Tami Hoag - Dark Paradise

Or so she thought. Romanticizing again, Marilee …

“Well, at least I’ll get a song out of it,” she murmured, and jotted down two lines in her court reporter’s notebook.

She sat in the Adirondack chair, staring out at the magnificent beauty all around her and pretending to smoke with cut-off lengths of striped plastic drinking straws. The motion was soothing. The deep breathing relaxed her. The beauty of the place healed her and offered a kind of nameless comfort that soothed her heart. In the background, Mary-Chapin Carpenter sang softly through the speakers of a boom box, a voice as familiar and low and smooth and smoky as her own.

The mountains in the distance were deep blue beneath the sky. That big Montana sky, as blue as cobalt in this late part of the day, streaked with mare’s-tail clouds. A gentle breeze swept the valley, swirling the tassels of the beargrass and needlegrass and red Indian paintbrush. The heads of the globeflowers along the creek bobbed and swayed. Overhead, an eagle circled lazily for a long while. A pair of antelope wandered out from behind a copse of aspen trees and came down to the creek to drink, casting curious looks at the llamas down the way.

Mari absorbed it all, her mind processing the images into words, snatches of melodies coming to her on the wind. She wrote down desultory lines in the notebook with a felt-tipped pen that leaked. The afternoon slipped away with the slow descent of the sun. From time to time she heard Spike barking, then he would come check on her as if to let her know he had things under control. When he tired of his reconnaissance missions, he curled up beneath her chair and went to sleep.

And so it was he missed his opportunity to prove himself as a watchdog, not rousing until the heavy footfall of boots sounded on the side porch. He darted out from under the chair, then threw his head back and barked so hard, his front paws came up off the deck.

Rafferty stepped around the corner of the house, planted his hands at the waist of his jeans, and scowled down at the terrier. “What the hell is that?”

“Spike. My dog,” Mari announced with no small amount of indignation.

She pushed herself up out of her chair and brushed at her wrinkled jeans and baggy purple T-shirt, uncharacteristically self-conscious. Her heart had picked up a couple of extra beats. She could see by her reflection in the glass doors that her hair was a mess. Your hair is always a mess, Marilee . She scooped a chunk of it behind her ear.

J.D. snorted as if to say he didn’t count anything as small as Spike to be a real dog. Spike glared up at him, not about to back down. A little like his mistress, he thought, chuckling to himself. Slowly, he hunkered down and offered the dog a chance to sniff his hand. A moment later he was fondling the terrier’s ears and scratching the back of its muscular little neck.

“What he lacks in size, he makes up in volume,” Mari said.

“Takes after you that way.”

“Very funny. What are you doing here, Rafferty?” she asked, scowling, cringing a little inwardly at the defensiveness in her tone. In a perfect world she would have been calm and cool. But this was not a perfect world. She knew that better than most people.

J.D. rose slowly and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Came to see to the stock,” he said, poker-faced.

Mari nodded slowly, not believing a word of it. “You’re about a month late.”

“Had a lot on my mind.”

“How’s Del?” she asked, not certain she wanted to hear what he’d had on his mind. There was no guarantee it was anything good.

“Seeing a psychiatrist in Livingston once a week. Guy was in ’Nam. They go fishing together and talk. He’s doing okay.”

“I’m glad.”

She narrowed her eyes a little and did a head-to-toe assessment of him. He wore a clean blue oxford button-down that had seen an iron recently, dark jeans, boots that still had a little shine on them. No hat. His lean cheeks were freshly shaved. His dark hair was neat except for the little cowlick in front. She wanted to reach up and brush it with her fingers.

“You’re not exactly dressed for chores,” she said. “Got a hot date in town?”

“Well…” he drawled, “that remains to be seen.”

Her heart kicked hard against her rib cage. She arched a brow and tried like hell not to look encouraged. “I see.”

“How you doin,’ Mary Lee?” he asked softly, capturing her gaze and holding it steady. He wanted to go to her and touch her face and tangle his fingers in her hair. He wanted to sink his lips down against hers and kiss her for a year. He wanted to lay her down somewhere soft and make love to her forever, but there were things they needed to settle first.

I’m lonely. I miss you. I’m pregnant . “Fine.” She raised her hands to show him both were in working order. “My days as a monoplegic are over.”

“You’re happy here?”

Not without you . “Very.”

“You’ll stay?”

“Forever.”

He spent a moment digesting that, then nodded slowly.

“You’re not going to tell me I don’t belong here?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.”

“You’re not going to swear at me for being an outsider?”

“No.”

“You’re not going to try to run me off?”

He pressed his lips together and shook his head.

She laughed her deep, husky laugh. “That’s what I hate about you, cowboy, you just never shut up.”

One corner of his mouth tipped up. “You talk enough for both of us.”

Mari tipped her head and fought the grin that threatened. “Touché.”

She moved to lean back against the deck railing, crossing her ankles as if she felt nonchalant. If there had been a pack of cigarettes on the table, she would have been tempted to light half a dozen simultaneously, but there were only her cut-off straws and the leaky pen. Her nerves were stretched as taut as piano wire. She resisted the urge to rub her hand over her tummy.

“So, you came to see the llamas,” she said, her fingernails digging into the railing.

J.D. looked straight at her. “I came to see you.”

“What for?” She braced herself for an answer she didn’t want to hear. That he wanted to tell her it was officially over between them, that he wouldn’t be taking her up on her offer. That he still wanted to buy her land. If he said one word about the land…

J.D. glanced down at the table for a moment, rolling a length of plastic straw with his finger. She had some scribbled lines in a notebook. Song lyrics, he supposed. Her handwriting was as messy as her hair. He stalled, amazed at the amount of courage he was having to dig up for this conversation. He’d spent a month storing it up and losing it, arguing with himself about his future and his motives. He had practiced what he would say on the way down here, and now he stood here, saying nothing.

Mary-Chapin Carpenter sang softly in the background, saving them from an oppressive silence.

Finally, he sighed and faced her. “Well, Will and Sam are starting over. You came here to start over. I thought maybe you and I might start over too.”

Mari’s breath caught in her throat. “Why?”

“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking these past few weeks,” he said quietly. “I’ve been wrong. About a lot of things.”

“And I’m one of those things?”

“I’ve been alone all my life, Mary Lee,” he whispered.

She knew instantly what he meant. That he had been emotionally abandoned as a child. That he had protected himself ever since. That he was letting down his guard for her.

“I reckon I thought it would be safer, easier,” he said. “But it’s just lonely and I’ve grown weary of it.”

She had been alone too. Alone inside herself while she went through the motions of fitting in in a world where she didn’t belong. She knew the unique ache of that kind of loneliness.