Chapter 16
Autumn
“Am I doing this right?” A shiver rattled my spine and shoulders, but I did my best to keep it out of my hands, especially while holding the needle. “This can’t be the best way to do this.”
“You’re almost done.” Dante grunted against the pain, cracking his neck loudly and taking a long draft of a glass flask filled what he called bathtub gin that was in the first aid box. “Just a few more stitches.”
“This is so gross!” I wiped the blood from his chest and winced at making the last stitch. I followed his instructions and tied the thread off. Having finished sewing a person back together I jumped off my stool and shook my arms out, trying to subside that squeamish feeling that twisted me all up inside.
“That’s what you get for distracting me.” Dante rolled his shoulder, stretching the wounded area, but careful not to pop the stitches. He grabbed the metal fence of the pen he’d broken the mustang in, took another deep breath and poured the gin over the repaired gash. He grimaced against the liquid’s searing sting, grumbling curses under his breath.
“I’m sorry!” I washed my hands under the barn’s outdoor water faucet. “How do you not have real antiseptic?”
“This works just as well and you can’t drink antiseptic.” Dante stood there a moment with his eyes closed, his whole body flexed while the sharp fire in his shoulder dulled to manageable levels. I unabashedly stared at him, feeling a different kind of tingling sensation work its way up my thighs and bury itself deep in my chest.
Dante was bare to his waist. The muscle fibers flared in his shoulders, and across his ribs and chest, and all six uneven ridges of his abs popped along his flat, tight torso. His shock of chest hair was stained red with the blood I couldn’t wipe away and the gash had already started to bruise, giving the black tattoos above his collarbone an eggplant-colored tinge.
Even damaged, he was sexy.
“Are you really alright? That looks bad…” I pulled my mouth to the side of my face.
Dante grunted again, then took in a few shallow breaths before relaxing and breathing normally. “Just another scar to add to my collection.”
“Y’know, some people just collect porcelain angels. Or Doctor Who DVDs.”
“You never answered my question. Why are you here?” He pulled a bandage from the first aid kit and finished dressing the wound.
“I wanted to go to town.” I said like I was in Little House on the Prairie. Saying it out loud after what just happened with the horse, sounded especially trivial.
“Why didn’t you just call my cell phone?” Dante pulled another button down from a drawer in the front of the barn that looked like it held a few personal effects.
“I don’t have your number.” I walked back over to the giant white beauty. The horse tossed his head forward and whinnied in delight as I rubbed the side of his face.
“It’s in your paperwork.” Carefully slipping the shirt on, he stopped to eye me skeptically. “You did read your paperwork, right?”
“Yeah! Of course…” I cleared my throat, my mouth pinching again to the side. “Most of it. There was a lot of paperwork! There were less pages in my iTunes agreement.”
“I’ll call you a cab.” Dante shook his head in mild disbelief and grabbed his cell phone. He paused as if suddenly remembering something important. Slowly turning his head to me, he forced himself to ask me something despite obviously thinking it was a bad idea, “You want to go for a ride first?”
“On the horse?” My face lit up like it did when I was a kid. There was no hiding my excitement. All my thoughts of going into town for a coffee were immediately replaced by the nostalgia of riding at my Aunt’s house. “It’s been forever. I’m not sure I remember how.”
“Well,” he said, opening the gate and leading the white horse out into the middle of the stable. Dante put a halter on him, clipping the thin cord to the wall, then handed me a grooming brush. “Give it some thought.”
Brushing the horse was heaven; he was so docile and pretty! I barely thought about how easy it would be for a horse this big to break the flimsy cord that kept him in place and also trample me to death.
Dante returned later with a backpack, a pair of sunglasses and riding helmet. He threw a blanket and saddle over the horse, then turned to me as he loaded one of the saddle bags with the pack. “Cab or horse? What’s it going to be?”
I took an extra moment so as not to appear too eager, but I doubt it worked. “Horse.”
Dante smirked as if he’d known what I was going to say. He gave me the helmet, then put a second smaller saddle behind the first. After he finished prepping the horse he led him out of the barn. Wasting no time Dante mounted the horse like a seasoned pro and reached out a hand for me to join him.
My heart fluttered as I looked up at him and took his hand. Total princess moment.
With far less of his help than I figured I’d need, I slipped my foot in the stirrup and mounted the gigantic horse smooth enough to impress even myself.
“Not bad.” Dante acknowledged with a nod. It was such a small thing, but it made me beam a little on the inside. His complements were so few and far between. Was it possible for a person to be allergic to saying nice things?
“It’s like falling off a bike.” I laughed nervously, my body rushed to remember the correct posture and positioning to ride. The knowledge was in there somewhere, but it was so rusty that its rust had rust on it! “You never forget how.”
“I like that.” Dante chuckled and pulled forward abruptly, forcing me to grab tightly around his stomach to keep from doing just that. His warm, familiar scent flooded me as my fingers dug into his flexed core muscles: cedar, liquor and gasoline, but now with copper notes of blood. It was official, Dante had by far the sexiest, manliest scent ever. Someone needed to find a way to bottle that so other men wouldn't be at such an unfair disadvantage.
Dante led the horse in a slow gait to get it comfortable moving with two riders. On the way he gave me a refresher on the proper form and what to expect in this terrain. “Lastly if you lose your balance and know you’re going over remember to let go.”
“Let go?” I asked. I didn't remember ever learning that when I was a girl. “So I don’t get dragged and trampled?”
“No. So you don’t pull me down with you.”
“Asshole!”
Dante laughed.
Was that the first time I’d heard him laugh since he started training me? I couldn’t remember. It sounded surprisingly light and free as if he’d finally let go and started enjoying himself. Maybe not let go completely, but definitely loosened the reigns on the stiff, uncompromising persona he walked around in all day.
Or rather, the stick up his ass didn't seem quite so long today.
It was a beautiful, cloudless day. The sprawling mountains took on a cool tint as they unfolded all around us that late afternoon. We sat so high on the giant horse that we could easily peer over the tallest of the squat, fat, trees that slowly drifted by us. Unhindered by anything to obstruct our view, the sky was this massive upside down ocean.
For a long time we rode in silence, enjoying the smooth, legato, four-beat rhythm of the horse’s hoof falls along the packed dirt, the rustling of the wind and the occasional cry of a distant bird. There was a subtle music to it all that was relaxing yet powerful in its scope—like all this was put here just for us.
“Oh my God! I gasped as a dozen wild horses came into view along a particularly flat, grassy area. I could hear them neighing and stomping. Seeing them run and play from this distance was incredible. I never realized that it was lifelong dream of mine to see them in the wild until now. The beautiful animals stole the breath from my lungs.
“We won’t be able to reach them, but I’ll try to get us a little closer. Hang on. It’s going to get a little bumpy up ahead.” Dante spurred our horse into a quick trot. The other horses took off when we got too close and they were way too fast for us to catch up.
That didn't bother me at all, just seeing them was enough.
“That was amazing!” I said, scooting forward so my whole body was more connected to his. Despite his hard-packed muscles it was scary how nice it felt to bury myself into him. After the horses fled out of eyeshot and I could form words again, I asked, “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He steered us down a path to the left. An abrupt, uneven decline sank me further into Dante letting me hug him all the tighter and not have to fret over how much was too much.
I loved every second of this…
Being so closely entwined in Dante made me realize just how lonely I’d become, how much I longed to hold someone and to be held. It’d been a few years since I had any kind of real boyfriend. I breathed in Dante's warm, safety and knew this feeling was never something I wanted to be without again.
But this isn’t real. A pressure grew behind my face, threatening to make me cry. How long before we were back to training? Then how long before even that was over and I left this place and him for forever?
Life was moving so fast lately that it was hard to hold on.
So what if it isn’t real! I closed my eyes and refused to let reality destroy the fantasy of the moment. I didn’t care if it was a lie. I just wanted to pretend we could pause the world and be different people for a little while.
What was so wrong with make believe?
“We’re here.” Dante said, slowing us to a stop.
“Where’s here?” I asked, not wanting to have to let him go.
“Look for yourself,” he replied softly, turning the horse to the side.
“Oh my…” the words fell away as I took in the magnificent view. I took Dante’s hand and dismounted. He followed, letting the horse graze on some nearby grass.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” There was a lost sense of nostalgia in his voice.
The rolling hills creased, pinching into an enormous valley below us. It was all golden reds and deep shadows from the waning sun. Ridge lines fell away, slopping down into a great blanket of mist that covered everything, but the black, rocky peaks of the distant mountains.
“Wow.” It truly was breathtaking. I unbuckled my helmet and set it on a rock nearby to shoot some videos on my small camera. Halfway through the vlogging I realized I had no idea where we were. “What is this place?”
“If it has a name I don’t know it. I found this spot as a kid on a ride after my mother died.”
“Did you come here often?” I groaned at my question coming out like a bad pick up line, and stopped recording.
“Whenever I got into an argument with my father.” Dante gave a quick, low chuckle. “So yeah, I guess it was pretty often. I haven’t been here since I’ve been back though.”
“Back from where?” I asked. Dante looked at me, debating on whether to answer of not. I winced under his gaze. “Am I asking too many questions?”
“No, it’s alright,” he said at length after taking a deep breath. It was easy to tell Dante wasn’t used to opening up or talking about his past. For someone so comfortable performing in front of people he was surprisingly guarded about his personal life. “I was gone for a long time. Almost fifteen years. Are you hungry?”
“Actually yes!” You’d think that with all the food I’d been eating lately I’d forget what it was like to feel hunger, but we trained so hard that I burned through it all. Now if I didn’t eat every few hours I became exhausted and cranky.
How long had we been riding? Aside from my small camera I didn’t have anything on me. The whole area was a dead zone for my crappy carrier, so I never bothered taking my phone anywhere and I didn’t own a watch.
Dante set out a blanket and we had a dinner picnic. He’d brought sandwiches, chopped veggies, nuts, berries and water. It was a nicer spread than I was prepared for.
We talked a lot about this production, and how my training wasn’t normally how it was done. If Dante had his way there’d have been much more time to get me fully ready. The topics evolved into the industry itself and the different projects he’d worked on. I told him practically everything there was to know about my channel, the process and the audience, but he declined again to be in a video. I quickly let the issue drop and changed the focus to what my Mom was going through and then childhood in general. I told him about the summer I spent at my aunt’s learning to ride horses, while my parents went through a really messy divorce. Dante recounted all the mischief he’d gotten into with his brother’s Keats and Frost.
“Dante, Keats and Frost…” I wondered aloud after cleaning up the food and returning to the blanket. “Why do those names sound so familiar?”
“They were names of my mom’s favorite poets.” Dante had stretched out, lying on his back with his hands behind his head. The reddening light cast his stubble darkened face in handsome, color saturated tones, making him look like a human Snapchat filter. Dante cocked his head toward the great draft horse. “The Percheron even has a poet’s name- Emily. After Emily Dickinson.”
“Your horse is female?” All this time I thought she was a he. I guess it didn’t really matter.
“You didn’t know?” Dante basked in the lazy sun with closed eyes. His sunglasses set beside him. “There’s one pretty obvious distinction that she doesn’t have.”
“Excuse me. I wasn’t exactly scoping out your horse’s junk.” I huffed. My breathing deepened as my mind drifted back to the sight of Dante’s cock that night on the boat. My eyes quickly followed suit, sinking into the delicious gap between the bottom hem of his shirt and the top of his low slung jeans. The exposed swatch of skin between that perfect V highlighting his hipbones and the happy trail that led to the bulge in his crotch.
“If you’re going to creep can you do it a foot to the left?” He asked cracking an eye open just long enough to catch me gawking at him.
“What? I’m not—” How did he know I was staring at him? Only then did I realize my silhouette was casting a shadow right over his face. I quickly sat down and, blushing at the smirk settling across his face, coughed and changed the topic. “I think it’s nice; the whole poet thing. What was your mom like?”
“I was her favorite,” he said proudly, before his smirk changed into a much softer smile at her memory. “She was a firecracker. But I guess she had to be to deal with my father. Maybe it was because I was the oldest, but we were very close. When I was a boy she used to take me out into the desert with her once a week to pick Little Lanterns.”
“Little Lanterns?” I asked, gazing out into the sweeping horizon trying not to notice how close we'd drifted toward each other. It was different on the horse because Emily was our ride. Of course, we had to be near each other. But on this blanket right here, right now; we chose this.
“Eremalche rotundifolia,” Dante replied, pronouncing it with practiced ease. “The Desert Five-Spot. They were her favorite.”
“The flower by my door…” Now I understood the name. I remembered how the bulb glowed when it caught the light. That also meant the flower wasn’t for me, it was for his mom. Even after all this time, he still picked flowers for her. That was surprisingly sweet. “That was their room, wasn’t it?”
“Before my father got remarried, yeah.” Dante snorted. “He and I didn’t get along. Keats was always his favorite for following him into the live thrill show business. My father loved the whole legacy concept. Unlike Frost and I, Keats didn’t change his last name. He’s a Teller through and through.”
“I saw a video on him once.” It was awhile ago, but I could still remember most of the crazy stunts he did. “You’re dad did some impressive stuff.”
“My father was the kind of narcissist that needed to leave his mark on the world, that’s why he did all those high-profile car stunts. The stadium jump, the linked tractor-trailer drive, the jump from shipping boat to shipping boat; they were all just monuments to his ego.”
“What did your mom think about all that?” I asked, curious.
“She hated all that shit.” Dante scoffed, probably lost in a memory of them fighting or something.
“I only heard about the stunt in New Mexico,” I said meekly, not knowing where Dante’s emotional boundaries were.
“The stunt that killed him,” Dante said flatly. “Ironically that was the only event Crash ever did that Keats wasn’t there for. You ever wanted any siblings, Autumn?”
“My mom is all the sister I need.” I laughed and laid down next to him, pinning my arms to my sides to keep a healthy amount of breathing room between us. “I don’t know if I could handle an actual sibling.”
“She sounds like quite the handful.” Dante turned to me, only his right eye was shaded enough from the dying sunlight to squint open. He gazed at me with a wistful expression that gave me butterflies. “I think our moms would’ve liked each other. They might’ve even been friends.”
I smiled, really liking that thought for some reason. I relaxed a little and let my arm brush up against his. My skin tingled like licked Pop Rocks. It almost felt like we were back on that boat, getting to know each other, unburdened with all the baggage of our commitments to this movie, my mom’s treatment, and maybe even whatever other apprehensions that were obviously on Dante's mind.
“Dante?” A question had been buzzing in my mind since he stretched his hand out for me to join him on this ride. I didn’t want to ask him, but I knew it would bother me for days if I tried to ignore it. “Can I ask why the sudden change of heart? With me?”
“It’s not supposed to be like this.” Dante sighed and turned his gaze skyward again. He sounded frustrated, but not at me. “Frost told me that when I have an impossible problem, what I might need is an impossible solution.”
“Taking a day off with that deadline right around the corner is pretty crazy.” I licked my dry lips and swallowed. “That’s not to say I don’t appreciate the rest.” A nagging worry I had all day finally crawled its way out of my mouth. “Does this mean we’re going to have to make up for lost time by going even harder tomorrow?”
“I don’t think that’s the answer. We’re going to mix it up and do something different with the rest of the training.”
“Different bad or...different less bad?” My voice had a whine to it that I couldn't shake. The idea of a good or light day seemed about as likely as mid-summer snow flurries here in the dessert.
“Leave your training to me.” He slid his hands back under his head. “Frost gave me some perspective. He pointed out that I could be difficult to work with on occasion.”
“You mean there are days when you’re not difficult to work with?” I asked with a smirk, scooting away a bit to reinforce the joke.
Dante turned to face me again. His eyes narrowed, but the curling edges of his lips betrayed the cracks in his stern facade. Then he sat up and surveyed the valley before us, his faux defensiveness falling away. “Not a bad way to catch a sunset, huh?”
“Not at all,” I said, sitting up and doing the same. “When I saw your note this morning—well, first of all, I thought it was a trick.”
“A trick?” Dante scoffed. “What am I? The Riddler?”
“I don’t know! You feel like a super villain the way you’ve been training me.” I tossed my hands up in protest. “Anyways. The only thing I wanted to do with my day off was get a coffee and take a bath. I never thought I’d be given a horse ride to a hidden valley to watch the sunset.”
“So better than a coffee?”
“I have yet to try the trendy overpriced Arabica blend that beats this. And that's not for a lack of trying.”
“We should head back,” Dante said, getting to his feet with a sore groan, no doubt from tussling with the Mustang earlier.
“Before we go. I need to use the uh…nature, I guess?” It was a long ride on a bouncing horse; I was genuinely surprised I hadn’t needed to go before now. Glancing around, I didn’t find so much as a tree, just low brush and rocks. It was getting dark, but it wasn’t there yet. It was still bright enough to see a mile in every direction, more if you looked down the valley. Was I really going to have to pee in front of him?
“Embrace your wild side, city girl.” Dante shrugged with a smug wink and held out some napkins.
“You can’t look,” I grabbed the napkins, but he didn’t let go.
“I wont.” He painted my body with his stare, before opening his hand. His eyes finished the sentence. I’ve already seen you naked.
Feeling my blood rush a little faster I stepped away from him and wandered off in a random direction. Wherever I went he’d be able to see me if he wanted, but I could at least go far enough that he wouldn’t hear me.
“Don’t go too far. And stay away from the brush. There are all sorts of nasty venomous things out there.” There was no joking or flirtation in his voice, which worried me. If he took it seriously then I’d better heed his warning.
“If you were planning on scaring the pee out of me it almost worked,” I muttered to myself as I tried to avoid particularly long shadows and ever present scratching sounds in the dirt. Checking to make sure Dante’s back was turned, I slipped out of my panties, hiked up my sundress and went. As I peed all I could think about was rattlesnakes and scorpions and other things I didn’t even know of that crept around in the darkness.
When I finished I checked behind me at a sound I thought I heard and, behind a series of jutting rocks, was a familiar warm, ethereal glow. The small golden purple flowers looked almost magical against the dry, dead desert. Little Lanterns!
I smiled and plucked one that was in full bloom.
When I returned Dante still had his back to me as he folded and put away the blanket in Emily’s saddlebag.
“Good.” Dante said, hearing me approach. “You didn’t get eaten by—”
Dante’s eyes flashed with disbelief when he saw the delicate flower. He was almost transfixed by it, before looking at me with softer eyes than I’d ever seen on him. The edge always present in his features was completely gone. It was glimpse behind the mask to the still grieving boy deep inside.
“Would your mom have picked this one?” I asked, holding it out for him.
“I’d like to think so.” Dante held the Desert Five-Spot in his hands a moment before reverently placing it in the bag. He mounted Emily then helped me up. Dante spurred the Percheron away from the house and toward the last sliver of sunlight.
“Aren’t we headed back?” My chin grazed the back of his shoulder as I spoke.
“Not just yet,” Dante said. “There’s one more thing I want to show you.”