The next evening Clark made two toasts for me at dinner, most everyone talkative and excited for me to go and prove myself on the exam. The food was incredible, the weather sublime. We all sat on the back deck until it was time for the fire. I knew I had to get home and get rested up, as I had not slept a wink last night; my flight left at seven in the morning and I had to drive over two hours to Billings to catch it. But I couldn’t make myself leave yet, because when I left I would no longer be near Case. And I couldn’t bear that, not just yet, when four days’ separation from him loomed ahead of me like an impassable desert.
Do you hear yourself?! Jesus Christ, what will you do when you leave for good?
I can’t think about that right now.
You’ll miss him.
A lot.
Oh God, a whole fucking lot.
I took one of the first seats at the fire, watching as Sean, Marsh and Wy worked together to build it. Quinn and his girlfriend Ellie set out more chairs. Case and Garth had promised music, and went to retrieve their instruments. I was watching intently for them to reappear; the chair to my right was for Case, and no one else, but I couldn’t exactly save it for him without appearing foolish, and so he ended up directly across the fire from me.
This, I learned, was both better and far, far worse.
He wasn’t as near, but this way I could watch him to my heart’s content, all the while pretending to be studying the fire. He looked over at me as he took his seat, both of us islands of silence amongst the laughter and chatter all around, as we had been all evening, and then immediately back at his guitar, which he proceeded to tune. Garth sat to his right, near Becky, who had baby Tommy wrapped in a snuggly blanket.
Case was so close to me and yet so goddamn far away, and watching him only highlighted the fact that he was not mine, and that I had no right to wish anything about him. We had hardly spoken all evening, though I was so aware of him that I could hardly bear it, aware of his every movement, his every breath.
“Tish, you’re gonna get cold,” Wy observed, which caused Case’s eyes to flash over to me once more. I had spent an hour getting ready, blowing out my hair and highlighting my eyes, dressing in a white t-shirt and a soft yellow skirt. I knew Case had noticed; his eyes told me I looked beautiful, even if he hadn’t said the words.
“I’ve got a jacket in the car —” I said, moving as though to rise.
“Here, you can wear mine,” Case said, not so much as meeting my eyes as he stood, unceremoniously lifted his jean jacket from the back of his lawn chair and passed it to me. It was the one he’d worn on Thursday night, when we’d ridden Cider and Buck.
I felt all shivery and splendid at this gesture, but I kept all of that from my face, saying with what I hoped was a casual tone, “Thank you.”
He barely nodded in response, resettling and busying himself tuning the guitar. I held the jacket in my hands, feeling the rough-textured denim that normally encased his shoulders, his upper body. Slowly, I slipped it over my own body and was immediately embraced in the scent of him – immediate and intoxicating. I resisted the urge to turn up the collar and hold it to my face to better inhale, as I’d done with his t-shirt, as I’d done in his bedroom.
His glance flickered to me, briefly, as though he could somehow read my mind, and satisfaction moved across his face as I wrapped his jacket around me. My legs were still bare from the knees down, but I could at least stretch them towards the fire, and its growing warmth was more than sufficient to keep my lower half comfortable.
Clark joined us, Case finished his ministrations on the guitar (I so loved the sight of his strong, lithe and long-fingered hands working something so skillfully), and Garth strummed a straight G chord.
“Tish, you choose,” Garth surprised me by saying. “What do you want to hear?”
“The one you said you’d play, last night,” I said to Case. “I love that one.”
Garth tipped his head questioningly, but Case nodded acceptance of this and exchanged his guitar for his fiddle. I shivered in anticipation.
Case lifted the fiddle to his chin; he played this instrument with eyes closed, but I knew that about him already. I curled my fingers around the wrists of his jacket, tucking it even more securely around me as he closed his eyes and began to play, his expression so intent, so absorbed, the music flowing from his hands, his fingers. The music was haunting and sweet, as always; I had heard the melody enough now that I anticipated my favorite parts.
I could hardly breathe, just watching him play.
He finished and there seemed to be a hush around the fire. I couldn’t look away from him as he lowered the fiddle and then opened his eyes and our gazes held while my heart throbbed and cried to be pressed against him.
“That’s so beautiful,” Becky said, breaking the tension in the air. “I love that one.”
“You pick now, hon,” Garth told his wife, and she chose “Red River Valley.”
“We know that one, don’t we, Casey?” Garth joked. “We might have played that a time or two.”
Requests flew for the next hour and the two of them played gamely, laughing, singing in harmony, their voices blending. Sometimes everyone joined in when it was a song we knew, even though I was too shy to really sing. Wy, to my right, kept whispering, “You gotta sing for real, Tish,” when all I really wanted to do was sit here and study Case, listen to his rich, true voice. To my distress, he didn’t look across the fire at me except for brief moments, despite the fact that I could not take my eyes from him.
Finally the late hour began claiming the Rawleys and their girlfriends, one by one. I hugged everyone in turn, kissed baby Tommy’s chubby cheek, promising to see them all at dinner this upcoming Friday, like usual, when I’d be back in Jalesville.
“And you’ll be a bona fide legal lady by then,” Clark teased me as I hugged him.
Friday seemed more than a hundred years away. I found myself watching Becky and Garth as they headed for their truck, Garth tucking his angel-faced wife against his side and kissing her hair. I felt a fist squeeze my heart and again had trouble restraining tears.
“You all right to drive?” Clark asked, as he realized I’d had a couple of drinks.
Case was still putting away his fiddle, seeming to linger over the task, and the last one at the fire.
“I’ll just sit one more minute,” I said, offering Clark a smile.
He said, “All right then. Let us know when you’re safe in Chicago tomorrow, all right, honey?” To Case, he added, “Good-night, son.”
Case said, “’Night, Clark,” just as I said, “I will.”
At the fire, Case hardly looked up from what he was doing. He appeared completely preoccupied, though there was an air of what I thought was tension hovering all about him. I took my seat as the outer door of the house closed behind Clark and Garth drove from the yard with a crunching of tires on gravel, leaving us alone with the crackling of the slowly-dying fire.
I watched Case as he worked, thinking of everything we had been through since I’d arrived in Jalesville, wondering if he would continue to pretend that I wasn’t sitting here too. When he looked over at me at last, I felt a swell of longing jam the space behind my breastbone, painfully.
“Tish,” he said, and the tone in his voice made my throat ache even worse.
Oh, God…
He set his fiddle carefully on the ground and then sat still, forearms to thighs. I was all feverish with my own tension, rewrapping his jacket more tightly around myself. Case watched me make these adjustments before continuing. At last he said quietly, “I owe you an apology.”
My gaze flashed from his lips to eyes; he studied me somberly, the length of a body away, the fire dancing in orange, ever-changing patterns across his face, his powerful shoulders, his boots. When I couldn’t manage to respond to this, he clarified, deep voice even lower than normal, “I used to drink way too much. I was young and stupid, and I owe you an apology for how I acted at Mathias and Camille’s wedding. I’m sorry, I really am.”
I shook my head, my chest hurting worse at the fact he had finally mentioned that night, curling my palms around my bare knees. His eyes flickered to my hands and then immediately back up to my face. I said, just as quietly, “You don’t need to be sorry. I was so rude to you. I’m the one who should be apologizing. Shit.”
He smiled a little at this, but his eyes were so serious. He said, “You put me in my place, but I needed that.” His gaze lifted up and to the left, back into time. He said, “I can see exactly how you looked that day. That red dress.”
I cringed a little, vividly recalling my behavior. I said again, with no small amount of self-deprecation, “I’m so sorry about how I acted. I’ve grown up a little since then.”
“Haven’t we all?” he asked rhetorically, lightening the tension between us a little. I wanted him to know I was sincere; I could not look away from his eyes. His beautiful, cinnamon-spice eyes that came back to rest upon mine. I felt another deep jolt, seeing him as I had last night, in that vision of another time that I had been unable to erase from my mind all through last night and today. Even now it crowded me, begging to be recognized.
“And you’ve done everything you had planned back then,” he observed. “I admire that a great deal. I just want you to know that.”
“Thank you,” I told him intently. I had never been more quietly proud of myself than I was at this moment, though I kept all of that from my face. I whispered, “I worked hard for it.”
“I can tell you work hard for anything you put your mind to,” he said, again complimenting me perhaps more than I deserved. “I’d hate to come up against you before a judge, I’ll say that. And everything you’ve been working on around here. That bar exam has nothing on you.”
I somehow felt as though we were dancing around one another like a pair of predatory animals claiming territory. I said, “I’m still worried,” but that was a flat-out lie; I had hardly thought about the exam in days, other than the fact that it was forcing me to leave this place.
“You’ll be glad to see Chicago?” he asked, though carefully, as though it might be an offensive thing to ask. Or maybe he just didn’t want to hear my answer.
“It’ll be good to see my dad,” I said, side-stepping his question. Such a goddamn lawyer.
“Will you see the place you plan to work?” he asked, and beneath the question his voice was strained; it hurt him to ask this of me. It hurt me just as badly to respond.
“Turnbull and Hinckley,” I whispered. I shook my head, indicating that probably I would not.
“It’s much different than Howe and James, I’m guessing,” Case said. He asked, “It’s what you want?”
“For three years now,” I whispered. I closed my eyes for a second. Because I couldn’t think any more about Chicago, I said softly, “Thanks for playing your song. I just love it.”
He was silent. I opened my eyes to find his gaze so intently upon me that I swallowed hard. I thought of how he’d touched my back last night, how he’d touched my hair. I knew he wanted to touch me as badly as I wanted to touch him; he was holding back for reasons of his own, I was certain of it.
He said quietly, “Thank you.”
I asked him, “Do you like making music for a living?”
He tipped his head a little, questioning what I really meant by this; I scrambled through my own floundering thoughts, wondering just what I meant too. Reading between the lines could suggest I was indirectly asking a number of rather insulting things, such as, It doesn’t make you much money, does it?
“It pays the bills,” he said then. He was perceptive, following this with a matter-of-fact tone as he allowed, “I’ll never be rich, if that’s what you mean.”
I let that go.
“How long were you married?” I asked then, though I knew; I was pulling out all the stops now and I wanted to hear it from him.
As always, his gaze was like a touch on my flesh, so intense and searching were his eyes. I refused to look away. He said, calm and quiet, “Close to three years.”
“What happened?”
“Does it matter?” His voice wasn’t as sharp as the question could imply, but there was an edge there.
“No, it’s not my business,” I admitted, at last looking away, first to chicken out on our undeclared staring contest. My face was so hot that I might as well have been leaning directly into the flames.
He linked his fingers together, still watching me. My hair was loose all down my right shoulder. I had edged up the hem of my skirt just fractionally. I felt dangerous and reckless and wanton, and all of these things were no secret as I looked back at him. My heart crashed and throbbed, like a prisoner rattling the bars of my ribcage. I had never felt as alive as I did just now.
Case, come over here, please, oh please, come over here. Carry me somewhere and make love to me. Out beyond the wagons. Oh my God, make love to me until dawn. Case…
I told him this with my eyes, not repressing anything in this moment, and his own darkened instantly. In the firelight he was heart-stoppingly handsome, and as he continued studying me without so much as blinking, I felt like I might just die if he didn’t come to me. And then he shifted as though to rise.
Oh God, oh God…
Oh my God…
He stood, slow and deliberate, and stepped around the fire. I made a small, inadvertent sound deep in my throat, I couldn’t help it, as he came to a halt no more than a foot from me and reached to put the fingertips of his right hand beneath my chin. Hot and furious sparks flamed outward along my skin as he stroked me there, so gently, his eyes burning down into mine, at long last hiding nothing. He traced his thumb over my bottom lip then, once, twice, before gently pressing the center of it, and my chest hurt with repressed breath. My heart was out of control. Another whimper escaped my throat and I gripped my knees, my fingernails cutting into my bare skin.
“Tish,” he said, and his deep voice shook a little, despite his outward calm. “No one could ever compare to you. Oh God, not ever.”
“Case,” I whispered, trembling now, as he lightly stroked my throat. I could feel that light touch in a fiery arc all the way down my body.
He withdrew his hand then and stepped away, and I felt like a lightning bolt just may strike me dead, stunned that he had withdrawn; for a second he covered his face with both hands. He let them drop back to his sides and said, quiet and resigned, “But I wrecked myself on you for way too long. You’re leaving and I can’t go through that again.”
“Case,” I said again, breathless and shattered.
“I can’t,” he repeated and then his movements were decisive. He collected his guitar, his fiddle, and walked away without a backward glance. I sat unmoving in his absence, hugging myself around the midsection, fiercely, as though to keep my heart in place. I felt cold and disastrous and sickly. I was shocked, twofold, at both his words and what they meant, and by my own incredible need for him, which had blindsided me. Even untapped, it felt all-consuming.
Playing with fire, I thought, over and over. You’re playing with fire, and Case is not someone you can play with. He doesn’t deserve that shit. You’re going home to Chicago after Labor Day. And that’s that.
What have I done?
Oh God, I want him so fucking much.
No, Tish, not ever.
You can’t ever go there.
I heard him climbing into his truck, I heard it growling quietly to life, but I didn’t move. I remained stone-still, alone at the fire, his words trampling through my mind like runaway horses, and he drove away.