Chapter 5:
Echoes of Us
The sun had long since dipped below the ridge, leaving the meadow bathed in a bruised, indigo twilight. But the work didn't stop.
The storm had downed a massive limb from the ancient elm—the very tree from their childhood—and it lay across the main irrigation pipe like a broken bone. If they didn't clear it by morning, the lower lavender fields would flood, drowning months of Elowyn's hard labor.
"Hold the light steady, Wyn," Julian grunted.
He had stripped off his suit jacket and tie hours ago. His white dress shirt was ruined, plastered to his back with sweat and rainwater, the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms corded with muscle and crisscrossed with faint white scars that hadn't been there ten years ago.
Elowyn held the heavy industrial flashlight, her hands trembling slightly. The beam cut through the dark, illuminating the way Julian handled the chainsaw with a grim, practiced ease. Every movement was efficient, powerful, and entirely unfamiliar. This wasn't the boy who used to struggle with the woodpile; this was a man who had learned to survive in much harsher climates than this.
Vrrr-vrrr-vroom!
The saw chewed through the wood, the scent of fresh pine exploding into the damp air. Julian heaved a massive log aside, his chest heaving. He wiped grease from his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a dark smear across his brow.
"That's the last of it," he panted, his voice rasping in the quiet. "The pipe is clear."
Elowyn stepped closer, the light bobbing. "You're bleeding."
A jagged piece of bark had sliced through his shirt at the shoulder. A thin line of crimson was spreading across the white fabric.
"It's nothing," Julian said, though he winced as he reached for the tool kit.
"Don't be a martyr, Julian. It's deep. Come back to the porch."
For a moment, she thought he would argue. His jaw set, that familiar wall of granite rising behind his eyes. But then, his shoulders slumped. The "man of war" seemed to deflate, leaving behind someone who just looked... tired.
"Fine," he muttered.
They walked back to the cottage in silence, the grass whispering against their boots. On the porch, under the yellow glow of the bug light, Elowyn fetched a basin of warm water and a first-aid kit.
"Sit," she commanded, pointing to the bench.
Julian sat, his knees nearly touching hers in the cramped space. As Elowyn pulled back the torn fabric of his shirt to clean the wound, she froze.
Across his shoulder blade, etched in dark, faded ink, was a tattoo. It wasn't a dragon or a tribal design. It was a single, delicate elm leaf, exactly like the ones that fell in their meadow. And beneath it, in small, precise coordinates, were the latitude and longitude of this very cottage.
The breath left Elowyn's lungs. "You kept us," she whispered, her fingers hovering just inches from the ink. "Even when you were gone. You carried this place on your skin."
Julian stiffened, his gaze fixed on the dark woods beyond the porch. "I told you, Wyn. I didn't leave because I wanted to. I left so there would still be a home for me to come back to. Even if I didn't deserve to step foot in it."
Elowyn dipped the cloth into the water and pressed it to his cut. Julian sucked in a breath, his hand instinctively reaching out to steady himself. He gripped her waist, his large palm warm and solid through the thin cotton of her dress.
The world narrowed down to that single point of contact. The "echoes" of their past—the ghost of the seventeen-year-olds they used to be—seemed to shimmer in the air between them.
"Why didn't you write?" she asked, her voice cracking. "One letter, Julian. One word to tell me you were alive."
Julian looked at her then, and the raw agony in his eyes was enough to make her flinch. "Because if I had heard your voice, or seen your handwriting, I would have come back. And if I had come back before I was ready, they would have killed us both."
He leaned in, his forehead almost touching hers. The scent of pine, sweat, and woodsmoke was overwhelming.
"I spent ten years pretending I didn't have a heart, Elowyn. But the moment I saw you on that porch yesterday... it started beating again. And God, it hurts."
Elowyn didn't pull away. She couldn't. The "thaw" had begun, and as the crickets sang in the tall grass, she realized that the only thing more dangerous than Julian Vance leaving was Julian Vance staying.