With the curtain on the picture window closed, Galen was out of sight, and very much out of Jo’s mind. She chewed a fingernail while looking over the assorted people in the cabin. Red and Mike were in the kitchen. Lary and Dove were heading out onto the deck. Dove was excitedly telling him about their walk. April had curled up on one end of a couch, getting set to read a book.
She decided to take a hot shower and went for her toiletries. At the top of the stairs, she stopped cold. Her belongings had been shifted down to the bottom bunk. Someone else’s things were sitting on the top bunk. Red! Her eyes shrunk into two slits. She turned away from the beds and gripped the loft railing, glaring down into the kitchen where Red and Mike stood talking.
Red’s back was to Jo as she faced Mike, shifting from one bare foot to the other. Mike delicately plucked a cookie crumb out of the coppery threads of her hair. She giggled over something he said. He was leaning sideways on the counter on one elbow. His lean waist curved into his jeans. His eyes shone with teal colors in the yellow light of an oil lamp. Jo’s shoulders relaxed and her hands loosened their grip on the rail. Her gaze softened. She adored the sweet smile gracing his handsome face, and his lips, so richly pink and inviting. She imagined his sweeping lashes closing over those blue-green eyes and those lips coming down on hers, pressing softly—
Mike turned his head looked up. His eyes met hers. Jo stiffened. She jerked down the dreamy smile that had taken over her expression. Her eyes darted to the floor below.
“Jo, c’mere,” he said with a mouth full of cookie. He waved her to come down.
She descended the stairs and walked timidly to the kitchen.
Red turned her head away.
“Hey, what was ol’ Galen all riled up about earlier?” Mike asked.
Jo’s mouth was dry. She tried to swallow. “I don’t really know. I guess he didn’t think we should be walking around outside.”
“Huh.” Mike made a face and shook his head.
“He said it was stupid.” Jo rolled her eyes.
“I’m not sure about that guy.”
“I know, he’s so weird,” Jo said excitedly. They had something in common now.
“Did something happen out there?” He asked her.
Red sighed with impatience.
Jo licked her lips. “Well, sorta.” It was hard to relax. His eyes were so glittery, like the ocean in the moonlight. “We saw something really weird.”
Red coughed.
“Like what?” Mike asked.
“Like a person kneeling under the trees—like they were praying. We headed back, but then we heard the tree limbs moving. I looked back and there were two small objects glowing under them. So, we turned and ran like heck! Galen was standing on the trail, but I didn’t see him and ran smack into him.” She rubbed her jaw for effect.
Mike chuckled and Jo was pleased.
“Probably a coyote,” Red said. She put her hand on her hip and yawned in Jo’s direction. “They’re always around, scavenging for left overs.” Her eyes drew a narrow green bead on Jo.
“We didn’t think of that.” Jo lowered her gaze. Her cheeks warmed. How foolish. Everyone living in Colorado knew about coyotes. She took a breath to say something, but stopped before the words could form. Mike wasn’t looking at her anymore. Red was feeding him a piece of cookie, placing it in his mouth, just barely brushing her finger against his bottom lip.
“But does a coyote have blue eyes?” Jo blurted her question, desperate to stay in the conversation.
Mike looked at her with curiosity, Red with contempt.
“The glowing things…they were blue,” she said slowly.
“Maybe that’s the way the moonlight was hitting them. Who cares?” Red wasn’t hiding her irritation of Jo’s interference any longer.
“Yeah, it was probably just the moonlight reflected in them. We’ll get an explanation from Ben later,” Mike said. He gazed at Red and added, “Much later.”
Jo took a punch to the gut. Mike and Red resumed their conversation. Red acted as if she wasn’t there, and Mike threw glances at her, in an awkward effort to be polite. Her face burned. She turned and walked away, pretending like it was her idea, and not the humiliating truth. Her eyes were watering. She needed to get out, but there was nowhere to go. Dove and Lary were out back, Galen was out front. She was trapped. But she had to get out.
She moved quietly to the front door and noiselessly slipped out of the cabin. The porch was shielded from the moon’s light, a dark sanctuary. She didn’t see the hammock containing Galen and surmised that it was further back in the trees. Good.
She walked to the end of the porch and sat in the farthest chair from the door. Hugging her knees to her chest, she leaned her head back. The moon-frosted grass swayed. The soft night breeze sailed over her skin and played with her hair. The ephemeral caress consoled her.
The scene blurred.
She pictured Mike, making the fire earlier, doused in lavender. His eyes had penetrated hers so deeply she was sure he had seen her heart. And now he was eating cookies from Red’s hand. Her chest ached. Tears ran slowly down her face, leaving chilled trails. She closed her wet eyes.
Someone was on the porch. She jerked her head up and sprang out of the chair, swiping the flesh under her eyes with her fingers. She wiped her hands on her jeans.
“Don’t freak. It’s me,” Galen said. His dark form stood in the middle of the porch.
Her gut filled with an angry tension. “I just can’t get a break,” she said, not caring if he heard her.
“Go back inside.”
His dictatorial tone caused irritation to blaze up in her, like a firestorm. “It’s a free country, Galen. I’ll sit out here all night if I want to.” She’d had enough of him.
“It’s a dangerous country, Jo.”
“Is that because of you?”
He headed towards her.
Jo drew a sharp breath. She stepped backwards. Her heart raced as he kept coming forward. She bumped into the porch rail. She tried to move around him, but a chair blocked her. She backed up against the cabin wall, right at its edge. He stopped close in front of her. Too close.
Moonlight slanted under the porch cover, pouring an ivory-blue glow over his left side. It shone in Jo’s moon-side eye. In her peripheral vision, her hair glowed with this elysian light.
He looked down at her, his black hair fluttering against the moon-kissed side of his face.
Jo glanced at the rail. As if he read her mind, he planted his left hand on top of it and curled his fingers around it.
“What do you want?” Her voice quivered.
“I want you to go inside.”
“Why?”
“You saw earlier—it might not be safe out here.”
“Red thinks we just saw a coyote.”
“Red,” he scoffed. “Knows all, tells all.”
Jo couldn’t help a slight grin.
Galen remained tense, his hand gripping the rail. “There aren’t any coyotes in this forest.”
Jo tilted her head.
“It’s just something I happen to know.” He anticipated her question. “Now, go inside.”
“I’d like to stay out here, if you don’t mind.”
He took a deep breath. His chest expanded, pushing against the fabric of his shirt. “Don’t make my life any more difficult than it already is.”
Jo squinted. “What you’re talking about?”
He pinched his lips together. “Do what I say, Jo.”
“I don’t think you’re in charge here, Galen.” She tried to speak boldly, but there was a tremor in her voice. Exhaustedly she whispered, “I just wish you’d leave me alone.”
“I don’t grant wishes.”
The light on the side of his face suddenly darkened. A stray cloud had wandered over the moon. Both his eyes were still incandescent grey, snaring her gaze inside them. He looked at her wet cheeks and glanced at her lips. He swallowed hard. If Jo didn’t know better, she’d have sworn he was nervo
us.
The lone cloud floated past the moon. He was washed in its silvery-blue light again. His countenance softened. His shoulders relaxed. Before she could react, he raised a hand to her face and gently touched the skin at the corner of her eye, lifting the remnant of a tear drop onto his finger. He observed it as if he didn’t know what it was.
Jo eyed him and the way he was looking at the tear with childlike wonder. She sniffed. He looked up at her, dropping the hand holding her sorrow.
She licked her bottom lip and took a deep breath, drawing herself up defiantly. “I can also cry if want to.” She tried to speak firmly with dignity, but her throat betrayed her. Her volume was soft and the words gravelly.
His expression hardened again. “Go inside, Jo.” His tone was stern, but softer. She tried to look tough, but his eyes cut through her like pieces of glass. She surrendered, wilting.
He stepped back, allowing her to move around the chair. He waited until she had reached the door and turned the knob before he exited the porch and disappeared into the trees.
She entered the comforting warmth of the cabin, took her shower and went to bed. Dove was still outside with Lary. Her lilting laugh and Lary’s deeper chuckle rose and fell. April had fallen asleep on the couch, the book upside down in her lap. Mike and Red were—who cares?
There were so many things she wanted to tell Dove. Her heart was heavy as she climbed into her bottom bunk. Her mind was tangled with thoughts of that dark figure kneeling under the forest trees, Mike and Red—even Galen. She couldn’t get that moonlit moment on the porch out of her head: her tear on his fingertip.
Chapter 9