Credence

He blows a couple times, like something in his face, and then his fingers
brush my neck. I tense, the touch making me shiver.
“Do me a favor, okay?” he says as he swipes my hair over my right
shoulder. “Keep your hair tied back as much as possible. We have lots of
machines that can snag it.”
I take over, smoothing my hair over my shoulder and out of his face.
We stop at the top of the hill. “Water tower, barn, shop…” he calls out,
pointing as we turn and look over the cliff to his property below. “There’s a
greenhouse over that hill, too.”
I follow his gaze down to where the house sits through the trees in the
distance below us, getting a decent view of the entire ranch. The house is
happily situated in the center, the back of it facing us, with the attached
garage to the left—or shop, I assume he’s referring to—and then a barn on
the other side of that. To the right is a water tower. The rocky hill we sit
atop of sits behind the house, and I’d imagine there’s a propane tank and a
generator somewhere on the property.
The leaves dance with the morning breeze, and something flaps its
wings to my right as a steady, soft noise pounds in the distance. Water,
maybe?
Jake pulls away from the edge, and we keep going, still farther away
from the house and deeper into the forest, and I look down, seeing his
fingers wrapped around each strap of the reins, nearly resting on my thighs.
His arms lock me in, and despite the chill of the morning, I’m not cold.
“You can’t take the truck up in here, but the horses and ATVs do well,”
he tells me. “Have Noah show you the ropes with the four-wheelers before
you use one, okay?”
I nod. I did a camp for extreme sports one summer, but he’ll probably
want his son to show me the ropes anyway.
We keep going, and even though I’m a little hungry after not having
eaten for so long and craving another coffee, because my eyelids are
weighing heavy with the relaxing rocking of the ride, I stay quiet. I’m not
thinking about anything out here, and it’s nice.
I close my eyes.
But after a few moments, the rush of water grows louder, and the horse
stops. I open my eyes, seeing we’re at the edge of a cliff. I look into the
distance.
The peak.