When we make love…
The house fell quiet and still I fretted. Unable to stand the sound of silence any longer, I grabbed my coat, my car keys, and the keys to Duane’s cabin.
On the way out I also nabbed a small flashlight from the kitchen drawer and pulled on my tennis shoes, not bothering to tie the laces.
Finding the turn off from Moth Run proved to be relatively easy. But I began to doubt myself and the sanity of taking a sixty-thousand-dollar sports car on a Tennessee unpaved mountain road until I spotted the rough path that led to his place. Less than three minutes later I spotted the cabin, and my breath caught in my throat.
I was momentarily paralyzed by the sight because light flickered through the windows, and what I guessed was smoke from the chimney rose into the air, made visible by how it blotted out the stars in the sky above.
Inexplicably, I was suddenly quite furious.
Riding the wave of intense anger, I put the stick shift in first gear, forcefully engaged the emergency brake, and turned off the headlights, opting to traverse the remaining distance by foot. No car was in sight—not Billy’s truck and not Duane’s Road Runner. I didn’t dwell on this trivia because with each step I grew more agitated. By the time I’d silently picked my way up the rough stone steps, I was good and pissed off.
I didn’t knock before I tried the handle, found it locked, then laughed to myself maniacally as I search for the cabin’s keys.
“No keeping this crazy lady out…” I muttered nonsensically to myself. “Hide all you want. I have a key, a key you gave me, you stupid hillbilly. You shouldn’t give a girl keys to your man cave if you don’t want her to open the door…”
No sooner had I found the keys and exclaimed Ah ha! with wild satisfaction did the door swing open. My head whipped up, a ready frown on my face, and I was assaulted with the image of a sleepy, peeved Duane Winston in nothing but unzipped blue jeans and black boxer shorts.
Of course, my frown gave way to wonder as my eyes moved over his body. Warmth permeated my bones. Goodness…I loved his body. It called to me. It wanted me to touch it. It promised to hold me and provide the comfort and reassurance I desperately needed.
“Jessica?” The truly perplexed way he said my name cut through my wishful thinking and I lifted my gaze to his, found him looking at me, stunned. Like I might be a figment of his imagination.
“I’m not drunk!” I yelled at him.
I don’t know why I volunteered this bit of information. Maybe because showing up in the middle of the night to his cabin in the woods, dressed in my pajamas and coat and untied tennis shoes, seemed like something only a drunk person would do.
His eyebrows drew together.
“Duane Winston, I…I…” I swallowed, my throat working without success. My chin wobbled, my eyes stung and—not knowing what else to do—I punched him as hard as I could in the shoulder.
“Ow!”
“Ow?”
“What’d you do that for?” He was rubbing his shoulder, now looking at me like I was crazy.
I wasn’t crazy. I was simply a woman scorned, in the Shakespearean sense.
“I’m mad at you!”
“You’re mad at me?”
“Yes! I needed you and you don’t love…” I trailed off, unable to complete the sentence and moving to punch him again even as tears blurred my vision.
Obviously anticipating my intent, he easily intercepted my wrist and used my momentum to pull me forward, into the cabin. He kicked the door shut and caught me around the waist before I could face-plant on the floor in front of the fire.
“Stop—”
“I’m so mad at you.” I thrashed against his hold, the tears now streaming freely down my face. “I thought we were in this together, I thought you wanted me, I thought you’d be there for me when I needed you! But I tell you how I feel and you want to talk about it later? Was this all a set up? A big lie? Did you ever want me at all?”
He snaked his arm around me and managed to keep my arms from flailing. My back was pressed to his front and he had me in a tight hold.
“Jess—”
“You are such a bastard!” I had just one goal: hurt Duane Winston. Hurt him just as badly as he’d hurt me with his cool dismissal of my confession.
“Just calm down for a second,” he growled in my ear.
“Calm down? Calm down?!”
“Yes, calm down.” He dragged me farther into the small space.
I tried to wrench myself free, digging my nails into his bicep and scratching viciously as I bellowed, “I AM NEVER GOING TO CALM DOWN!”