Luke shrugged. “You’ve got me. I got up and went to shower and found her there, just like you. I didn’t even hear her come in. What time did you get in last night?”
“Midnight. Twelve thirty. Somewhere in there. She wasn’t there when I came to bed. Did she bring the dog in?”
“The dog and her quilt and pillow. Does she show up like this often at your apartment?”
Fo looked up at him in disgust. “Of course not. Something is wrong. She wouldn’t just show up here in the middle of the night for no reason.”
Luke had already suspected that, but he’d been hoping he was mistaken. After giving Fo a long look, he asked the question that had been bothering him since he’d first found her there. In the lowest voice Fo could hear, he asked, “Is Tyree still in jail?”
Fo looked up at him in surprise and he could see the thought get through to him. He shook his head and whispered back, “I assumed so, but I don’t know. I hadn’t even considered they’d have to let him out on bail and that he’d come back.”
Luke glanced over at her and then asked, “On your way into work would you call and find out? You can do it more unobtrusively than I can. Then let me know what you find. In the mean time, I’m going to go up and look around her house. If she wakes up, keep her here. If he’s still in jail, I don’t want to scare her unnecessarily. She doesn’t need to know I’m looking around.”
As Luke went to turn and go out the door, Fo asked quietly, “What’s up with you two anyway? Why were you not speaking on the trip home?”
Luke considered this and wondered what to tell him, knowing that Fo was her best friend as well as his. Finally, he shook his head and said sadly, “I just like her way too much is all. I don’t want to make her miserable. Her mom did enough of that.”
Fo’s brow creased and he asked, perplexed, “I don’t get it. You don’t want to make her miserable, so you stop speaking to her? You saw how that worked. She cried half the way home. I thought you two had had a big fight or something out at the coast. No?”
Shaking his head, Luke admitted, “She was amazing at the coast. Too amazing. I couldn’t even breathe when her shirt got wet.” He sounded as guilty as he’d felt and he looked away. “Twice this trip I wanted to kiss her.” He shook his head again and reached for his chaps and began to buckle them on. “She’s leaving for her stupid law school, remember?”
Fo nodded, still not looking as if he understood very well and Luke continued. ‘Remind me about that the next time you see me looking a little dazed would you. It’s hard to think with no oxygen and I don’t want to hurt her. Or me. She’s way too nice a girl to toy with.”
“What do you mean toy with? You’re not like that.”
“What else would you call it when we both know she’s leaving in a few weeks?”
“It’s not as if she wants to go to law school, Luke. She hates the whole idea.”
Luke shook his head. “She plans to go, Fo. That’s the bottom line. You and I both know she’s made the decision.”
“Well, maybe she’d change her mind, if she had a good enough alternative. Why don’t you offer her one?”
“What? So she can hang around here while I work sixteen hour days? In her spare time she can raise my little brother and sisters? And dodge my older one? Oh, that’s a great life. I’m sure she’d choose that alternative.”
He picked up his rope and gloves and turned to leave and Fo forgot to whisper when he said, “You’re a jerk, Luke. She’s twenty three years old. She has the right to make her own choices.”
Luke looked over to where her silky hair still lay against her quilt. “She has. She’s chosen law school. And you know what? She’ll be a great lawyer. Just like she’s great at everything else.” He stared at the locked deadbolt on the bunkhouse door with a frown and then said over his shoulder to Fo. “I’m going up to her house.”
As he walked up to her cabin, he felt as if he’d turned up the vacuum on his energy leak to high. Talking to Fo about how hopeless falling in love with her was, made it all hurt even worse. Or maybe it was seeing her there asleep. He’d wanted to stop and sit down and touch her. At any rate, the attraction was stronger than ever and that computed into discouragement that stung.
Everything at her house seemed normal. She hadn’t locked the door when she’d fled and he let himself in and poked around, but nothing seemed out of place. Her house smelled like her and he breathed in deeply, wishing that even smells didn’t evoke attraction.
He went back outside and walked around the little house but the grass had been mowed recently and there was nothing to indicate what had scared her. Outside her bedroom window he noticed the blinds didn’t completely cover the opening. There was only a small strip at the edge exposed, but he resolved to discretely change out the blinds anyway. He wouldn’t put it past Tyree to come sneaking back and spy on her.
Climbing into his truck, he went to pull out just as she emerged from the bunkhouse door with her pillow and quilt in her hands and the dog standing beside her in the doorway. He looked up and their eyes met. He desperately wanted to get back out and go talk to her and find out what was going on and if she was okay. But there was this little nagging voice in his head that said that was only another excuse to be with her, which was foolish and likely to hurt them both in the long run.
He hesitated for a moment and then nodded and put the truck in reverse and backed out; hating himself for the way her face fell when she understood he wasn’t even going to say good morning. As he drove away, he tried to tell himself that was kinder than the alternative, but somehow his heart didn’t truly believe it.
****
Charlie started to wake up, and she could hear them talking quietly over by Luke’s bunk, but she couldn’t really hear what they were saying, still half asleep as she was. But she did hear Fo call Luke a jerk and say something about letting her make her own decisions. She had no idea what they were talking about, but she knew Fo sounded disgusted and Luke sounded tired.
Just as she was going to roll over and get up, she heard Luke’s comment about how she had chosen law school and would make a great lawyer as he strode out the door. He sounded utterly disgusted with her choice, even if he was giving her a compliment, and her heart fell while she tried to figure out what they had been saying.
It must have been that Luke thought she shouldn’t go back to law school because the prophet recommended LDS woman put home and family first. Law school involved a lot of years of effort if what she really wanted was to walk away from a career and raise a family.
She laid there sad and wondering what she truly did want. Oh, she knew what she wanted, but if she couldn’t have Luken Langston, what then? Was she seriously willing to go back and take on a commitment like becoming an attorney simply to keep from being hassled by her parents? And if not, then what? She was now educated and a returned missionary, but she was glaringly single. That had never bothered her, but now, after falling in love with Luke, she almost felt as if she needed to consciously work to fall for someone else to protect herself and move on.
She rolled over and sighed and sat up. She needed to get home to her little cabin where she could read her scriptures and pray for the insight she so desperately needed.
When she put her feet on the floor, she realized she’d gotten a sliver running here in the dark last night and she put her foot back up to look at it, but the light was too dim to see it clearly. She stood up and stepped on her tip toes to protect the sore spot as she folded her blanket and then picked up her pillow. She gave the bunkhouse one last look around, wondering where Fo had gone. She’d heard Luke leave, but she hadn’t heard Fo go out at all.
As she took a step and the floor creaked, he poked his head out of the bathroom with shaving cream covering half of his face. “Hey, you. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company last night? What time did you show up here?”
She set down her bedding and walked over to him. “I don’t even know what time it was. I’m sorry I bothered you guys, but for some reason my house was terrifying last night.”
She was glad he looked honestly concerned and didn’t tease her. “What do you mean? What was terrifying?”
“I don’t know. I’d been having these weird dreams and then I had nightmares about Tyree again. Then when I woke up for some reason in the middle of the night, the door to my house was standing wide open and that dog was lying just inside the door. I shut the door and locked it, but I was still so scared there. I couldn’t seem to get a handle on it and finally, when even praying seemed to make the urgency worse I bailed and came up here. I probably shouldn’t have. It looks terrible, but I was a mess.”
He shook his head. “It’s okay, Charlie. If you felt you should come then you should have. Don’t blow off the spirit if that’s what it was. What do you think happened with your door? Do you think you just didn’t shut it tight?”
It would be so easy to say that and they wouldn’t think she was a nut, but she knew she hadn’t simply not shut it tightly. “No, Fo. I didn’t lock it because it was only mid afternoon when I laid down, but I’m sure I shut it tightly. It would have come open when I was puttering around there before lying down if I hadn’t.” She paused and then looked at him again and said, “What’s weird is, why would someone open it in the middle of the night? It had to have been late, late. There were no lights on anywhere on the ranch except the security lights. Even the dairy barn was dark and quiet. Why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know, Charlie. Maybe someone was trying to tease you. You know, like getting toilet papered or door belled ditched. You don’t have a door bell.” She looked at him and he said, “Okay, that was stupid, but I honestly don’t know why someone would do that.”
Hesitantly, she voiced a question she hated to even consider. “Is Tyree still locked up? Or has he been let out on bail?”
She knew when he didn’t immediately toss the idea that it was a possibility. “I’m not sure. Let me finish shaving and I’ll call the sheriff’s office and find out.” He glanced at his watch. “Actually, I’m going to be late. I’ll call on the way to the hospital and call you back and let you know what I found out. Will that work?”
“Sure, that’ll work. Just please find out he’s still in jail. Okay?” She said it jokingly, but in a way she was serious. She so didn’t want to let something like this ruin the sweet peace she had found here in this land of the big sky. She picked her bedding back up and headed for the door. “Have a great day at work. And tell what’s her name hi. See ya.”
She stepped out the door just in time to see Luke fold his superb physique into his pick up truck. She hesitated on the step, assuming he’d say hello to her, but all he did was pause for a second and then back out and pull away. She almost felt as if she’d been slapped.
So much for their easy friendship. She’d begun to believe he cared for her other than simply as one of the guys, but apparently not. Apparently really not. That silent invisible door had been slammed shut. He didn’t even want to know why she’d showed up in the middle of the night.
She couldn’t help the tears that filled her eyes and she felt like a fool as she walked back to her house unable to stop them. What was going on here? For months things had been so new and fun and she’d had the time of her life here with Fo and Luke. What had all of the sudden happened to them? She was incredibly lost and the fact that she had fallen into full blown love while he had suddenly become allergic to her killed her heart, not to mention her ego.
That he was usually so kind and caring made this complete disregard and cold shoulder come straight out of the blue. She had no idea how to come to terms with it.
She made it to her porch and although she was once again afraid to go inside, she pushed the door open and walked in anyway. What did it even matter?
Showering and scripture study helped. It was a few minutes that she could be still and try to listen to God and she asked Him why and then said, “Never mind why, please just help me be strong enough to make it through whatever You have in mind for me.” She didn’t understand, but she’d never been one to wallow in defeat, and she wasn’t going to start now.
As she dressed to go up to the house and pitch in, she mentally pep talked herself that she was, indeed, strong enough to do this and that, in time, she’d figure out what she needed to be doing with her life. Looking in the mirror, she knew she still looked tired, and her eyes were puffy from all the crying the last day or two, but she couldn’t help it. She put on the shirt she felt the prettiest in, hoping it would help her make it through at least breakfast without melting like the wicked witch of the west.
She put her quilt back on her bed and made it and went to put on a pair of earrings and noticed one of her favorite iridescent blue turtle earrings was missing. She searched all around and even turned the entire jewelry box upside down and dumped it out, but it wasn’t there. The hair on the back of her neck stood up when she finally had to face the fact it was gone.
She had been wearing those earrings yesterday and she absolutely knew she’d taken them both off and put them on top of the box when she came home and went to bed. She knew she’d seen them sitting there as she brushed her teeth the last thing before she lay down. She hadn’t misplaced one. Someone had taken it. It was a simply stated fact, but one that left her shaken and afraid. Someone had been in here last night with her. Who would do that and why? Those questions only deepened the fear.
Going to the door, she turned before walking out to look back and glance around the quaint little cabin. She had found such peace here. She closed her eyes and prayed. Please God, don’t let me lose that precious, tenuous peace.
As she walked up to the ranch house, she phoned Fo and when he picked up, she didn’t small talk. Just asked, “Hey, Fo, what did you find out about Tyree? You didn’t call me back.”
He paused and her stomach tightened. Somehow she had known it, but he confirmed it. “Actually, he’s out on bail. He got out only a day after they took him in, but they don’t think he’d ever risk doing something like coming back there.”