Page 45 of Keepsake
“I’m glad He listened,” I said quietly.
She sighed. “There’s a saying—there are no atheists in foxholes. But I’ve never been a good believer.”
“I am,” I said simply. “Especially now.”
“Why now?”
Because you’re so beautiful. “It’s hard to explain. I never went to a real school, but they taught me to read the bible, and I know every book. They used to preach about Paradise Ranch being our very own land of milk and honey. But I was a kid, right? And a real literalist. And there was never enough milk to drink, and forget the honey.”
“Aw,” Lark said, her voice low.
“I heard about all the miracles, and I was bummed to have missed out on all the action. But here’s the funny thing—now I live in the most miraculous place in the world. When you and I go to work later, it’s to ripe apples practically falling off the trees. There’ll be milk in my coffee, and someone offering me seconds and thirds at breakfast. This is the land of milk and maple syrup.” I glanced down to find Lark listening to me with a soft expression on her face, and I was never more certain that God’s earth was a special place. “Everywhere I look I see miracles,” I finished.
She closed her eyes and stretched her arms over her head. “Zach, you’re really fucking smart for someone who wasn’t allowed to go to school.”
“You just caught me on a good day,” I said, and she laughed.
11
Lark
After breakfastI went out to the orchard to pick apples. I’d learned to dress in layers because the September days were still quite warm, but the temperature dropped like a stone at night. I found Griffin in a row of trees that was just for cidermaking. He was inspecting them with a level of care and precision that fascinated me. I watched him test the firmness of an apple with his thumb, and give it a soft tug to see whether it would come off in his hand.
It did.
“We want these to be ripe enough that they’re starting to fall off the tree,” he said as I approached. “These are ready. Where are the guys and May?”
“May is catching up on her reading,” I said. She’d gone back to law school last week. “But I can grab your cousins and Zach.”
“In a minute,” he said, inspecting another apple. “I just want to know something.”
“Mmm?” I asked, picking an apple and giving it a sniff. I loved their sunny, musky scent.
“Do you have bad dreams like that often?”
Shit. I leaned over to put the apple in the bucket, so he wouldn’t see my face. “Not that often,” I said carefully. Though if he were sleeping in the bunkhouse now, he was going to call me on this lie pretty quickly. Zach ended up in my bed every two or three nights. Why wouldn’t the dreams just fucking stop, already?
At least I got more sleep than I had in Boston, and Zach was the reason why. Griff was going to notice that, too.
Why did I have to be so much trouble?
Griff cleared his throat. “Maybe there’s a doctor who could help?”
“You think I didn’t try that?Threeshrinks, Griff. My parents called in every specialist they ever knew. But I got sick of people asking me what happened.”
“And what did happen?” he asked gently.
“I’m not entirely sure,” I whispered. “That’s what freaks everyone out. The first place their minds go is…” I stopped short of saying it out loud.
“Rape,” he finished for me, his big brown eyes deep pools of empathy. Then he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and hugged me.
“Right,” I admitted to his chest. “But that didn’t happen.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “Nobody believes me, though.” But I knew my own body. And when I came to after my rescue by the police, it never crossed my mind until Boston doctors began to question me. But the feeling I woke up with wasn’t that I’d been raped. It was…guilt. Whatever happened, I knew in my bones that I was the cause of it.
“I’m sorry anything happened to you at all,” Griff rumbled. “Sure wish I could make it better.”
