Page 7 of Haunted Hayride with the Mountain Man

“Taylor cheated on me before the wedding. I had to come up here to check on Dad. While I was getting him settled in, this was before his diagnosis, my fiancée thought it’d be a perfect time to get one last fling out of her system.”

Nova doesn’t look shocked. Why doesn’t she look shocked?

“You don’t look like that comes as a surprise to you.”

Her timid half-smile sticks a butcher knife between my ribs. “I have a sixth sense for these things. The two of you were never going to last, you weren’t on the same page. She was going a hundred miles an hour and you were happy to enjoy the process. I’m sorry she cheated, that isn’t something I predicted.”

“Oh yeah, and how did you imagine my life blowing up?” I tease. I’m not sure I want the answer but once the door’s open, I can’t find a way to close the memories inside.

“You were too good for her, she was kind of a… A snob.”

A whole belly laugh hurtles from my lips. “My god, she really was. There’s no way you could let us get married on a farm.”

“Why do you think I was trying so hard to dissuade her? She needed the country club at the very least, and I doubt there’s one of those around here.”

“You haven’t seen the mountaintop suites then, have you? Would put any coastal mansion or golf course to shame. All of White Pine Ridge is visible from up there, if you squint you can even make out the falls.”

She slaps her knee playfully, flirting, kicking the banter back at me. “Damn, I knew I should have loosened the purse strings a little and sprung for a suite.”

“But then you wouldn’t have me and my horse to keep you company. Aster’s worked all day, you would have needed to rouse Stinky Carl to take you to the summit.”

“Couldn’t have that, could we?” She leans into me, her scent overpowering even the bursting freshness of apple. Aster looks as content as can be, almost as content as Nova in this moment. “Do you love it here as much as I’m starting to? It’s gorgeous. And crisp. I feel like I can breathe in a way I can’t in Portsmouth.”

Around this woman, I’m not sure I’ll ever breathe again.

FIVE

Nova

Skyland pauses before he speaks, leaving me on my tiptoes as I wait for his next words.

Standing here with him, about to have a conversation that obliterates his walls and the boundaries he’s set for our night together, I can’t breathe. It’s like he’s still kissing me. Watching him about to open up, I can’t stop myself from thinking about the future or if we can have one.

“This morning, no, I was counting down the minutes, now I’m starting to appreciate it,” he plays. He doesn’t wait for my response before surging on. “Dad needs a lot of care. I had to hire a night nurse so I could work, but Jimmy takes great care of him. He’s at the point where he doesn’t much care for me or my rules, frontal temporal lobe dementia. The only thing that brings him any joy these days is food. That and pretty girls.”

I suck in a breath, trying my hardest not to react when all I want to do is reach out for him. That’s not what he wants, in fact, I’m pretty sure it will pull him further into his shell.

“It’s partly hereditary but I can’t bring myself to get tested. I can’t lose anything else I love.”

My fingernails make crescent moons on my palm as I try to hold back. I want to take him in my arms and make him forget everything outside this room but it wouldn’t be fair to stop him before he’s gotten all the words out.

Reaching for my hand, pulling mine apart, he dulls the pain in my palms by rubbing his fingers over them wordlessly. He was more than aware of what I was putting myself through to make him comfortable but I would twist myself inside out if it would help him in any way.

“Do you want to know if you have the gene or do you want to go on not knowing?” There’s no judgement in my tone. It’s not up to me to decide how he faces his future and anyway, if I was in Skyland’s position, I don’t know what I’d choose.

“I don’t know. Part of me doesn’t know if I’d have the time to deal with my own mortality while I’m still navigating his, you know? I spend every waking minute with him, that’s why I got the job at the farm, so I can work for a few hours every evening and get home before he’s awake. But I feel guilty, I get his good hours. When he first wakes up he’s so happy to eat his breakfast and get out for a walk, play some music, but as the day wears on, he gets more and more agitated. If I knew that was going to be my fate…”

He fades out, choked with emotion. I can’t hold myself back any longer, I climb into his lap and drape my arms around him. It seems to do the trick. He falls into me, pressing his full weight into my embrace. “Then you wait to find out, deal with one thing at a time. I could help,” I offer, tucking my chin into his chest.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You don’t have to ask. If this is going where I think it’s going, nothing would make me happier than making your remaining days with your dad good ones.”

He’s shaking his head, arguing with me, but I’m hearing none of it.

“You don’t have a say in how I spend my time, Skyland. Come on, tell me you’re not feeling the same way I am, I dare you.”

A sigh tumbles from his lungs. “I can’t. I can’t tell you that. But I also know I’m not going to drag anyone into my mess, let alone you, Nova. You don’t even live here.”