Page 8 of Stranded on the Prairie
"That’s not what I said!” I explode, before I can stop myself. "But how can you think I’m just going to accept living here? I – I want to go home! I’ve never even been that interested in history, let alone living it, and now I’m stuck here and I don’t know if there’s any way for me to get out or get back to what I knew before, and it’s just-"
I feel a sudden surge of emotion as the enormity of the situation hits me. Tears spring to my eyes again, and I grit my teeth and clench my jaw to try and contain them.
I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to seem weak. This man is all hard edges, and I won’t get through to him by falling apart.
"I just want a fucking matcha latte," I blurt out at last. I don’t even know where that came from, and it sounds so comical to me that I almost laugh, but I mean it.
By this time, back home, I would have been stopping by the little boutique coffee shop attached to my apartment block and ordering an iced matcha strawberry latte on the way to work, my daily treat.
"What the hell is that?" he asks, a note of amusement in his voice – but, to my surprise, it’s right there alongside genuine curiosity.
"It’s just...this kind of drink," I mutter, feeling stupid, lowering my gaze to the ground. What am I thinking? It’s not like this guy is going to guess what I’m talking about and just whisk me off to some cafe in the prairie town nearby for adrink that probably won’t even reach American soil for another hundred years at least.
I must sound like I’m talking a whole different language.
"What kind of drink?" he presses, taking a step forward. I shrug.
"Like...like an iced tea," I reply. It’s the closest I can come to an answer, and I hope it’ll be enough to put my point across.
He turns his back on me. I must have burned out his patience already. I can’t say I blame him. I must sound like the most entitled, demanding, out-of-touch-
"Get a pair of shoes from my wardrobe," he tells me, without looking back. "We’re going to town."
CHAPTER 5
Wyatt
"Just a little further," I tell Riley, as we make our wind out of the winding forest trail to find where it attaches to the main street beyond.
"So where exactly are we going, again?” she asks me, biting her lip nervously. She has been peppering me with questions since we left my cabin, not that I blame her.
I might not be able to bring her that drink she mentioned, but I can sure as hell manage an iced tea, and I am not going to let her think for another moment that this place is so impossible compared to where she came from before.
I’m still wrapping my head around the way she invited me to her bed last night. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a woman, onehellof a long time, and I can’t shake the feeling that she was handed to me right here to try and salve the aching emptiness in my life.
My father’s tried to set me up with more girls than I can keep count of, and, even though not a single one of them appealed to me, I’m not sure if he’ll be glad or furious that I am walking into this place with a woman on my arm.
I had to come down to the village anyway – sell some rabbit fur and buy some dried goods for the rest of the winter. The sunis high in the sky, even though the air is still cold, and it feels like it’s scrubbing away the memory of the storm the night before.
“The Saloon," I reply. "Once I’ve sold the furs to Mrs Yumi."
"Does she...?”
"She makes clothes," I reply. "Could probably stand to get a few for you, now you mention it..."
I cast a gaze to her outfit, which is mostly made up of what articles of clothing she could belt or coax into fitting her. At least she isn’t still wearing what she arrived in yesterday, or we’d really be in some trouble.
She’d cause a goddamn riot, walking around town with the curves of her lean body showing like that. Can’t let my head linger too long on that thought, or I’m going to have to find an excuse to bring her back home after all...
She pauses as we turn the corner on to main street, her eyes widening slightly as she takes in the shops and the people bustling this way and that.
"What’s wrong?" he asks her, a note of amusement in his voice. She shakes her head.
"I just...I didn’t expect there to be so many people, that’s all," she murmurs. "Where are we going, exactly...?”
"The saloon, first," I reply. "They have tea there. Might not be iced, but it’s somethin’."
She parts her lips in genuine surprise.
