She smiled hugely and privately at that suggestion.
“Oh, I plan to,” she said.
J. T. put his phone away. Smiling.
Early in his career, he’d been bewildered by the sheer endless volume of money he’d been showered with. How in God’s name did people spend it? It seemed to him that you either bought more things or bigger things, which was how he’d learned there really wasn’t much he wanted or needed beyond a few basics. For a confusing time, he’d bought things in multiples simply because he could.
And now he could outright buy a shabby little house that was somehow perfection by just pressing a few buttons on his phone.
Not for the first time did he realize that it was good to be a movie star with a fat bank account.
Dust kicked up by the departure of Britt’s car was still dancing in motes. It would settle soon enough. He watched it the way he always waited out that last endless note in the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” Something that magnificent deserved every bit of his attention.
He touched his face, realizing he’d pretty much been grinning since she’d left.Bolted, was more accurately what she’d done. He thought he might understand why. They’d have to come up with a new name for what they’d just done on that table. Because it had been so much better than all the sex he’d ever had, it hardly seemed to be the same activity. Maybe he’d forever call it the Britt Langley Memorial Superlative Explosion Experience.
He washed up a little in the dusty bathroom. And he took his smile out on that porch. And wandered around back again to look at those blue flowers.
His smile faded.
Damn. That girl had just given him two things he’d wanted.
And he hadn’t even known he’d wanted the second one.
That, frankly, was a little unnerving.
And while he felt replete, which was always excellent, he also felt a little uncertain, as though his internal equilibrium was off. Uncertain and a little raw, though not in the physically abraded way. More like some brand-new part of him was suddenly exposed to the light of day. Like any new thing, it might get burned or snatched by a metaphorical coyote.
He didn’t have to think about it. Because they would be doingthatagain, andthatonly required feeling.
He smiled to himself. He rotated slowly again, like a divining rod, and through the surround of enormous ancient pines and redwoods he spotted what he thought was likely a narrow dirt track heading steeply down toward the river.
And on impulse he headed out that way,
He followed the sound of the creek for about ten minutes, picking his way through instinct down the faint, slightly overgrown path, knowing it had been created because it led some place in particular, and he had a hunch about what it might be.
A hundred or so yards later, the trail opened up and there it was. Just as he’d guessed on the day he drove into Hellcat Canyon.
His own, beautiful, private swimming hole.
Well, more or less secret. He knew the mountains were full of places like this, And because he was a country boy, there was no way the natives, the people who had grown up here, and whose parents had grown up here, didn’t know about this hole. But if Jonah Greenleaf had indeed been “hauled away,” as Britt put it, odds were pretty good it didn’t get as much use these days. There were no other homes nearby. And it didn’t sound as though Jonah would have been thrilled about trespassers, given his line of work.
He stood and just listened and thought about what it might be like to bring Britt here. He was reminded of her—something beautiful and naturally wild, but a little guarded.
He’d noticed something a little troubling about her tattoo. Something that might hold the secret to why she was so squirrelly. Everyone had secrets, he knew. The trouble with sharing them with someone else was that they tended to bind people together. And any woman who had ever known him could have spoken to his own utter slipperiness when it came to being bound to someone.
Trouble was, he already felt kind of responsible for her. And had ever since he’d laid eyes on her.
He hiked back up, hopped into his truck, did a search for the nearest Home Depot on his phone (fifteen miles away), and started the engine.
He rolled the window all the way down, and essentially coasted down the road so his senses could bask a bit. Even over his engine he could hear birds and the chattering of squirrels and the low rush of a river. And the trees somewhat broke the brutal aim of the sun, but it was near blistering on his forearm hanging out the truck window where it pushed its way through.
These sounds and sights were like an essential soul nutrient he’d been missing probably since he’d left Tennessee. Something in him that he hadn’t even known was knotted loosened.
A mile or so down the road he slowed. There was indeed a sort of dimple off the shoulder, a clearing that promised an extraordinary view of the canyon and sunsets. He suspected this was the view Britt mentioned. That girl knew how to sell him on something. He smiled again.
And then he finally gunned it and drove through town. Happier, lighter, than he could remember being in a long time. But then, sex endorphins did do that to a guy. He opened it up out on the highway...
And unconsciously slowed down as he approached that billboard. They had finished slapping it up.
