Page 24 of Roads Behind Us
I tried to disguise the shiver that skittered down my spine, but then he pulled his hand away and his fingers trailed across my back beneath my shirt, and that just made it worse.
Three minutes hadn’t even passed and another woman called Bax’s name. He winced, and I pulled my truck key from my pocket and slipped it into his.
“Go. If you could run, I’d tell you to do that, but just crutch yourself out of here as fast as you can. I’ll check out and catch up.”
He grinned. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, smirking. He tipped his hat and dashed off, and I laughed when the woman poked in and out of the aisles, calling his name and trying to find him.
When I walked out of the Food Mart with two full paper bags balanced in my hands, Bax couldn’t stay hidden beneath his cowboy hat in my truck. His manners got the better of him, even though with his broken leg he was no help to me at all, but he climbed out and tried anyway.
“That was a close one,” he said as we pulled away.
“Don’t you worry, sweetie,” I said. “I got your back.”
He grinned at me. “You’re like my very own four-leaf clover.”
“Oh yeah?” I lifted an eyebrow and looked down at his cast. “Well you ain’t no lucky penny.”
After dropping Bax off and lugging the bags into his kitchen, I spent the rest of the morning walking from Bax’s house down to Old Fish Creek Road and back again, along the winding gravel drive with my measuring wheel, zigzagging back and forth across the lane, staggering reflectors and sticking them into the dirt every three-tenths of a mile.
Normally, I would’ve spread them a little further apart, but Brand had said they got a lot of snow in this part of the state. I wasn’t sure if Bax and Rye planned on welcoming guests in the winter, but at the very least, they’d have service people and delivery drivers coming and going down this lane, plus all the cowboys who’d work with the cows, and those guys would appreciate my overzealousness until Brand could install permanent lighting.
The Lee property had been bisected by the main road. Technically, it was more like a driveway, just a really long one, but on the north side to my right, the property stretched out in fields and meadows, and Rye and Bax’s cows dotted the hillsides. The southern side was like a whole different world, packed densely with trees and forests that slowly climbed into the mountains, and Bax and Athena’s house was at the end, where the two worlds met.
As I meandered, I saw squirrels with fluffy tufts of fur on the tips of their ears, or maybe it was just the one squirrel, but if so, the little shit had been following me, chittering at me the whole way. I saw some kind of rodent or weasel that looked a lot like a ferret, but smaller and his coat was pure white, his face brown, with brown speckles down his white back.
After pausing to place a reflector, I stopped and tipped my face up to the sun in the center of the sky, peeking through the high tops of the trees. God, was it possible to fall in love with air? The faint breeze caressing my skin and warming me in the middle of the day smelled so damn good. Some of the coniferous trees around Bax’s place gave off a citrus scent. When I happened upon a spotty cell signal, I looked it up and was surprised to learn that the sweet smell came from white fir trees.
I also looked up the whole bison thing, and it turned out there was a wild herd that roamed northwest Wyoming, so my Wooly Wally really was a wandering free spirit.
The white firs were so pretty with their waxy, silver needles, and I wondered if I could have one for a Christmas tree. I hadn’t had a tree in many years. What was the point? I lived alone and worked long hours. Things slowed down at Lee Construction in winter, but there was always work to be done. But now I could picture my apartment back in Sheridan, flooded with the orangey scent and glowing lights on a tree. But then I’d have to actually buy the lights and decorations, and it all seemed like an unnecessary expense just to entertain me for a month.
The lane wound its way back to Bax’s house, and when I got there after placing the last reflector, my rust-and-silver Chevy reflected midday sunlight. It was old and barely hanging onto its dignity, but it ran like a beast.
When we returned from the store, I’d parked next to Bax’s currently unused big ol’ blue Ford. The two trucks next to each other reminded me of the differences between Bax and me. I was short and little compared to him, and kind of beat up and used. Bax was handsome and tall and proud, but he’d been covered in dirt lately, just like his truck was covered in a healthy coat of dried mud. The windshield looked like someone had smeared muddy water over it with their hands, but I figured Bax hadn’t had time to wash it before he got clocked by the bull who’d snapped his femur in half like a pencil.
I wondered if anyone would mind if I popped inside the house to fill my water bottle. The day was cool, but the sun was scorching when I didn’t have trees as cover, and I’d gulped down the last of my supply half a mile ago. Bax had said I was free to stop by anytime for coffee, so I hoped the invitation would extend to water too. Hopping up the porch stairs, I intended to knock, but I heard grunting coming from behind the house. For three seconds, I thought it was a bear, but then Bax’s voice became discernable when he yelled, “Aw, fuck!”
I jumped down the stairs and jogged in that direction, and I found him sprawled on the ground, covered head to toe in yellow paint with a long, extendable roller still gripped in one hand.
“What the hell did you do?”
“Can you please go away and pretend you never saw this?” he asked dejectedly, releasing the roller from his hand and flinging his arms out to his sides. Paint plopped into the grass beside him, and he wiggled his left boot out of the five-gallon bucket he’d stepped in. The tray he’d been dipping his roller into had been overturned, and a thick, yellow stream of the stuff flowed into the grass and the dirt below five feet away from him.
“Uh, nope.” I laughed. “Seriously, what were you tryin’ to do?”
“Well,” he said, sitting up and trying to wipe paint off his T-shirt, but all he managed to do was rub it in. “I thought I’d get a head start on paintin’. This place is a dump. I need to get it ready for when we open the cabins.” He looked at the house, and that was when I realized the yellow paint dripping from Bax’s entire body matched the faded color of his old siding.
“You wanted to paint your house… by yourself, even though you know if you let go of your crutches, you’ll fall over?”
“Maybe?”
“How’d you even get the paint bucket out here?” I shook my head. “I can’t leave you alone for five seconds. Maybe I should’ve let those women have you. You probably could’ve convinced Felicity to paint your house.”
Bax scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“You know that artist?” I asked. “What’s his name? The guy who flicked paint onto the canvas?”
“Jackson Pollock?”
