Tennessee Reunion

by Carolyn McSparren

  Dee giggled. “I heard Victoria got stuck with a bunch of crazy minis.”

  “She brought me in to try to add some sanity,” Anne said. “Y’all catch up. I’ve got a bunch of stuff to pick out for Victoria. You got a basket I can use?”

  “Right here,” Dee said and handed Anne a wicker basket. “Now, Vince honey, bring me up to date. How’s your family? Any changes? New additions?”

  Anne stooped behind a tall shelf to grab a gallon of shine shampoo. Obviously, Dee was attempting to discover whether Vince was still single. Dee was twice divorced with a six-year-old daughter who already rode her Shetland pony in lead line classes at horse shows.

  She couldn’t make out the murmurs of their conversation, but Dee kept giving out with a squeal that was supposed to be girlish laughter, but could etch glass.

  Was Vince a chick magnet or what? Even Velma, the waitress at the café in Williamston and a happily married grandmother, had simpered when she poured Vince’s iced tea. Anne vowed that she would not be trapped in his aura. He was good-looking, certainly, although not handsome-handsome. His nose was too big and his jaw too square. He’d probably go bald at fifty. Not that she disliked bald men. They were kind of sexy. The man had a great body, but he was working hard for Barbara six days a week. His schedule would help him hold on to all those muscles. On top of everything else, he had an ego as big as Mars and a head as hard as a rough diamond—emphasis on the rough. She’d had her share of bossy men, and he was definitely bossy.

  Anne filled her basket to overflowing, took it to the counter and waited while Dee rang up her purchases and bagged them.

  “You want this on Victoria’s account, right?”

  Anne nodded.

  Before they had a chance to walk out the front door, Dee came from behind the counter again to hug and kiss Vince on the cheek. She couldn’t get close, because Vince had taken Anne’s bags to carry to the car.

  Once they were on their way again, Vince said, “Now for the airport to pick up my machine, and then we find somewhere for a decent lunch before we drive back.”

  “You told Becca we didn’t have time for lunch.”

  “I lied. I’m hungry. It’s a long way since that cup of coffee.”

  “Is that all you had for breakfast?”

  “Yep. And a can of tomato juice. Nothing in the house to eat, and I didn’t have time to drive a dozen miles either to Williamston or the twenty-four-hour snack shop down by the lake.”

  “Victoria would have fed you when she fed Edward.”

  “Okay, here’s the turnoff for the shipper.”

  He pulled into a parking spot. “Shouldn’t take but a couple of minutes to pick up the X-ray machine. You staying in the car?”

  Anne nodded and pulled a horse magazine out of Victoria’s bags.

  It might have taken only a couple of minutes to get the X-ray machine. It took at least twenty for Vince and the loader to situate the cumbersome box in the van to their satisfaction, then another ten for Vince to go back inside and sign paperwork. After he had climbed back into the van and they were on the road again, he said, “I don’t know about you, but I am spittin’ cotton.”

  “Me, too. Where can we get a sandwich and some iced tea?”

  “You like Mexican?”

  Anne nodded.

  “Then do I know a place. Doesn’t look like much from the outside, but their seafood fajitas are killer.”

  Vince was right that the restaurant did not look promising from the parking lot. Except that it was only eleven thirty in the morning and the lot was full of pickup trucks. The restaurant was nearly full as well, but after only a five-minute wait they were seated.

  Anne decided that they were the only customers chatting in English. The salsa and chips were homemade, and the iced tea was fresh. Anne was surprised when Vince placed their order in fluent Spanish.

  “Sorry, I didn’t ask you what you wanted,” he said.

  “Your restaurant—your menu, your order.”

  They both practically inhaled their first servings of iced tea and half of the second.

  Anne sat back. “I forget how hot it is in Memphis in the summertime.”

  “Williamston’s only a degree cooler.”

  “But you get more breeze from the Tennessee River. Is your family’s farm in Mississippi even hotter?”

  Vince leaned back. “My daddy says that it’s probably cooler in Hades than it is in the Mississippi Delta in summertime. He calls it ‘simmertime.’ He says he’s not worried because he’s already served his time in the hotter of the two—Hades versus Mississippi.”

  Anne laughed. “He sounds like a funny man.”

  Vince pulled his napkin through his fingers and said seriously, “As funny as a rattlesnake coiled on a rock and ready to strike. Think of some almighty conquerors like Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun. My daddy could give them chapter and verse and leave them standing in the dirt when it comes to psychological massacres. Sometimes he’s happy with a bloodless coup where he destroys his enemy’s spirit without messing up the carpets.”

  Anne was surprised to see that his blue eyes had turned the color of the North Sea in December. Cold.

  “The only reason to get divorced is if you screw it up the first time. My daddy is on wife number four. Guess why I’m not into marriage. I learned at my daddy’s knee.”

  The fajitas arrived. Anne was glad to get back to casual conversation. She’d thought Vince was altogether too sure of himself, when he was actually pretty fragile. You never knew with people. Everybody had a secret place where they hurt.

  “These are marvelous,” Anne said after five minutes. “How’d you find this place? It’s not exactly in the middle of Memphis.”

  “One of my clients recommended it. He breeds Nubian goats for the Hispanic market. These folks roast a whole goat for every holiday.”

  “I’ve never eaten goat,” Anne said, “but I’ll try anything once. I like octopus and eel, why not goats?”

  “I’ll find out the next time they’re roasting. Maybe Stephen and Barbara would be interested, too. Possibly even Victoria and Edward.”

  “Daddy and Barbara are nearly ready to move into their new house on the clinic property,” Anne said. “Barbara swears she’s going to have a gigantic garage sale, clean out tchotchkes and have a big barbecue.”

  “What about your family house here in Memphis?”

  “Daddy sold it lock, stock and barrel—minus the books and the stuff we treasured—to my older sister, Elaine, and her husband, Roger. He’s a corporate lawyer. They entertain a lot. The house is perfect for them. I was living there for a while in an apartment on the third floor and looking for another place when Victoria offered me a job with her in Williamston. A blessing, really, since my previous job had just collapsed. I jumped at the chance, although I had no idea what I was getting into.”

  “Why were you looking for another place? You and your sister don’t get along?”

  Anne rolled her eyes. “If you knew Elaine you wouldn’t ask that question. Elaine thinks working with horses isn’t an actual job and that I should grow up. She keeps telling me I ought to get a decent job in an office.” She rolled her eyes. “Nine to five. Eeew. To hear her tell it she was born into royalty and snatched away by the fairies from her cradle. She is still seeking to return to her throne. In the meantime, she treats the rest of us like serfs. You should have seen the commotion she made when Barbara and Daddy said they were planning to get married.”

  “I heard some about that. Didn’t you all chase them all over west Tennessee to try to keep them from getting married in such a rush?”

  “Tennessee and northern Mississippi,” Anne said. “In the end, they managed to be lawfully wed. Got to give Elaine credit. She is now crazy about Barbara. Since she’s just gotten pregnant, she’s looking forward to having Barbara as a gra
ndmother. Barbara is the only grandmother whatever-it-is will have. Roger has practically no family. Is your family all in Mississippi?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I want some flan and some more iced tea. Can I seduce you with dessert?” He caught his breath. Anne dropped her eyes.

  They went on as though nothing had happened, but the word lingered in the air between them.

  “Absolutely,” Anne said. “I love good flan.”

  He placed their order again in excellent Spanish, and turned back to her. “My family has major problems. My brother Cody says my current stepmother is thinking about leaving. Cody thinks she and Daddy really care for one another, but with Daddy it’s tough to tell.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “I have two brothers, Cody and Joshua. We all have different mothers, so I guess we are actually half-brothers. One of them is on his second wife. I have four nephews—two for each brother. My stepmother, Mary Alice, is a perfectly nice woman, but my father is driving her what the Brits call “barking mad” with his constant bad temper and demands for attention. He waits until she’s sewing or cooking to demand she bring him a glass of water that he could get himself. It’s a control thing to keep her focused on him. She’s a full-time caregiver when they could easily afford to hire somebody. She doesn’t even go out to lunch with her girlfriends any longer.”

  “Was he in a wheelchair when she married him?”

  “He’s actually officially not in one now. When he’s feeling feisty, he walks around the barns and drives his old truck to town. He’s had a series of small strokes. He can walk when he chooses to, but he can wield more power being an invalid.”

  Anne realized that Vince seemed to want to dump all his baggage on her at once. In hindsight, he’d hate that he’d opened up this way, but she had no idea how to head him off so he wouldn’t regret what he was telling her. Instead she sat without moving, her hands in her lap, and avoided looking him in the eye.

  “What about your mother?” Anne asked.

  “She took off one night when I was five. Even then I understood it was a nasty divorce. Daddy could afford the best lawyers in Mississippi, which is not noted for looking with favor on women who leave their husbands and children. One day she was there, then it was as though she’d evaporated. I realized eventually that Daddy must have known where she was in order to divorce her, but he swore he didn’t. He told me more than once that it was obvious she didn’t want me.”

  How could any father tell his son something like that? Maybe the old man was hurting himself, but that was no excuse.

  She wanted to put her arms around Vince, say something comforting, but she decided if he was intent of telling her, she wasn’t going to stop him whether he regretted his words or not.

  “They tell me I kept running away to try to find her. Daddy threw out all the pictures we had of her, so I can’t even remember what she looked like...”

  “I was nine when my mother died. Old enough to have memories to hold on to,” Anne said. “I grew up surrounded by photos of her, of us together. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t be able to remember her face, either. How could he do that to you? Daddy still reminds me that she loved us and never wanted to leave us.” No wonder Vince was damaged.

  “I don’t know whether she ever tried to get custody of me,” he continued. “If she did, she lost. For years I got Christmas cards and birthday cards from her—always from different places. A partial antidote to Daddy’s story. When I turned eighteen and had unfettered access to the internet, I tried to find her. No luck. The cards stopped—never a return address, by the way. I tell myself she must be dead.”

  As the waiter set his flan plate in front of him, Vince laid his napkin across his lap. “It would be nice to know one way or the other. Every year on the Fourth of July we have a big reunion at the home place. I used to hope maybe she’d show up for one of them, but she never did. It’s dangerous to love somebody. The first thing love does is hurt.”

  Anne had no idea what to say, so she reached across the table and laid her hand on his. She felt his fingers tighten, then he drew away quickly. He couldn’t accept even so small a gesture. Shoot, no wonder he wasn’t married.

  “That’s enough drama for one lunch,” he said. “Eat your flan or I will.”

  “Try it and lose a hand,” Anne said. Spell neatly broken. Back to preconfession status.

  Pain made both animals and people bad-tempered. His pain was deeper than physical. It might not show on the surface, but it was there just the same. He might not ever heal.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BACK AT MARTIN’S MINIS, Anne unloaded Victoria’s purchases and organized everything in the cupboards of the tack room while Vince pulled Molly out of the pasture and led her to the wash rack. She wriggled and attempted to walk over him. Vince simply picked her up and set her down with her rear end against the back wall. Before she realized what had happened, she was cross-tied. He gave her a peppermint from his jeans pocket to appease her, then picked up her off-front foot and began to poke it with his hoof pick as he searched for the telltale black spot that would indicate there was still infection in the sole.

  Molly stood still at first, although she was unhappy at being off balance. She tried to wrench her hoof out of his grasp, but he was much stronger than she was and held on.

  He was sure he’d opened the abscess completely on his last try. He was only making this gesture to appease Anne.

  Actually, to prove her wrong.

  Without warning Molly squealed, reared and struck out with her near forefoot. She caught him a glancing blow on his hip as she landed.

  “Hey! That hurt, witch,” he said. Another bruise to add to the ones he already had. Good thing he wasn’t keeping score. He dropped the hoof and ran a handkerchief over his sweaty face. Skin-deep bruises faded. The bruises inside that he had revealed to Anne never went away.

  What had possessed him to open up to her at lunch? The more she knew about who he was, what made him tick, the more power she had. He hated that. One thing he had learned from his father—never let on who you really were. People would use your vulnerabilities against you.

  He continued to grip Molly’s pastern just above her hoof until she settled down. “Hang on. Nearly finished.”

  He felt a trickle of moisture in his palm, glanced down at the sole of her hoof and saw a thin line of blood seeping from a pinhole in the sole. A pinhole he had not dealt with before.

  Anne had been right. He had not dug all the infection out the first time. With such a tiny opening, the hoof did not need to be bandaged after he cleared it. He disinfected the hole, packed it with cotton and more disinfectant, unhooked Molly and walked her off the wash rack.

  With the pressure relieved and the infection cleaned out, she walked without a limp. He considered not telling Anne what he’d found. As a gotcha game it had backfired just when he needed to feel superior.

  “Hi, find anything?” she said as she walked down the aisle toward him.

  Would he tell her?

  Of course.

  He expected her to gloat. Instead, she simply nodded and took Molly’s line from him.

  “I’ll put her back in the pasture,” Anne said. “We can work her tomorrow. Without Becca here, I’ll concentrate on simple commands like forward.”

  He fell into step beside her. “When will Becca be back?”

  “She may not come for a couple of weeks, depending on what her father says and whether her mother will drive her up here again. Her dad’s afraid she’ll get hurt. I can teach the minis simple commands on my own, but I can’t put Molly or Grumpy or even Tom into a harness and attach them to the driving cart by myself.”

  “Maybe Victoria can help.”

  “She has lessons scheduled with her regular students. She says they may stay to go swimming afterward.” She let Molly into the pasture and turned he
r loose.

  Molly trotted off to join her buddies under the trees.

  “We’d better head up the hill before all of them come over and try to mug us for treats. I’m not carrying any. How about you?”

  “Used my last peppermint on Molly,” he said.

  Victoria walked out of the kitchen and onto the patio. “Ready for a beer, anyone?”

  “I’m not on call this evening, unless Barbara runs into an emergency she can’t handle, so I could murder a beer,” Vince said.

  “Anne?”

  “Yuck. I’ll stick with iced tea. Victoria, have you been able to hire any summer help yet? With Becca not here, I could definitely use it.”

  Victoria sank onto one of the chaise longues beside the pool and took a deep swallow of her beer. “I made a couple of calls. One of the boys I generally use is on his way to a summer program in Oxford.”

  “England or Mississippi?”

  “England, I’m afraid. The other one, Calvin—you know Calvin, don’t you, Vince?”

  Vince nodded.

  “He’s home from Florida State and is starting work here tomorrow. He’s really good with horses, Anne, big and little. A nice boy. Hardworking family. I’ve known him most of his life. I put him on his first pony.”

  “I don’t suppose you know anyone, do you, Vince?”

  “’Fraid not. I haven’t been working for Barbara long enough to know local teenagers who might need summer jobs.”

  “Then let’s hope Calvin works out and has a friend who needs a job as well.” Victoria set her empty bottle on the patio table beside her chair and asked casually, “There’s always you, Vince.”

  “Me what? You know I’ll be here to work on the horses’ health, but I have a more than full-time job as it is.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you to clean stalls, but you might help drive the carriage some. Safer and easier for Anne with someone else around.”

  “No doubt, but not me. There aren’t enough hours in the day to get to all my calls as it is. I did some horse-breaking in Wyoming the summer I spent up there as a saddle bum, but that doesn’t count as actual training, and I have never learned to drive a carriage.”