7. Lost and Lonely – Marie
I’ve been awake for a while now, just laying here. Not sure why. I feel like I'm waiting for something. It’s around seven so I know I should be getting up. I don’t have to work today, but I do have stuff to do this morning.
Stretching as I get up I hear Logan’s make-shift bed creak as he moves. I freeze as I listen to the rustle of cloth and then a yawn, possibly some manly scratching, and then I hear my front door open. I panic suddenly; I don’t want him to leave without saying goodbye.
Forgetting that I’m only wearing a skimpy tee and shorts, I rush out of my room to cold blast of air from the open front door.
What I see takes my breath away; not to mention my mind, and also the ability to use my mouth. I can’t speak, the sight before me is just too glorious. He’s outside my door, bare feet, tight blue jeans stretched over his long muscled legs, but not done up properly and I cant help but follow the trail of hair that travels from his very large, very shirtless chest down to his open jeans. He’s not wearing a shirt. Absolutely no shirt whatsoever. Or a shirt. Definitely no shirt. Did I mention that he’s not wearing a shirt?
“Morning darlin’.”
My eyes snap to his. “Ur hey, sleep, you know…good?” I watch as he lights a cigar and then looks around in the early morning sun.
“Not bad. You? Heard you shifting around a lot, there was some mumbling too.”
I fidget in my doorway. “Oh, sorry. Guess you can’t help what you do when you’re asleep.”
He gives a little chuckle and smile. “If you say so.” He takes a long drag on his cigar and watches me; I think I shiver a little. Must be the early air. “Why don’t you put some clothes on, it’s cold.”
Looking down at myself I suddenly remember I’m not wearing much and blush like hot cherry sauce. “God! Yeah that would be chest. I mean ‘best’! That would be best. I’m gonna, just…you know, go, do, that.”
I catch a smirk on his face as I walk back to my room, then just collapse head first on the bed and hope it swallows me whole so I can never blush again. Why am I such an idiot around him? He’s just a guy like everyone else, well apart from the mutation issue. Why can’t my brain just give my mouth a break, you know, just once?
With a groan I dress in my best jeans, a black shirt and a black hooded sweater and head back to Logan. He’s back in my little home and making coffee. Still shirtless and barefoot.
“So, barefoot and cooking in my kitchen, you’ll make someone a lovely wife.” I laugh and take a steaming mug from him.
“Funny, keep laughing darlin’. I ain’t the domesticated type.”
“You look kinda domesticated to me. You must have to be kinda domesticated to live in a school?”
He shrugs. “Kinda I guess. There’s a lotta kids running around so I have to behave.”
“Behave? Sounds hard.”
His eyebrow shoots. “It’s always hard.” His eyes rake up and down me. “Especially lately.”
Biting the inside of my cheek seems like a good idea to stop myself from smiling, but it fails and his blatant innuendo has me looking at my feet once again with a smirk on my face. I like it that he’s playful, and I like it that he wants to be this way with me, but…I don’t know, I think it must be some inner self doubt that just wants him to stop. “You really need to stop talking like that.”
“Why? It’s fun.” He leans in close to my downcast face. “And I think you like it.”
“I do. It’s just….” I look up at him. “I kinda like this. This easiness that we seem to have with each other and I don’t want to spoil that by complicating it with sex. Does that make sense or have I just rambled on without making any sense at all?”
“Yeah, that makes sense. And I see what you mean, this does feel easy.” His brows come together in what must be his thinking face. “Honestly it feels a little too easy.”
“Hey we had this conversation, I'm not lying.” That’s a bit unfair, apart from my name I haven’t lied. I haven’t needed to, he feels just right.
“I know you’re not.” He puts his coffee down on the counter and folds his arms in front of his chest. “Like I said last night, I’ve spent a lot of time watching my back. A lot of bad shit has come my way and I'm finding it hard to accept that I can have this…shit I'm not good at explaining it but, this, just standing in someone’s - a friends - kitchen, having a cup of damn coffee like a normal person and having a genuine conversation where I don’t have to watch what I say or act like…” he shrugs and picks up his coffee again. “It’s nice.” Suddenly I want to hug him.
I smile and pick up my mug too; taking a little sip as I look at him over the top of my mug. “You’re right, it is nice.”
He laughs. “So, what goes on around here on a Sunday then?”
For some reason I'm not sure why, but I feel excited, like a kid at Christmas. “Oh, well nothing really, the town’s real quiet…”
He chuckles again. “No darlin’, I mean you.”
“Oh. Oh, okay. Um, I usually go for a ride.”
Those eyebrows are pushed together again. “You drive around?”
This time I laugh. “No sugar, ride, as in a horse!” I watch as he nods and I think on my feet. “Do you wanna come along?”
****************
The morning sun has melted most of the snow, it’s still cold and once the sun goes later it will probably snow again, but right now it’s a bright and sunny drive. I have a vehicle/truck, well it’s more like a hunk of junk that happens to go when you push the little pedal on the floor, personally I think it’s powered by magic.
We go over a bump and he nearly bounces through the roof, hitting his head with an ‘oophf’.
“Sorry, the suspension is kinda shot.”
“Anything else wrong that I should know about?”
“Well…apart from the suspension, its not four wheel drive anymore the back diff sheered off a while ago, the steering veers left when you break, the breaks stick on going up hill and then for some strange reason don’t work going down; keeping it in a low gear usually helps but I have to use the handbrake on the high gradient, sometimes the throttle sticks open, the petrol filler cap leaks in water when it rains, your window doesn’t open, that door doesn’t lock and if you go over a really hard bump sometimes the prop-shaft will fall off, but you know apart form that – she runs.” When I look over at the horrified look on his face I realise that he wasn’t actually asking for a list of everything wrong with my little 4x4.
“How haven’t killed yourself? This scrap yard on wheels is a death-trap.”
I shrug, because he’s right. “When you have a budget of nothing, you make do.”
“Darlin’ there’s making do and then there’s…this truck.”
I glare at him a little, but don’t have time to defend my poor truck or I’ll miss the turning for the stables. We rumble to a stop outside the main stable and he gets out, slamming the door shut, which I don’t mind; it won’t shut otherwise.
Smiling I wave my arm at the building. “Welcome to the Heath Stables.” He casually leans against the front of the truck and takes out a cigar. “Oh, no no, no, you ur, can’t smoke here…”
He put his hand up to stop me from rambling at him. “Just gonna chew on it.”
“Oh, okay.” I blush a little again, then get caught in his eyes again. There’s more there than one glance would tell you, you have to look deep and just keep looking, I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of looking for what it is inside him that makes him tick.
“So?” He’s smirking at me again, not sure why.
“So….oh, yeah, horses.” Rolling my eyes at my self I turn towards the small farmhouse. “Just be a sec, gotta grab the key.”
The door is open, so I push the two lumbering Labrador’s out of the way as they bark and wag their tails at me and practically run to the far corner of the kitchen to the desk and grab the spare stable key out of the draw. Mr & Mrs Heath always leave it there for me on a Sunday while they go off to church.
When I get back outside Logan is still leaning against the side of my beaten old truck, he has his head tipped backwards and his face pointed towards the sun. “Horses are this way.”
I go through the open track that leads round the back of the house to the stables. It’s an enormous building that houses 11 horses as well as a small office on the left side, well its actually the twelfth stall, but they turned it into an office.
Logan helps me pull the huge double doors open and lock then in place. “How did you get into this?”
“What, horses?” I ask as I walk ahead and pull down a saddle off the rack on the wall.
“No, breaking and entering! Yes, darlin’ horses.”
“Chinook, Montana. I spent a while with an old lady who had a small holding. She gave me a job, place to sleep for a couple weeks. Found out how much I really like horses. Mr Heath is a customer in the dinner and his wife was a good friend of Tony’s late wife. We all got talking one day in the diner and they said I could come and ride a horse on my day off, or whenever I wanted.”
“Montana huh, on the way to here?”
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“It’s a long way, kid.”
I smile more to myself really than him and sigh. “Anyway, that saddle on the top there should be fine for you. You know if you still wanna ride.” I turn to walk away down the stall then turn back to him. “Actually, can you ride, I never asked?”
He reaches up and pulls the larger saddle down off of the wall. “Guess we’re gonna find out.”
Chuckling a little I walk down to the other end and open stable 4. “This, is Cowboy.”
“No offence darlin’, but someone’s cut his legs off.”
“Hey.” He laughs as I start to saddle up the horse. “He’s a true Spanish Mustang, a paint pony. You know, a Navaho horse. Mr Heath rescued him from some place in Oklahoma. Will you stop chuckling like that? In comparison to most other horses okay so he’s a little small, but hardy, he has vigour, and adaptability, he’ll get you through anything, wont ya boy? What?”
“He suits you.” I stare at him for a while and try to figure out if that was a compliment or not, but give up when he turns away to the stall. “So which one’s mine?”
I walk across to the other side of the stables to stall 10. “This guy. He’s the only other horse here I’ve ridden so I know he’s okay. His name’s Rodeo.” I slide the door across and present Logan with a nice big white stallion.
He shakes the saddle that’s hanging over his arm. “I have no idea how to put this on.”
Smiling I pull Rodeo’s blanket off of the side of the stable door and throw it over his back. “Okay, you throw this on first, then the saddle pad, these ties attach to a D-ring on the saddle and help keep it in place while you’re riding along. Next you lift of the saddle…sorry its heavy.”
He stands behind me and takes the big saddle out of my hands and lifts it onto the horse for me. I can feel his back pressed against me and even though the saddle is on he hasn’t moved. “Um, next you check the position, that’s fine; then, you reach under the horse and pull the girth strap under to this side…” I bend forward and reach under for the girth strap, my backside rubs against his legs as I bend over, I couldn’t help it when he’s standing that close, I catch my breath as I feel his hand move up my back. I stand back up, his hand still in place and I brush my hair out of my face and try to buckle the girth with shaky hands. “This buckles onto here like this. Then you need to put the bridle on.” I turn round and meet his gaze, his eyes don’t leave mine, making me shiver a little more as I reach for the bridle hanging over the stable door.
“You have to hold the bridle up over the horse's nose with your right hand…” he puts his hand over mine.
“Like this?” His face is pressed against my neck and his voice is soft and husky, his breath hot on my skin, I can already feel the first shiver of goosebumps march across my skin.
I nod, feeling him pressed against my back again. “Using your left hand fingers, hold the bit against his mouth, and insert your thumb into the space between the front and back teeth, slide the bit in, and lift the bridle higher with your right hand so the horse can’t spit the bit back out.” I feel his other arm move around me to fit over mine and lift the bridle. His arms are caging me in and it’s so hot in here. “Grasp the crown of the bridle with your left hand and with your right hand gently bend the horse's right ear forward to slip it under the crown. Then the other ear, these straps need to be fastened up…and you’re done.”
He’s still pressed against me. “Ready to ride.”
I’m not sure if it’s a question or a statement, but I don’t have time to think about it as Rodeo seems to pick up on our atmosphere and spooks a little breaking us away from each other. “Easy, easy boy.”
I hear Logan mumble something as he walks out of the stall, I think it sounded like ‘Yeah easy boy’ but I'm not sure. I choose to ignore it and lead his horse out and hand him the reins.
“I’m guessing you can get on, right?”
He nods. “Yeah, I’ve ridden a horse before, I think.”
“This one of those memory moments?”
“Yeah, I have more than I’d like.”
“Maybe this will be a good one.” I smile and go back to Cowboy, tacking him up before leading him out the far end of the stable into the sunshine. In one, I have to say, rather graceful movement, I’m saddled and ready to go. Logan follows me out of the stable and with an equally graceful move he is on too. “I usually take the track out to the rear of the farm and hack through the woods at the far end. That okay with you?”
“Fine by me darlin’, lead the way.”
With what feels like the brightest smile I have had in a long time, I turn Cowboy round and trot down to the rear track. I look back and see him trotting behind me; soon he’s alongside and smiling with me.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Beta by Gidget. Many, many thanks!!!