Cort had been restless for days, each one worst than the last.  Emma knew what was coming.  After five years together with him, she was used to it.  It never made it hurt any less but she'd long since grown accustomed to her man's restless heart. 

There was no rhyme or reason to it.  He was far too wild, too untamed to live life in meticulously measured moments.  In their simple world there were no calendars, no watches or clocks to mark the passage of time.  There was no pattern and no warning, save for his ever-growing restlessness.  He did what he did in his own time, simply because it pleased him to do so.  He might wander among men, slipping on the shackles of humanity when it suited him... and a white collar out of guilt... but make no mistake.  He was never tamed. 

Even his fierce love for his woman didn't lessen his need to be free from his gilded cage when the warm night wind whispered to him of the freedom found only on the open range.  It was not a reflection of her or of the depth of their love or of the strength of their bond.  He'd long ago given her his heart and accepted hers into his keeping.  They were partners in every sense of the word, and yet even that couldn't stop it.     

It always began the same.  At odd times his eyes would fix on the horizon and she could tell in that moment he was no longer with her, he was someplace... out there... apart from her, tasting the wind, feeling the wildness rising in his blood.  In the beginning, a faint noise, a soft feminine touch, a slow intake of breath would be enough to bring him back.  They would share a secret smile and all would go on, almost as it had before. 

Almost.

He would be as attentive as he always was, different from other men but still tender in his own rough way.  To be honest, she preferred him that way.  There was no artifice in the way he treated her.  He did what he did for her, spent time with her, loved her, made love to her, simply because it pleased him to do so and because he needed her like another man might need air.  She was his breath, his heart, the person who breathed the fire in him to life.  He would never be a man of pretty speeches or grand gestures... but however simplistic his words and actions might be, they were always heartfelt and sincere.  He could be no other way with her.     

As time went on, his eyes would look into the distance more often and the whispers in the wind would echo more loudly in his ears, waking the wild restlessness inside him, stirring his blood.  He would still smile at her but sometimes there was a far away look in his eyes and she knew it would be soon.  Soon. 

One did not cage a wild thing.  

He would start to touch her differently.  Languid nights of tender lovemaking would slowly give way to more urgent, needy coupling.  He would become insatiable, consumed with the desire to possess her wildly and be possessed by her just as fiercely in return.  Slow and tender became urgent and frantic, as if each time he touched her would be the last. 

Last night had been one of those nights.  Under her clothes, her body still carried his marks; skin rubbed pink and sensitive by his rough stubble, faint finger-shaped bruises on her slim hips and more vivid bite marks along her collarbone and neck.  The memory made her smile.  His body was similarly adorned. 

Loved.  Marked.  Claimed.    

Emma sat in their porch swing with a cup of coffee in her hand.  She pushed off once again, setting the swing into motion as the dappled sunlight made strange random patterns across the worn wooden boards.  She twisted the simple silver band on her finger absently as the rhythmic pounding rumble of a horse's furious gallop broke the still morning silence.  They would not share any parting words.  They had said their goodbyes last night. 

Like he always did, he left reminders on her body because words faded too quickly.  This way, she'd be able to feel him lingering on her skin long after the staccato tattoo of hoof beats became so faint she could no longer hear it.  She closed her eyes and imagined him as he was last night.  Dominant and possessive, wildly animalistic... and yet underneath it all, still a man deeply in love.  She could almost feel his mouth on her gently swollen lips and she shivered as her clothing rubbed against her tender, abraded skin. 

Emma tucked one foot up underneath her and kept the swing in motion with the other.  Her body felt relaxed and loose, well used.  Loved.  The sun warmed her dark head pleasantly and she smiled.  This was the easy part.  The hard part was after the marks faded.  She took another sip from the mug and wondered how long he was going to be gone this time. 

Days?  Weeks?  Months?

As there was with his presence, there was no pattern to his absence, either.  He was simply gone as long as he needed to be.  He never wrote.  He never cabled.  He simply disappeared, a wild thing swallowed back up by the wilderness that spawned him.  He never talked to her about where he went or what he did.  She knew he fought.  Knew he bled.  Knew he wandered, restless.  Drifting. 

He still searched for redemption.... and for answers to questions he didn't know to ask; passing long hours in dark smoky bars where the stench of desperation hung just as heavily in the air as the scent of stale beer and unwashed bodies.  He returned to his old life, wild and unbound by any laws but his own.  There was only one difference.  There were no women to ease his lonely body and soothe his tormented spirit.  He would not touch a woman who wasn't her.  Not ever.  That part of himself he reserved for her and her alone.  He'd told her as much the night he'd put the ring on her finger and accepted hers in return.  She never worried about it. 

He did not make promises lightly.      

She sighed softly and blew an errant lock from her face.  It tickled her cheek and she tucked it behind one ear because the soft brush along her jaw reminded her too much of his lips skimming lightly across her skin.  She wrapped her hand around the chipped mug to absorb its lingering heat and thought about his warmth, his heat, as he curled his body around her in the quiet still of the night... his heart slowing as it beat wildly against hers.  Her breath hot against his sweaty neck.  His scent and semen drying on her skin.  The soft whisper of covers being pulled up over cooling bodies.  A powerful arm curled around her, drawing her close.  Possessively.  Protectively.  

His words, low and quiet in her ear.  I love you.           

Emma glided slowly in the swing, watching the morning unfold before her.  She was not ready to return to their silent room.  She knew what was waiting for her there.  An empty rumpled bed that smelled of sex and Cort and the cross he wore left for her on the pillow.  A night of heated memories and a cool sliver of silver left behind to speak the things he could not.  Something real to curl her fingers around on those lonely nights when their bed seemed too big and cold without him.  An unspoken promise.  Always the same.

I'll be back.

And he would.  Eventually.  He'd get tired of wandering and the restlessness and need for revenge and redemption that tormented his wild heart would ease.  The wind howling in his ears for freedom would quiet and begin to whisper to him of softer, gentler things.  At times he'd imagine he could catch her warm scent on the breeze or hear her silvery laughter in splashing water.  His eyes would stop settling on the unexplored horizon and turn back, towards her.  Towards home.

The animal growling deep inside would still and when it was finally at peace once again, he would return to the quiet heart of his life; to his woman and his work with the children at the Mission.  The first night home was always bittersweet for them both.  It was so much like those nights before he left.  Needy.  Frantic.  Wild.  Lovers separated too long, meeting urgently in the dark with hands that held on too tight and hungry bodies that ached unbearably.  Sometimes it took the entire night to burn away that fierce desire to devour each other... until their bodies were exhausted, until their need was no longer urgent and their touches were again tender and gentle.

The morning after was just as important.  Almost a ritual now, after so many times.  She would slip the cross back around his neck and he would kiss all the bruises he'd left on her tender skin, as if by that act he could somehow remove the vivid marks from her skin.  Emma always protested, loving those physical reminders on her body that made her feel his return with every breath she took.  He would simply grin indulgently and continue to soothingly kiss each and every fading wheal, even as he smiled against her skin and whispered to her of the new marks he'd put on her again when he was finished. 

And so the cycle began again.

A shadow passed over her face and Emma opened her eyes, watching as Mrs. Willowby, a widow who often worked at the Mission, settled herself gracefully into the chair next to her.  She knew what was coming.  This too was part of the ritual.   

Mrs. Willowby had never been able to understand how a woman as strong as Emma would allow a man to treat her so callously, coming in and out of her life as the spirit moved him.  He was a strange man, for a preacher.  When he was here, he was here, throwing himself into their relationship and his work with a single-mindedness that was unique to him, but when he was gone, he was gone.  Completely.  When he was away, it was if he'd never existed.  He made no effort to contact her and she never reached out for him, even if she needed to.  It bothered her that Emma was so accepting of his restless ways.     

"Why do you let him hurt you this way, child?"      

Emma smiled at the endearment.  At twenty-four, she was no longer a child but a wife and a woman grown.  Her brows drew together as she saw the look of concern on the wrinkled face of her friend.  Mrs. Willowby simply didn't understand the strange relationship she and Cort shared.  None of them did.  

Absently, Emma's fingertips ghosted across her stomach... a gentle echo of the way Cort's had only an hour ago as he silently willed the seed he'd so deeply planted again and again last night, to take root.  She was used to the pitying looks from the others.  Her father's stern face, her mother's pinched look of sorrow, Mrs. Willowby's quiet concern.  Perhaps this time she would explain.

Perhaps this time the good widow might hear and understand.     

"Have you ever seen a firefly?"  Emma's Mississippi lilt always grew heavier when she thought of her old life.  

Mrs. Willowby nodded.  "Many times, child."  Her silvery brows rose, wondering what on earth that question had to do with Cort's habitual abandoning of his wife.

"They were my favorite thing about summer when I was young."  Emma smiled at the memory.  "I waited through each day for that golden hour when dusk was nearly ready to give way to those sultry summer nights."  Those nights had been thick with the heady sent of magnolia blossoms, the soft drone of insects and the blissful happiness of childhood. 

Mrs. Willowby watched Emma's eyes fix on the distance as she relived the treasured memory.  Fireflies in the twilight and a little girl's laughter.  

"That hour - that was the best time.  All day they stayed hidden and then suddenly, just after sunset, the air would be filled with them."  Her dark eyes grew bright.  "It was like magic.  Hundreds of tiny lights dancing in and out of the trees and swirling around our legs as we chased them."  The memory was so vivid, even after all this time.  They were like candles or oil lamps, only better, because they almost seemed to be playing back.  Small glowing lights winking in and out... here one second, gone the next as if they were somehow in on the game.  Catch us if you can. 

Mrs. Willowby smiled at the image her words painted.  She could clearly picture a tiny Emma chasing fireflies among the thick old trunks.   

"I used to beg my momma to let me have a canning jar so maybe, just maybe, I might be able to catch one and watch it glow up close."  

The widow nodded, still not sure what this lovely memory Emma so obviously cherished had to do with Cort.

"Have you ever chased them?"

Mrs. Willowby shook her head.  Watched them, yes, but never chased them.  She had not grown up in this land.  Her dear late husband hadn't felt the call to missionary work across the Atlantic until their children were long grown.  She'd been far too old for such child-like antics the first time she'd seen them.

"I have."  Emma was silent a moment.  "I've caught one too."  Her smile became wistful.  "I was so excited.  I ran all the way home and brought it to show my momma.  Daddy punched holes in the lid so it could breathe."  She sighed.  "I waited and I waited... I must have watched that jar for hours but it never once glowed for me.  Not once." 

Emma smiled.  "Until I let it go."