4. Ellie
— ? —
Ellie
Two weeks after the vanity, two weeks of him leaving before I wake and coming in after I’m asleep, he wakes me at five and says get dressed and won’t say why.
I’m still half asleep when I pull on jeans and a flannel and follow him out to the barn, where two horses are already saddled and waiting.
The sky is still dark and the air is cold and I have no idea what we’re doing, but Jacob’s jaw is set the way it gets when he’s made a decision and doesn’t want to talk about it, and his hands are restless on the reins, adjusting them over and over even though they don’t need adjusting.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
We ride north for an hour, past fences I know and into a section of the ranch I’ve never been to.
The sun comes up while we’re riding, turning the sky pink and orange, and I watch Jacob’s back in front of me and think about the last two weeks.
Daphne in her wing, mostly, but I can feel her in the house.
I can hear her doors opening and closing at odd hours.
I can smell her perfume in the hallways, that expensive jasmine scent that lingers long after she’s gone.
And every time I walk into a room, I find myself checking for her first, making sure she’s not there, making sure I’m not about to be ambushed by that smile.
Jacob’s been trying, in the way he tries. He comes to bed after I’m asleep and I wake to his hand on my hip, and some nights he wakes me the rest of the way and fucks me until I can’t think straight, and in the morning he’s gone. But he still hasn’t said it.
The land changes as we ride, the pastures giving way to rougher country, scrub brush and rock outcroppings and old oaks with branches that twist toward the sky. I’ve never been out this far. I didn’t even know this part of the ranch existed, and I’ve been living here for almost a year.
We come to a bend in a creek under a stand of old oaks where the water goes clear and slow over rock, pooling in places deep enough to swim. Jacob dismounts and ties his horse to a low branch and then comes to help me down, his hands lingering on my waist longer than they need to.
“I’ve never brought anyone here,” he says.
I look around. It’s beautiful. Quiet and green and completely hidden from the rest of the world, a place you could disappear into and never be found.
The water is so clear I can see the rocks on the bottom, smooth and pale, and there are wildflowers growing along the bank, yellow and purple and white.
“I used to come here as a kid,” he says, not looking at me. “When the house got loud.”
That’s all he says, and I don’t push.
He builds a fire in a ring of stones that’s clearly been used before, blackened and worn smooth.
He pulls supplies from his saddlebag: eggs, a pan, a canteen of water, a blanket that he spreads on the ground near the fire.
He cooks the eggs badly, breaking the yolks and leaving them runny in the middle, flipping them too late and then overcorrecting until they’re a rubbery, oversalted mess.
“You’re still a terrible cook,” I tell him, scraping the eggs onto my tin plate.
“Eat your eggs.”
“They’re rubbery.”
“They’re firm.”
“They’re oversalted.”
“That’s flavor.”
I eat them anyway, sitting cross-legged on the blanket with my plate in my lap, and I watch him eat his standing up because he can never seem to sit still, pacing around the fire and poking at it with a stick and looking out at the water.
“Tell me about your aunt,” he says, and I almost drop my fork.
He’s never asked. In almost a year of marriage, he’s never once asked about Aunt June, even though he knows she raised me, even though he knows she’s the reason I am who I am. I’ve mentioned her in passing, little things, but he’s never pushed, and I’ve never offered.
“What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you want to tell me.”
I set my plate down and pull my knees up to my chest and look at the fire instead of at him.
“She made cookies every Sunday,” I say. “Sugar cookies with lemon glaze. She said it was her mother’s recipe, and her mother’s mother’s before that.
She used to let me help, even when I was little, even when I made a mess.
She’d put me on a stool at the counter and let me stir the dough and she’d pretend I was doing it right even when I wasn’t. ”
Jacob doesn’t say anything. He just stands there with his stick in his hand and listens.
“She put rosemary in everything. Rosemary chicken, rosemary potatoes, rosemary bread. She said rosemary was for remembrance, and she wanted to remember everything. She had this little herb garden by the front steps, just rosemary and basil and mint, and she’d go out every morning and touch the plants and talk to them.
I used to think she was crazy. Now I do it too, with the garden here.
I go out and touch the tomatoes and tell them they’re doing a good job. ”
I laugh, a little, and it comes out wet.
“She waxed those floors on her hands and knees every month. Said a woman’s house should shine.
Said you could tell everything about a person by how they kept their home.
She kept hers perfect, even when she was sick, even at the end.
I’d come home from school and find her on the floor with the wax and I’d yell at her to stop and she’d tell me to mind my business and keep waxing. ”
My voice cracks and I stop talking and Jacob is there, suddenly, sitting beside me on the blanket, his hand on my back.
“She sounds like a hell of a woman,” he says.
“She was.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “She was everything. She was the only family I had.”
“You’ve got me now.”
I look at him, and his face is open in a way it almost never is, soft and unguarded.
“You’re the only family I’ve got,” he says. “You’re all of it.”
My chest gets tight.
He pulls me into his arms and holds me, and I breathe him in, hay and smoke and horse and him, and I think about how much I love him and how much it hurts that he can’t say it back.
He tips my chin up and kisses me, slow and deep, and the kiss goes on and on, his tongue sliding against mine, his hands sliding under my flannel and up my back. I arch into him and feel how hard he is against my hip and I want him, right here, right now, in this place nobody knows about.
“I want you,” he says against my mouth. “Right here.”
“Someone could see.”
“No one comes here. No one knows about this place.” His hand slides down to the button of my jeans. “Just us.”
He undresses me slowly, piece by piece. The flannel first, then the tank top underneath, then my bra, then my jeans, then my underwear. He lays me back on the blanket and just looks, his eyes tracing over my body, taking in every inch of me in the morning sun.
I don’t feel shy. I never feel shy with him. I spread my legs and let him look and watch his jaw go tight and his hands curl into fists at his sides.
“Fuck, Ellie.”
“That’s the idea.”
He doesn’t laugh. He’s too far gone for laughing.
He strips off his shirt and I watch his muscles move under his skin, watch his hands go to his belt, watch him shove his jeans down his hips.
His cock springs free, hard and thick, and I reach for him but he catches my wrist and pins it to the blanket above my head.
“My turn first,” he says, and he kisses his way down my body.
He takes his time. He always takes his time when we’re like this, when there’s no rush and nowhere to be.
He kisses my throat, my collarbone, the curve of my breast. He takes one nipple into his mouth and sucks until I’m squirming, then does the same to the other.
He kisses down my stomach, his tongue tracing patterns on my skin, and then he’s between my thighs and his mouth is on me and I cry out, the sound echoing off the water.
He eats me out slow and thorough, licking me from bottom to top, circling my clit with his tongue and then pulling back, making me chase it.
He slides one finger inside me, then two, curling them just right while he sucks on my clit, and I’m fisting the blanket and saying his name and not caring how loud I am, because there’s nobody out here to hear it but him.
I come with his fingers inside me and his mouth on my clit, my back arching off the blanket, my thighs clamping around his head. He doesn’t stop. He keeps going, keeps licking, keeps fucking me with his fingers, and I come again, harder this time, sobbing his name into the morning air.
“My turn,” I say when I can speak again, and I push him onto his back.
He goes, letting me take control, his hands loose at his sides, his cock standing straight up and leaking. I straddle him and take his cock in my hand and position myself over him and sink down slow, inch by inch, watching his face while I take him in.
His jaw goes tight and his hands come up to grip my hips, but he doesn’t thrust, doesn’t take over.
He lets me set the pace, and I ride him slow, then fast, then slow again, my hands on his chest, my head thrown back, the sun warm on my face.
I can hear the water and the birds and the crackle of the fire, and I can feel him inside me, filling me up, and I think: this.
This is what I want. This is all I’ve ever wanted.
I ride him until we’re both panting, until his fingers are digging into my hips hard enough to bruise, until he’s saying my name over and over.
I reach down and rub my clit while I fuck him and I come a third time, clenching around him, and he follows me over with a groan, his hips jerking up into me, his cock pulsing inside me.
I collapse on his chest and we lie there in the sun, sweaty and satisfied, his hand stroking up and down my spine.
“Swim?” he asks after a while.
“God, yes.”
We swim in the creek, naked and laughing, splashing each other. The water is cold and clear and perfect, and when we get out we lie on the blanket and let the sun dry us, and I feel happier than I’ve felt in weeks.
We ride in at noon, sunburned and satisfied, his hand reaching over to squeeze my thigh whenever we’re close enough. I lean into him when our horses are side by side and he catches my hand and kisses the back of it and I think: maybe it’s going to be okay. Maybe this is enough.
At the barn, Jenna is waiting with her apron balled up in one fist and her eyes on the ground.
“Miss Long wants the chef at seven from now on, and yours held till he’s done with hers,” she says, not meeting my eyes. “She says she eats late. And she wants the pool heated.”
I look at Jacob. He’s unsaddling his horse, his back to me, his hands working the buckles.
“Fine,” he says. “Whatever she needs.”
I stare at his back. Fine? Whatever she needs?
“She’s doing it on purpose, Jacob. The dinner. The pool. She’s seeing what you’ll give her.”
“She wants the pool warm. That’s all that is.”
He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t see my face. He just keeps unsaddling his horse, and I stand there holding my reins and tell myself it’s nothing.
It’s nothing.