Nowhere Ranch (15 page)
He put the letter down in his lap, stared ahead of him for a few seconds, then laid it on the coffee table and turned to look at me. The world got fuzzy and dark again.
“Roe,” he said, sounding tired and sad, “stop holding your breath.”
I let the air out and sucked more in. Things got instantly a lot better. But I looked at him sideways. “Are you mad?”
I felt my face go hot as he blinked and looked at me oddly. “Mad? Why would I be mad at you?”
“Because of the letter!” I pointed at it and glared at him. “What else?”
Now he was looking at me wary and careful. “Roe, I'm not sure why you'd think I'd be angry at you because of that letter. Clearly it was very upsetting, but why would I be—” He paused, then spoke as if the thought had just occurred to him. “Are you thinking I'll be angry if you need to go back home?”
I shook my head and stared at the carpet beneath my feet. “I can't. I can't go home.”
I waited for him to hate me.
But all that happened was that we sat there for a few awkward minutes, and then he groaned and sank back in the couch. “Shit.” He sighed and rubbed at the side of his face. “Roe, I'm sorry. But I'm going to tell you right now that I really, really don't do this sort of thing well.”
I turned and frowned at him. “What thing?”
He looked almost green. He gestured vaguely at the letter. “This. Talking about stuff.”
“I don't want to talk about anything,” I snapped. The anger carried me all the way to my feet, and even though I still felt wobbly, I paced back and forth between the couch and the TV. “Jesus Christ. You think I want to talk about this letter? Did I ask you to talk about it? No, I did not. I shouldn't have even fucking showed it to you, but the hell I was going back to jail!”
“Roe, that was a joke,” he said, and then I really lost it.
“Prison ain't a joke!” I shouted. “And neither is the fucking hospital! I don't want to see either again, ever! I don't want to see you either, if this is the shit you are going to do to me!”
That seemed like a good exit line, so I headed for the door. Fuck it, I would leave. This was all a joke anyway. All the happiness I had been feeling was just a lie. I would just go. I had a pile of money from staying so long in one place and Travis buying all the food, and I'd just go. Go and get drunk and fuck. Go as far as I could, and I'd get another job, and this time I wouldn't let there be any way anybody could find me ever again. I would go. I'd go right now.
I didn't even make it to the hallway.
He grabbed me around the waist, and when I tried to fight him, he pulled me back and wrestled me to the floor. I kicked and clawed and swore, but he held me down. He pressed his body against mine and held me against the carpet, held me down and waited, stared down at me while I shouted and cursed and tried to fight, held me until I stopped fighting.
I turned my head to the side and stared at the far wall, at the bookshelf with all Travis's books lined up there. I was tired and numb, and I just lay there, waiting to see what happened next.
Eventually he said, “I may have done this poorly.”
I shut my eyes and willed him to shut up.
He groaned, shifting his weight against my body, and then he laughed, a funny, sad sound. “Riley would laugh his head off at me just now. He'd say this is exactly what I deserved.”
I willed him to shut up harder.
“Explain it to me, Roe. Explain why you don't want to go home.”
I opened my eyes but didn't look at him. “Because it won't work.” I didn't really know what I was saying. It was like I was talking and listening to myself at the same time. “Because they want me to be a Roe I can't be, and it will only hurt everybody more if I go back.” I paused. “But it's hard to hear him asking and not answer.”
It seemed so damn simple when I said it like that. Why the hell it had to tear me up so much, I will never know.
“What's the Roe they want that you can't be?” he asked.
I was still staring at the wall, but it was fading, turning to gray mist. “Straight.”
His sad sigh ripped me up almost as much as the letter did. “I'm sorry.”
I gave a curt nod. But when he brushed a kiss against my cheek, I shut my eyes.
“Do you want me to call Tory and cancel tomorrow?” he asked.
That brought me out of my funk in a hurry. “No. I said I would cook. I want to cook.” I tried to sit up, but the room was spinning, and I had to brace my hands against the floor to keep from falling over. “I just got to get my bearings again.”
I felt his hand on mine, and all that strength came rushing back. “Let me help you.”
No
, I tried to say, but the same part of me that wouldn't let me go home kept my mouth shut and made me nod.
And he did help me. He was a real good help. He helped me get organized and basically kept my head from wandering off. He wouldn't let me get worked up over the stockpot and pointed out you could still soak a bird in it with a dent on the side, so we did. He helped me put the oranges and things in with the brine, even though he did leave the damn stickers on half of the fruit. He carried it to the fridge and shoved everything over to make room for it too.
After helping me organize my recipes for the morning, he made me get in the hot tub. We didn't talk, just sat there and soaked. It felt good. And after, he took me to bed.
I had thought I wanted a rough fuck, but it ended up being tender, just rubbing cocks with a lot of kissing. Afterward we lay stuck together, the semen drying like glue between us, which usually he hates, but tonight nobody seemed able to move.
Eventually he said, “I haven't done anything but send my mom Christmas and birthday cards for five years. And my father died with the last words between us being him telling me to get my stinking faggot ass out of his house.”
“I don't even do cards,” I confessed.
“Is that easier?” He seemed to be genuinely curious.
I shrugged and stared up at the ceiling. “Dunno.”
“You were close to them? Before?”
I nodded. “When I was twenty, they found me out. It wasn't pretty. I tried to stay around town, but that only made it worse, and that was how I ended up in jail. When I got out, I left. It was better after that.”
“And you just kept moving. So they couldn't find you, or so you didn't get attached?”
I couldn't say anything to that. It made me feel funny, the way he said it. Kind of shitty too. And lonely.
He laughed softly. “You really do hate talking.”
I turned to look at him. He looked funny in the dark, his face all full of shadows. “I'm just trying to do right,” I said. “Trying not to hurt anybody. Trying to stay out of trouble.”
I felt fluttery and strange when he stroked my face. I shut my eyes, swimming in the feeling. It went on a long time, though, and when I opened my eyes again, he had the damnedest look on his face. You would have thought I had used the crop on him well past “no.”
“If you need, now or ever, to go back home, I don't want to be in your way.” His fingers fell on my lips. “But outside of that, I'd really rather you didn't leave.” His thumb stroked my chin and he added, “Ever.”
He looked like he was going to be sick now. I frowned at him, but that only made him worse. “You okay, Travis?” I asked.
“I don't know,” he whispered. “Are you going to run?”
I tried to prop up on my elbow to get a better look at him, because he made no fucking sense at all, but he reached up and grabbed my arm so tight it hurt, and I figured it out. And yeah, for a second, I panicked. But I was getting used to these two parts of me, the fluttery top part that felt guilty and wanted to get away from Travis, and the part underneath that seemed to have a better handle on everything. And it was getting stronger, because it held me in place until I calmed down enough to speak.
“So you're telling me you're getting serious on me?” I said at last. “That this is more than fucking after all?”
He really, really looked scared, but now he was angry too. “Roe, you sleep in your own bed at best once a week. Your toothbrush is here. You get dressed in your apartment, and occasionally you shower or go over there to ‘get some space.’ This has been more than fucking for months now.” He held on to my arm like he was afraid that now as he'd pointed it out, the bubble would burst.
Well, he had a valid fear.
I lay back down and stared at the ceiling. I should have been scared, but somehow I wasn't. Surprised, yes. And yet, not really. I thought about how the idea of leaving had torn me up, about how my feet hadn't so much as itched since forever.
“Well,” I said at last. I shook my head.
He did not let go of my arm or even let up. “Roe?”
I turned my head and gave him a severe look. “So what is it you're suggesting, exactly?”
He got pissed again. “I'm not suggesting anything! I'm just telling you that you had better not fucking leave!”
“Well who said I was leaving?” I thought of my birthday whipping and his threat after. Hadn't we already had this conversation?
Apparently we hadn't had it enough, because he was serious. “You get this look about you sometimes. If I go into town, I spend the whole time watching to make sure your car doesn't peel off down the highway. They've figured out to sit me near the window at the cafe. I just know one of these damn days I'm going to come back, and you'll be gone, and I'll have no fucking way to find you. It makes me want to tie you up in my basement and never let you out, ever.”
I tried to pry his hand off my arm. I didn't say anything, because I didn't know what to say. It had never occurred to me that somebody would get that bent out of shape over me leaving. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, either. Good, I guess, but kind of panicked too. Which I guess he knew, which was why he was cutting off circulation to my arm.
Which was why he had held me down so hard on the floor.
Which had been smart, because if he hadn't, I seriously would be gone.
I thought of my brother, asking me point-blank to come home, telling me with words that he needed me, and I felt bad that I could ignore him. I felt awful about my dad. I felt lousy about the no granddaughters and my mom's pain and how overwhelmed Bill was, but I couldn't go with them even if Bill came himself and got down on his knees.
I don't know why I could ignore that but could have Travis just say, “Don't leave” and that was it: I wasn't going to leave.
I turned into his arms, and I kissed him. I slid my body against his, and when the kiss turned deep and made me dizzy, I lifted my knee and wrapped my leg around him, hugging him close and opening myself at the same time. I grabbed his hand and slid it over my hip, back toward my crease. I knew there would be no fucking now because we were too tired, but I needed to let him know he already had me, that I wasn't going. I needed to remind him that I let him into me in ways I didn't let anybody else. I needed him to feel that this was his body as much as mine. I needed him to get that, even though I had been slow about it, I had understood in my own way too this was more than we had been pretending. That even though it scared me, I was holding on.
I needed him to get that I was glad he'd been there to catch me when I fell apart, that I was glad that he fought me when I told him I didn't want to be caught.
Dinner the next day was good. It wasn't quite as joyous as it would have been if I hadn't had the letter, and Haley asked me several times what was wrong. But Travis eventually told her to let it go, and she did.
The turkey was not bad. Everybody seemed to enjoy the meal, and I was glad I didn't let Travis cancel it. I wished I hadn't felt so disconnected, wished I hadn't kept thinking about the Thanksgiving my family was having back in Iowa. But it was still good.
That night we had the first snow of the year. Once everyone was gone and the dishes were cleaned up, Travis and I sat in the hot tub, wrapped in each other's arms, and watched it fall.
I was going to have to answer the letter eventually, I knew. I couldn't go home, but I couldn't not say anything, not when I knew what it had cost Bill to write all that. But I wasn't going to write him yet.
I leaned back against Travis's shoulder. I felt the warmth of his body, the protective circle of his arms around me as we sat in silence and stillness and steam, and I felt okay again.
Chapter Eight
It was right before Christmas that we got the dogs.
I had been going round and round with Travis about how he needed dogs for the operation. I pointed out we'd have an easier time herding and that they could be an extra line of defense against predators, and when we needed to do a quick roundup for emergencies, we wouldn't have to call in as many hands. I said I sure could have used them for the calving. I even did the research with Haley's help on local border collie breeders who had cowdogs for sale.
Travis, as usual, put all his faith in his fence. Which I had to admit, it was good fence when it worked. The truth was, I wanted the dogs for the sheep, but I kind of wanted them for myself too. We always had dogs at the farm, and they were usually more than a little bit mine. One of them even ran off trying to find me when I left. Obviously I hadn't had a dog since then, with all my traveling. But Travis didn't want the fuss of puppies. He pointed out that border collies were hard to train and that he'd have to get on some damned long list to get them and pay through the nose for the privilege of having to do all the work to train them. He was right. I knew that.
It's just that I really did want a dog.
Tory had a real sweetheart of a pup, an ungodly mutt in at least ten directions, I swear. Polly was a brown and white patched little lover whose main gene pool seemed to be terrier, and she always came up and gave me kisses when I stopped by the house. Having a real kitchen and people to feed was inspiring me, especially with Christmas coming on, and Travis started making me farm the food out so he didn't get fat. I tried to tell him he could just get off Chaucer and walk a bit more and eat what he liked, but that just got him cranky, so I started taking things over to Tory's place. It wasn't long before I kept a bag of dog biscuits in my car so I could slip a few to Polly when I came by.