Inferno MC: Saving Axe Part 14

"I've always been real proud of you, too, June. When I'd heard you became a Navy doctor and all."

It was funny, hearing that from Stan didn't rub me the same way it did when Jed said it. When Stan said it, I felt warm, happy.

"June," he said. "I'm sorry if I stirred things up between you and Cade."

I had to turn away to hide a smile. There it was, the reason he'd come over. All the pretense, in order to apologize.

He and Cade were cut from the same cloth.

"It's okay, Stan," I said. "You didn't stir up anything."

"Now, I know that's not true," he said. "And I insulted you, implying that you'd be talking to a cop about Crunch and his family."

I shook my head. "It was really okay, Stan."

"That's good to hear," he said. "I wouldn't want to have wanted to stir things up with the two of you."

I was beginning to realize that Stan was as bad as one of the old ladies down at the hair salon, meddling in my personal life. I couldn't tell if he was trying to get Cade and I together, or warn me off of him.

Stan studied me carefully. "I fought in Nam. I drifted for a while when I came back, was a little lost there for a bit. Got mixed up in some bad stuff."

"What happened to change things for you?"

"Meeting Cade's mother is what happened to me," Stan said. "She gave me a reason to live, a reason to get my head out of my a.s.s."

I walked over to the bucket, dipped my brush in the paint, returned to the porch. I didn't have a response for that. Was he comparing Cade and I to him and Molly?

Stan waited a while before he spoke again. "I've seen the way Cade looks at you. It's the same way I used to look at his mother."

"What?" My voice caught in my throat. No, that wasn't right. Stan was mistaken. Cade did not have feelings for me. "But but you're the one who warned me away from him. When he first got here."

Stan nodded. "I was wrong to say that."

No.

I was not Cade's savior.

We did not belong together.

When I didn't respond, Stan finished his piece of the railing in silence, then wiped his hands on his jeans. "How would you feel about taking a ride tomorrow?"

"Me?" I asked. "Stan, I haven't been on a horse in years. I haven't ridden since I left West Bend."

Stan nodded. "I know you haven't, June. We took Sa.s.sy for you. She only pa.s.sed on a couple years ago, right after Molly died. She was a gorgeous horse."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Sa.s.sy was just a colt when I'd left here. I'd bought her with my savings, two years worth of summer earnings before my parents would agree to chip in and let me buy her. Cade had helped me train her, the whole year before I'd left West Bend. I'd been raised around horses, sitting on the back of horses before I could ride a bicycle, but Sa.s.sy was special because she was entirely mine. When I'd had to leave her behind, I was devastated. I'd lost everything, and to lose her too, was too much.

"I know," I said. "My aunt mentioned it. I'm really grateful."

"You know she had a colt," Stan said.

"She did?" No, I didn't know.

"Yep," he said.

"I haven't been able to ride, Stan," I said. "I don't even know if I can anymore."

And I'd only even gone near the barn once since I'd been back here, too. To yell at Cade.

Stan nodded. "A mare," he said. "We named her Missy. She's that blue roan over there by the water trough. You should come by tomorrow and we'll get you saddled up."

"I don't know, Stan,"

"What's that old cliche?" Stan asked. "Get back in the saddle and all that?"

I couldn't tell if we were still just talking about riding.

"I'm calling in a favor," Stan said. "My back's been acting up lately, and riding out to the ridge to check on cattle is starting to get tough on me. Now, I was thinking that I might be able to have you ride out sometimes, when my back's real bad."

I narrowed my eyes. Stan looked just fine to me.

Stan set his paintbrush down, walked toward the porch steps. "If you wouldn't mind helping out an old man, I'd be mighty appreciative," he said as he started walking down the steps. "Time to get back on the horse."

I sighed. Stan had a way of making it so you couldn't say no.

I slipped a ratty tee shirt over my head and pulled my hair back into a ponytail, tucking the stubborn wayward strands behind my ears. Sliding my cowboy boots on, I looked at myself in the mirror. My arms were already tan from working on the house outside in the sun, and my face was starting to develop a rosy glow it lacked when I moved back here from Chicago, where I'd been inside the majority of the time. I was looking more and more like a local, and surprisingly quickly. It almost looked like I'd never left this place.

Inside the barn, my heart raced. It had been a lifetime since I'd ridden. I felt simultaneously thrilled and terrified. What if I couldn't remember how to ride?

Stan was standing outside the stall, tying off a lead rope. "Afternoon, June."

I heard Missy neigh, and I realized I felt just as skittish as she sounded. "I don't know, Stan. Maybe it's not the greatest idea."

"Come on over and meet her," he said. "She's been waiting for you."

"Hey there, girl." I ran my hand along Missy's face, then down her neck, listening to her heavy breathing and the swish of her tail. I breathed in deeply, the smell of the barn that had been so familiar in my youth. Standing there now was like taking a step back in time.

I didn't expect the flood of memories that came rushing back.

My sister tossed her head back, long blonde hair falling in curls down her shoulders, nudged the horse with her foot, and I watched her take off at a canter.

"Wait, Abby!" I called. I was still nervous, unsure of myself, afraid I would fall.

"Come, on, silly! You'll have to keep up, June! Ride!"

I felt a gnawing in the pit of my stomach, the feeling of fear. I was six, not new to riding, by any means, but my older sister was always wanting to go faster, jump the horses, take more risks.

"The horse will know you're afraid, June," Abby had said to me, over and over again. "You have to act like you're not. Act like you're brave."

Act like you're brave.

As we saddled her up and led her outside, my heart thumped wildly in my chest. I can do this, I told myself. You never forget how to ride.

I took a deep breath, willing my heart rate to slow down, and climbed on top of the horse's back. Sitting tall in the saddle, I inhaled deeply, letting the feeling of sitting astride a horse again sink into me.

Okay, so Stan was right. It did feel pretty good to be back in the saddle.

Stan stood beside the horse. "Look at that," he said. "Like you've been riding every day for the last twenty years."

Abby would be proud. No, I thought, she would be up my a.s.s for not riding for all these years, calling me a chickens.h.i.t and laughing at me.

I missed her.

And I missed riding.

"Why don't you try a short ride right around here, something to get your feet wet?" he asked. So I tried it, just around the property until my heart stopped beating its objections wildly in my chest. When Stan gently suggested I go for a longer ride, I was ready.

I rode away from the house at a gentle pace, savoring the feeling of riding again. It started to feel less awkward and more natural as my body remembered how to ride, my movements syncing up with the mare's. I lost myself in the ride, drawing in deep breaths of the mountain air. The landscape fell out before me, hills rising in green gra.s.s as far out as I could see, meeting the horizon, the sky this weird mixture of blue and grey. It was a storm sky - that's what my mother called it, anyway.

I missed her too.

I loved this place, loved the land, loved growing up here. It was a part of me that I couldn't escape, no matter where I went. Years ago, I had thought that was the worst thing in the world, when I tried to leave my past behind and start over, divorced from the painful reminders of everything that had happened here. Now, I was beginning to realize that when something was so much an integral part of you, you could never let it go.

Maybe that's why I was having such a hard time getting Cade out of my head.

When I was older, after I'd gotten over my fear in middle school and high school, riding became a high for me. It was freeing, gave me s.p.a.ce when I wanted to be alone. When I rode across the hills here, I remember thinking that this was the closest experience in the world to flying.

It must be how Cade felt riding his motorcycle.

I pa.s.sed the grove of aspen trees. They were bigger now, but the grove was still there, untouched, just like it had been when I was younger. The sight of the trees triggered a memory of Cade and I, out here in the summer evening, so strong that it was like it had happened yesterday. A memory of my first time, with Cade.

His finger under my chin, Cade tilted my head up toward his. He looked down at me, his expression clouded with l.u.s.t. I melted into him, my lithe body, taut from running track and swimming, pressed up against his. I could feel his chest, hard under my fingertips, muscled from wrestling and working on his dad's ranch. My heart beat fast, so fast I thought I might have a heart attack. I was eager and completely terrified. Cade and I had gotten as far as second base before, but never this far. I'd never gotten this far with anyone before, and I knew tonight was the night. I wanted to go all the way, and I wanted to go all the way with Cade. He was the one.

Cade whispered in my ear. "I love you, Junebug."

"I love you, Cade." I felt his hand slid down my waist, to the hem of my tee-shirt, and he pulled it up over my head.

"You're so beautiful," he said. His lips pressed against mine, and he kissed me, tentatively, his lips matching the hesitant movements of his hands over my shoulders, down my arms, then to the tops of my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I felt goose b.u.mps dot the length of my arms and my skin tingled in response to his touch, as if a current of electricity were flowing through the length of my body. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes," I replied, breathless. Was I sure I wanted to do this?

I had never been more sure of anything in my life.

When he made love to me underneath the aspen trees, the summer air sticky warm on my skin, I thought, I thought, I want to stay here like this forever. It was the happiest I'd ever felt in my life. If I'd have known then how fleeting it was, how ephemeral that feeling would be, I would have tried harder to hang on to it then.

"June!" I was so lost in the memory, that when I heard Cade's voice, calling me from a distance, it was a minute before I realized it was him. But there he was, riding from the ridge toward me on his horse. The sky behind him was greyer now, signaling the weather changing, a storm threatening to roll in. The air had that distinct smell, the one that said that the sky was going to open up any minute now.

As he rode toward me, for a moment I saw him as the adolescent boy I'd just been thinking about, the Cade I remembered from high school. I felt the same nervous flutter in the pit of my stomach that I used to feel when I saw him, that mix of antic.i.p.ation and surge of hormones, l.u.s.t and love all jumbled up together.

Cade rode up on the horse, pulling up on the reins as he got closer to me. His horse neighed, sidling up beside Missy, and I felt her relax under me, shifting her weight to accommodate for mine.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

And just like that, old Cade was gone, replaced by new Cade.

"Riding. What are you doing out here?" I asked. "Are you following me again?"

"I was riding. I had no idea you were up here," Cade said, his brow wrinkled. "Don't worry, I'm not interested in following you. You can get your little cop friend to protect you, if you're that worried, little girl."

"Little girl? That's what you're calling me now? I'm a f.u.c.king physician. The patronizing att.i.tude is getting old."

"A doctor and a cop," he said. "It's perfect. I'm sure you'll look great together in your house with the white picket fence and two kids."

"Go to h.e.l.l, Cade," I said. The sky was ominously dark, and I saw a flash of heat lightning on the horizon. It was about to storm, and the mare was skittish underneath me, shimmying around.

Screw him, and his stupid I'm-so-much-more-bada.s.s-than-you biker att.i.tude.

Screw him and his comments about Jed.

I pulled at the reins, nudging the mare's flank with my foot, and she took off at a trot. There was a storm rolling in, and Cade could do whatever the h.e.l.l he wanted to do. I remembered an overhang near here where we used to go as kids, and I was taking cover before it spooked the h.e.l.l out of the horses.

Thunder cracked loudly, and I remembered those days when I was a kid and a storm would roll in, the air charged with static electricity and smelling of rain even before it actually began to downpour. I would sit outside on the front porch, watching as the rain poured down heavy around me, and when the thunder crashed, I'd climb up into my mother's lap while she sung to me, a.s.suring me everything would be okay. It was one of the things I still did when I was upset, hummed the songs she used to sing, her voice so soft I could barely hear her around the constant white noise of the rain coming down around us. Sometimes, late at night before I fell asleep, I still pictured her, sitting at the foot of my bed reading to me at the same way she would when I was a kid.

Behind me, I heard Cade.

"Whoa," he said, and his horse slowed to a stop beside me.

The rain was already beginning to pelt my skin, cool against my arms. I dismounted, shaking off Cade's outstretched hand when he offered it.

He smirked. "Fine," he said. "Be angry at me. There's not that much s.p.a.ce under that overhang, darlin'."

I stumbled slightly as I walked behind him, the mare's reins in my hand, toward an overhang near the ridge, where the rock jutted out a few feet over a slick quartzite surface. The rain was coming down harder now, dripping down the my head and running down the back of my thin tee-shirt. I wiped damp hair off my forehead.

"Here," Cade said, taking my hand in his when I slipped again. I wanted to shake it off, be angry at him, but I couldn't, not when I felt the heat from his hand on mine, the jolt of electricity between us when he touched me.

d.a.m.n him.

I ducked underneath the overhang, wiping my wet hair from my forehead. Cade paused to buckle hobbles on the horses, and left them huddled together as they waited out the sudden rain. And then he was there, right in front of me, no more than a few inches away. The s.p.a.ce between us felt charged with nearly as much electricity as the air around us.

I looked away from him, still angry, but afraid of my desire for him.