Chapter 15
They dropped Arnauld at the house he shared with three other smokejumpers just at the edge of the base. In the distance, they could just make out a line of fixed-wing aircrafts all strung with lights.
“Time travel magic isn’t a thing,” said Stephan.
“That you know of, and y’all admitted you don’t know much.”
Stephan snorted. “Doesn’t make sense. Too many paradoxes.”
“Hate to break it to you, but nothing about what y’all do makes sense. That’s why it’s magic.” Then he clapped the top of the door and said, “Safe driving.”
When they finally reached I-90, Hayleigh felt a lurch of déjà vu.
She’d traveled this same stretch of road the first time she’d gone to Eucharist—her team from Goshen all sandwiched together in a single Suburban.
She’d been new, eager to prove she was a part of the group, and she shifted uncomfortably as she recalled some of the jokes and comments she’d been forced to laugh off.
At first, she’d kept her distance and tried to maintain a sense of propriety, beginning with all their after-hours outings.
When she’d overheard the nickname they’d given her because of it, she loosened up—not wanting to compromise her future by being perceived as difficult.
Not to mention, they’d often show up at meetings having discussed something critical at the bar, leaving her out entirely.
But she spent those nights on the outside of her body, guiding herself as if from the end of marionette strings, playing the part of “friendly enough not to be shrewish but not so friendly as to give the wrong idea.” Because if she’d ever even given the impression of returning their flirtations, the nicknames they’d start using would have been even worse.
It had been exhausting.
“What’re you thinking about over there?”
She snapped out of her head, glancing at Stephan. “Nothing,” she said, eyes sweeping over the golden prairies of Eastern Washington. “Just about how far these fields go in every direction.”
“It’s weird, right?” he said, drumming the steering wheel. “We woke up in the mountains, and we’ll be back in ’em by the end of the day. There’s not many places like this—where you can drive through so many landscapes in such a small time. You ever been down to the Channeled Scablands?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He nodded out the window. “Well, they’re near Moses Lake, and they look like a kid stuck their fingers in the ground and just dragged ’em around. I wish we had time for a side trip because they’re not that far off 90—”
“But we don’t.”
“I know, I know. Just wishing I could show them to you. They’re a hell of a sight.”
“Hmm,” she said. Quiet settled between them and threatened to leave her to the train of thought she’d been traveling on before. Trying to avoid that, she said, “So is it really okay you’re taking these days off?”
“Oh yeah. One of the other carvers was happy for the extra hours. Like I said before, I’m probably the easiest person on the whole staff to replace. Not the best carver, not the best salesman…”
“And is that good enough for you?” He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow, and she realized how it had come out. “Maybe I could have phrased that better.”
“It’s okay, I’m getting used to your resting judgy tone.”
She snort laughed. “My what?”
“I don’t mean it in a bad way. I like that you don’t filter yourself.
Means I always know where I’m at with you.
Now, ‘is this good enough for me’…?” He scratched his chin in thought.
“I’d say this is working for me. Not being essential has its perks.
Like being able to do things like this and take off into the backcountry for weeks.
Sal only really needs me full time seasonally, and spring and fall are slow. ”
“Is that what you plan to do for the rest of your life?” She tried to temper her “resting judgy tone,” unsure if she had succeeded.
He shrugged. “I don’t have a plan.”
She scoffed. “Everyone has some kind of plan.”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Goals? Aspirations?”
“Not really, and I prefer it that way.”
She could tell he was lying. It wasn’t hard to spot. In a man so easy and open, the change was obvious. His smile didn’t reach his eyes, and he blinked rapidly. When he spotted her looking at him, he rubbed his nose, and then she was sure of it.
“Well,” she said, settling back against her seat, “it seems we’ve solved why you’re single.”
His brows pressed together. “We talked about that…”
She snorted. “Maybe it’s your small-town lack of options, or maybe when women look at you, they see a man with no direction, who doesn’t know what he wants, and they don’t want to sit around while you figure it out. Not if they’re looking for someone to build a life with.”
He frowned, a crack running through that perpetually chill and cheerful mask he maintained—because she was sure it was a mask. People who rarely expressed negative feelings were, in her observation, having to work hard not to be swallowed by them.
“You mean if they’re looking for someone to build a life for them?”
She crossed her arms. “That’s not what I said.”
“Then answer me this—if a woman’s got her own direction, why does she need mine?”
“She needs someone who can keep up.”
At that, he chuckled with a wry grin. “I can keep up, Sunshine—trust me.” His voice curled low. “And just because I don’t have a plan doesn’t mean I don’t go after what I want when I see it.”
His eyes landed on her. Her stomach gave a buck, and she looked out the window, trying to control the burning in her cheeks.
When she finally looked back, he was rubbing his left shoulder and then up through his neck—the same area he’d massaged a few times before—and there was a pained squint in his eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“Just a bit of a headache,” he said as he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a bottle of extra-strength Excedrin. His hands shook, rattling the pills.
“A ‘bit’ of one, huh? And do headaches generally spread to shoulders?”
He grinned as he popped two of the pills and swallowed them dry. “Kind of a package deal here.”
“If you need a break from driving, we can change out.”
“I might take you up on that, at least until the pills do their thing. You comfortable handling something this big?”
“I can handle big.” As soon as the words came out, she regretted them. She scrambled to add, “I learned to drive in an Escalade.”
He chuckled as he pulled off the highway and onto a bumpy gravel turnout. “Well, now, that is big.”
She relaxed a little as she unclipped her seat belt and opened the passenger door.
“I also drove a Suburban down this exact stretch of road once. Back from Eucharist, actually. I was the only one who wasn’t too hungover from celebrating the Shepherd’s Summit deal to drive us home.
” He gave her a look that asked for more explanation, and she said, “When you’re the only woman on a team full of men, there are limits to what you participate in and how you participate. ”
“I believe it,” he murmured, voice soft. They met at the front of the car, and he stopped to stare down at her. She did not like the pity shrouding his gaze.
“God, I’m not saying I was oppressed or something.
” She pushed past him toward the driver’s seat.
It was pushed comically far back. Even if she stretched her feet as far as they could go, she’d barely touch her toes to the pedals.
Fumbling with the lever, she slid her way forward with a lurch.
The truck was old enough that everything was manual—except for the transmission, thank God.
As he climbed in beside her, she said, “There are just rules of decorum that make sense when you mix men and women…”
“Of course,” said Stephan. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out an unlabeled bottle of off-white cream, smearing it into the area he was rubbing before. “You were just being professional.”
“I was,” said Hayleigh, pushing her hair back from her face and exhaling noisily as she gripped the steering wheel hard enough to make the muscles of her hands zing. “I was just being professional.”
You said a thing enough times, and with repetition, it became true.