Let Your Heart Drive (15 page)

“Does your sister work for the CIA or something?”

I’m thrown off by his comment and look up toward the house, Chelsea’s peering out of the main window, a curtain drawn slightly back, but it’s obvious she has a pair of binoculars in hand staring back at us. Trey flips his headlights on and the second he does that she disappears from sight.

“Oh…she’s something all right,” I grumble.
I am going to kill her the moment I step inside that house.

“Are you going to be frisked when you go in?” he teases me and starts to open his driver’s door, the dome light illuminates the cab and I catch the passion still shadowing his hungry eyes. I let out a little sigh of relief to see our impatient, thirsty feelings are definitely mutual.

“Probably, don’t let her fool you. During the day she’s a full-time yoga instructor and at night she’s an inside agent.”

He opens the passenger’s side door and asks, “For?”

“My dad.”

“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.”

~ Rumi

Late in the night
I wander quietly downstairs and grab a glass of water. Dreams and nightmares invade and torment my sleep and I’m afraid to go back to bed. But after two drudging, long glasses I suck it up and crawl back beneath the covers and close my eyes.

Later my eyes reopen, I’m not underneath the sheets. I’m not lying in bed protected by the four walls that I thought would shield me. A musical sound drifts gloomily through a hallway and I make out the spacious rooms and wide corridors, and the lustrous globe chandelier. I pass under Da Vinci’s map of the world that’s lit up so brightly I have to shade my eyes and follow the music.

Room after room I finally pull together I’m in the museum, I trace my fingers down the familiar vine carved columns and stop my bare feet at the entry hall. A massive organ hides behind two ornate panel doors playing with no one seated. I cast a cagey glance around as the melody hums through the gold toned pipes, and then I hear someone call my name.

“Sin
ead…”

Slowly I turn and pace my footsteps tentatively, one footprint at a time as the floor absorbs each step. The entire time I’m holding my breath and wondering why I’m even hunting down the voice, like it’s my guardian angel. The museum turns dark and drab with no natural light breathing into it. A coldness walks in step with me and I shiver.

I freeze my next motion when an old groundskeeper shuffles by me with a large glass object cradled in his hands. I race after him as he disappears into another mural painted room, he slams down an hourglass on the nearest table and faces me. There’s no grains of beautiful white sand pouring down —
its pills
. Thousands and thousands of multicolored pills drizzle out like salt on paper and I glare up at the man.

And I find it’s not just some blue garbed groundskeeper, it’s Trey.

I feel like I did years ago, my veins disintegrating, burning and I drop to my knees.

“
I’m…sorry
,” I mutter out filled with indescribable guilt.

“Why put me through this?”
he asks inhumanly and when I lug my eyes back up to him, it’s no longer Trey, but Jake.

The next morning, I have my laptop stationed on the center island in the kitchen. I’m typing away about my dream, what it means, and why I subconsciously tote fear around like it’s a dear devoted friend. A companion harboring all my glorious past.

It’s not what my trip is about, this journey is something I can control. As Chelsea continuously says in her classes ‘
self-empowerment is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself’
. I hover my fingers over the keys… do not let others define you.

It’s the last six words I type for my vlog and exit the screen before Chelsea walks around and sits a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice beside me.   

“Rough night?”

I sip on the juice and retort, “I had these horrible dreams, it was really, really bad and they lasted all night long.”

She leans against the island and asks gravely, “About?”

I sit my glass back down and answer with a complacent smile, “Brett chasing you around the house and you’re wearing those beastly granny panties.”

She tosses a few orange peelings at me. “You better be careful, Sin. I have some incriminating evidence on a Mr. Trey Reeves.” She wags a mischievous brow at me. I close my laptop and shake my head.

“I don’t want to hear about his nefarious acts, Chelsea.”

She turns and rinses out her glass in the sink and slowly eases her head back. “He’s had a few speeding tickets here and there and those were years ago, but the one thing he was arrested for was a bar room fight.”

I sit my laptop back down and roll my eyes inwardly, I don’t want to ask but I do, “Why?”

“I don’t know, Dad said three years ago it looks like he was arrested for assault at some sports bar here in town.”

“Assault?” I question letting the word roll off my tongue. Internally I’m bouncing ideas around—
Why? Who started it?
And when?
It was three years ago, a lot has happened for me in three years and Trey doesn’t come off as some bully or a bar room brawler. So I lift a shoulder and drop it like I couldn’t care less. “You know what I think, Chelsea?” I taunt as I slide off my chair and saunter my way toward her.

She rinses off another glass and smirks at me. “What? No…wait, I think I know,” she taunts back. Standing beside her, I take the glass she’d just rinsed off and situate it inside the dishwasher. “You’re fighting jealously because in spite of my panties, I’m getting some and you’re not.”

“Oh, yeah? I’ll have to ask Brett about that, because I hear him snoring every night.”

She bumps my hip with hers and quips, “That’s because he’s so worn out from all the sex.”

I snort and roll my eyes. “You must be having way better dreams than me, but…” I take a quick step back, and hit her backside with a dishtowel, and add, “I don’t need dreams, not today.”

She snags the towel from me and smiles curiously. “Why?”

“Because I’m seeing Mr. Bar room brawler again today,” I announce and wave a toodle-oo goodbye at her.

-

I come bounding out of the house wearing a completely opposite getup than yesterday. He’d mentioned today would be outdoorsy and pretty much left it at that. So, I shimmied on a pair of black skinny jeans, an old pair of tan combat boots, and a red flannel button-up shirt. It’s as spruced up as I can get considering Chelsea has all my invested clothes in the laundry, she’s probably hocking my underwear right now for some ginormous homely panties.

Music choruses out from his truck and I grin. Alabama Shakes, Brittany, the lead vocalist’s raspy tone blends with the soul pounding bass and I know one thing.

He keeps his promises.

“Hey,” I say as he helps me climb in.

He returns with his own, “Hey.” That’s soft and smooth sounding, his
I’m at ease kinda
tone. I smile as I watch him walk around the truck wearing a beige colored Stetson hat and a faded denim jacket. He’s all cowboy today even his sideways smirk gloats with a country pride bred in him.

“I’m going to take you out to our ranch today,” he explains as we pull out of the driveway.

“Okay.” I glance at his stereo and ask, “
So
, what do you think?”

“You’re gorgeous
and…
” he states it as if he’d just said the weather is beautiful and then he sends me a boyish grin. “And I like ’em, Alabama Shakes, huh?”

Composedly I nod and brush my hair back. I catch his flirty words and I feel the unseasonable heat rise and redden my face.

“You ever dance to them or…?” He shrugs as he shoots a fishy glance my way.

“Dance?”

“Yeah, you know, move your body around to music?”

I laugh. “I know what dancing is, but I don’t lure my victims in that way.”

He chuckles and retorts quickly back, “Now I have to know. What’s your tactic?”

“Well it’s not dancing, I can tell you that.” I stare out of my window feigning interest in the topic. I’ve never been coordinated enough to do a two-step let alone anything complex like the Tango. Chelsea was always the one that could pick things up like dancing at the drop of a hat. I shake my head and watch the slow grin appear in my own reflection and taunt, “So roadside, what’s the itinerary for our trip to the ranch?”

“Well Melanie’s heading into town today, and I told her we would go on out and feed the horses.”

“Horses?” I ask dragging my eyes from the passing city scene and look at him.

“Yeah, you know one of those odd toed mammals, they have four legs
and a—
”

I cut him off, “I know what a horse is.” My hidden smile breaks and I can’t stop the warmth flooding me. He laughs and then I laugh and I just can’t imagine why this hunk of a guy is swinging single. We drive about an hour out of town until we reach a turn off. A dirt road with miles of nothingness and I begin to wonder why would anyone want to live so far from humanity.

And then I get it.

Trey hops out and unlocks a gate, and as we drive in I see woods embellished with thickly-set towering trees. A world tucked quietly away from the flurry of cars and the propel of people. I feel like I’m in a National Geographic landscaping photo shoot. And as the narrow road expands so does the scene, the over-looking trees step to the side and I watch as a huge black bird swoops downward. And then I spot the wide open space and a natural grey stone house reigning the center of it all.

“You grew up here?”

“Yeah, why? Did I have you believing all this time I was a city boy?”

I slap a hand across my chest and pout dramatically, “What happened to my roadside?”

He opens the passenger’s door and helps me down, gradually resting his hands on my hips and just like the moment he’d supported me at the bar, the moment I felt his hungry eyes land on my lips, begging for his. Hoping he’d kiss me, instead he smiles and says, “Oh, he’s still here. C’mon let me show you around.”

Trey branches off from the house and makes a beeline toward a red shingled barn. His hand intimately yet discreetly takes my own. We switch trucks and this one’s rougher, more of a paint peeled Chevy flatbed than anything. But there’s bundles of hay piled like a load of honey golden grass.

We ramble around from one field to another as Trey checks fences and water troughs. He downshifts as we head up a hill and through another gate. “This land has been in our family for years, my mom, when she married my dad, basically inherited the ranch from her grandfather.” 

“Your great granddad?”

“Yeah. I was pretty young when it happened, about seven, my dad decided he didn’t like being tied down too much. So, he left.”

“So your dad left you and your family?”

He nods as he rests the shifter in first gear and parks the truck. I study his expression, it’s not full of resentment or bitterness. And then he looks at me and answers soberly, “Yeah.”

I don’t see him anger driven, mad at the world for something his dad did years ago or someone that’s latched onto the past. He lifts a denim clad shoulder up slightly and adds, “I learned early on how to be there for the people I love. My mom taught me a lot about that and she ended up hiring a few hands to help here with the land. Plus, she figured a way to not only make profitable money with our cattle, she also signed a contact with the local government to help with the wild horses too.”

He points a finger over the ridge of the steering wheel. “You see all that?”

I peer out at the ocean of land, a wide crystal clear pond furbishes the scenery perfectly and I comprehend why Trey brought me out here. It’s tranquilly beautiful. As far as the eye can see it’s nothing but unrestricted nature mixed in with the wild untamed wind. And then I realize maybe it’s the all-knowing universe sending me that added nudge, that extra sign.

I suck in a breath and answer, “Yeah, I see it.”

Trey clears his throat. “My sister pretty much runs the show here now.”

“And the little girl who was with her at the fair?” I mumble quietly not sure why I feel the need to ask, I guess I just wanted to know. I want to know everything about him.

He smiles almost proudly. “That’s Faith, my niece.”

Thoughts form just as fast as the questions rack up, but I stop myself from prying.
Does she stay out here alone? Is she married? Is she divorced? A single mom? Was she the reason Trey got into a barroom fight?
My mind whirls with every thought imaginable trying to figure out why he didn’t have some bombshell already strapped to him.

“She looks younger than Garrett.”

“Your nephew?”

I nod my head and swallow hard as he slips off his faded denim jacket and holds it out for me. My mind does a tailspin and dives straight into picturing him taking off his shirt instead.