Page 30 of Ember Meadow
“Hi there, Katie, it’s Walter Autry, from the ranch,” he says loudly into the phone.
A chuckle slips past my lips. “Hi Walter, what a pleasant surprise to hear from you.” I haven’t seen Walter or Isabella in a bit and I’ll be honest, I’ve missed them.
“Right back at you, young lady,” he says. “I’m calling on Isabella’s instruction to let you know we’d be happy to have you over on Sunday night for dinner, along with every Sunday for the foreseeable future. At least while you’re around. She was a little bummed you missed it last week, but she wouldn’t want me to tell you that.”
My smile grows. I was so tired from staying out late at Branding Night on Saturday I didn’t even think about dinner at the Autry house.
“Of course I’ll be there,” I assure Walter. “You’re both too kind to keep inviting me over to your home.”
“As long as you’re living on the ranch, you’re family,” he says. It’s not often I feel like part of a family. Usually only with Hazel’s family and my Aunt Millie. Walter has no idea how much that means to me.
“Thanks, Walter.” I choke back the emotion in my throat. “Is there anything I should bring?”
“Just your charming personality,” he chuckles. I almost wish I weren’t leaving at the end of the summer. I’ve only been here a few weeks and I’m already falling in love with this place.
The way the sun sets on the ranch setting mountains aglow, the beautifully historic cabin I get to turn into something people can visit and love as much as I do, the wildflowers growing in the open fields like paint splatters on a canvas. The kind people who live here and have taken me in as one of their own when they surely didn’t need to.
The front door hinges squeak open in a sudden gust of wind. Dust kicks up into a cloud in the hallway, shining in the sunlight pouring through the windows and revealing some sort of symbol drawn onto the glass.
I walk over to the front windows. Who would be drawing on my windows? One of my crew members? As I get closer, I can make out the design a little more clearly. It’s a crisp, clear outline of the Wyoming symbol, the Bucking Horse and Rider.
It’s drawn so well, I’m not sure I could ever recreate something so perfectly with just a little bit of dust on a pane of glass. There’s nothing else written, just the cowboy and his horse.
When I make it to the door to shut it again, Miles’s pickup truck is parked next to my car in the gravel drive. The top of his backwards baseball cap barely pokes over the top of a leafy plant he’s hauling down from the tailgate.
He gets the potted plant down onto the ground, and snaps the tailgate shut. He hasn’t seen me yet, so I take that as my one opportunity to really look at him. His onyx hair curls around the sides of his baseball cap, a few strands poking through the hole at the front. As he reaches up to test the tailgate latches, his black t-shirt lifts up at the bottom just enough for a sliver of his tan skin to show.
I can make out a tattoo on his back hip. The top part of what looks to be a longhorn skull, horns stretched out along the muscles of his back.
My face is on fire. His arms flex as he walks past the front porch to the side of the house with the huge potted bush.
“Whatcha got there?” I say, still leaning against the door frame. He jumps a little, looking around to find where my voice came from. His eyes spark as they settle on mine.
“Oh, hey,” he says, turning towards me and setting the pot on the grass.
“Hi,” I smile.
Miles makes his way up a few of the steps until he’s right in front of me, looking at me with those dark eyes that make my heart do somersaults in my chest. “I brought you a Gaillardia bush. You can plant it out back with the other flowers. You like plants, right?”
My chest tightens. It’s a thoughtful gesture. One I’ve seen Miles do for other people, but didn’t think I’d ever have directed at me. The flowers on the plant look like a sunset. Dark red on the inside, then fanning out to orange and eventually yellow on the ends of the petals. “Yes, I like plants. I garden all the time back home.”
“I noticed you had a big open spot out back, and I thought I’d bring this by. If you don’t like it, I can take it back,” he looks down for a second. If I didn’t know Miles better I’d think he was sort of nervous. But he’s not the nervous type.
“That’s really thoughtful, Autry. Of course I’ll take it.” I take a step towards him, down one porch step until there’s only one between us. Being this close to him is almost intimidating. He takes up so much space, the air is thin between us. It’s intoxicating.
Miles stands his ground, holding my gaze. “Alright.” His voice is so low it’s almost a whisper but not quite.
One minute I’m staring at him trying to think of something, anything, to say to break up this tension between us, and the next, the whole world is tilting.
The stairs beneath me tilt forwards, causing me to fall right onto him. Miles staggers backwards too, but catches both of us before we tumble to the ground.
Right until the ground lifts again, effectively causing us both to lose our footing and fall straight to the ground.
The orange sky flies around me as I get my bearings. “What was that?” I mumble.
“Almost felt like an earthquake,” Miles says from below me.
Miles is below me.
