There was strain clear as day in his voice.
At the idea of being stuck here surrounded by filthy nature and shedding dogs. And, let’s not count this out, a man and a woman clearly going through something.
No one could blame him for only doing it begrudgingly.
He was a far better person than most.
“Yeah, I’ll text you.”
There was silence for a long moment then as I stayed where I was, not wanting to pop up directly after the phone call, making it painfully obvious I had been listening to his private conversation.
I was just biding my time.
But then the front door opened, and a familiar sound came in.
Ranger’s footsteps.
“She’s not up yet?” he asked. Maybe I was mistaken, but I was almost sure I heard concern in his voice.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking on my part.
“Nope. And the goat is restless.”
As if noticing for the first time, I could feel Gadget squirming in my arms, likely wanting to relieve himself and get some milk in his little body again.
But, again, I couldn’t just pop up after one of them said something, making my creepy self known.
There was the sound of footsteps coming closer, and it took a lot not to tense up, to show signs of my alertness.
But then hands grabbed Gadget, started pulling.
I shot up, trying to grab him back, realizing how close Ranger was, how much he smelled like himself – his soap, fresh air, hay.
“Relax. I’m not going to hurt him.”
His voice was rough, a little ragged even. Not unusual, but in painful contrast to the tone he had been using with me more recently.
But before I could even process that, or object, he pulled Gadget from my arms and headed outside with him.
“Coffee?” Finn asked, making me turn to find him standing in the doorway to the kitchen, eyes almost apologetic even though he had nothing to do with the situation.
Guilt filled my stomach as I folded up on the couch, blankets falling down, my hair feeling like it was a halo around my head, it was so mussed from tossing and turning.
“Please,” I told him, getting up, folding the blanket, putting the pillow away, then making my way to the bathroom, taking extra long to shower, to get myself together.
Being a coward.
At that realization, I moved back out, accepting my coffee, rejecting breakfast.
It was right then that I realized it wasn’t that Finn was a super early riser, or that Ranger was up earlier than usual.
No.
My internal clock had set the alarm.
I had slept in.
Feeling suddenly frazzled, I rejected breakfast, slipped into my shoes, and made my way out to the chicken coop, pretending I didn’t see Ranger with the goats.
Again, childish.
But I hadn’t been born with a confrontational bone in my body. I didn’t find it easy to approach someone with a problem I had with them, demand we hash it out and fix it. It was likely why so many of my relationships failed. We didn’t communicate well. I internalized issues, making me get more and more distant from partners, until eventually, things just got too distant, and everything fell apart.
That was my M.O.
It wasn’t exactly healthy.
But, I figured, in the woods with my life depending on someone else, it was just smarter to keep it in, see how things went with a little space.
Apparently, space was perfectly fine with Ranger.
We went about our days doing our usual daily tasks, while pretending the other didn’t exist. I lingered at mine, he at his, and poor Finn suffered a host-free visit to the Pine Barrens.
Though he, too, seemed to keep busy. Cleaning, organizing, somehow managing to bathe the dogs without getting a limb chewed off – though his right arm did look a little worse for wear.
We all skipped lunch.
It was dinner I had been dreading all day, so much so that a knot had curled itself tightly in my stomach by the time I walked back into the house, knowing it was Ranger’s turn to cook.
But finding cold wraps piled on a plate in the kitchen.
And Ranger in his own room.
“How’s your arm?” I asked Finn as I put a wrap onto a plate, despite my stomach feeling wobbly, and sat down across from him at the table.
“He’s got Shepherds, Pits, Dobermans, all the big, scary dogs. And you know who did this?” he asked, waving a hand toward his forearm that was slick with what I imagined was triple antibiotic cream.
“Duggie?” I asked, looking over at the dog steadily gnawing on a leg bone chew Finn had brought clearly for the big dogs while Dakota – a giant Shepherd, struggled to chew on a little kneecap.
“Yep. He’s half eagle. Has talons instead of nails. Also, I don’t think he has ever seen the inside of a bathtub judging by how brown that water ran.”