Page 15 of Love Is a War Song

There was something magical and thrilling about being on this expanse of a property, alone with nothing but the stars, the crickets, and the fireflies as company. I stood beneath the oak tree I could see from my window and one friendly little lightning bug playfully flew between my fingers.

Under these stars, I wasn’t disgraced singer Avery Fox. Right now, I was just a girl (with terrible insomnia) free to do whatever I wanted. I left the fireflies to float through the night air and meandered around the property.

Apart from the cellar and the golf cart out front, there wasn’t really much else of note. The porch had wooden rocking chairs, but I didn’t feel like sitting. My legs were restless.

Maybe the horses weren’t so scary when they were sleeping. The hill sloped down gradually, and it wasn’t all that far. I took my time walking, my arms crossed. I couldn’t get Lucas’s comment out of my head.

Did he really have to go out of his way to shit on my music?

I started singing the song to myself. My gut told me the opening verse was right, but the pre-chorus and parts of the chorus didn’t feel right yet.

The idea was there, and I could keep working on it.

So I was proud I had the song in the shape it was in.

It was hard-won and I wished Niles and my mother would sit and listen to hear its potential.

Two horses were by the fence of the eastern paddock. Could one of them be Peso? I kept my distance to be sure. It was dark and the air was like a warm hug. I started humming and whistling the melody of “Heartbeats.” It just seemed right.

I continued my quiet whistling, walking along the barn. A rough hand covered my mouth, a big arm wrapped around my middle, and I was thrust back and through the door of the barn. My scream was muffled against my attacker’s hand.

I bucked my head back and flailed my legs, trying to get purchase and nail my attacker. I would not go down without a fight.

“Calm down! I’m not trying to hurt you,” the man whispered in my ear frustratedly. I was incensed. Not trying to hurt me? Just trying to abduct me for nefarious purposes no doubt. I continued to try to scream, then I bit down on his hand.

“Fuck!” He released me and I barely managed to catch my balance before I could fall on my face.

“Stay away from me!” I scrambled for the door, but the rough hand caught mine.

“Avery, calm down. It’s me.”

I turned around to the man. Lucas.

“What the hell, Lucas!” I extracted my hand from his. “What’s your problem?”

“Mine? Why the hell are you skulking around after midnight like some witch here to haunt us? And did no one ever tell you not to whistle at night? You must be deranged!”

“News flash, it’s a free country. I can walk around wherever I want and I can sing and whistle and be happy. I don’t need your permission.”

“News flash, princess, you’re in Indian Country. Whistling at night attracts horrors you can’t even imagine.”

“Well, it summoned you, so I can imagine it.”

“I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“Really? You call covering my mouth and grabbing me from behind with brute force ‘looking out for me’?”

“I had to get you to stop whistling and inside the barn.”

“What’s the big deal? I wasn’t even loud.”

“Don’t you know anything?”

“I know that before stepping foot in Oklahoma there were only three ways to piss me off. Now there are four. All I have to do is see your face and it will set me straight off.”

“You could always go back home, sweetheart.”

“Not a chance, sweetheart .” During this entire exchange our bodies drifted closer together, his nose a hair’s breadth away from mine. His gray eyes looked black in the darkness.

His slightly opened mouth was inches from mine; we were sharing space and breath.

It was a mistake to look there. I should have looked anywhere other than at his mouth.

I had no business admiring his face, or noticing that his bottom lip was fuller than his top.

Guilt had me snap my eyes back to his. He tracked everything my eyes did.

Did I just imagine that he got closer to me in half a second? He clenched his jaw. I was affecting him. This was how I could get him back. Lottie didn’t tell me I couldn’t flirt with the men here. They had to keep their distance from me.

I shook my hair away from my face and my chest. This time it was his eyes that traced my face, trailing from my nose and lingering on my mouth before continuing their descent down my neck and stopping at my exposed collar.

He sucked in a breath.

It was only because it had been almost a year since I broke up with my last boyfriend and I was tired beyond belief that Lucas’s proximity was intoxicating in my overtired state.

The sound of his breath, and his masculine scent that was sweet, earthy, almost woodsy.

It wasn’t a scent from a bottle. This was all Lucas, all of what he encountered and surrounded himself with throughout the day. I had to know what it was.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he asked, his voice lethally quiet.

“Huh?” I was still in the Lucas trance.

“Where are your clothes?”

I blinked away my stupor, embarrassed I was so close, leaning into this man. I must have been really desperate to obsess about his fragrance. I stepped away from his body heat.

“I’m wearing my pajamas.” I adjusted the spaghetti strap of my nightgown.

“You sleep in this every night?” he asked in a groan.

“It hits right above my knee.” I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t all that scandalous.

“Creator, give me strength,” he pleaded in an agonized whisper. “You can’t be wandering around like this.”

“Like what? I couldn’t sleep so I was taking a walk. Nobody was out here.” He was looking at the pitch-black ceiling now.

“You’ll catch a chill or something.”

“A chill? It’s over eighty in the middle of the night.”

“This is a working ranch full of horse shit. You’ll get chewed up by the bugs.”

“I haven’t noticed any bugs apart from the fireflies.”

He seemed desperate now, taking a step away from me and running his fingers through his hair. “You can’t be this obtuse.”

“I think you’re complimenting me. In a very weird and roundabout way.”

He gave a flustered laugh, a tight smile on his lips. “C’mon, Avery. Didn’t take you for the type of woman to fish for compliments.”

“I’m not.” I cocked my head, meeting his stare dead-on.

He opened his mouth to speak, when all the horses started whining. The full moon was the only thing that provided any light, so I couldn’t be sure if it was a trick of the light, but it looked like all the color drained from Lucas’s face.

He moved to the door silently, rolling it closed.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He shushed me with one hand as he secured the lock into place, before he guided me away from the door with a hand on my back. He brought us to an empty stall.

“What is it? Why did you lock the barn?”

“This is why we never whistle at night. Something heard you and now it’s out there and scaring the shit out of the horses.”

“What is it? Like a wolf or something?”

“Wolf? In Oklahoma?” He looked flabbergasted. “You really don’t know shit,” he mumbled as he motioned for me to sit on the ground and left the stall.

“I know a lot of things,” I whispered to no one.

“Yeah, is any of it useful?” He came back into the stall with two blankets. He continued, “You have a whole song and persona about being Native and you don’t even know the first thing.”

“How is that my fault? My mom grew up here, but I never knew all of this existed. I was raised in LA and I went to school on set for the most part. It wasn’t like I was around any other Native American students.

My mom sure as shit never mentioned anything about her life growing up.

I don’t know what I don’t know.” My voice broke and I looked away.

Why was I bothering to justify myself to him?

He paused as he arranged the blankets around us.

“Hey, don’t cry.” His voice was gentle, how I imagined he spoke to a spooked horse.

“Why am I here, Lucas?” I asked, fed up.

“You tell me, princess. You just showed up out of the blue. Was it really so bad that you couldn’t face some online trolls?”

I laughed a soulless, bitter laugh. “It was a lot more than online trolls. I had death threats sent to my hotel and the venue before my show. I meant, why am I locked in this barn, sitting on the floor of this horse stall, with you.”

“I ain’t going out there. Who knows what you summoned. Could be a Kolowa for all I know.”

“A Kolowa? What the heck is that?”

“A bad monster. You don’t want to know.”

“When do you think it’s safe to leave the barn then?”

“When the sun comes up.”

“Are you serious? And you think I’m ridiculous? I can’t sleep on the floor of a barn next to you.”

“Who says I wanted to sleep on the floor of the barn next to you?”

I held up the blanket and raised my brow.

“You can have your own stall, there are fourteen others. I’m staying right here, because I plan on livin’.”

“It could have been something harmless that spooked the horses. This is ridiculous.” I stood up to go.

“Oh no, I’m not sending Lottie’s headstrong granddaughter out there when an ogre or something is spooking the horses.”

That made me pause. I wasn’t convinced there was a Kolowa out there, whatever it was, but what if there was a bear out there? Or worse, a cougar or a pack of coyotes? “Would you walk with me?”

“Hell no. I just said I plan on living. Haven’t you seen any horror movies where stupid people make stupid decisions? Nope. Won’t be me. I am staying right here.”

“Unbelievable.”

Bang! Something large hit the wall of the barn and I screamed and threw myself down to the ground on top of Lucas.

“Shh! You want it to know right where we are?” he whispered again in that angry, loud whisper.

I buried my head in his chest, and surprisingly Lucas’s toned arms wound around my torso.

“I don’t like this.” My whine was muffled in his chest.

“We’ll be fine in here.”