Coming Home to the Mountain: Complete Edition

3. Reuben

CHAPTER 3

Reuben

I work four tens on the construction crew that my brother Rye leads, which means I have three-day weekends. It’s Saturday and my mom took Plum, and apparently she and Fig are going to be sewing Plum a dress tonight with her help.

My little sister is obsessed with all things fashion design. And so this is not the first time she's decided to play dress up with my daughter.

With the day free before me, I pick up the house.

I know, not the most sexy way to spend my time, but I’ve got laundry to fold and dishes to do. And getting that completed without the five-year-old running around is easier. Once that's finished, though, I look at my watch. Bam. It's only 1:00 in the afternoon, which means I have a fuck ton of time spread out before me.

Mac and Graham text, asking if I want to get dinner at a bar tonight, but I don't know. That whole scene isn't my style. And I'm guessing Mac and Graham are going to be looking for more fun than I'm interested in having. I'm not saying they're players, not by any stretch, but they're guys who like to have a good time and are always on the lookout for someone to date.

I guess love really is in the air after Rye, Bartlett, and Lemon all got hitched earlier this year. Suddenly marriage is at the front of everyone's minds, even Plum's.

Groaning, I turn my phone to silent and shove it in my backpack. I add a bottle of water, a few bags of trail mix, and I lock the back door to the small A-frame cottage I built the summer after Beth died. I swallow. The memories are something real, but they're not for me to dwell on right now. Back then I was another man. Crazy to say, considering I'm only 23, but time marches on.

Outside, I take in a deep breath. This is my happy place. The trails out behind my cabin are the reason I love living here in the Rough Valley. This is the land that my family built up, where my ancestors walked, and heading out on these trails means something to me. I can feel it in my bones, in my blood.

I spend the next few hours lost in the woods. Not literally, but I let myself wind around some of my favorite spots, stopping at a small brook for a snack, and then trudging ahead.

My brothers might think I'm a bit of a loner, but that's not the truth. These days I'm either with Plum or tossing and turning in my bed. Because my mom wasn't wrong. Four years is a long time.

As I wind around my favorite part of the trail where a meadow spreads out, covered in clover and wildflowers at this time of year, I hear something.

A woman.

"Oh, shoot, shoot, shoot." The voice echoes through the woods. "Please, say this didn't happen." The words are followed by a long groan.

I jog toward the sound. And when I crest the top of the hill, I see her, Rapunzel, the woman whose head was sticking out of the RV passing by me and Plum last weekend while we sat at the diner.

She's holding her ankle, wincing. When she sees me, though, her eyes widen. "Oh, thank God you're here," she says.

"Are you okay?" I ask, instantly realizing it was a stupid question.

"I was," she says, shaking her head.

Coming upon her, I realize just how beautiful she is. Her hair is long, past her waist, wavy and golden in the sunlight. She's wearing a flowing linen sundress and Birkenstocks. She has leather bracelets wrapped around her wrist and her face and skin can best be described as glowing.

I kneel down beside her. "Hey," I say, "did you just fall?"

She groans. "Yeah. First I got lost, which I know is stupid to do, but these woods are pretty big and I got all turned around. I should have brought a compass or something. And then I fell. It hurts so bad." She groans.

"Is it a sprain?" I ask. "Or something worse?"

“Nothing is broken.”

"Do you mind?" I ask, reaching for her foot. She leans back on her hands, sitting between these wildflowers, looking like she's just sprouted up from the ground, innocent and natural and real in a way that takes my breath away. "I'm Reuben," I say.

"I'm Meadow," she tells me. I smile.

"That's fitting," I say, considering we're in the prettiest meadow of the Rough Forest.

"You know these woods?"

I nod. "Yeah. I'm Reuben Rough," I tell her. "I've always lived here."

She smiles. "Lucky." Then she winces. "Oh gosh, it really hurts."

"I think it's a sprain. I'd say just a sprain, but considering how much pain you're in, I'm guessing you're not going to like me using that word."

"If it's just a sprain, I'm really glad nothing’s broken. Because I don't think I could handle it."

"You have a low pain tolerance?"

She twists her pink lips. "I've never broken a bone."

I chuckle. "I have. I broke my arm, my leg, and my wrist. I have four brothers. So it goes with the territory."

She laughs. "That's hilarious. I also have four brothers, and one sister."

"Wow," I say. "We're both from big families. “I’ve got two sisters."

“Well, if I count my sister-in-law, we are neck-and-neck.” She smiles, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear. She has the cutest elfin quality to her, an upturned nose, a slender jaw, a long neck. Her shoulders are narrow. Her fingers, though, are covered in callouses. Her nails are short. Weird to notice, but I can't help taking her in, all of her.

"What?" she asks. "You're looking at me like it's really bad."

I shake my head, "No, no. I was just—I think I saw you last week."

She frowns. "Really? I think I would've remembered if we met."

"I was at the diner in town and I saw two RVs come by. They were covered in the most elaborate murals I've ever seen on a vehicle. And you had your head out of the back. Your hair was..." I shake my head, embarrassed.

"What?" she says.

"It was blowing in the wind. And I just thought, well, you kind of look like Rapunzel."

She smiles. "I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

"Stop it," I say. I'm still holding her foot. She looks down.

"I feel like Cinderella, actually, as if you're going to try to put a glass slipper on my foot."

I laugh then, hard. "That's good," I say, "but I don't have a glass slipper in my bag. Just water and trail mix. Are you hungry?"

She laughs. "No, not for that. I don't know how I'm going to get home."

"Where are you staying?"

"At the Rough Valley Campground. I think it's several miles from here. Honestly, I’m really lost. I was so caught up in how pretty it is that I lost track of time and where the trail head was."

"I think you're about four miles from the campgrounds."

"Oh, crap," she says. "And my phone died to top it off."

"Sounds like you've had a nice day off the grid. I was wandering the woods myself."

"Yeah?" she says. "Well, I wish you would've found me before I tripped and fell because now I don't know how I'm going to leave."

"Let's see if you can stand," I say. I dust off my pants and stand in front of her, reaching for her hand. As she tries to stand, though, she immediately winces.

"Oh, crap," she says. "I don't think I can do it." Tears sting her eyes then roll down her cheeks.

"Hey," I say, wiping them away. "It's all right." She's hopping on one foot now. "Why don't I help you back?"

"Really?" she says.

"Yeah," I say. "My house isn’t far. We can cut through here and it's just a little under a mile. Then I can drive you back to the campgrounds. How's that sound?"

"That sounds like I'm very lucky to have found you. I might have had to roll back home."

I laugh. "You think you could roll four miles?"

"I don't know, but what else would I have done?" she asks, laughing. "I would be scared to be out here by myself at night. I heard that there are cougars."

"Bears too," I tell her.

Her eyes widen. "Really?"

"Yeah," I say. "I'm guessing you're not from these parts."

She shakes her head. "No, my family, we're in a traveling band and we started out in Arizona. So I'm from the desert, not this lush green paradise. There's a creek I found with ferns that go all the way up to my hips. It's like we're in some prehistoric paradise."

I chuckle. "Yeah, I can see that. The moss is as thick as a blanket in some parts. The cedar trees sprawl out so big, their roots so large, nothing will shake them."

"I like that," she says. "It's solid."

"True. Going to stand the test of time."

Our eyes lock then. There's something real, authentic and true, that pierces my heart. I swallow, wondering why the fuck I’m getting lost in these ideas. “Here,” I say. “Why don’t I pick you up and just carry you. Otherwise, I’m afraid you’re going to trip again on that one foot.”

She cringes as I take her underneath her arms and lift her up, carrying her, her body pressed against my chest. She’s light and easy to handle. Now, though, her face is real close to mine. She looks up, laughing nervously. “Okay, so this got real, real fast,” she says, acknowledging the situation.

“I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable,” I tell her.

“I’m not uncomfortable,” she says, assuring me as I begin to walk through the trail shortcut toward my house.

“I’m not uncomfortable either,” I tell her. “In fact...”

“What?” she says.

“I feel like I was supposed to find you in these woods today, in that meadow.”

She smiles, relaxing in my arms as I walk carefully through the woods that I know like the back of my hand. The last thing I want to do is trip on another root or fallen branch and send both of us flying. I’ve got precious cargo right now. “So,” she says, “you live in the woods. And what do you do here? Do you just take walks every day?”

“No,” I say, “I work construction. I build things, houses, barns. I work on a crew with my dad. The whole family mostly works there except for my brother Graham. He’s a police officer. So I guess we’re even more alike. We both work with our families.”

“Yeah, I guess we do.”

“You like working with them?” I ask her.

“Mostly,” she says. “I made a commitment to travel on the road with them for another year. Sometimes, though, I get tired of going from place to place.”

“Are you playing in town?” I ask her. “Are you guys here to do a show in Home? Because I haven’t heard anything or seen any flyers anywhere.”

“No,” she says. “Actually, my father made us a deal that we could take a week’s vacation. And somehow he found this campground, which honestly is incredible. But the moment we got here, my mom was talking about us practicing some new songs and I was like, no way, I am taking a week off for myself. Do you ever get a break?"

I chuckle. "Yeah, I have three days a week off, plus I have my own cabin. But it doesn't sound like you get too much of one. You're still on vacation with the people you work with."

"That's true," she says, "which might be part of the problem. I hate to say it, but I'm going a little stir crazy. My whole life we've lived and worked together, but now I'm just..."

We're nearing my cabin. She can’t see it yet, but in my heart, I have a feeling about how she is going to finish her sentence.

"I just want to settle somewhere,” Meadow says. “I want to come home."