Page 24 of Knot Your Problem, Cowboy
There’s definitely a story there. Several, probably. But I don’t push. We all have our 3:00 a.m. demons.
A sound carries through the night, long, mournful, answered by another at a distance.
“Wolves?” I can’t help the way my body tenses.
“Coyotes.” He tilts his head, listening with the ease of someone who knows this land’s language. “Wolves sound different. Deeper. More…” He searches for words. “Primal. Coyotes are gossipers, calling to each other about their night. Wolves mean business.”
“Comforting.” The kitten shifts against me, tiny claws pricking through fabric. “Really making me feel better about my midnight adventure.”
He tips his head back, looking at the sky, and I follow his gaze. The sky here is nothing like Chicago’s orange-tinted dome. Stars crowd together in impossible numbers, so bright and close that I understand why ancient peoples thought they could read destinies in them.
“Everreallylooked at the stars?” he asks, voice different now, softer.
“From my home roof once. Mostly I saw airplanes and what might have been Venus. Or a satellite.”
That almost smile quirks his mouth. “That pattern there…” He points with one hand, and I notice scars across his knuckles. “Seven stars that look like a ladle. That’s the Big Dipper.”
“Oh, I know the Big Dipper,” I say, only slightly too excited.
“Did you know it’s part of Ursa Major? The Great Bear?”
“I… no.”
“The handle is the bear’s tail. The cup is its flank.” His voice takes on a different tone, like he’s sharing secrets. “Ancient Greeks saw a bear where we see a kitchen utensil. Says something about perspective. What we see depends on what we’re looking for.”
“How do you know all this?” I’m genuinely curious now. This is not what I expected from a taciturn cowboy who seems to brood more than he speaks.
“Books. Long winter nights.” He shifts slightly, that subtle favor to his right leg more noticeable. “Started reading about them after…” He stops, jaw tightening. “Just started reading. Got a telescope in my room now. One of those fancy computerized ones that find things for you. Cost more than my truck, but worth it.”
“A cowboy with a telescope.” I can’t hide my surprise or the warmth it brings. “That’s…”
“Not what you expected from a dumb ranch hand?” There’s challenge in his voice now, defensive, like he’s been judged before.
“Impressive,” I finish firmly. “Really, really impressive. And kind of romantic. Cowboy by day, astronomer by night.”
He looks at me sharply, searching for mockery, but I mean it. There’s something deeply attractive about hidden depths, about tough men who study stars between dawn cattle drives and have expensive telescopes in their bedrooms.
“That cluster there,” he continues, apparently satisfied that I’m not mocking him, pointing to a different section of the sky. “Looks like a tiny ladle, or maybe a question mark. That’s the Pleiades. Seven Sisters.”
“I can only count six stars.”
“Most people can. Need perfect conditions and exceptional eyesight to see the seventh. The lost sister, Merope, who hid her light in shame for falling in love with a mortal.”
“There’s a story?”
“Always is. Greek myth says they were seven daughters of Atlas, pursued by Orion until Zeus took pity on them and turned them into stars for their own protection.”
“And Orion?”
He points to another section of the sky. “There. See the three stars in a perfect line? That’s his belt. He’s still chasing them across the sky, night after night. Doomed to always follow, never catch. Forever wanting what he can’t have.”
“That’s heartbreaking.”
“Most myths are. Gods were cruel in their mercy. Better to suffer for eternity than not suffer at all,apparently.”
We stand in comfortable silence, him teaching me constellations while I cuddle a purring kitten and try not to notice how the moonlight catches in his hair, turning auburn to copper and flame. The night breeze picks up, carrying his scent stronger now, wrapping around me like invisible silk until I feel drunk on it.
“So,” I say when the silence stretches too long, when my awareness of him becomes too acute, when the space between us feels both too vast and not nearly vast enough. “Belle mentioned that you three aren’t really the settling-down kind.”
