Dream Country (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

J
ames stood outside in the dark for a long time. That in itself wasn’t strange. He’d spent half his life standing outside these buildings—walking from one to another, leading a horse, hauling a wagon of hay, waiting for Daisy or the kids or his father. But this was different. James had taken a shower and changed his clothes, combed his hair, left his hat on a chair at home.

He stared at Daisy’s windows. He saw the flicker of candlelight, and he knew she was home, working. Telling himself he’d just stay a minute, he moved toward the door. He thought back many years, to the summer she had come to stay on the ranch. She’d been a lodger—that was the best way to describe it, he guessed. They were strangers who had kissed on a riverbank, that was all.

A long time ago.

He nearly turned to walk away when he saw her come to the window. She peered out into the darkness. She wore a chambray shirt—all he could see above the window ledge. Then she let the curtain drift back down.

There were a hundred excuses he could make about coming to see her. His father had told him she’d wanted to go see Louisa sing tonight; he could offer to loan her the truck or drive her himself. He could ask her questions about Sage, help her call the police stations she hadn’t gotten to yet. His mind raced with good-enough reasons to knock on her door.

But when he actually did it, his head was empty. There wasn’t a thought going on up there; the way his heart was pounding in his chest, he swore it must have knocked them all out.

“Hi,” she said, opening the door. He was glad she didn’t sound disappointed to see him, even though he knew she had to be hoping for Sage.

“Hi,” he said back.

“Come on in.”

James nodded as she smiled a little and opened the door wider, and he walked in. A lot like how it used to be, way back when.

“This reminds me of that summer,” he said.

“What summer?”

“When you were our lodger.”

“Lodger,” she said, smiling as she said the word. “That’s what I was . . .”

James nodded. “Long time ago . . .” He’d been younger then, and less shy. Words had come more easily. He’d known how to present himself: the brash cowboy. What was he now?

“That was the summer all this started,” she said. She’d walked over to her workbench, and she seemed to be looking down at the wolf bones he’d brought her.

“All this?” he asked, just touching her hair, wondering whether she meant them—him and her.

“My work. Making jewelry from the things I found on the ranch. It came to life when I came here.”

“You made me this,” he said, pulling from his pocket a money clip set with one gold nugget. The first one she had ever found, panning for gold in the river.

“You still have it!”

“Yeah.”

“People think I bring them love.” She flashed him a bright smile, but it quickly faded.

“How do you do that?” he asked.

She shrugged. Her shoulders were thin, her arms long and graceful. James picked up the piece she was making, looked at the faces she’d carved into the bone. They stared at each other from within a ring of concentric circles, and he guessed they were a man and a woman.

“Who are they?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It’s only the second two-faced piece I’ve ever made.”

“What was the other? Who’d you make it for?”

“Sage,” she said. “I did it of the twins.”

James nodded. He ran his thumb over the tiny faces. They felt smooth under his skin, and when he stopped rubbing he looked again. Their eyes were alive and full of longing, and he suddenly knew they were of him and Daisy.

“What do they want?” he asked.

“Each other.”

“Why can’t they have that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, staring.

“It’s us, isn’t it?” James moved closer, until he was standing right beside her.

She smiled. “Maybe that’s why these things work. People see themselves—”

James watched her gather a pile of stones in her hand, and he knew she was avoiding him—she hadn’t even answered the question. The candlelight flickered, throwing shadows around the room. Outside—close by—a wolf bayed. Louis Shoulderblade had said Daisy had power, that James was lucky to have her. James didn’t know if he believed such things, but he couldn’t deny he’d heard a lot of wolves recently, ever since he’d given her those bones.

She was still holding the stones. James said her name out loud, and she looked up. He took her in his arms, and he heard a pebble fall to the floor. Just as when he’d kissed her the first time, in the streambed, when she’d dropped the gold nugget. He kissed her now.

“James, don’t.”

“Remember this place?” he asked, his mouth against hers. “I don’t think you could be staying here now if you didn’t still think of us, if the memories weren’t good—”

“This place.” Daisy shook her head. She pulled away, and she stared at the small bed. He wondered whether she was remembering the first time they’d made love, when they were young and full of passion and it had all been like . . . a summer adventure.

He asked her: “That time, the first time? Or later, when we—”

“Don’t!” she said as she pulled away.

A year and some months later, after they’d gotten married, when they were possibly even more full of passion, when their own bed had felt too big, and they’d wanted to squeeze their two bodies into the place where it had all started—

“Remember?” he asked, taking her hand, kissing the back of her neck from behind. “We left our house—”

“Our bed was too big.” She resisted, but the words, or the memories they evoked, unlocked something inside her. “Our bed was too big,” she said again. James felt her take his hand, and he kissed her soft, smooth cheek. Arching her back, she let him kiss the side of her neck, her shoulder, her collarbone.

“This one wasn’t,” he said, leading her to it now.

“No, it wasn’t.” She raised her lips for his kiss. He braced himself against the wall, leaning down to touch his lips against hers. She tasted like spice, and he wanted more. Fumbling with her buttons, he started to undo her shirt.

“Tell me,” he whispered. “Those faces are us, aren’t they? Your carving—”

“They are,” she whispered back.

“The woman looks like you. So beautiful and delicate, that face in the bone.” He was reeling from touching her, from having her say she’d been carving him and her together, one of her pieces that brought people magic-love. It was what they’d always had, what fate had taken away, what James had known he wanted back the minute he’d stood beside her at the waterfall.

“It feels like you,” she said, running her hands up his biceps, around his back. She pulled him closer, until they were looking into each other’s eyes. James’s heart pounded, knowing he would have died for Daisy any time during the last thirteen years and before—that every mistake he had made—even the worst of them—had sprung from the fact that he loved her so much.

“I never stopped,” he said, kissing her hard and lying against her on the small bed. “Never stopped loving you.”

“It was you,” she whispered, her breath hot against his ear. “In every single thing I did. All those necklaces I made . . .”

James moaned, feeling her touch his stomach, run her hands around his waist and down the back of his pants.

“The necklaces that brought everyone else love . . .” she murmured.

“Daisy—” He felt her hands trying to undo his belt, brushing against his zipper.

“They have you in them. Nobody but you.”

They kissed hard, taking the rest of their clothes off. James wanted to pull back, to see her alabaster skin in the candlelight, but he didn’t want any space between them. He felt their hearts pounding together, as if their skin had disappeared and they were one body.

“All those people,” she whispered fiercely. “I gave them our love because I couldn’t have you. Because we lost what we had.”

“Get it back, Daisy,” he said, stroking the side of her face. “Take it back for us.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“How does it work?”

“We . . .” she whispered, starting to cry. “We would have to start over. Begin again.”

He inched back a little, just enough to lean on his elbow and look at her. The insides of both her arms looked so tender and vulnerable, his throat tightened. Loving him had brought her so much suffering, yet he wanted her to try again. Bending his head, he kissed her shoulders and arms now.

He kissed her breasts. They were full and beautiful. He saw the stretch marks, remembered they had formed after the twins were born. She had nursed their children; they had conceived them right here, in this bed. This bed had been better than theirs, because it was so small and they could touch every part of their bodies together. Some afternoons, Daisy would bring the babies over to sit on the bed and nurse them right here—where she and James had brought them to life.

“Daisy,” he said, his voice breaking. “You put our love into your carvings, circles one inside each other. We don’t have an end. We just go on loving each other,” he whispered, bending his head down to touch hers.

“The circle,” she whispered.

“We can’t get back what we never lost.”

“James,” Daisy breathed, touching his erection. It felt like fire, as hard as the bone she carved. She bit his shoulder—not hard, just enough to let him know she was there. He entered her, feeling her slippery wetness envelop him like a river.

“Do you believe me?” he asked, cradling her in his arms. He had to hear her say “yes,” that she believed in him. It meant as much to him as seeing their faces in the carved bone.

“I believe you,” she said, holding his gaze with hers. Letting him take her in a rhythm, in a dance, on the bed where they had found love the first time, and where they’d started their family.

The surge shook him, the force shaking his body like the waters of Solstice Falls. He poured out his love for her, every bit he’d kept stored inside all these years, moving together like the Wind River, running over rocks and boulders and fallen trees—obstacles that were nothing to a river.

“James . . .” she said, encircling his neck with her arms.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered into her ear.

They’d fallen into the river, and they were clinging to each other. The water swirled around them, carrying them downstream, down the mountain from the land of snow. The riverbed was ancient, and the flowing water made everything in its path worn and smooth.

“Right now,” he whispered. “Get it back.”

He had her in his arms. He could save her from anything. They were swimming to shore, making love in the small bed, getting back all they had lost. As long as they held on to each other, he could keep her safe. She covered his mouth with hot kisses, saying his name again and again. Her nails gripped his back, digging into his skin as if she feared he’d be yanked away.

“I’m here,” he said. “I have you, Daisy.”

“Don’t let me go,” she cried.

“Never,” he said. “I never will.”

She felt so amazing and wet, her body so hot and slippery. James felt himself getting lost in where he ended and she began. Her breasts slid against his chest, and he lowered his head to kiss her nipples, hold them in his mouth. He slipped out of her, and he felt her hand seize his erection, guide it back inside her. He held his breath, drawn up on his knees. He watched Daisy meet his eyes. Their gazes held for a long minute, and then James knew it was all over.

“I love you,” was all she had to say, and he shuddered in an explosive climax, her words pounding in his brain, the same words pouring from his lips. “I love you, Daisy. I love you, I love you . . .”

A wolf howled, or maybe it was James himself. Daisy held James and he held her, their eyes steady with old—or maybe new—understanding, rocking with the rhythm of their beating hearts, listening to the animals outside, being the river together for just a few minutes longer, resting in the circle they had never left.

Mother and Father. Mother and Father.

They were in there together, in the nice warm house with candlelight bouncing off the walls, the fire keeping them toasty, everything cozy and romantic. While he was on the outside looking in, freezing cold, all alone on the snowy path, feeling his lungs ache with every breath.

What were they doing? He adjusted the binoculars against his eyes, trying to see. She had drawn the curtains. But there was a spot where the fabric didn’t quite meet, and through that gap he was able to see bodies and shadows, so close together they had to be kissing, on their way to fucking.

The Guardian crept closer, trying to see. Information was his goal, but he caught himself being a Peeping Tom, and he almost laughed. Wasn’t this what kids tried to do? Spy on their parents in bed? Well, he’d missed his chance when he was young. Parents who didn’t get along didn’t spend much time in bed.

A noise in the underbrush made him freeze. Someone was coming down the path. The Guardian darted into the chaparral, and he held his breath as the person came closer. Staring at his own tracks in the snow, he hoped they would be invisible in the darkness. It was almost pitch-black right here. He didn’t carry a flashlight, for obvious reasons, but neither did the person coming along.