Although mellow, he was alert, communicative (in his way), and most of all, present. So very present. I didn’t know how he did it but he was with me in a way I’d never felt before. A way that I knew he was with me. Even if he wasn’t touching me, speaking to me, being overt about anything, he was still with me. And he made it clear in his Deacon way that he liked being right there.

With me.

Needless to say, it was easy to settle into that. So easy, it took only two days for it to feel real. For it to feel like what we had was forming roots in preparation for growing strong.

He left and did his job and was back at Glacier Lily in a week, which was awesome. And we went right back to what we had the short time before he went off to do his job.

When he got back, he told me he’d have a week or two to be with me. But he got a call two days in that he’d said—appearing frustrated (mildly) and disappointed (definitely, although I didn’t know him that well, so over the past weeks I convinced myself I read that wrong)—he had to take a bud’s back.

Again, he couldn’t predict when he’d return to Glacier Lily, just that he would.

The first time he went, he gave me a phone number. I called it and sometimes he answered, sometimes he didn’t and he’d call me back later. If he didn’t answer, it said its voicemail was not activated, but clearly its call history was because he’d later phone me.

We didn’t talk for hours, but we connected.

It wasn’t as good as having him but it was good. Specifically the time when we did talk for hours (or, just over one). This time being the time I shared with him my concerns about hitting non-peak season: the sliver of time after winter and spring break ended and the summer high season began.

With the aspens turning gold and the dry climate warm during the day, cool during the evening, autumn was popular in the Colorado Mountains.

Late spring, early summer, not so much.

This made it tough. Tough to find things for Milagros to do when she needed things to do because she needed the money. Tough to cover the money to keep her doing things and keep myself covered as well.

I rented the cabins steadily and made enough money to live comfortably, but far from luxuriously.

I didn’t want luxury, had never wanted it. I might one day get it (or some semblance of it), though not soon as I’d taken a second mortgage to do some of the work on the house and cabins and I still hadn’t paid off my dad.

So spring always was a bitch.

And this was what I told Deacon (though I didn’t get into the second mortgage stuff, just the complaining about non-peak season stuff). I did this feeling the contradictory feelings of weird and maybe a little frightened we hadn’t yet gotten to the place where I could unload my life on him and elated I finally had someone to unload my life on.

“Up the rates.”

That was what he said when I finally quit babbling.

“What?” I asked.

“You rent those cabins too cheap, Cassidy. They’re the shit. Up the rates.”

I was experiencing a heady warmth from his they’re the shit that was somewhat overwhelming but I still managed to ask, “You think I could get away with that?”

“A year ago, two, no. Economy was in the tank. No matter how great your cabins are, you’d have to take that hit to get them rented. Now, you got the business you got because people are gettin’ a deal. They know it. You up nightly rates by ten, twenty dollars, weekly rates by fifty, they’d still rent them, because they might not be getting a deal, but they’re still the shit. You do that, helps you during the lean times.”

“That’s actually a good idea,” I told him because it was. I could do this. I’d have to honor the bookings I had at the rates they’d booked, but it’d be super-easy to change the website to increase the rates for future bookings.

“Not the scarecrow.”

Deacon’s bizarre words had my head jerking and my mouth saying, “Sorry?”

“Got a brain in my head, Cassidy.”

He said this with his deep voice bearing a thread of humor, not insult, which was good.

Still.

“I didn’t say you didn’t,” I replied.

“Woman, that was an offer.”

Again, I was confused.

“What?” I asked.

“Got a brain, I can use it,” Deacon answered. “You do what you do day to day. It’s your life. You’re up to your neck in it. Can get mired in that, unless you got someone to kick ideas around with. Since I got a brain, and you got me, that someone is me.”

The feeling of heady warmth that gave me was just overwhelming. So much so I couldn’t speak.

“Woman, you there?” he called.

“Yes, honey,” I forced out and kept doing it. “Thanks for the offer. I’ll take you up on it. I just hope I make it so you don’t regret it.”

“How would that happen?” he asked, sounding genuinely perplexed, which I found unbelievably sweet.

But still.

“You remember Grant?” I inquired.

“Who?”

“Grant. My boyfriend when I, uh…first met you.”

“Lazy fuck,” he stated, paused, then said before I could confirm, “Stupid fuck.”

“Yeah,” I replied, smiling. “Him.”

“I remember.”

“Well, my dream, this dream that transformed when I found these cabins, wasn’t being here doing it alone. I actually thought most of the fun would be being here, taking care of these cabins, and doing it together, at the time with Grant. He didn’t agree. His fun came a different way. The weight of the work, and me, ended up too much.”

“Cassie,” he said quietly. “Respect, but you two were too young to take that on. Man his age back then, all he wants is to get drunk and do it findin’ someone who’ll give him a blowjob after he’s done gettin’ shitfaced.”

This was absolutely true.

“Sayin’ that,” Deacon went on, “all a man’s gotta do is look at you, any age he is, and know he struck gold and has to get his shit together to keep it shiny, but more, keep it his. But he didn’t just look at you, he knew you, and doin’ that, no excuse for bein’ the way he was.”

The warmth I got from that settled so deep, I could ride it for weeks in the Arctic with not even a blanket.

“What I’m sayin’ is,” Deacon kept on quietly, “you are not a weight. Those cabins aren’t. Life isn’t. It’s just what it is. It’s part of livin’. It’s part of bein’ together. If it matters, if it’s good, nothin’ weighs it down.”