The Five Dollar Mail Book 3: The Road Home

63:And His Heart Outran His Footsteps

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. Chapter artwork of Jesse by Marina Gimenes Matiazi. 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.

A warm, late afternoon breeze ruffled the grass and breathed sweetly among the branches of the great cottonwood tree. Dappled sunlight whispered across Jesse's skin, and Still Water Woman was snuggled against his side still asleep, her arm across his ribs holding him close to her, and her sleeping head nestled on his shoulder. His own hand curled possessively around the curve of her hip. He opened his eyes and stared out at the clear blue forever beyond the swaying cottonwood leaves.

Did that just happen?

He softly settled his other arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer still, wondering if he'd ever be able to force himself to let go of her, to give up the warmth of her against his side, or the cool, green softness of the grass beneath his back. Every bit of him was awake, his senses drinking in the entire world; the soft heat of her breath against his chest, her silken hair against his bare skin.

He was in unmapped territory now. At some point, she was going to wake up, and he wasn't going to know the first thing about what he should do or say. In fact, he was more than a little embarrassed by the thought of his own ineptitude.

If his clumsiness had bothered her, though, she hadn't let on. But it bothered him, now that he was once again able to think straight. He wanted to be perfect for her. He wanted her to feel everything she'd made him feel. He sighed, staring into the endless sky as his mind went back to how she'd touched him, and how warm and sweet her skin had felt under his hands. She'd completely unmade and unraveled him. Heat stirred in his belly and flushed across his face. We gotta get up and get dressed, he thought reluctantly, knowing even as he thought it how ridiculous the thought was. Last thing we need is for somebody to find us out here like this...but...I ain't sure my legs work anymore anyhow. I don't think I can get up. I don't even want to.

Ever.

He tightened his arms around her, pulling her more fully against him and marveling at how perfectly their bodies fit. Like two halves of a split tree. What am I gonna do now? Leave her? How? Would she come back with me? Would she leave her people?

Would I want her to?

His gaze fell on the few dead branches of the otherwise living cottonwood above them., sprawling black against the blue sky. The broken snags seemed like stark cracks across the face of the heavens, as if the great blue dome above them had been dropped against the earth and had broken like a glass bowl. What's on the other side of this sky, I wonder? The world seemed so much bigger and more complicated than it was before he got washed over the falls and ended up nearly dying of exposure. Two Elk says they thought I was dead at first. Hell...maybe I was.

Bees were humming around the truck of the tree, and the memory of the taste of honey on her lips and hands and skin sent fresh heat through him. He turned his head towards her face, catching his breath at the beauty of how the sunlight sent dark rainbows through her tousled black hair. He couldn't tell which heartbeat was hers and which was his own. Brushing his lips across her brow, one thought had distilled inside him; one overwhelming truth.

She opened her eyes and when her gaze met his, he felt the broken pieces of the sky fall away, felt himself and Still Water Woman seeming to fall through into the endless world beyond. He held her tightly, reveling in the velvet warmth of her. "I love you, Still Water Woman," he whispered, only realizing after he'd said it that he was speaking Lakota.

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