Red-Blooded Heart Read online

  “I think ice cream is good any time,” I say, and I open the door and let him in. “This will be exciting, actually. I’ve never gotten to entertain anyone in my house, not with my silverware and bowls and things.”

  He follows me inside, shutting the door behind me. We go into my kitchen. I set bowls on the counter and I get out spoons.

  “I don’t have an ice cream scoop, though,” I say. “I didn’t think about buying one.”

  “I think we can manage with a regular spoon,” he says, and he’s already scooping out ice cream into the bowls. It’s vanilla, and I’m glad, because I like the simplicity of vanilla. It is the best kind of ice cream, in my opinion. Why improve on its purity?

  We don’t go to sit down. We lean against the counters in the kitchen and eat the ice cream, and he’s close, too close, and I look up at him, and I wonder where he came from and why I can’t get him out of my head and what I’m going to do about him.

  “What about ice cream?” I say. “Is that a piece of civilization that we should be taking advantage of?”

  “Definitely,” he growls, licking his spoon clean.

  I savor another bite. “Think of everything that had to come together for ice cream. First we had to domesticate cows. How hard must that have been? I mean, bulls are mean, right? They have bull fights?”

  “Must not have been that mean,” says Deke. “Because we managed.”

  “And we didn’t even have guns back then,” I say.

  He laughs. He his finished his ice cream and he sets it down on the counter and moves closer to me.

  I’m sweaty because I’ve been exercising, and I think that he won’t like the way I smell, but he doesn’t seem bothered. I try to think of something to say to get him to move back, but instead, I say, “And then we had to figure out that we could drink cow’s milk. That’s crazy, isn’t it? I mean, milking an animal, stealing the food of its baby. It’s kind of horrible when you think about it.”

  “Actions and consequences.” He puts a hand down on the counter and leans on it. His body is touching mine now.

  I let out a tiny gasp. He should stop that. My voice comes out breathy. “Well, the consequences were ice cream, so…”

  “Yeah, pretty good consequence.” He lifts his other hand, and he brushes a strand of my hair out of my face.

  “Don’t,” I breathe.

  “Don’t what?” he says.

  But I don’t answer. I press into him, my breasts and belly against his chest and I say, “And then, we needed to have freezers. Or at least ice. And it’s not enough just to freeze the milk. Making ice cream is a process.”

  His hand is on my cheek now. His fingers are tracing the outline of my cheekbone.

  I keep talking. I need to talk to think. My body is being stupid, and I need it to stop, and maybe if I talk, I can figure out a way out of this before it all becomes a disaster. “Why waste all our superior brain power on making ice cream? How does ice cream further civilization, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” he whispers, and he’s trying to kiss me.

  But I keep talking. “It’s because it’s makes people happy, that’s why. That’s what you’re missing in all that stuff about suffering and struggling you keep talking about.”

  “What am I missing?”

  “Pleasure,” I say, except I didn’t mean that word, because it’s a word that makes it so much easier for our lips to meet.

  And they do.

  He tastes like vanilla ice cream, and his stubble scratches my face, and his tongue is cold and warm and soft and slippery, and his kiss is more tender than I’d imagined. Some part of me had thought he would be harsh and demanding, but he’s sweet and pliable, and I am letting this man destroy everything that I’ve ever wanted, and I can’t, can’t, can’t—

  I push him away, gasping.

  “Please,” I say.

  He tries to kiss me again.

  I duck my head. “It’s too fast,” I tell the floor.

  “No, it’s right,” he says. “You know it is.”

  “You have to leave.”

  He shakes his head at me.

  “Now,” I say.

  He does leave. But not before he kisses me again.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  -deke-

  I’ve screwed up again, but I’m not entirely sure how. I shouldn’t have showed up with the ice cream. It was too fast, like she said. But I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was half-crazy from the way she looked when she was doing those pull-ups, and I can’t be held responsible for what I did.

  I’m not sorry, either. Kissing her was exactly the right thing to do.

  Maybe I can’t kiss her again for a while, maybe I have to back off, but the kisses are there, and now we both know what it’s like. I never imagined it would be so good to kiss her, but it was. And what’s more, she wanted me to kiss her, and she loved being kissed, and she wants me as much as I want her.

  She kicks me out of her house that night, and I go.

  The next night, I come back to look for her, but she’s not in her house. I go into the crawlspace, but I can’t see her. I climb out of the crawlspace, and I walk around, looking in the windows. She’s not inside.

  I walk through her back yard, wondering if I should be worried.

  Her truck is still there. She didn’t go driving anywhere. Presumably, she must have gone walking. She’s outside somewhere in the chilly November night.

  In the distance, I can hear the coywolves howling. It’s a chilling sound, otherworldly and unnatural in some way. Maybe it’s because the coywolves are some kind of hybrid creature that nature never intended. They are the intermingling of wolves and coyotes, and they are probably the only wolves left in this part of the country.

  Maybe it’s another example of how humans have screwed with nature. We got rid of the predators, like the wolves, because we didn’t want them to slaughter our livestock, and now the wolves are practically gone. The remaining wolves weren’t so picky and mated with the coyotes. Now, we have these half-wolves, half-coyotes that make blood-curdling noises in the night. It’s sad because eventually the coywolves will survive and the wolves will be entirely wiped out.

  Or maybe it’s not sad. Maybe it’s a testament to the will to survive. It shows how there is nothing that can stop nature. The wolves did what they could to keep passing on their DNA. And the world keeps turning and everything keeps going the best it can.

  Juniper comes running out of the woods, her eyes wide, breathing hard, obviously terrified.

  I run for her without thinking about the fact that it’s too soon for me to be here, and how I need to back off. All I can think is that she’s in danger, and that she needs me. “What happened?” I call.

  She stops short when she sees me. “What?” she says in a funny, strangled voice. “Nothing.” She takes several moments to get herself under control, run a hand through her hair, straighten her coat. She gives me something that could pass for a smile. “I’m fine.”

  “Something spook you out there?”

  She scoffs. “No. I’m fine. I’m not afraid.” She fold her arms over her chest and juts out her chin, and she’s suddenly the most attractive woman I’ve ever seen.

  Couldn’t say what it is. I think it’s this bravado she’s trying to pull. It’s so anti-feminine, not embracing her fear, pretending to be tough. It’s such a male thing to do.

  It doesn’t seem as if that should make her attractive, but it does, and I’m turned on, and I want to put my hands on her. I want my fingers inside her coat, under the waist of her pants, and I want my lips on her neck and her collarbone.

  I only swallow hard.

  “Are those coyotes?” she says in a bland voice, as if she doesn’t care one way or the other.

  “Coywolves,” I say. “Half-wolf, half-coyote. They’re interbred.”

  She nods. “They sound freaky, I’ll give you that.”

  “They do,” I say.

  She scuffs her foot against the
ground. “They don’t, uh, attack humans, do they?”

  “Oh, hardly ever,” I say. “It would have to be a desperate situation. They’d have to be provoked or they’d have to smell blood or they’d have to be starving.”

  “Right,” she says.

  A coywolf makes its yipping, mournful sound, and it’s loud.

  “Gosh, they sound close.” She gives me another of those almost smiles.

  I gesture. “You want me to go out there and check it out? I can scare them off if they’re close.”

  “No,” she says, laughing. “It’s no problem. Like you said, they aren’t dangerous.”

  Well, I don’t know if that’s true. Everything’s dangerous, or it can be.

  She shoves her hands into the pockets of her coat. “What are you doing out here? Looking for me?”

  “Uh…” Damn it, I’m caught. “I was walking. I ended up walking this way.” I think I’m blushing, God help me.

  “I’m actually heading back to the city next week.”

  “You are?” I didn’t know this. I thought she was moved in for good.

  “Yeah, I have a few things to take care of, see my family, and then I’ll be back.”

  “You, uh, you want me to look in on your place while you’re gone?”

  She’s heading back towards her house. She shoots a glance at me over her shoulder. “No, it’ll be fine.”

  I start after her. “What about your chicks?”

  “They’re still brooding,” she says. “I’ll take them with me.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “Look, I tried to tell you before that I’m sorry,” she says. “I never meant to, like, lead you on or whatever. It’s just that things are kind of complicated with me. I really wish you would give me some space, you know?”

  Is that why she’s leaving? Because of me? “Hey, you’ve got space.” I spread my hands. “All the space you need.”

  “Good,” she says. And she reaches her house. She opens the door and lets herself in. She doesn’t offer for me to come in too, and she doesn’t say goodbye.

  She shuts the door firmly, leaving me out in the cold.

  * * *

  Damn it.

  Maybe the kiss was a bad idea. She’s spooked, all right. She’s more scared of me than she is of the damned coywolves. I go home and feel like an idiot and pace in my small cabin, calling myself names under my breath.

  I should never have gotten involved with her at all. I don’t need this in my life. She’s trouble, and I can’t afford trouble. She wants me to stay away, and so I will.

  I swear to myself that I will.

  But I find myself sneaking onto her property the next day.

  Her truck is gone, and everything is locked up tight. She’s already gone. I climb into the crawlspace anyway, but it’s cold in there, because she’s obviously not burning any wood while she’s gone, and I don’t stay long.

  I head back to my place instead.

  Suddenly, I feel adrift, as if there is nothing to fill my days with anymore.

  It’s not as if I don’t have things that I could do. I could go out and chop down trees, cut the wood into firewood. I could go fishing or hunting. It’s always good to stock the freezer for the winter. There are any number of projects I could start working on, all kinds of ways I want to expand my homestead.

  It doesn’t seem like it’s enough, though.

  Since Juniper showed up, I’ve been working double—taking care of my own things and working on building her house. I’ve been watching her and thinking about her.

  But if she’s gone from my life entirely, then she leaves behind emptiness.

  It makes me think of Alice.

  This isn’t the same. I had an actual relationship with Alice, and then she ended it. So when she was gone, it was worse. It hurt a lot more. Nothing has really happened with Juniper, nothing except a couple of kisses and a disastrous dinner. But it still hurts to think of giving her up, hurts so much that I’m frightened of the pain. How have I allowed myself to become so attached to her so quickly?

  I hate myself for being that weak.

  I resolve to drown her out with work.

  I cut down trees all day long, and I chop the trees into wood, and I pile the wood onto my wood pile, and I cover it with my now-bleached tarp. At night, I am exhausted, but I still lie awake thinking about her.

  A week passes.

  I go back to check and see if she’s returned. She hasn’t.

  I hunt. I spend all day tracking a deer through the woods, following it and waiting for the right time to pull the trigger. Eventually, I realize that I’m letting the moments go by in order to drag out the hunt. I feel as though I am getting to know this deer, that I understand it, and that I can predict its next moves. It’s an intimate sort of thing, and when I do kill it, it’s all the more sweet.

  But it’s dark when I’m field dressing the animal and then I stay up late under LED lights cutting the loins and tenderloins and steaks.

  The next day, I check on Juniper.

  She still hasn’t returned.

  She’s probably going to stay in the city for Thanksgiving at this rate. Of course she would do that. It only makes sense. Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that people don’t like to spend alone.

  I even have an invite to go into town and have Thanksgiving with a family whose barn I built. I had thought that I would turn them down, but now the prospect of any more time on my own seems unbearable, so I go.

  They deep fry the turkey and fix Stovetop stuffing and instant mashed potatoes, but it’s all good food. I eat and field questions about what it’s like to live the way that I do, which I’m used to answering. I don’t even mind it. I like talking about it.

  I drive back the half hour in the darkness. I stop at Juniper’s place on the way back, but she’s not there. Of course she’s not there.

  An awful thought occurs to me.

  I wonder if maybe she’s not coming back at all. It seems like it hasn’t been long enough or harsh enough for her to give up, and she seemed so determined, but this kind of life isn’t for everyone.

  There was a guy named Frank who lived out on Fisher’s Road for while. He had this RV he was living in, and he was one of those grizzly kinds of guys with hairy forearms and a bushy beard. He said he’d wanted to live out in the wild all his life. But he packed up that RV one day in a break between snow storms in February, and he drove off, and I never saw him again.

  The thought of Juniper never coming back makes it impossible for me to sit still. I pace around the small space of my cabin until I decide to get on my laptop and look her up on social media again.

  I find her pages, but she hasn’t posted anything except pictures of her new place. Ever since she left, there’s been nothing.

  Another stab of panic.

  What if something happened to her? What if she never got where she was going? What if she never made it to her parents’ house?

  But then something pops up on the page.

  She’s been tagged in a photo just now.

  It’s a picture of a guy with coiffed blond hair and a scarf tucked into his corduroy blazer. He’s smiling and he’s got his arm around her. She’s kissing his cheek.

  What the hell?

  The guy is the one who’s posted this picture. I click on his profile and I find more pictures like this, with captions like, “Out on the town with the little lady.”

  The little lady? What?

  Scarf guy’s name is Graham Sullivan.

  I hate him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  -deke-

  The next morning, I decide that I’m going to have to go to the city to rescue Juniper from Graham Sullivan. I’ve combed his social media posts and he’s taken her out lots and lots of times over the past year. Maybe they’re even dating.

  That makes sense, I guess, why Juniper kept trying to put me off. She was trying to be loyal to Graham.

  But Graham’s no good for her, and I
can tell that just by reading his profile. He’s not outdoorsy at all. He likes watching movies and exercising in a gym and he’s nothing like what she wants in a man. She needs to be free, not tied down. I can’t see why she would ever go out with him. It simply doesn’t make sense.

  So, I’ll go there, and it’ll be like Crocodile Dundee. I’ll charm her in the city with my knowledge of nature, and my huge Bowie knife—okay that’s maybe a metaphor—and it’ll all work out.

  I don’t want to do this, because it could be bad for me. I run the risk of being back on the radar, and I know that Alice’s family is still looking for her, and for the person who burned down her house. So, I should stay out here, because that’s the whole damned reason I came out here in the first place.

  It’s a risk, but it’s worth it. I have to make the sacrifice for Juniper. This guy is going to ruin her. He’s probably convinced her that she shouldn’t come back out to her house, and that’s why she hasn’t come home yet. It’s probably all his fault.

  Before I start packing my bags, I decide that I’ll check on her house one last time.

  I’m not expecting her to be back, but I have to be sure before I leave.

  To my surprise, I see her truck from the woods as I approach. I have walked in the back way, of course. I didn’t want to attract attention to myself by coming up to the front.

  She’s home!

  I heave a huge sigh of relief. I have been so frightened that she isn’t coming back, but now that she’s here, I feel so much better. And this lets me know that I can not let Juniper leave my life entirely. When she was missing, I wasn’t complete. I needed her. Maybe it did make me weak, but I don’t care. I have to have her in my life. That is all there is to it.

  But I won’t go to the door and see her. She was freaked out about me before I left. Maybe she needs time to end things with Graham, and that will happen, because long distance relationships can’t work. It’s fine. I’m a patient person. I can wait.

  The door to the house opens, and I back into the woods, so that I am obscured by the trees, and that no one can see me, but I can still see everything. I am holding my breath and waiting for my first glimpse of her in weeks.