Page 4 of Autumn be His Wife
After yesterday, the entire day dedicated to traveling, I should be sleeping like a baby. Instead, I’m feeling as restless as someone in my shoes can.
Sighing into a pillow that smells of fresh linen and stretching on a bed that’s barely shy of being too small, I pull myself up. My eyes are heavy with exhaustion, and my limbs feel like they’re made of lead as I throw off the blankets.
No point in trying to sleep if I know it won’t be coming anytime soon.
Leaving the room, I use my fingertips against the wall to guide me through the darkness. While I’m not totally blinded, my environment is still one that is unknown.
It kind of feels like anything can jump out and snatch me if they want.
Eli’s a little too small to be taken as a serious threat, and Dusty kept a respectable distance up until he was wishing me a good night. I don’t think I have anything to worry about when it comes to those two.
Entering the living room, the area is surprisingly warm. Spotting the flickering flame in the fireplace, I approach to soak up the heat.
Someone’s been feeding the fire. The logs tucked inside are hardly burned through.
Reaching out, my fingertips tingle as I enjoy the softpops.
The night before, I slept at the airport. It’s hardly warm there. Before that, my old room didn’t hold heat too well, did it?
My nose scrunches at the thought.
Has my uncle noticed that I’m gone? Is there a missing report with my face printed on some paper, plastered up with other forgotten people? Doubtful.
Even when I was home, I wasn’t acknowledged. Seen more as a waste of space in his eyes.
A distant creak in the house makes my body straighten. It’s most likely Dusty. Is he unable to sleep as well?
Using the fire’s light to guide me, I pad into the dining room. In the kitchen, a light burns, revealing life.
Used to tiptoeing through my own existence, I don’t make a sound as I approach the doorway.
Dusty is hovering over a cup of coffee, his hand slowly stirring with a spoon as if in a trance. Maybe he’s as tired as I am.
Leaning against the door frame, I let myself take in the guy. Yesterday, I couldn’t keep eye contact for more than a few seconds before he caught me looking. No matter how many times I tried, keeping eye contact with those deep brown eyes offered a challenge too tough for me to take on.
The thin cotton of his shirt does nothing to conceal the powerful build of his body. It drapes over a back that was carved by labor, not a gym, tracing the hard, V-shaped taper from his impossibly broad shoulders down to a narrow waist. Each slow, circular stir of the spoon makes the dense muscle in his shoulders and back shift and roll with a strength I’ve never seen in a man before.
Dusty is not like anyone I’ve met. So strange, but not scary. The opposite. I can feel a pull each time I try to put distance between us.
A foreign heat flickers low in my stomach, tightening into a knot that’s equal parts anxiety and something else I can’t name. My breath feels a little shallow. It’s a dizzying awareness of his sheer physicality that leaves me feeling like I don’t recognize my body. These feelings are unknown, unfamiliar.
He’s got a kid. He has a lifetime of stories in the lines on his face, surely nearly two decades on me. I shouldn’t be staring. I shouldn’t be noticing the way his forearms cord with the simple motion of any movements or how his frame seems to swallow the space around him, making the kitchen feel small.
Is this what a crush feels like? This confusing, unwelcome thrill? It seems absurd. I’ve known the man for less than a day. I’ve heard of love at first sight, but that’s something that only happens in fairytales.
Just the thought of becoming a mail-order bride to Julian Adams—a man of forty-five with cool blue eyes in the single photograph I’d seen—had made my stomach clench with a nausea born of pure dread at the unknown of marrying a man for an escape.
I stooped pretty low to leave my old life behind. Accepted that I’d have to give myself to a stranger to get a taste of fresh air.
That’s why I picked Julian. Forest Grove looked perfect online, and every step I’ve taken, even if it was during a storm,has been wonderful. The only thing weighing me down was the dreaded introduction.
But right now, standing in the shadow of this doorway, that sickening fear is absent. The knot in my stomach isn’t one of revulsion; it’s a strange, fluttering tension. I don’t feel like I’m going to keel over. Might be the opposite, strangely enough—a dizzying sensation that leaves me feeling like I may just float away at this startling rate.
I’ve never felt anything for another person before. Maybe a simmering resentment for my uncle, a hollow ache of neglect, but that’s it. I didn’t leave often enough to meet anyone, to learn the unspoken language of glances and attraction.
Maybe that’s my entire problem.
I’m socially starved, an amateur reacting to the first genuine act of kindness I’ve received in years. This isn’t about him; it’s about the novelty of decency.
