Page 108 of Small Town Hunter

Suddenly I feel two hands on my waist. He walks me back two steps.One, two.“There,” he says, one hand moving for just one fragile moment to rest on my stomach. There’s that lump in my throat again. He hasn’t touched me since I came to Virginia. Or called medarlin’.

“I’m not scared.”

“You never are,” he murmurs.

I get back in the truck, heart thumping. Crash works through the gears to guide the vehicle up a steep hill. And then, suddenly, a flat plain of tall grass opens up before us. Nestled in the sea of autumn-baked grass, under a huge weeping willow is a small red house. Crash’s house. It looks like a log cabin from a fairy tale.

“This is where youlive?”

“Family land. I rebuilt it when I got back from my last tour.”

“It’s incredible!”

He rubs the back of his neck.

“It’s so…peaceful.” It’s like a dream. A cardinal flies past us, into a maple tree.

There are bird feederseverywhere.

Of course.

“Look behind you,” Crash suggests, cutting off the engine.

The view up here is even better than the one I nearly risked my butt to photograph. The surrounding trees on Crash’s property enclose us in a protected, secret world.

Spellbound, I follow him to the cabin past a garden gone to seed, except for some very robust pumpkins. A deer, seeing us coming, leaps away into the forest.

“Ruby’s with my sister until six,” Crash explains. “I’ve been trying to find a babysitter. Most of ‘em are too young.” Hefrowns. “I don’t want teenage girls up here when it’s just me. I get enough weird stuff from the waggin’ tongues about Ruby.”

“I was hoping to meet her.”

“I promise you will,” he says firmly. “It’s just hard to coordinate. I don’t want to bother you.”

“Crash,” I tell him. “You never bother me.”

His cheeks darken as he pulls out the keys. “Uh—you like chicken?”

“Yes, Crash. I like chicken.”

“Well — good.”

Is it just me or is he blushing?He’s nervous…why? Why is he acting so funny, ever since I came…

He opens the door.

I hold my breath.

A smell of pine wood and baked bread washes over me.

How do I describe Crash’s house? My eyes can’t decide what to land on. Wooden furniture, wooden walls. Red gingham wallpaper in the kitchen. The dark, comfortable, cozy kitchen. Different bottles of all colors line the walls, cloudy with age. Everywhere I see antiques and knick-knacks arranged by theme: a shelf of tiny ceramic pigs. A collection of iron tow-hooks. Another shelf of old cookbooks with a couple new ones stuffed at the end. A collection of quartz, geodes, and apache tears. About a dozen Corningware dishes stacked carefully on a shelf. And a rifle resting against the hardwood table which looks handmade as everything else. The table, I mean.

Mesmerized, I take my shoes off and set them neatly next to his garden boots. I’ve painted my toenails hot pink. He glances at them briefly and smiles to himself, thinking I don’t see it.

Every thing I do, every change, he sees it. He sees me.

“You can hang out in the living room for a minute, I have to heat up some stuff.”

“Okay.”

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