Desert Wake ✔

Ch. 4, pt. 2: On This Way Forever

After that, I won't lie, things is real warm 'tween us. As the days pass and we go about our daily farm activities, I find it more and more difficult to keep my distance, despite my best efforts. And I don't avert my eyes when I spot him down by the well, sponge bathin' and naked from the waist up. The red pendant he wears, a symbol of his lucky status in society, gleams in the light like it's his lifeforce. It rests against his chest, lean muscles tense and firm from desert travel and farm labor. That handsome Ro, he thinks I'm a gift from the desert, but I know different. He's the desert's ransom, sent to me in exchange fer the land and people it took.

He asks if I'll show him how to use Frank, and I tell him that'd be wise cuz he ain't got no sense of how to use a firearm, and you never know when that kind of skill might come in handy out here. What I don't tell him is that the real reason I consent so quick is cuz it means I have an excuse to stand right up next to him, checking his aim and what not.

Fortunately fer my limited supply of ammo, that city boy learns purdy quick, but he still claims to need help with his stance. Apparently, my willingness to close the space between us during firearm training hasn't failed his notice.

Nine days after his arrival, I'm busy milkin' Reba, when he enters the paddock and kneels behind my stool, his body pressed up against me in a way that cain't be no accident. I cain feel all them muscles I saw by the pump just the day before, along with another one in particular that had still been hidden from view. He runs his fingers down my arms, grabs my hands, and kisses the back of my neck, just once. But just once is enough to send a shiver straight through me.

"Tell me to move away and I will." His lips brush my neck as he speaks. I don't tell him to move. In fact, I don't say nothing. "May, I know I don't deserve you, but that doesn't stop me from wanting you."

He kisses my neck again. "I can hardly bear it," he breathes.

He ain't the only one who's havin' trouble with composure. I turn myself toward him, rest my head against his shoulder, let him circle his arms 'round me.

"Yer leg's healin.' That mean yer fixin' to leave soon?"

He brings his arms down and scoots back a bit. I hate that I'm 'bout to ruin the moment but some things gotta be straightened out 'fore this sort of activity cain continue. I ain't shootin' tin cans with him and Frank no more—we're way beyond brushin' shoulders and correcting stances.

"I'm just wonderin', Rordan. You wanna bed me 'fore you head out into the dust, never to see me again? Is that yer aim?"

Ro stands up, the offended look I know too well plastered on him, and he walks clear out of the paddock without no kind of smart retort. Just walks away; part of me thinks he'll keep on walkin' straight out into the desert and beyond. This is it, then. I turn back to the milkin', tears streamin' out of my eyes at twice the pace as the milk flows from Reba.

Why'd he have to show up here? Why'd he have to make me feel like I'm both a gift and gifted? I should've known better. This is a place that takes and takes and takes. It don't give nothin' without a blood sacrifice.

I've been a fool. Granddad's dead or gone, and that's what Ro will be too; gone and most likely dead soon as the desert decides it's done with him. There ain't nothin' but our own lone selves on this planet. It ain't a place fer buildin' attachments.

After my chores and a look 'round the farm, tryin' to suss out where Ro got to, which is nowhere as I cain tell, I go inside and spend the heat of the day sprawled over my bed, thinkin' 'bout the feel of his lips on my neck, and his eyes that match the cloudless sky. He ain't left, not really and truly left, cuz his bag is still here with his booklets, and ain't no way he'd abandon those just cuz he and I had a tiff. But if that's so, where's he got himself to?

The afternoon draws on and I'm worried now. I sit out on the porch, Frank restin' in his favorite spot against the post. Maybe he took a walk in the gulch and stumbled off a ledge. Maybe he headed north but the law passed by and he got himself apprehended. Maybe, maybe, maybe. The maybes don't come up with nothin' good.

I'm 'bout to give up hope when there he is, come 'round the side of the house, surprisin' me with the suddenness of his arrival. He looks like he's 'bout to get huffy with me again, but at that point, the thing that seems most logical fer me to do is to burst into tears.

"I thought you'd gone." I wipe at my eyes. I don't know if I'm cryin' cuz I'm happy he's here or cuz I'm mad at myself fer carin' so much that he is. I do know that what I told him is true. Yeah, he left his bag, I know, but the maybes still convinced me he wasn't comin' back. "I truly thought you'd gone."

All his anger blows out of him and he rushes to me, picks me up in his arms and keeps me there. "I'm here... I'm here now."

I don't know what to say so I just hold on to him tighter. Finally, he sets me back on my feet. "I've got a surprise for you, May."

He takes my hand and leads me to the back of the house. Says he spent the day in the dead walnut grove located across the dead fields. Dead, dead, dead. Only, not quite. There's more life there than I realized, cuz he's gone and killed one of that grove's last remainin' inhabitants. There it lays, a big grey squirrel, all butchered and ready fer cookin'.

"Wilderness expeditions teach you to do that?" He nods, grinnin'. Purdy soon that grins gone and spread itself like the desert onto my own tear-stained face. "Well, here's to yer fake survival lessons then. Let's have ourselves a feast."

A/N: Nothing like a little tiff to heat things up! I'm going to warn you: The next chapter is intense... VERY intense. Brace yourselves.

Right now, though, let's take a little breather and chat about THIS chapter. Do you think May was right to call out Ro or was this more a matter of them both being frustrated by circumstances beyond their control?

This chapter's votes will be donated to the Walnut Restoration Society. I thank you kindly and so do the walnut trees and squirrels.

What's that? Oh... that's awkward.

Never mind about the squirrels. :)

Today's chapter dedication is for @talkingflowers, whose delightful fantasy THE GROVE, is charming the socks off of me right now. Christy also has a book for all of you Wattys2015 contestants called WATTYS2015 ENTITLED. Send Christy the story of how you came up with your book title in 200 words or less and she may just add it to this collection(and check out the entry for DESERT WAKE to discover how I named this story!).