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The rain splattered against the motel room window, drops distorted as they bounced off the walkway overhang.
Through the downpour Kate could only see the smeared flares of the parking lot lights, shimmering off the water forming huge puddles on the uneven asphalt. No doubt both the crew and the trucks would be filthy by the time they left in the morning.
Lightning had cracked across the sky as they drove through the early twilight to their accommodation for the next night or two. Nothing on the doppler suggested a tornado – the day had been mostly disappointing on that front – just a slightly out of season storm.
Stumbling into the motel reception soaking wet and giggling like kids had earned them a disapproving frown from the bespectacled older woman behind the desk, until Tyler charmed her into giving them three of the best rooms they had left, his sincere apologies for dripping on her laminate floor dismissed with almost girlish giggles.
“I think that receptionist has a bit of a crush,” Kate had teased later, after the crew scattered in search of hot showers, dry clothes and vending machine snacks to complement their hastily purchased fast food dinner.
“Jealous, Sapulpa?” Tyler grinned, bending down to kiss her cheek as she sat at the room’s little wooden desk, his hair still damp from the shower and his skin smelling of the woody soap he favoured.
“Not if it gets me this “executive accomodation””, she’d laughed, spreading her arms to encompass the room, which had probably been very stylish and modern sometime in the mid 1990s.
Letting the office block strip blind fall back into place, Kate sighed. She hadn’t turned on the lights, but the lot’s flourescents were more than enough to see by, even through the blinds.
Suddenly chilled even in the oversize UArk sweatshirt she slept in, Kate padded back to the bed, treading lightly in the hopes of avoid any loose floorboards. After a swig of water, she carefully lay back down, her body heat gone from the sheets while she’d been up.
Beside her, Tyler slept soundly; he’d barely stirred when she’d slipped out from under his arm, save a discontented murmur. When they were sleeping in the truck, waiting for an early morning twister, Tyler could be up and awake at the slightest change of the wind, but in the relative comfort of a roadside motel or the actual comfort of the Carter farm, he was quite a heavy sleeper.
Drawing the covers over herself, Kate closed her eyes and tried to relax, hoping the patter of the rain and Tyler’s steady, even breathing would lull her back to sleep. She wasn’t sure how long she lay there, but when a toilet flushed in a nearby room, her eyelids flicked back open, no closer to sleep than before.
Frustrated, she turned onto her side, catching herself before she jostled the mattress too much. Tyler lay on his front, one arm under the pillow and the other outstretched where it had been wrapped around Kate.
He looked younger when he was asleep, like the Tyler she had seen pictures of in his rodeo days. The filtered light silver-washed his hair and skin, casting him in an ethereal glow.
Before she could stop herself, Kate reached up to gently brush an errant lock of hair off his forehead. At the touch of her fingertips to his temple he made a little noise in the back of his throat but didn’t stir otherwise.
Ever so gently, Kate rested her hand on his back, his skin so very warm to the touch. Even her icy toes in the winter were no match for Tyler, and she teased him that he was her giant hot water bottle.
He sighed softly when she slowly trailed her hand downwards, and she wondered if her touch had crossed into his dreams. Was he thinking of her arms wrapped around him, or of her rubbing his back when he got one of his migraines? Sometimes she dreamed of him and woke to realise he had slipped into bed with her while she slept, her subconscious pulling him as close as possible.
Her fingertips stilled at the puckered skin of the jagged scar which curled around his side just under his ribs. She had felt the outline of it many times with her fingers, and once or twice her lips. Feather light, she followed its course until it disappeared onto the front of his body.
“Sheet metal.” His voice was barely above a murmur but it cut through Kate’s musings like a thunderclap, hand pulling back like she’d been burned. Lifting her gaze, she found him watching her steadily, the blue-green of his eyes darkened in the half light.
“Tyler, I’m sorry – I couldn’t sleep – I shouldn’t have –“
“It’s okay, Kate.” He gently interrupted her stuttered apology. “Bad dream?”
“No, I –“ She had been dreaming but it wasn’t the maelstrom of screams and destruction and pain which unfolded in her nightmares. Just a collection of random, half-remembered flashes: the water spout she’d photographed last week, one of Addy’s doodles in her notes, a silent college classroom, her mom’s pecan pie, and other things already drifting out of her memory’s grasp. Instead of startling awake panicking with tears on her cheeks, she’d simply opened her eyes to the faded magnolia of the motel room ceiling.
“Are you okay? Are you feelin’ sick?”
“No, I don’t know why I woke up. Maybe its indigestion,” she joked, although her takeout burger had been surprisingly tasty. Tyler gave a little huff of amusement but she could still see the hint of concern in his gaze.
“You’ve been kinda restless the last few days.” That was true. This wasn’t her first disturbed night recently, and she’d found herself getting distracted, the others having to call her name to get her attention. She’d gone for a light night walk around the last motel they’d stayed in, unable to sit still and relax even after a long day chasing.
“Yeah. Don’t know why.” Maybe it was their near miss from a couple of weeks ago – a twister suddenly changing direction and barrelling towards them, vehicles scattering to get out of its path. Maybe it was her intermittent dissertation writers block. Or the call from her Mom to say that Great Aunt Claudine was going into a care facility, reawakening Kate’s guilt over cutting herself off from her family for so long. Maybe it was all of it. Or none of it. “It’ll pass.”
Tyler lifted his arm and she slipped back underneath again, the solid weight of it anchoring her, his large hand warm against her hip.
Outside, the rain was coming down with renewed vigour, battering the window and hammering on the building’s flat roof.
“Surprised anybody can sleep with that goin’ on.” Tyler murmured. “Got that in a storm like this.”
His gaze flickered downwards and it took Kate a moment to realise that he meant the scar. She had never asked how he got it before, assuming he would tell her if he wanted to. Very few people had seen Kate’s leg in the years since the accident, but she’d still had to endure unsubtle stares, impolite questions and, once, downright revulsion. She wasn’t going to make anyone else feel like she had, even if Tyler never gave the impression he was ashamed of his scars. Before she could say he didn’t have to tell her if he didn’t want to, Tyler continued.
“We’d been chasin’ out in the middle of nowhere and we were lookin’ for somewhere to stay. Rain was comin’ down like this, could barely see through the windscreen. The RV got stuck in the dirt and we had to practically dig it out, gettin’ soaked the whole time. Finally got it goin’ with a push and as it went I slipped and fell in the mud and a bit of the roof of a chicken coop or somethin’ sliced clean through my shirt. And me.” The corner of his mouth twitched in a smile. “Shoulda seen the state of me, soakin’ wet and covered in mud and blood.”
“Must have hurt.” Kate realised she had absent-mindedly brought her fingers back to touch the uneven line of the scar as he spoke. Tyler didn’t object, and she thought of the gentle way he’d caressed the red slash on her thigh the first time he’d seen it.
“Like Hell,” he laughed again. “Had to patch it up myself since we were nowhere near a clinic so it didn’t heal so great.”
Kate had seen Tyler tend to the little injuries the crew – mainly Boone – picked up on their adventures. He had told her that bull riders got so many cuts and bruises it was easier to take care of most of them themselves.
“I always assumed you got it from the rodeo.”
“This one was from the rodeo.” He half propped himself up on his left arm, slightly lifting his shoulder, where there was a lozenge shaped gouge under his shoulder blade. Kate knew the feel of that under her fingertips, too. “Bull caught me on the hop. Doesn’t look like much but it was pretty deep. Nearly dislocated my shoulder, too.”
“Was that when you stopped?”
“No. Probably should have, but I was still young and dumb enough to think I was invincible back then.”
“Do you ever miss it?” Kate had seen the hints of a wistful smile on Tyler’s face in Stillwater, and the few times they’d been to a rodeo since then.
“I had some good times – in between the batterings – but I’m glad I gave it up. Don’t know if I’d have been in one piece by now if I’d kept at it. And I never would have found my real calling. Never found the crew.” He smiled down at her, his right thumb gently tracing circles on her hip. “Never found you.”
Maybe it was because she was over-tired, or maybe it was the way he was looking at her, but Kate felt tears pricking at her eyelids. She reached up to touch Tyler’s face, tenderly trailing the backs of her fingers down his cheek.
“I’m glad you gave it up, too. I like you in one piece.” Kate could see that he was having trouble keeping his eyes open, even as he turned his head to brush his lips against her hand. “Go back to sleep, Tyler.”
Turning onto his side to face her, Tyler gently guided her to do the same, closing the distance between them to press a kiss to her forehead.
“Think you can go back to sleep, too?” He murmured into her hair.
Kate let herself absorb his warmth and the lingering clean smell of his evening shower.
“Yeah, I think I can.”