Chapter 18 Ruger #2
Dasher! Dancer! Prancer! She scampers toward the fence, eyes locked on the small herd beyond it. Vixen! Comet! Cupid! Donner! And a very grumpy-looking Blitzen!
I shove my hands into my coat pockets and laugh. Why is the grumpy one Blitzen?
She shrugs. It was the only name I had left.
She’s ridiculous.
Ridiculously perfect. Oh my God. My brain needs to shut up.
However, seeing this farm I spent so much of my childhood on and then eventually worked on through Wrenley’s eyes is kind of perfect.
I grab a bucket of feed and walk it over to her. You know you got all their names wrong, right?
She turns to me, hands on her hips. How could you not name them after Santa’s reindeer?
I gesture to the reindeer. That one’s Sleepy. That’s Grumpy. Bashful, Sneezy, Dopey, Happy, Doc… and Bob.
Bob?
I shrug. Eight reindeer. Only seven dwarves.
She narrows her eyes. And weirdly, the grumpy one is Happy.
I laugh, and she grins at me. Our eyes catch and hold. Suddenly, everything in me wants to pull her close. To kiss her. To finish what we started the other night in my room. I want to feel her pressed against me again. I want to do everything she’ll allow without hesitation this time.
But then I think about what it would cost her. So I hold up the bucket of feed instead.
Want to feed them?
She beams. Absolutely!
I’ll show you.
I walk the fence line and hold the bucket toward the reindeer.
Three of them approach, and Wrenley is instantly entranced.
She links her arm through mine in pure wonder, and my heart kicks up a notch.
The floral, nutty soap she uses drifts to my nose, and damn.
If I only got to smell this for the rest of my life, I’d die a happy man.
That’s a good girl, Bashful, I murmur as she nibbles from my hand.
Wrenley smiles. How do you know their names?
I worked here, I say. I watched these guys grow up.
Did you do that while you were at school? she asks.
I nod. I had a hard time living away from Alpine Harbor.
Why?
I take a breath. I felt a little lost in life at the time. I took a year off of school before ultimately going back and finishing my renewable resource degree, and I credit this place for that. Being around animals taught me a lot about my responsibility as a steward of this land.
Wrenley tilts her head. Responsibility?
Yeah. I look at the herd. People sometimes assume that because I hunt, I see animals as resources, but it’s kind of the opposite.
Hunting taught me to respect them. To understand where food comes from and that if we want future generations to have healthy herds and healthy ecosystems, we have to take care of them.
It’s about being respectful; you don’t take without giving back.
Aren’t these reindeer victims of being taken? she asks. They live behind fences instead of out in the forest.
No. They’re not, I say. They came from a herd that was poached and were too young to survive on their own. Sometimes respecting wildlife means protecting animals from people. It’s a balance between knowing when to leave them alone and when to step in.
She nods slowly. Why did you leave?
I look out at the reindeer, trying to figure out what to say. I know I handled things between me and Aurora badly, and there are things I wish I had done differently. At the same time, the older I get, the further I get from that twenty-three-year-old version of myself.
I know Wrenley is going to leave, only lately, it’s not so much an abstract thought as it is something that I’m starting to feel the weight of.
Every time I think about the wedding, it feels like the start of the end.
No matter how much I dread the day she leaves Alpine Harbor, I’m not going to ask her to give up the life she’s planned for herself.
I broke up with my girlfriend, I answer, simply and honestly.
Wrenley’s big brown eyes stay on me. And living here without her was hard?
You could say that. I look out to the pasture, following Bashful as she walks across the enclosure. She had a life to live, and I could never be part of it.
That must’ve been tough.
I shrug. I also know my lifestyle isn’t for everyone. I’m a hunter, a gatherer. I want simplicity. I don’t need next-day delivery or even reliable internet. She needed more, and I wanted her to have it.
Wrenley studies me, and I wonder if I revealed too much or not enough.
I think it’s a beautiful way to live, she says softly. Since coming here, I haven’t missed the noise of the city as much as I thought I would. I can finally hear myself think. It’s peaceful.
But could you do it forever? I ask.
She considers this for a second, then says, Yeah. I think I could.
Our eyes lock, and my chest aches with how much I want her.
I know I shouldn’t start building a future on a single sentence, but it’s hard not to.
I can imagine turning the spare room into a space for her sewing.
I can see us at Walter’s coffee shop with Remi, laughing over coffee or complaining about the snow.
I can imagine a future where her leaving is no longer a sure thing, even though I know I shouldn’t.
A grunt sounds from behind the fence. We both turn. Dopey steps forward, his eyes fixed on the bucket, clearly offended we haven’t fed him yet.
I drag a breath in and force my attention to the reindeer. My heart is still beating too hard, my chest still feels tight, but I needed the interruption. I was starting to let myself believe in a future that could never happen.
Want to try? I ask.
What do I do?
Just hold it out. He’s a sucker for a snack.
Wrenley takes a handful of feed and timidly holds it out. Dopey sniffs her hand before nuzzling into it.
She giggles, light and bright. Oh my God! It tickles!
When the food’s gone, Dopey lets out a dramatic huff and stomps one hoof, clearly angling for seconds.
Alright, settle down, I say, laughing.
Wrenley looks up at me, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright, and I forget to breathe.
God, this woman is beautiful.
I’m not just talking about her physically.
I’m talking about how every last little bit of her is perfection personified.
The way she wholeheartedly throws herself into things, like feeding these reindeer.
The way she laughs big, even though life tried to take her down a peg.
I enjoy her curiosity and her questions about Alaska.
I’m in awe of her passion for sewing. I realize all these things stopped being observations and just my favourite parts of being near her.
This isn’t just about proximity. It isn’t just passing attraction. If someone asked me tomorrow to stop wanting her nearness, I wouldn’t know how.
Ready for part two? Peter interrupts the moment.
For a second, I had forgotten that Peter was coming back.
I’ve been too busy realizing that without a shadow of a doubt, I’m falling for Wrenley.
And while the falling part feels inevitable, the scary part is knowing that no matter how much I want her, I still want the future she’s dreamed about more. Even if that takes her away from me.
What is part two? Wrenley asks, looking between Peter and me.
Peter’s eyes sparkle with mischief. He hasn’t told you? Oh, you’re in for a real treat.
Forty minutes later, Wrenley is pressed to the glass, eyes wide, mouth open in wordless awe as the jagged peaks and ice-blue veins of the rivers below unfold beneath us as we fly over in Peter’s helicopter.
I glance down at our hands locked together between us.
She grabbed for mine the moment we lifted off, her fingers clamped so tight I wondered if she thought the force of her grip alone would keep us airborne.
Now her hand is still in mine, and I don’t want to let go.
I already know I’m going to crave this feeling again all too soon. I already miss it before it’s gone.
The helicopter dips slightly as we begin our descent, skimming low over the icefields and powder-dusted crevices. Wrenley lets out a breathy laugh that sounds half-scared, half-thrilled.
I squeeze her hand, letting her know I’m still here. She squeezes back.
It’s like landing on another planet, she whispers.
She’s not wrong. Below us, the world is nothing but untouched snow and ancient ice. The wind whips tiny flurries into the air, and the sun glints off the glacier’s surface like a field of diamonds.
The chopper touches down softly, the skids crunching into the compact snow. As the rotors slow, the silence of the glacier fills the air.
Peter hops out first and gestures toward the open door. Welcome to paradise!
I climb out, then reach my hand back for Wrenley, and she takes it without hesitation.
Her new winter boots sink slightly into the snow as she steps on the glacier, the wind immediately catching her hair and sending it flying in every direction.
She gasps, eyes round with wonder, spinning slowly in a full circle to take it all in.
This is… she breathes. This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I watch her. Not the mountains, not the glacier, not the sun refracting off the ice like stained glass. Her. She’s flushed and windblown and smiling so big I think my ribs might crack just looking at her.
Do you want to go for a walk? I ask, my voice just loud enough to carry over the wind.
She nods, still taking it all in.
Our hands are still linked from when I helped her out of the helicopter, and somehow, we just don’t let go.
We start walking along the edge of a small ridge.
The glacier stretches out on all sides. Wrenley’s boots crunch beside mine, her breath visible in the crisp air.
She doesn’t say anything, but I watch the way her gaze keeps moving.
It starts up in the clouds, then follows the lines of the peaks, back down to the sweeping expanse of frozen wilderness below us.
She’s storing it all away, and I hope it’s a memory she keeps forever because I know I will.