“You have a point,” I concede on a one-way path to joblessness, “Princess.”
I stare up at the sky, trying to focus on the constellations. The line of Orion’s Belt that points to the Big Dipper, not the delicate fingers sending warm shivers up and down my spine.
“You still haven’t answered me,” she says after a long pause.
“Did you ask a question?”
“Not a question but a statement that deserves a response. Tell me about yourself.”
“Not much to tell,” I shrug, already turning inward, though it’s harder to do with this curvy woman wrapped in my arms.
“Tell me anyway.”
I let out a low growl, like a warning. But Mia knows better. She smiles at my bluster, the kind of smile that invites me to say more.
“Born and raised in Southern Idaho near the Oregon border. Half farmer, half wild. Stuck between two worlds.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, like she already understands somehow.
“One side of my family: pioneer farmers—calm, steady, tied to the land. The other Shoshone-Bannock: wild as the ponies we ride—nomadic souls and bodies. Not tied to the land, embodying its blood and bones. Rodeo riders and aimless cowboys. Men who don’t say much … or need to.”
Her grip on my neck tightens, like I’ll drift away, vanish into the night. Maybe a part of me wants to becausethis—this intimacy?—is too much. Like I’m parting with a piece of my soul. The look in her eyes tells me she knows how to hold it, though.
Maybe that scares me even more.
“Men who don’t settle down, I’m guessing?”
“That, too,” I say, looking away. Not because I fear disappointing her, but because I fear, like getting me to talk, she could make me do even more. Maybe things against my nature.
She chuckles, her eyes sparkling with starlight. “I understand better than you think.”
“How do you mean?” I ask gravely.
“I’m rootless, homeless, free as they come, and I hate it with a passion.”
I nod.
She cocks her head. “Wait, you don’t look like you believe me.”
“Not that, Princess. I just know people always want what they can’t have.”
“Like alpacas and wool shops?”
“Maybe, though you could have them … with a few sacrifices.”
“Yes, I could, couldn’t I?”
I don’t know if she’s asking me or the stars.
I swallow hard. “Something tells me you’re capable of getting whatever you want. But first, you have to feel your own power.”
She frowns, looking down at the porch, like she’s really thinking through my words. Then, her eyes snap to mine. “When I’m with you, I feel powerful.”
“That’s not me, Mia.”
“Then what is it?”
“You learning how to sit with silence.”
