“This one is my newest. Got it just this past winter.” He continues, gesturing to a rectangle-shaped tribal tattoo on his connecting bicep. “It’s a Chibcha symbol, a Colombian tribe my ancestors belonged to. Felt right having it near my Wyoming heritage.”
“Are you sure you didn’t have any of these when we met? They look so familiar,” I say.
He smiles, “Yeah, Mac, I’m pretty sure.”
I know I’ve seen that one somewhere. Not as a tattoo though. Just the design of it. Burned into wood like a brand.
My heart drops into my stomach.Allof his tattoos are familiar, because I’ve seen them all around the cabin.
First, the deer I saw out the window that turned out to be the spitting image of the one inked onto his side. The longhorn skull across his back, the exact same as the symbol I saw in the fireplace. The pine trees of all different shades, wrapping around his bicep. Those were branded into a fence post. Now, the symbol I saw etched into the window sill upstairs on the night we kissed.
There’s even an outline of the tetons, complete with snow capped peaks and a small forest of trees on his muscular thigh. The exact same as I saw on the window sill downstairs.
Ever since I started seeing symbols around the cabin, I thought maybe it was some sort of code. Or, at the very least, signs of the past popping up. But they were signs of Miles. Pointing me towards him. To our future.
He opens his mouth to say something, but stops, sitting up. “Do you hear that?” he says, voice low.
We fall silent and I can just make out a shuffling noise downstairs. Miles stares towards the door, eyes wide.
“What is that? Is someone here?” I ask, knowing he won’t have an answer.
He rolls off the bed, pulling his sweatshirt back on, jumping into his jeans. “Might be some animals. Raccoons or something. I’ll go check it out.”
“I’m coming with you,” I jump up before he can stop me.
“Katie, just stay here,” he starts to protest.
“I can fight off raccoons just as well as you can, Autry.”
Miles cracks open the door slowly, creeping into the hallway. The cold hardwood floors creaking just a bit as we walk. The shuffling has stopped. In fact, there’s no noise at all. Just a smell wafting up the stairwell as we descend. It smells like–
“Did you start a fire?” Miles whispers.
“No, I was just going to askyouthat.”
Yellow and orange flames erupt from the stone fireplace in the great room, warming the cabin. Embers pop and float upwards as coals glow below. It’s as if the fire has been going all night. The scent of smoky pine fills my lungs.
“I swear, that fireplace has a mind of its own,” I laugh. Miles frowns, as if he’s trying to solve a complicated math problem.
“One of us had to have started the fire last night, no one else has been here,” he says, searching the room for any clues. He makes it over to the window, pushing open the crimson curtains. Sunlight floods into the cabin.
Vibrant hues of red, purple and orange glow in the light from the garden. The marigolds that were wilted, gray and dried up yesterday have blossomed to life overnight. They look better than they did when I planted them this spring. If I hadn’t seen the state of them yesterday with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe they could have changed that quickly.
“Did you plant new flowers?” Miles asks, on the same train of thought as I am.
“No.” I walk up to the windows to get a better view of the flower garden. “They were pretty much dead yesterday. How is this possible?” I whirl back around to Miles, who is standing in the middle of the kitchen as if he’s frozen in place.
Those dark eyes burst aflame again as he starts to laugh. Before I know it, a giggle bubbles out of my throat too. We would look deranged to anyone that walked in, standing in the middle of the kitchen laughing at nothing.
“I’m sorry,” he gets out, taking a deep breath. “I just used to call this the haunted cabin when I was a kid, and now all of this…” Miles shakes his head in disbelief. “Well, who am I to say it isn’t?”
“Do you think Codie came back and did all of this? It couldn’t have been Hazel, she’s back home by now. And she’s the only one who knows I’m here.”
A smirk breaks out on Miles’s face, “Hazel knows you’re here?”
“Yeah, I kind of ran back here as fast as I could after I dropped her off. Why?”
“Does she know about me?” He sounds a little timid. Like if I give the wrong answer it would crush him.
