I sat in my parked pickup on Main Street, trying to put together a plan. For the hundredth time, checked my phone for messages and found nothing from her. My eyes darted up and down the street, waiting, shoulders tensed in a state of high alert.
Combat readiness.
This was supposed to be love, not war. It was a thin line between extreme emotions.
During the two weeks after the fire, I’d grown increasingly unhinged.
That’s what we called it on the battlefield. A secret code among brothers for those times when your brain explodes like a gate that won’t stay shut. When your intellect refuses to accept the fucked up reality all around it, buddies being targeted by missiles, land mines, or just plain gunned down like cannon fodder in a skirmish—and you became so mind blown over the facts, that you risk putting yourself in danger.
I should have known better than to attempt a reconciliation with my little fox when I was in this state. Even so, I couldn’t quite keep myself from parking below her apartment, awaiting her return, deciding what step to take next.
Without her by my side, there was no lightness in my life, no joy.
I rubbed the back of my neck, and a sharp rap on the glass made me jump. Seeing who it was, I rolled down the window. “Hey Doc,” I said.
I met Doc when he was a battlefield trauma surgeon, and I was deployed as an N.C.O. He was the first member of our former unit to arrive in Briarville and put down roots. He opened up a tattoo parlor, and encouraged Rupert and I to join him on the Lost Coast.
Watching me warily, he propped his elbow on the window sill of my truck and asked, “How’s your hinge hanging?” The code our unit adopted continued its usefulness when those of us left became covert contractors overseas, employed by the U.S. Government. Only now, in his black leather motorcycle jacket and silver ponytail, you wouldn’t guess he was prior military, let alone a former secret operative.
“Who’s asking?” I gritted out. “You? Or Rupert?”
“Irrelevant.” He asserted, sensing my disquiet, and delivered an affectionate fake punch to my left arm. “Worried about you, man.”
“Don’t be,” I defended. “She’ll come around.”
Doc tried to sooth my mood by choosing his words carefully. “If I know you at all, you’re beating yourself up right now for what happened at The Ranch during the fire. Guess what? Without you there to protect her, she did just fine on her own. Grabbed the extinguisher, put out the small flames before any real damage was done to people or property.”
My words burst out of my mouth. “That’s what I get for leaving her side. Can’t keep her safe if I’m not with her. It’s driving me crazy right now not knowing where she is all the time.”
Clenching my teeth, I was furious. My breath came raggedly in impotent anger.
Doc showed no signs of relenting. He was probably the bravest man I’d ever met, and that was no small thing. Military members are supposed to be aggressive, physically fit, and unstoppable. But I’d seen far too many such men destroyed by battle, and that almost included me.
“You two are quite the pair,” he counseled. “You clinging to her because of your overprotective nature. Gigi, always on the run, making her virtually untamable. What will become of you?” He drew his lips in thoughtfully.
“Hell if I know.” I fumed. “Every time I try to control the situation, it gets even more out of hand.”
“This isn’t a situation, Noah. We’re talking about the woman you love. You can’t control other people,” he said with a significant lifting of the brows. “Try, and it will destroy you. Listen man. I know you can handle this which is the only reason I’m telling you. I just saw Gigi and her friends at the Creekside Winery. Why don’t you make like Prince Charming and stop by? Tell her what’s in your heart.”
I give my thanks to Doc and race my pickup to the outside of town, on the hunt for my woman. I pass field workers wearing broad brimmed hats, walking slowly along brown earth pathways, between leafy green grape vines which are lashed to wooden posts. Love is an untamed power that has me under its thumb as effectively as that wire twisted around the vines in the field.
I muse over private memories, my face somber in the rearview mirror. Maybe there’s a way to reach a compromise with Gigi. I remembered our talk of rules, and the urge to tether her firmly as tight rope with my words.
With a shiver of vivid recollection, I recalled her asking, “You want to control me. Tell me what to do.”
I didn’t have to think about it anymore. It felt right. And that’s how I knew what needed to come next. She’d feel the same as me when she saw the house I’d built for us, and she’d discover the correct thing to do is to surrender to me.
In exchange for her obedience, I’d worship her naked body with my own. Maybe it wasn’t practical to stick to her like glue all the time, but if she’d let me be her man, I’d make it my mission every day to prove my love to her. She was the mistress of my heart. For as long as she let me be in charge of her, I’d protect her passion and guide her through the dark.
Making her swear fealty as my princess, accepting my reign over her, was not going to be easy.
But it was absolutely mission essential.
At the Creekside Winery, I swiveled my head on my neck, searching for her table. Past the sampling area, a glossy bar made from burl wood held wine bottles, a decanter, a sweating ice bucket and I saw the four of them sitting together, pretty as a flower bouquet.
My little fox was the prize rose at the center of the bunch, joy bubbling in her laugh and shining in her eyes.
This is how I wanted it to be forever. No threat, no tragedy coming between us. Just the pure joy of living in the moment, free of worry and care.
I wanted to be it for her.
She made me stronger.
A better man.
Now it’s time to show her I’ll do anything to earn the privilege of being her daddy.
As I approach her table, Priscilla looks up and sees me, her luminous eyes wide in astonishment, and she tapped Gigi on the shoulder with a single finger, alerting her friend to my presence.
“Afternoon ladies.” I took a deep breath and tried to relax, as if I were facing a pack of hungry wolves rather than four feisty females.
“Noah.”
“Hi.”
“How are you?”
Their greetings tumble over one another and I realize it’s probable I’d been a topic of their conversation this afternoon.
Women talked about everything.
As casually as I could manage, I asked. “Would any of you object if I spoke to Gigi for a bit? I have some apologizing to do.”
It was easier to communicate with women. If this were a bunch of my buddies, there would be ribbing, guffaws, teasing about me needing to discuss my feelings. Instead, these ladies acted like they felt terrible about the tense situation at hand, peered at me intently, my defenses melting away beneath their appealing smiles. Their acceptance gave me hope for Gigi and I.
All of a sudden, my knees bent unexpectedly. Eerily, wine bottles on the tables rocked back and forth. Gigi caught the one in the center of the slab of wood they sat around before it fell over, and her friends snatched up their glasses. Of their own accord, the wine and water sloshed in small waves in their containers as the small earthquake shook the ground.
“What the…” said Ivy. “I’m never going to get used to that.”
“Everybody okay?” I asked. There was no damage inside, and no crashing of glass indoors, just a small shaker this time.
Gigi leapt up and stood at my side, pulling my arm around her. The implication sent a wave of excitement through me. Her girlfriends were still looking around and chattering about what just happened, and she took the opportunity to whisper, “Can we go home, daddy?”
I nodded and crooned at her, “Nothing would please me more.”
Gigi bounced from foot to foot, announcing, “You guys, thanks for coming out today. You helped me decide what’s best for me and I’m going to go home with Noah. I’ll see you soon.” They raised a simultaneous toast to her and afterwards she gave each of her friends a fierce hug and cheek kisses.
I couldn’t help myself.
I needed her close, now.
So I picked her up and carried her like a babe in my arms back to my pickup.
While buckling her in I said, “I’ve got something to show you. It’s kind of a big deal.”
Bouncing in her seat, and grinning widely, she cried out, “A surprise?”
Well, this day of reckoning couldn’t be postponed forever. “Probably several,” I said, affection in my voice.
She was squirming about, unable to stay still. “I love surprises!” she said candidly.
“Just remember that,” I said, my heart so full of love I thought I’d explode.
Out of all the broken people in the world, mine were the pieces she’d chosen to pick up and put back together. Not because she was forced. She didn’t do it out of a sense of obligation.
I was her every day adventure.
Her exciting routine.
And I knew she chose me because she adored me. This understanding quieted my mind, and soothed my soul.
I hoped she never got enough of me.