I unpacked my bags and set up my laptop but before I could turn it on, something caught my eye—a movement outside the window. There was a woman riding a spotted horse toward the barn. I watched her hop down and tie the horse up to a gatepost. An ugly little dog followed her around as she removed the saddle and took it into the barn. She came out with a large horse brush and began brushing down the long body and mane of the spotted creature.
The woman had long, dark hair, almost down to her waist, wrapped in a loose tie at the nape of her neck. When she turned and looked toward the house, she froze and stared at me where I stood in the window. I smiled very subtly. Even from that distance I could tell she was stunningly beautiful. Her face held no expression at all as she stared back. A second later she turned away and quickly untied the horse, taking her into the barn and disappearing from my view.
“Avelina,” I said to myself.
“Yeah, that’s Avelina.” A strong, unfamiliar voice startled me from behind.
I turned to find a large, foreboding man standing in the doorway, holding a cardboard box. “You must be Caleb?” I asked.
He set the box down and moved toward me, reaching his hand out. “That’s me. And you’re Nathanial.” It wasn’t a question. He had a deep, monotone voice.
“Nice to meet you. So that’s Avelina out there?”
“Yeah.” He paused then with a sardonic smile and said, “Damaged goods.”
“Oh.” Shocked by his callous remark, I couldn’t think of how to respond. He pointed to the box.
“There’s a pair of boots that Red said would fit you and some other clothes that Bea pulled together. Good to meet you,” he said, as he walked out the door.
I turned my attention to the window and saw Avelina again. She was standing in the bed of a large blue pickup truck, lifting white bags that must have been at least thirty pounds. She was tossing them into a big pile on the ground near the barn. Quickly, I changed out of my pants and into a pair of old Wranglers from the box. I slipped on the dark brown boots, which were worn but fit me perfectly. From my bag, I found my gray UCLA hoodie and threw it on. I studied my reflection in the mirror. Clean-shaven with Wranglers that were two sizes too big; old, ugly cowboy boots; and a university sweatshirt. I would make for an interesting-looking character on the ranch. I wondered how my first impression with Avelina would go over and then I wondered why I cared. I was intrigued by the unexpected beauty she possessed, which mesmerized me even at a thirty-yard distance. After seeing Avelina in person, my aunt’s words about her rang over and over in my head. I had a sudden desire to prove my aunt wrong. I headed out, marched down the steps of the house, and waved to Redman, who was rocking in his chair on the front porch.
“Gonna go help Avelina.”
“Good luck with that,” he mumbled.
I approached her as she was bending to lift another bag of what looked like grain. She stood, holding it over her shoulder. I looked up at her from where I stood next to the truck. There was a moment where neither one of us spoke or moved. She had on a checkered black and red long-sleeved flannel shirt tucked into a pair of tight black jeans. She couldn’t have weighed more than one twenty, and from where I stood she looked to be of average height, but she held the huge bag over her shoulder like it was filled with air.
She blinked twice, looked down at my boots, and then looked back up into my eyes but didn’t say anything.
“You’re Avelina?” I asked. She nodded and then bit down on her full bottom lip. Her eyes held no expression. She looked down at my boots again. “Can I call you Lena for short?”
“No.” Her voice was low and urgent.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I stood there, stunned, not knowing what to do as she hovered over me with the giant bag.
“Call me Ava. Everyone calls me Ava,” she said quickly before tossing the bag toward the barn.
“Can I give you a hand with the rest of the bags?”
“Just toss them into that pile.” She didn’t look at me when she spoke. “I’ll be right back.”
She jumped down and walked off toward the house at a determined pace.
I unloaded all of the grain and pushed the tailgate back into place. When I got up to the porch, Ava was gone but Red was still sitting there, smoking his pipe.
“We’ll go into town tomorrow and get you some boots, kid.” It was almost dark out and the light from the lantern hanging above him only lit one side of his face. The other was hidden completely in the darkness. I studied the deep wrinkles on Redman’s forehead and around his eyes.
“These boots won’t work?”
“Ah, I shouldn’t have given you those boots.” He puffed on his pipe, blowing a small plume of smoke toward my face. “Ava wasn’t too happy.”
“Why?”
“Well, those are her dead husband’s boots,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Jesus, Redman.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I feel terrible. Why would you give me—”
“Supper’s ready. Don’t be letting that get to you, okay? Ava’s got a whole gaggle of demons flockin’ around her. You’re better off keepin’ away.”
“Has she been to counseling?” I sat in the rocker next to Redman but he didn’t look over to me. He stared into the darkness and smoked his pipe.
“People like Ava, people like us, we don’t go to counseling. We turn ourselves over to the Lord.”
“Redman, honestly, that’s crazy. Maybe she just needs someone to talk to.”
He finally turned and faced me. “Her husband blew his head off right in front of her . . . that fucking coward.” It was the first time I had ever heard Redman use that kind of language. “She cursed the Lord instead of turning to him. She cursed herself, and now she’ll pay.”
“With all due respect . . .”
“Ehh!” He made a sound as if he were reprimanding an animal. “Watch yourself, kid. Hotshot doctor come from L.A., think you know a thing or two about our souls, do ya?” His face looked wolfish in the murky light. “You know nothin’ of this business.”
I shook my head and smiled, trying to laugh it off. “Redman, I didn’t mean that I knew what she needed. It’s just that she’s so young.”
“She’s older than me.” He laughed once, finally breaking the tension, but there was still something wry about his smile. “Lookin’ death right in the face and begging, that’s how old she is.”
“I think you’re wrong. Why don’t you have sympathy for her?”
“Sympathy, I have. Time, I don’t.”
Basically Redman was saying he didn’t want to deal with her. I remember hearing stories, growing up, about Redman and Bea. My father had said that his parents, my grandparents, were too warm and nurturing. They were pushovers, so they would send Dale and my dad out to the Walker Ranch for some tough love from Redman and Bea—the almighty wake-up call, they would say. I wondered if my father’s grounded personality was owed to the summers he had spent on the ranch.
My father came from money and I came from money, but at the ranch there was a sense that no one was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. We are all just trying to live right by each other. My father said Redman told him having too much money caused a man’s sense of survival to atrophy. I guess I understood what he meant.
Avelina was the only person on the ranch who was not at Bea’s long dining table that night for shepherd’s pie. I didn’t ask why. Dale and Redman reminisced about the good times with my father while I tried to discreetly dodge the meat in my dinner. Afterward, I helped Bea take the dishes into the kitchen.
Across from the sink was a screen door leading to the side yard where Bea kept chickens. Ava was sitting on the two concrete steps to the yard with her back to the door. I could tell through the screen that she was eating. Next to her, sitting stoically, was the ugly dog.
I walked to the sink and then heard the screen open behind me but I kept my head on the task of rinsing the dishes.
“I’ll take care of that.” Her vo
ice was small. When I turned to face her, she looked down at her feet, her long hair hanging forward.
“I’m Nate. It’s nice to meet you, too.”
She looked up finally and smiled very slightly, just enough to show she could be polite. Staring into her big brown eyes, I said, “I’ll wash if you dry?”
Her smile grew wider. “Okay.”
We did the dishes in silence as the others congregated in the kitchen to say good night.
Patting me on the back, Dale said, “Good, I see Ava’s already puttin’ you to work.”
Ava laughed. “He’s the one who put me to work.”
Everyone in the room turned and looked at her with shocked faces as if they had never heard her speak.
Ava immediately blushed, her pouty lips flattening. Trish warily approached her with outstretched arms but Ava bolted past her and ran out of the house, followed by the ugly dog.
“What the fuck?”
“Language!” Bea scolded me.
Caleb left the kitchen shaking his head.
“Why’d everyone look so shocked?” I asked.
I turned to Dale, whose face was etched with compassion. His dark bushy eyebrows were bunched together. “We just haven’t heard her laugh in five years.”
“Oh.” The kitchen went quiet again.
On my way to bed, Bea caught me in the hallway. “She seemed to warm up to you rather easily. Red and Caleb will tell you to stay away, that she’s cursed. She’s not. Sometimes I think those boys are just tryin’ to protect her. None of us could bear to see her hurt anymore,” she said, her smile sincere and deep.
A sobering feeling ran through me. “I’m not going to hurt her. I barely said five words to her.” I suddenly thought about Lizzy, on her hospital bed, looking up at me with trust in her eyes. Fuck. “I think I need to get some air, Bea. I’m going for a walk.”
“Okay, honey.” She kissed me on the cheek. I pulled her tiny frame into my arms. Her long, gray hair smelled of the tobacco smoke from Redman’s pipe. I thought about the years she had given her life to him, with no children to bind her to him, and I wondered in my pragmatic mind why on earth a person would do that.
“That was nice,” she said, once she pulled away.
CHAPTER 5
A Light
Avelina
They had been shocked that I filled one moment of my life, one second, with a tiny bit of joy. They didn’t think I deserved it. Trish had reached for me cautiously while Nate had stood there with soapsuds on his hands, looking dumbfounded. Redman’s eyes had been as big as sand dollars, and Bea’s had been squinting and beady, as if she hadn’t heard things right. The walls had started closing in and then I ran, like I always do.
I wished it had been just Nate and me in the room so that I could remember what it felt like to be around at least one person who didn’t think I was poison. He seemed nice enough, and he didn’t ask me a bunch of stupid questions.
He smelled nothing like the other men I knew. His scent was clean and crisp, like fancy aftershave. I noticed there wasn’t a single dark hair out of place on his head, and the seawater green of his eyes filled up almost the entire iris. He was one of the most attractive people I had ever seen. While I had dried the dishes next to him, I had marveled at the untouchable smoothness of his skin, even along his severe jawline. He had a strong resemblance to Dale, with his classic good looks and light eyes that popped and caught the attention of everyone in a room.
Maybe I let myself relax near him because of his warm smile or his cute playfulness or the way he squinted when he looked into my eyes, as if he were trying to see further inside of me, to my soul. Too bad he would never find it.
In the darkness, I wrapped myself in a blanket and curled up on my cabin porch swing. I swung my legs gently, letting the sound of the creaking wood lull me to sleep.
“Ava,” he whispered, his hand cupping my shoulder. I opened my eyes and saw Nate standing over me, silhouetted by the moonlight. “Ava, do you want me to help you inside? It’s getting cold out here.”
“No, I’m okay.” When I stood up a small bottle of whiskey slid from my lap and clinked onto the floor. Nate picked it up and calmly handed it back to me. “I just had a little bit.”
“I don’t judge you,” he said instantly.
I swallowed and then got up and slowly began moving past him toward the door.
“Wait. Why did you run out?” he asked.
“Because they were all mad at me.”
“Mad at you for what?”
I could see his puzzled expression in the dark.
“I don’t know,” I said quietly.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“You wouldn’t understand. I hardly understand it myself.”
“Try me, I’m a good listener.” He hugged his defined arms to his chest. I noticed he was only wearing a black T-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops.
“That’s definitely California footwear. Not proper for a Montana night, even in the summer.” I giggled.
“That’s a nice sound,” he said in a low voice.
“What?”
“Your laugh.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said as my nerves swirled in my stomach.
“Do you want me to come in? We could talk?” The invitation seemed genuine and innocent, but I was surprised by my own thoughts of curling myself into his long body or nestling my nose into his shirt and breathing that new smell in until I fell asleep. When I turned to face the cabin, I looked past him into the window. A vision of Jake’s slumped body flashed in my mind. I gasped.
“What is it?” he asked with concern, his warm hands clasping my arms. I tried to move past him to the door again; he blocked me. “Tell me, please.”
I shook my head, fearing that if I said the words the image would flash in my mind again.
After a few minutes of silence he spoke, his voice low, warm, and soothing. “Listen, Ava. I lost a patient recently. I’m a doctor. . . .” When he swallowed I could see the muscles in his jaw flex. “I lost a patient and it was my fault.” He held my hand, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles nervously. I pulled away. It was as though he was trying to comfort me with the story, yet I could hear his own pain in the admission.
I couldn’t be sure why he was telling me about his patient but his expression was so piteous that it made me feel a little sick. He had obviously heard about my story and maybe he thought we could mope around together or something.
“Was she your wife?”
“No, but . . .”
“I have to go in. I’m sorry about your patient.”
“Wait, Ava.”
I turned back. “Yes?”
“I just thought we could hang out a little while I’m here. I mean, since we’re kind of the same age.”
I instantly felt pity for him. He fumbled for words like no doctor I had ever known.
“Okay. Maybe we can take the horses out to the stream tomorrow?” I said. He nodded and smiled. “We can fish?” I suggested.
“That sounds great.”
“But no talking,” I warned.
“No talking,” he repeated and then stepped out of the way to let me pass.
Like many nights, before bed I went into the kitchen, found the large bottle of whiskey under the sink, and drank three large gulps, praying I wouldn’t dream. My new version of a bedtime prayer after Jake’s death, though it had nothing to do with faith in a higher power. I simply hoped the whiskey would numb my mind enough to allow me to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I packed lunches and saddled up Dancer and Tequila, an old Tennessee Walker we’d had on the ranch for many years. He was the most comfortable horse to ride and had the smoothest gait. I thought Nate would appreciate that—I assumed he hadn’t ridden a horse in some time since he was a fancy doctor in L.A. After waiting for a while with no sign of Nate, I wondered if maybe he had changed his mind about going for a ride. Maybe the thought of being alone with me on horseback terrified him. r />
I searched the shed for fishing tackle. Redman was a hoarder when it came to the shed and barn spaces, I think because Bea had such a strong arm about keeping a tidy house. It was Redman’s way of rebelling. There were about twelve tackle boxes full of mostly junk, but I managed to find the right lures and line for stream fishing.
Before I heard him, I felt a presence coming toward me from behind. I wasn’t used to being around people so I was very aware when someone was near. I just continued rummaging through the boxes until I found my favorite lure, a shiny golden one in the faint shape of a heart.
“Can I help you find something?” Nate asked.
“No, I’ve got it!” I held the lure up in triumph. “This baby gets ’em every time.”
“Good morning. I’m happy to see your competitive spirit is alive.”
My smile faded. Nothing about me is alive. We were standing inches apart, facing each other in the small, darkened shed. Between us, I held the lure. He took it and examined it. When I looked at the ground, I noticed he was wearing Converse sneakers. I let out a sigh, relieved he wasn’t in Jake’s boots. His black jeans looked to be designer, tight against his legs and slightly pegged at the bottom. He was also wearing a plain black T-shirt. His hair and clothes contrasted nicely against his smooth, sun-kissed skin and blazing green eyes.
A tiny smirk played on his lips. “It’s not the shape of anything that exists in nature. Why would a fish want to eat this?”
I looked up, blinking. The thought hadn’t occurred to me. There were lures of all shapes and sizes.
“Well, it’s kind of the shape of a heart, and that exists in nature.”
“A real heart isn’t heart-shaped.” He shot me a cocksure grin. “It’s more cone-shaped, sort of.” His grin disappeared abruptly as he stared past me in thought for several moments, perhaps recalling a painful memory. It was a look I was familiar with.
“Shall we head out?” I asked.
He nodded and then followed me outside of the barn. I untied Tequila and walked him out a few feet. “This is Tequila. You’ll be riding him. You know how to ride, right?”