Loving Against the Grain (Into the West #2)

Chapter 26

 

He was floating; floating amidst orange and yellow and pink clouds that drifted past him like sleepwalking sheep meandering through a robin’s egg blue pasture. He tried to reach out to touch them for they looked incredibly soft, but his arms wouldn’t move. They’d been weighted down for some reason; he could barely flex his fingers. He needed to touch them; to feel their downy texture. His body dipped in a sudden downdraft and he caught his breath, forgetting those tantalizingly soft sheep. The sensation of helplessness in that sudden drop nauseated him, and he prayed his body would stop its freefalling glide that would surely end with him vomiting all over himself and those pretty pastel creatures. His descent sharpened and he moaned, head feeling like an overripe melon ready to split from the pressure. He groaned again. Why couldn’t he just stop this tumbling decline?

“…Noah? Noah, it’s me, Emmie. You’re alright, sweetheart. Wake up. Please wake up.”

The disembodied, feminine voice pierced through the gathering sheep clouds and struck at his brain like a pick axe, with all the sharp pain inherent from one. His mind splintered like the pieces of a child’s puzzle, centering on one bizarre thought. God was a woman? She spoke in worried, anxious tones to her earthly sinners?

“Noah?--”

Wait. He recognized that voice, and it wasn’t from God on the mountaintop. It came from decidedly closer, and definitely not immortal. While God may claim his soul, this woman owned his heart. He knew instinctively that he couldn’t exist without the owner of that voice. And, like always, he fought to answer her, for even in this floating state he couldn’t stand the fear and distress he recognized in her shaking, querying tone. Was he the source of that anguish in her voice? Had he produced such sorrow? Never! He’d vowed never to cause this woman any pain; any suffering. He remembered those vows; intended to uphold them. He needed to soothe her; protect her. With that thought uppermost in his detached state, he concentrated on moving his lips; turning his head; opening his eyes.

“Emmm…”

Immediately it started to rain. Big, fat drops that rushed over his face in spatters like a Texas thunderstorm, accompanied by the bawling of the most pitiful calf he’d ever heard…

“Y—you heard me! Oh, d—dear God, you heard me!”

The downpour strengthened, threatening to drown him in its intensity, coursing over his face and down his neck warmly, while that bawling calf began hiccupping, thick, choking sounds from deep inside its gullet. Now he had to save it as well as that forlorn woman calling to him…

With great mental and physical resolve he cracked his heavy eyelids open against the pounding weight inside his head, against the brilliance of returning to his earthly port, leaving behind those tranquil, placid sheep as they continued their gentle meanderings without his shepherding.

“Em?” He croaked through parched lips, wondering in his splintered consciousness if those greedy sheep had finished off all the water in that muted landscape he’d exited, leaving him thirsty and desiccated. “Don’ cry,” he forced more words through his arid mouth. Anything to ease her pain…

Cool hands cupped his face while frantic kisses rained down upon him, covering his heavy eyelids, pecking at his nose and cheekbones while breathy little phrases such as, “You’re awake!” or “They’re just happy tears!” wafted over him like gentle summer breezes, calming his staccato heartbeat within his chest. He tried to return those embraces, strained to lift his head, but it felt so heavy, heavy like a bale of pastel cotton from that field of pastel sheep…

“Don’t move, sweetheart! No need to move. Just look at me with those beautiful eyes; look at me once more…”

Oh, how his eyelids ached from the pounds of silver dust resting on them, but he could deny the owner of that voice nothing. She was his everything, his sole purpose for living, and he must needs do whatever it took to make her happy. So thinking, he fought the temptation to sink below the surface of his consciousness once more and carefully lifted his crusted lids, squinting from the light he knew would pierce his brain in two with its vividness. Wider; wider now—