12. Holland
Chapter twelve
Holland
The latch hadn’t caught. I put my hand to the door. The door swung inward, admitting me without so much as a knock.
So much for the entrance I’d rehearsed during the drive.
Cal rose from the leather chair before the door cleared the jamb. He must have heard the Subaru on the gravel. For an instant, he looked ready to meet me halfway; then he stopped beside the woodstove, hands at his sides.
Smoke trotted across the rug before leaning against my shin. His allegiance, at least, required no discussion.
I scratched behind his ears. I looked at Cal.
Three days. I had planned several openings around that number, each devastating. None survived the sight of Cal.
The cabin wasn’t the one I’d constructed in my head. The walls bore pale drawknife marks. One arm of the chair had been rubbed smooth. His guitar sat inside its closed case rather than on the stand.
A photograph on the side table showed a dark-haired woman I recognized as his mother. Beyond the photograph, on a low workbench, lay the frame of a cradle: two curved rockers, a row of fitted slats, one unfinished end. I looked away before curiosity could become trespass.
I took off my barn jacket, then hung the coat by the door. My bag landed on the kitchen table hard enough to spill the corner of my quote journal. A handwritten line showed against the cheap black cover.
Cal read the line. I saw his eyes move.
For four months, I had read every available account of him. One accidental sentence of mine felt indecent.
“Three days,” I said.
“No.”
Just agreement. No excuse waiting behind the answer.
“I told you the truth I’d been carrying for four months.
I told you after we slept together, which was the worst possible order.
I know that. I knew the timing was wrong while I was speaking.
” My rehearsed speech had already begun shedding parts.
“Then you said you weren’t sorry. You put your hand on mine. I thought—”
I stopped before the sentence reached whatever foolish destination I had assigned.
“Then you disappeared. I came out here to learn whether you were figuring out how to keep me or how to let me down nicely. I’ve had the nice version. I don’t recommend that approach.”
His weight shifted forward. “I wasn’t deciding how to leave.”
“Then what were you doing?”
He crossed to the kitchen counter, planting his palms on the surface. He had used the same gesture at the Pine Needle when I first said Mallick mine appears on the case file. Of course you saw a threat when you looked at me.”
His mouth tightened.
“But now you’re treating us as part of the same threat. As if every time I get close to you, I’m also getting closer to the story. Those choices aren’t the same.”
“Aren’t they?”
The question landed cleanly.
“You came to Copper Creek looking for me,” he said. “You found me. You got close. Now you’re standing in my house. The story still belongs to you. From where I’m standing, that’s one choice wearing two coats.”
For once, my mind offered no immediate rebuttal.
I had made the same accusation against myself at two in the morning. He’d managed the accusation in fewer words, without emptying half a bottle of grocery-store cabernet.
“I made the choice about us,” I said. “I haven’t made the choice about the story.”
His gaze stayed on me.
“I came here because I love you.”
The stove gave a small iron tick.
Smoke’s collar tags chimed as he lowered his head to the rug. Wind moved through the ponderosas outside. I could hear the faint complaint of a branch against the roof.
Cal released the counter, but his feet remained where they were.
There was the statement I had omitted from every rehearsal because I hadn’t known the declaration belonged in the argument. I had spoken with no useful caveat or provision for retreat.
My vision blurred. I kept my chin level. I had learned long ago how to contain tears until a meeting ended, a source left, or a door locked. But I didn’t hide from him.
He looked stricken, though not in the way I’d feared. More like a man handed a fragile gift without warning, afraid acceptance might cause the gift to shatter.
He didn’t say the words back.
Some part of me had known he wouldn’t. He was not there yet or couldn’t say the words aloud.
Then he crossed the kitchen.
I had always been the one to close the distance. At the Pine Needle, I’d touched his forearm. At Stillwater, I’d put my palm to his chest to make the question plain. If a distance needed closing, I closed the gap.
This time Cal came to me.
He cupped my jaw, tipping my face toward his. His attention stayed on my eyes. The pause was brief but sufficient.
I kissed him.
Apparently I still had jurisdiction over the final inch.
His hands slid beneath me, lifting me onto the counter. Cold enamel bit through my jeans.
“Cold.”
“I know.”
“You could pretend to be sorry.”
“I could.”
He wasn’t.
I caught the front of his shirt to pull him back between my knees.
The argument had left both of us keyed too high for grace.
We kissed with the blunt urgency of people verifying each other’s continued existence.
His mouth opened against mine, tasting of coffee.
I answered with the same hunger. My hands slipped under the flannel to the warm skin of his back.
He made a low sound before pressing closer, the hard length of him evident even through our clothes.
I talked. I always did. Once, a man had taught me to apologize for talking too much. I had since rescinded the apology. “I missed this. Missed you. Three days felt like—”
Cal answered in his spare vocabulary: yeah, my name, then a low instruction when I tried to hurry him. “Holland. Slow.”
His hands tightened on my hips. One slid beneath my sweater, palm spanning my rib cage, thumb brushing the underside of my breast. I arched into the touch, wanting more of his heat against the cabin’s chill.
“Come on,” I said, though I wasn’t sure whether I meant hurry or simply more of him.
He lifted me down without asking our destination, but he didn’t let go.
We reached the bedroom through cooperation rather than coordination, still kissing, shedding layers as we went.
At the doorway, he slowed. The woodstove’s glow didn’t reach this far back; the only light came through a narrow gap beneath the hall door.
Cold leaked from the east window, raising gooseflesh on my newly bared skin.
Cal pulled off his flannel, followed by the henley beneath.
The daisy chain lay over his heart: four fine-lined flowers linked at their stems. I had seen the tattoo before yet had resisted, with great difficulty, asking what the design meant.
I placed my palm over the tattoo, feeling the strong, steady beat beneath.
He stopped.
The ink belonged to him, the same way the semicolon on my skin belonged to me. I had taken enough of his history without permission. He could explain the tattoo when he chose. Silence was also his choice.
His hand covered mine, pressing my palm gently against his chest.
“Holland.”
No words followed. He said my name as if the two syllables contained more than he could manage separately.
I understood. That understanding hurt in a way no declaration could.
I reached for the button of his jeans. He let me, watching my face the entire time.
Then he helped me with mine, kneeling to ease them down my legs, his mouth following the path of fabric with warm kisses along my inner thigh.
I stepped out of them, then removed the rest. He stood before shedding what remained.
We were both naked now, in the dim cold of his bedroom. I took him in: the lean muscle earned from work rather than display, the scars I hadn’t asked about, the way he looked at me like I was a treasure he had never expected to hold, one he was determined not to drop.
“Slower,” I said. “I want you to go slower.”
He did.
He guided me back onto the bed. The sheets were cool against my skin. He followed, covering me with his warmth. His care was not theatrical. He didn’t handle me as if I might break. He didn’t try to prove any point. He simply paid attention.