. All my embarrassment melts away as my body responds to him. Despite the aches and hunger in my belly, I want more.
“Good morning.” I slide my hand into his sweatpants, and his eyes darken with heat.
Knowing I do that to him fuels my desire, and I grasp his thick length.
“This is what I want for breakfast.”
Giving me a wicked grin, Aiden moves the breakfast tray to the dresser.
“Then eat up.”
He falls on top of me, and we devour each other for breakfast, only moving onto the bacon and eggs once our hunger for each other is sated. But I’m not satisfied. Aiden still refuses to give me the one thing I want, which is all of him.
At first, I thought it was a game, his holding back to tease me. But the more he refuses, the more I believe he’s sincere.
He believes we’re meant to be together. He trusts this connection we have with blind faith. And as I lean forward to swipe bacon grease from his stubble, revealing his one dimple, I wonder if I’m starting to believe it too.
An hour later, we’re back at the property. Aiden has brought his chainsaw, and he heads over to the fallen tree to cut it up for firewood while I head into the house and upstairs. I want to look through my father’s things and try to get a sense of who this man was.
I go straight to the journal I found in his drawer. If anything will tell me about my father, it’s his own words.
A chair sits by the window, positioned to catch the light. I wipe the dust off it and flip the journal to the beginning.
January 1st
The new year brings new snow. A white coat covers the mountain, contrasting with the ocean-blue sky. If I look too hard, my eyes hurt from the glare.
The first few pages are his observations on the landscape around him and the changing seasons.
March 16th
The kestrels are nesting in the big oak tree. Cookie is back and taking over the same hollow as last year.
There’s little mention of other humans. But a passage catches my attention.
April 19th
Joel stopped by today. The retreat opens next week, and he invited me to the opening ceremony. My hands shake thinking about it.
I can barely read the scrawl that the last entry on the page is written in.
April 26th
This morning, I got up early, dressed in my uniform, which I had washed and ironed last week. I pinned my medals to my chest and went downstairs. I made it to the door before the shaking started. So bad I couldn’t turn the doorknob.
I turned around and went upstairs. From the back room, I can see the outbuildings of Jake’s Retreat. I opened the window and could hear Taps playing across the fields.
As the bugle played, I stood to attention and listened from afar.
I rest the notebook on my lap as tears come to my eyes. My father was a recluse, but was it by choice, or was it because of the anxiety he carried?
I pick up the notebook and keep reading. Through May and June, he speaks about the shifting light on the mountain and the birds on his property who seem to be his only companions.
I wonder how many days he spent in this chair watching them from this window.
Another entry catches my eye.
June 30th
There was a man on the property today. Cookie alerted me with a warning squawk as he emerged from the woods. He didn’t appear to be from around here. In a suit and dark glasses. A tourist who lost their way, perhaps?
July 22nd
The man was back. Or perhaps it was a different man. This time in work boots, taking photos in the back field.
But when I went down, he was gone.
August 9th
I had a visitor today. A man in a suit with eyes like a hawk. Someone wants to buy my property. But I’m not selling. Where would I go? And who would take care of Cookie?
We get to September, and my breath catches on the entry for September 18th, my birthday.
I made a trip into town today. I kept my hands in my pockets and ignored the shaking. I went to Sweet a child looking after their parent. She had the means to change it, and she didn’t.
That stops now.
But this anger is not just about the money. I could’ve known my father, the troubled veteran who liked to watch the birds on his land.
My chest aches even as I shake with rage.
“You took something from me, and I’ll never get it back.”
“Sugar plum …”
“No. I don’t want to hear any more shitty excuses. We are done. I’ll pay for you to go to rehab if you want to, but then you’re on your own.”
I hang up the phone, cutting off whatever excuse Mom was about to give me. I’ve spent too long making excuses for her. It’s time to live for myself.
I pick up my father’s notebook with shaking hands and place it on his chair. My gaze shifts to the mountain, silent and still, looking down on me from where it’s stood for thousands of years.
As the rage ebbs, I feel a lightness in my body, and I sag against the window frame. A kestrel swoops past the window, and I wonder if it’s Cookie. My gaze follows the arc of the bird as it lifts into the sky, free.
And my spirits lift with it.
Is it wrong to feel this lightness after I’ve just cut my mother out of my life? Shouldn’t I feel regret, or shame, or sadness? Those feelings are all there, but not as strong as the relief I feel, the freedom of taking control of my own fate.
And I know what that fate is.
Sunlight glints off a roof up the mountain, and it’s as if the mountain is winking at me. I finally get what it’s saying.
I race down the stairs and across the field. Aiden looks up, turns off the chainsaw, and raises his safety glasses.
As I run toward him, he opens his arms, unquestioning.
“I want to stay.” The run has left me breathless and giddy, and I feel lightheaded. “I want to stay with you on the mountain. I’m yours, Aiden. I choose my own fate, and I choose you.”
He spins me around and plants a kiss on my forehead.
“About damn time you realized we’re meant to be together. I’ve got money saved. You don’t need to sell if you don’t want to. We’ll look after your mother …”
I hold up a hand to silence him. “I’ll pay for rehab one time, but that’s all the looking after I’m going to do. She needs to stand on her own two feet.”
“How about your studies?”
“I can finish the rest of my degree online. I looked it up last night,” I add shyly. “Just to see if I could.”
His grin widens. “And the land?”
“I still want to sell, but I’d like Jake’s Retreat to buy it. I want to support the work they’re doing with veterans.”
He pulls me into a hug. “That’s perfect, firefly. Whatever you want, we’ll do it.”
Suddenly, I’m being lifted into the air, and Aiden throws me over his shoulder, which is no mean feat for a girl my size.
“Hey!” I squeal as he strides across the fields and into the woods. “What are you doing?”
“Now that you know you’re mine, I’m going to claim you properly.”
“In the woods?”
“I can’t wait any longer.”