The Five Dollar Mail Book 3: The Road Home

44: Those Two Insomnias

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. Chapter artwork of Jesse by Diego Candia.  All graphics by me.

Book 1: The Green, Book 2: Lynch's Boys, Book 3: The Road Home, and the Riders & Kickers Anthology are available on Amazon under the name Regina Shelley. So if you hate waiting for chapter posts and/or want a more polished read, the finished product is available now.

 I started out writing a very different kind of chapter for this week, and when I was done, I hadn't written at all what set out to write.

I think I realized, maybe subconsciously, that I'd left out something important. So I apologize...this chapter should come before chapter 242. It was one of those times when the the muse is obnoxious and insistent, breathing down my neck and dropping Doritos crumbs onto me and my keyboard while I'm writing.

I hate Doritos.

Anyways, this is technically a rough draft, and it won't be the only chapter to get reshuffled in the final book edit.

-gina

Jesse had been exhausted. Falling asleep had been easy, especially with Still Water Woman's sweet warmth snuggled against his chest. She had been warm and soft and sweet in his arms, and he'd woken up in the night and been unable to go back to sleep for a long while.

He remembered how lost and helpless he'd felt earlier in the night, how everything in his world had spiraled so completely out of his control and he felt as though he was being torn apart by a hundred different hands, all pulling in different directions. How when she'd lay down beside him and curled her body against his in the dark, all those hands pulling at him had let go of him and let him be. For the first time in what felt like a years, he felt was able to relax, to close his eyes and leave them closed. He felt the coolness of tears drying on his eyelids and had fallen deeply and profoundly asleep.

At some point in the night, though, the chill in the night air had woke him, and he had opened his eyes and been unable to close them again.

Beyond the smokehole in the peak of the lodge, the Milky Way arched across the black and purple heavens, spilling starlight down and illuminating the interior with silver blue light. The fire had died down low and there was a chill in the night air. Still Water Woman lay cradled in his arms, one hand splayed across his bare chest and her cheek pressed against his heart. He shivered, settling deeper into the furs and pulling the blankets more firmly around them both.

Cradling her head against him with one hand, he laced his fingers through the silky tangle of her hair. Her tears had dampened his skin, and through them he'd felt her pain and her loneliness and her desperate need for human contact in the moment she'd lay down beside him. He felt it because it had matched his own, and they had lay there quietly holding each other until they'd drifted off. But now he was wide awake, the heat from her warming his chilled skin and every place she was cuddled against him tingling with the overwhelming awareness of her.

She sighed in her sleep, soft breath fluttering across his skin and he gently stroked her hair, sweeping it back from her face. He could barely see her in the silver light, shadows pooling in the hollows of her face. She's beautiful. And she's got a beautiful soul. How am I going to just walk away from her? To just go back and pretend that none of this happened?

The sleeping furs were deep and luxuriant, warmer and softer than any bed he'd ever slept in. Still Water Woman shifted, her legs pressing against his, and he was acutely aware of the tangle of her fringed doeskin dress around her body, and the binding pull of his own fringed trousers against the furs. Her knee slipped across his thigh and she sighed in her sleep, snuggling close, her hand sliding across his ribs and coming to rest on his belly.

Ah, shitfire. Her hand was like a branding iron on his chilled skin, and he felt a blush heat his face. Reckon I can forget about getting back to sleep anytime soon. If there was any sleepiness left in him at all, it was certainly gone now. He tried shifting a bit, but that made it worse. She ain't awake, is she? Surely she ain't awake. He could feel her breath, fluttering against his skin, and he tried to ignore it even as the tingling sparks in his belly caught and ignited and flared into a low fire. He gritted his teeth, desperately afraid that she'd move her hand again and send another shower of sparks through him.

There's no way she's awake. He gently folded his hand over hers resting on his stomach and held it, minimizing contact. And there ain't no way in Hell I can lie here all night with her hand...there. He let out a slow, unsteady breath, feeling foolish and clumsy, and silently cursing his lack of experience with women. Tomorrow's gonna be embarrassing enough as it is without her thinkin' that after everything that's gone on, I don't respect her. That I'm just like those animals at the river. I sure as hell don't want her wakin' up wondering if something happened that didn't.

He gripped her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers and settling her closer. She sighed in her sleep, and he softly kissed her brow. It was the first time since he'd met her that she seemed at peace. He wondered how long it had been since she'd really slept a genuine, restful sleep through the night. "Sleep.You're safe now," he whispered tenderly in Lakota, remembering the words she'd said to him as she nursed him through his illness. His heart was aching in his chest. "I promise."

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