Page 13 of Tattooed Cowboy
I pull on high-waisted jeans, a sage tie-front blouse, a soft dusty-rose sweater. The air smells of lilacs and rain—washed clean, like it could forget. Maybe what I need to do: forget.
Downstairs, Grandma hums an old Paiute lullaby. When she sees me, a smile softens her shadowed face.
“The mountains are awake today,” she says.
“No,” I answer, glancing toward the window. “They feel … gone. Like they’ve pulled their breath back.”
She huffs a laugh, goes to the glass, and studies the ridge. “Still there,” she murmurs. “Though my grandmother used to say the sky carries messages when the peaks go quiet.”
Her words settle like dust motes in sunlight, ancient and ordinary all at once.
Is she joking? Can she really believe this?
“Messages?” I step beside her, searching the heavens. Dark swirls, faint colors shifting like bruises. Maybe just tricks of light, but the air presses close, listening.
The house feels too small for both of us and whatever’s moving outside.
“Is Grandpa better today?” I ask.
“Much. Out mending fences since before sunrise.” She nods toward the hills, morning light spilling across the kitchen.
My eyes catch on the brown Carhartt draped over the porch rail—Maveryk’s jacket. Heat still clings to it, or perhaps that’s my imagination. The sight knocks the air from my lungs.
“Mind if I take a horse? Go find Grandpa?” The lie tastes thin. My hand grazes the silver bracelet on my wrist. Warm. Almost pulsing.
Grandma follows my gaze to the jacket. Her knowing smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
“No need,” she says, like she’s reading my mind. “Our neighbor’s gone for the winter.”
My pulse skips. Gone. Relief rushes in, followed too quickly by something else—want or loss. I can’t name it.
“Still,” I say lightly, “I should return his coat. Wouldn’t want him to freeze before he makes it out of the valley.”
She studies me for a long heartbeat, then nods. “Take Sunshine. She likes you.”
“Thanks, Grandma.”
I pull the coat from the rail. Smoke and pine rise from the fabric—the scent of rain and memory. The smell tangles with my heartbeat, slow and unsteady, as if the coat remembers more than I do.
I shrug into it, tell myself it’s just for safekeeping. But when the weight settles across my shoulders, it feels like gravity itself.
The path windsupward into the high pasture, air thinning with each rise. I ride Sunshine, her saffron coat bright against the pale grass, her breath ghosting in the chill. Above us, starlings twist in murmurations—black ribbons in a silver sky, scattering, reforming, alive with impossible order.
The higher we climb, the louder the quiet feels. Even Sunshine’s hoofbeats seem to hush themselves, afraid to echo.
Every sound folds into itself. The wind seems to hesitate before touching the trees. Then a note—low, constant—threads through the stillness.
It shivers through the reins, the saddle, my bones. The mountain tuning itself to his frequency. A vibration I can’t place. If a man could be distilled to a single tone, this would be Maveryk’s.
The forest shifts from gold to green-shadowed. Leaves turn the color of embers before they die. My bracelet pulses once, hard enough to sting, as the trail narrows. The Starborn Range looms ahead, half-shrouded in mist, its peaks veined with faint red light like arteries under skin.
“Just his coat,” I whisper, as if the lie will protect me. “Just the coat.”
Sunshine tosses her head, ears flicking.
My eyes dart to the treeline, searching for movement, a mountain lion or bear. Nothing.
We push on, vegetation pulling tight overhead like a shadowy hug. I ride into tight-clinging clouds like an invisible cloak. We should turn back. Instead, I pat Sunshine’s neck, unwilling to acknowledge the pull, unable to deny it.
