“Yeah, like the Bible.” Softness overshadowed his voice, and I knew he had stopped listening to me. Daddy always told me he had an attention span as short as a toothpick for people, but as wide as an ocean for horses.
If only he had that kind of attention for me….
A child’s dream—that’s what Pa would call that. But even when I grew up, I knew I’d still have that same dream. Jackson was the love of my life, after all.
I watched him a little longer that afternoon as he observed the stallion, leaving only when I was called for supper. Without looking back, I knew Jackson would be staying to watch that horse long past his supper and long past the sun setting.
That was just who my Jackson was.
The memory felt longer than the short few minutes it took me to arrive at the organic farm. I felt as if I were waking from a long dream, and I remembered little from the journey.
So much for no more reminiscing….
I had long since left town and was now bumbling down a dirt path past the hand-painted wooden sign reading Fellpeak Organic Farm.
I drove toward an old-styled farm house that looked like it had been preserved for the last fifty years with the wooden swing on the porch, hatched window shutters, white pansies in the flower boxes, and endless golden fields stretching into the horizon behind it.
The sight of it filled me with a warm, homely feeling, seeing a house that appeared to have a long history of care and love.
It was the nasty screech of my truck’s breaks as I came to a halt that broke those warm feelings. I set my stiff handbrake after a few attempts and hopped out of my rust bucket. Wishing my years of love and care had let my old baby survive as well as the house had, it hadn’t.
My boots stirred up a cloud of dust around my ankles, the particles already clinging to my jeans as I slammed the creaky door shut and looked around. The first thing I spotted and was overjoyed to see was Max’s trailer. It was parked beside a traditional red and white further up the track. As I approached, I saw a lone figure sitting on the top of one of the fences. When I came close enough into view to take the sight in, I halted.
Perched with that same impeccable balance, haunches up and tucked underneath his body, arms resting on those wide-set knees, was Jackson. His delicate position made it seem as if a single breath would knock him off that high fence, but I knew all too well he was as sturdy as stone.
The wind blew, and he leaned slightly into its embrace, his black curled hair caught in the breeze, brushing against the back of his bare neck. Brown eyes winced in the sunlight as he looked across the pastures and fields with an air of natural calm surrounding him. For just a second, I could see into the past. I could my Jackson sitting there, so relaxed, and peaceful, surrounded by the dirt, sweat, and sun that made him into the boy I remembered.
But this wasn’t Jackson. Just like the image arrived in a sudden wind, it disappeared the same way. The memories swept out of my vision and into thin air leaving me with an empty longing.
Damn this nostalgia….
I tried my best to move my lead feet, fending off that clinging feeling, as I stepped out of the sun and into Jax’s shadow.
“You’re three minutes late,” Jax announced, not moving an inch from his spot.
I ignored his comment, walking up to the fence and resting my arms over the second bar, peering through the gap. I may have been 5’ 8”, but pasture fences were tall, and I’d never been able to see over the top of one while standing and had long since given up trying.
Instead, Jackson’s shadow provided the perfect shade for my eyes to seek out what I had been looking for ever since I arrived.
Max’s beautiful brown coat appeared a golden bay under the warm sunlight as she stood in its direct rays. Her uneven, cropped mane rippled in the breeze and the long, slightly matted tail swept against her hind legs.
I shuffled on my feet, happy to see her out in the open, but the noise must have been louder than I expected, and Max’s head spun in my direction.
Her ears shot forward, her body turning to face me, shoes shuffling backward, away from my direction until her hind end hit the fence. She didn’t panic, but the caution radiating off her had me immediately backing away from the fence.
I should have been used to this reaction by now, should have expected it, but every time she reacted to me like I was a threat, it swelled up the painful guilt nestled deep in my core. The emotional blow had me looking for any kind of distraction.
“You work fast,” I said into the air, trying desperately not to look in Max’s direction as I could hear her starting to pace the back fence; she must have noticed me. I wasn’t unaware, though, of the shake of her head in my peripheral vision as she homed in on anything and everything around her.
“She needed space,” Jackson replied, his voice neutral, as if he hadn’t seen the interaction that had just happened. But he did. He always had. “Couldn’t keep her in that cramped trailer any longer.”
I nodded. One of the reasons I had spent most of my time in dingy motels was because I needed to rent pastures for Max. It had been difficult and expensive to rent a field for a single horse with issues like Max’s. Not to mention when I had to get her out of the trailer….
What Jax saw and dealt with had been a mild reaction compared to my history of dealing with Max.
“Jackson—”
“Jax,” he interrupted. “It’s Jax now.”
“Right,” I uttered. I looked down at my worn leather boots. They kicked at the soft dirt around the edge of the pole, stirring up dust again when I heard Jax’s tongue click.
“Don’t scuff your boots,” he scolded.
“Good to see your pickiness hasn’t changed,” I said in reply, earning a scoff.
Jax swung his leg off the fence and dropped down onto the earth. My head tilted up at him, and despite the fact I’d grown an inch or two since he last saw me, he was still miles taller.
“Come with me,” he said, taking the lead and heading back toward the farm house.
Before I followed him, I took one last glance at Max who continued to pace back and forth across the length of the pasture in a frenzy.
We were silently walking until he noticed my flickering gaze over my shoulder and at his curt, “She’ll wear herself out and calm down,” I whipped my head forwards.
The sound of dirt crumbling beneath our boots was deafening as we walked past my old truck and up to the porch. The creak of the steps broke the unbearable silence between us. Cool shade hung over our heads as I gazed at the back of Jax’s neck, a slight peek of his hair from under his hat curling over the tanned skin. “Your place is lovely.”
“It’s not mine.”
Blunt as ever.
“It’s not?”
Jax pulled on the large wooden front door. It swung open with unexpected ease.
“No. Sometimes I help out up here for old man Pete when he needs it.” Jax reached for the screen next. “He let me open one of the fields for Max.”
“That’s nice,” I mumbled, waiting as he stepped inside a small hallway and leaving me to follow him. He didn’t even hold the door for me… not that I cared.
The house was just as I expected. The second I stepped over the threshold, it was like stepping back into an early 19th century house. I smelled the light, musty perfume of the natural oak floors, a warm and welcoming scent. Aged, black-and-white photos decorated the walls in an abundance of different photo frames of varying sizes. Floral wallpaper lined the walls and the wooden staircase was adorned in a faded, pale blue wash with small hand-painted petals and leaves decorating the banister. I was so enamored by the character that I hadn’t realized I paused at the entry way until I heard Jax’s harsh cough.
I followed him into the kitchen.
“Sit.” He gestured to the wooden table, then positioned himself in front of the small kitchen window, and I pulled out a shabby chic wooden chair and sank on the plump, floral cushion.
He hooked on
e foot behind his ankle and crossed his arm over his chest, revealing his forearm wrapped in a white bandage. I moved my gaze down to my hands, resting interlocked on the table and waited for him to join me. He didn’t.
“I need you here,” Jax said, and I felt my whole existence stutter.
“W- what?” My heart jumped.
“As much as I don’t want to be around you,” he explained, and my mind caught up with rapid speed, “if I’m going to help Max, you need to be here too.”
“I see,” I whispered, pretending I didn’t feel that pathetic squeeze in my chest. Jax’s help was only until Max got better, and once she was better we had to leave. I’d seen Jackson pull the riders into the recovery process time and time again, and I’m not sure why I expected anything different. He’d put our difference aside to help Max. “That’s fine.”
“I also need you to tell me what happened.”
I faltered. Images rushed past my vision and in an instant I was there. I could hear the rain, and Max’s terrified cries. My hand rubbed against my right thigh, trying to rub away the ache that began to radiate inside it.
I took a minute to wait for the anxiety to subside and my breath to calm. I knew this would happen. Knew he’d want to know what happened to Max. But facing this moment was a lot more stressful than I anticipated as I tried to organize my thoughts. All I had to say was what I needed to…nothing more, nothing less.
I’m not sure how long I sat there, trying to dig my way out of the emotions, but when I did, I found my eyes moving to Jax’s. His body language had done a complete one-eighty. He was no longer leaning against the window, calm and observant. He was now straight as a board, eyes dark and watching every single inch of movement. There was a pulse of energy radiating from him and into me and I couldn’t face it, turning my head back to the reclusive neutrality of the white table.
“It was raining when I found her…,” I said, the sound of thunder and lightning rumbling in a distant place in my mind. “She was near River Tree Bay on the outskirts of the property. There was so much blood in the rain, on the grass, and on her body. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it was just… everywhere.” My head shook down at the white table, hands shaking into fists. “She was just standing there… so quiet and still. It’s like she had just disappeared inside herself. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just took her by the reins, and I managed to get her back to the farm, and that’s when my father found us, and everything was a blur after that.”
I wiped against my eyes, trying to smother the tears that wanted to escape. No matter how many times I recounted the story, it didn’t get any easier.
I didn’t want to go into too much detail, and it was true that I didn’t remember much more of that night, though the reason hadn’t been shock.
“How did it get in?” he growled.
I startled in my seat as I was reminded of his presence.
“What?” I gawked, looking up at him, now only a few inches from where I sat. I didn’t hear him move, but his folded arms tucked his tight fists and his eyes were bearing down at me.
“How. Did. The. Animal. Get. In?” Jax repeated, punctuating each one of his words with a low growl.
“They told me they’d found a hole in the fence a couple feet up from where we—” I stumbled over my slip. “—where Max was. The animal must have chewed through it or—”
“They’re electric fences, Ronnie,” Jax growled back, the timber of his voice raising my heart rate as I looked into his silent, bubbling eyes. The brown was almost black as they looked down at me, his lips pulling back, baring his clenched white teeth. “Animals don’t just chew through them.”
“Maybe it broke when the storm came in, or the power went out, or—”
Jax hissed, cutting me off. He let out a huge sigh, turning his body away from mine with remarkable speed as he threw his head to look up at the ceiling, muttering only a last, and obviously sarcastic, scoff under his breath. “Sure. Maybe.”