by Tess Oliver
We watched him stroll toward us. A big, white smile broke out under the shade of his hat.
“Do you think he realizes the impact he has?” Cassie asked.
Taylor laughed. “Rett? Are you friggin’ kidding? That boy worries when he doesn’t turn every female head in a three mile radius.”
“I never got the feeling that Rett thought much about his looks,” I said.
“He doesn’t think about his looks. He wakes up looking like that. But trust me, he knows about impact.” Taylor opened the car door.
We all climbed out. The warm, pungent scent of hay, animals and manure drifted toward us. A cow standing in a nearby pen looked up from her pile of grass to check us out momentarily before lowering her big head down again. Cassie and I walked around to the trunk of the car, and I helped her with the equipment.
“Leave the tripod and flashes here, Scottie. I might not use them at all.”
We each gave Rett a hug.
I stroked the small horse’s neck.
Rett smiled down at his companion. “This is Zeus. He’s twenty-eight years old. The owners were moving out of state to a condo. He thinks he’s my dog, and if I don’t take him along on rounds, he starts to whiny like a mad man.”
Cassie was already snapping pictures. She had this innate talent for capturing emotion and the spirit of the moment. Her portfolio was filled with pictures that read like a book. Once, without them knowing, she’d snapped a picture of Nix sitting at Nana’s bedside. The two of them were laughing about something Nana had said. Cassie had sent it to me in an email, and the second I opened it, tears filled my eyes. You could see their love for each other almost as if was a visible, solid entity floating in the air between them. I printed the picture and had it framed.
Taylor rubbed the horse’s ears. “You have become quite the animal lover, haven’t you, Rett? I know you guys weren’t raised with many pets, so it’s cool to see how easily you’ve learned all this.”
“You didn’t think I had it in me, huh, Tater Tot?” He flicked the brim of his hat up out of his line of vision.
Cassie raised her camera. “Ooh, push your hat down and do that again. You looked like Redford as Sundance Kid.”
“Yeah?” Rett seemed pleased with the comparison. He obliged, and Cassie took the picture.
Finley was pulling off gloves as she came out of the barn. Just as Rett had looked like some incredible cowboy surfer hybrid, Finley, with her white blonde rock and roll hair cut, piercings and work boots, looked like a rock star farmer hybrid. Together, they were stunning and adorable. They looked incredibly happy, which made me suddenly miss Nix terribly.
Cassie shot a picture of Finley as she tucked her gloves in her back pocket. “You are just in time. Yesterday, we got three baby goats from a breeder who had too many goats to take care of properly. Three does that are being bottle fed.”
“We get to bottle feed baby goats?” Taylor asked excitedly.
“If you’re up for it?” Finley smiled my way.
“Absolutely,” I answered. “It’ll probably be the best thing I’ve done all month.”
Cassie peeked in my direction, but she’d been keeping to her promise about not asking me anything. And I was glad. For now, I was ready to forget my problems and get lost in the world of wet noses and plush ears. We followed Finley to the barn.
“Fin, I’m going to put Zeus in the pasture and start mucking pens,” Rett said.
“Thanks, sweetie.”
Cassie stopped and shot a picture of him walking away with his little horse. It was going to be a cute damn picture, one that I never would have had the forethought to take, which was why Cassie was the photographer.
Finley had this amazingly graceful and speedy walk that was almost hard to keep up with. The three of us hurried behind. Several chickens scurried past us as we stepped into the dank shade of the barn. A flurry of tiny squeaking noises came from behind a stall door. I glanced over it. Three baby goats stared up at me, bleating like three hungry babies.
“Oh my gosh, they are absolutely the cutest things ever.” I looked over at Finley. “How old are they?”
“Three weeks. They’ll need the bottle until they are about eight weeks, but they are starting to nibble on hay.”
Finley disappeared into a small room. A few minutes later, she stepped back out with three baby bottles of milk. She tested a drop from each one on her forearm. This was a girl who’d suffered from debilitating anxiety that prevented her from leaving the house, and now she’d overcome it to help animals live a quality life. She had told me about losing her sister to a flu virus that Finley had brought home from school. For years, Finley had believed that she was the cause of her sister’s death. While I’d never blamed myself for our car accident, I had lived with some horrible guilt. I’d wanted to sit in the front seat, and I’d lied to my mom, telling her the backseat made me carsick on mountain roads. She’d given me her seat and I had survived. It was a lie that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Finley had dealt with her loss and guilt by sealing herself away from the world. I’d sealed myself away too, in a silent world.
“Taylor, grab that milking stool over there.” Finley motioned to a stool with short legs sitting outside the stall. “There’s one inside already. The goats love to jump on things.”
We slid into the stall. It was filled with straw and a smell that I assumed was distinctively goat. The tiny does stood up on back hooves, pressing their tiny front hooves against Finley’s legs. The ruckus they made was so comical, it was impossible not to laugh.
“These are African Pygmy goats. Baby goats are called kids.” Finley explained. She handed me a bottle and pointed to one of the stools. “Just hold it out, and they’ll latch on. You’ll be amazed how fast they can drain these bottles.”
Cassie was checking out the light in her lens. “I’m going to take pictures while you feed them. Not completely sure how they’ll turn out, but I hate to miss this.”
Finley gave a bottle to Taylor, and she shared my stool. A tiny caramel colored muzzle grabbed onto the rubber nipple. “Yep, I was right,” I said. “Best thing I’ve done all month. Maybe all year.”
Finley glanced over my shoulder. “That’s Trixie. She’s sort of the queen bee right now. They’re herd animals. They don’t like to live without other goats, but there is always a pecking order. Later, we can put them out in a pen and watch them play. They are so cute together. They get really rowdy, head butting each other and jumping up on their little slide.”
“They have a slide?” Taylor asked.
“They love it. But most of the time they just jump from the top.”
“Well, yeah, who doesn’t?” Taylor looked around for corroboration. “Oh, come on, none of you jumped from the top of the slide when the yard supervisor wasn’t looking?”
Cassie was clicking away. “My school only had old rubber tires set up like an army training camp,” she said from behind her lens. “These are such great pictures.” She lowered the camera. “I really think I can get a nice set of photos that will get the word out about this place. Jade, the reporter who came out here yesterday, wrote a really great article. She let me read it to give me an idea of what kind of shots to get.”
“Does Some Pig hang out here with you?” Taylor asked. “And what was your cow’s name?”
“Lilly Belle. Some Pig no longer identifies with the pig world. As far as he’s concerned, he is a short, stout human who just happens to walk on all four feet. My fault, I’m afraid. But I think it would scar him mentally to let him know he’s a pig. And, as for Lilly Belle, I think she’d protest too. She has her own little pasture and barn on my dad’s estate. No pesky neighbors to steal her hay.”
The bottles were sucked dry. One of the goats jumped into Finley’s lap. “Sorry, Emmie, the bottle is dry. You’ll have to wait a few hours for the next one. They’re eating about every four hours right now.”
“I want to get some outside shots,” Cassie said. “And th
e three of us were noting how great Rett looked in his cowboy hat.”
Finley got up and we followed her out. “It’s awesome, right? I picked it out for him and was not disappointed in my choice.”
We said goodbye to the goats and followed Finley out to some semi-covered pens. “All three of these horses came from the race track. If they have lameness issues or other problems that keep them from racing, they are discarded as useless. We took them in before they were auctioned off for slaughter. Two can be rehabilitated, and eventually, we’ll find a nice horse lover to adopt them.”
Rett came around the corner. “Hey, sweetie,” Finley called to him, “we need big money to keep this place going. So take off that t-shirt and get over here with that mucking fork and those shoulder muscles. Cassie’s going to take some pictures.”
Rett put on a good show of acting shocked. We all watched with great interest as he rested the fork against the fence and took off his hat. He reached back and pulled off his shirt. We gave him a nice round of applause and wolf calls.
“I’m feeling pretty damn cheap and used right now,” Rett said.
“And you love it,” Taylor quipped.
“Hell yes, I do.” He picked up the fork and pressed on his hat. His long blond hair turned up on his bare shoulders.
Cassie waved her hand to show him where the light was best. “Just be Rett. You don’t have to pose. Just do your thing, and this place will be swimming in donations.”
“I could drop the jeans too. Just boots and a hat,” Rett suggested.
Finley glanced over at us. “And he would too.” She turned back to him. “That’s very generous of you, sweetie, but we need to leave something to the imagination.”
Chapter 8
Scotlyn
By noon, the sun was bearing down on the ranch. I’d fed chickens, been chased by two geese, helped corral four sheep back into their pasture and helped hose down the pig pens. Cassie had been right. Hanging out with animals, wonderful creatures who were finally in situations where they could feel safe and comfortable, had been good for me.
Finley and Taylor went in to make lunch while I played with the goats in their yard. Cassie waited patiently behind her camera and clicked off dozens of shots. I sat on the end of the slide, and all three kids hopped into my lap at once. I laughed and squeezed them all against me.
“Got it,” Cassie said. Then she lifted her phone and took another shot. She looked at it and pressed some stuff on her phone. “I had to send that one to Nix.”
“Cassie,” I said. “You didn’t?”
“I did. It’s so cute. He’s been so grumpy. It’ll cheer him up.” She lowered her camera. “You’re not mad, are you?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not.”
She sat on the fence. “I know I promised not to ask, but is there anything you want to talk about? Nix is in a really bad way. I’ve never seen him like this.” She chuckled. “Yesterday, he put the wrong stencil on this big old biker dude’s leg. It was the butterfly for the next client, an eighteen year old girl who was getting a tattoo for her birthday. Thank goodness he noticed before he started inking it in.”
“God, that could have been disastrous.” The goats took turns jumping on and off of my lap. They reminded me of cartoon characters, springing off all four legs at once. “Nix proposed to me,” I blurted.
Cassie nodded. “He said the call about Nana came in right as he showed you the ring.”
“It definitely cast a shadow on what was supposed to be an exciting moment in my life.”
She placed a hand on my arm. “Coincidences happen. You can’t read anything into it.” Cassie knew I had a silly tendency to be superstitious.
“I know this is ridiculous, but I feel that if we get married then Nix will officially be part of my family and—”
“—and you’ve lost your family before.” A goat hopped into her lap, and she rubbed its back. “Scottie, everything in life is a risk. Just giving our hearts to these guys is a huge risk.” She laughed. “I mean, look what happened to me. I would be working at a magazine in New York still if Dray hadn’t been here silently begging me to come back by doing what he does best, getting into trouble.”
“You do keep him grounded, and he adores you, Cass.” I put my arm around her shoulder. “And with good reason.”
“Thanks. And, if ever there was someone who needed grounding, it’s Dray.” She was quiet for a second, and it was obvious she was thinking about him. She’d had a huge crush on him long before Dray had finally come to his senses and realized they were meant to be together. She looked over at me. “I feel like you’re not telling me everything.”
I sighed. “The proposal, losing Nana and my fear of losing Nix has made me sort of pull away from him. Without meaning to, I’ve fallen back into that same solitary world I constructed after I lost everyone I cared about. I’ve been kind of distant and just at a time when Nix probably needed me the most.” I swallowed hard and wondered if I would sound silly and paranoid for bringing up the sweatshirt. But besides me, Cassie knew Nix better than anyone. “The other morning, I was picking up Nix’s clothes off the floor, as usual—”
She laughed. “It’s like they were raised in—” She glanced around. “Well, in a barn.”
I chuckled. “I picked up his sweatshirt, and it had a really strong smell of perfume on it. Not my perfume. In fact, I hardly ever wear the stuff.”
Cassie seemed to be contemplating what I said. “Perfume? That doesn’t make sense, Scottie. Nix is over the top crazy about you. He would never cheat on you.”
“I know, but I’ve been so cold to him, I can’t help wondering if I pushed him into some other girl’s arms.”
“Perfume,” she repeated. “Wait a minute. The new tattoo artist, Stormy—” She rolled her eyes as she said the name. “You haven’t met her yet, have you?”
I shook my head but wasn’t thrilled with the way this was going. “Nix said she’s really talented, but I know nothing about her.”
“The girl bathes in perfume. It’s a sort of spicy, not super expensive smelling concoction, sort of like her. They smacked into each other as she was coming around the corner. The perfume probably transferred to his clothes. I’m not kidding, the shop is under a cloud of it all day. Yesterday, Nix finally told her to stop wearing so much. I couldn’t stop sneezing.”
“Then I feel really foolish.” I pressed my hand against my forehead. “And then I made up a lie about going to work early. Shit, I’ve really messed things up. Poor Nix.” Relief washed through me, but I wanted to kick myself for being such a paranoid ninny. I would have to make it up to him. And I’d have to find the courage to tell him why I’d been so distant. “Surely, he’s convinced that I’ve been acting strangely because I don’t want to marry him. I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to shake off what’s happened to me. I want so badly just to be happy, but I’m always worried about losing people I love. I think Nana’s death just triggered those deep seated fears again.”
“Look, Scottie, you’ll never shake what happened. It was something so enormous, you’ll never be able to outpace it. But we all fear losing the people we love. I can’t even imagine how much greater that fear grows once you have a baby. Losing people is all part of life. What you suffered is far worse than most people will ever have to endure, but you’re strong. And now you’re becoming a nurse, which is so damn great. I know Nix is really proud of you.”
My eyes ached with tears. I hugged Cassie. “Thanks. I think Nix and I will have to have a long talk tonight. I owe him an apology.”
“I think he’s going to Tank’s Gym tonight to watch the fights. But maybe he won’t be too late.”
“See, I didn’t know that.” My shoulders drooped again. “We’re barely talking anymore. But I will make it right tonight. I have to. This is getting too hard.”
A cowbell clanged. “Lunch,” Finley called from the small trailer at the front of the property.
Cassie laughed. “A cow
bell for calling us in for lunch. I love it. And just in time.” She looked pointedly at me. “It looks like you’re shrinking away to a skeleton.”
“Some girls eat gallons of ice cream when they’re upset or heartbroken. I can’t get any food past my lips without wanting to gag on it.”
“Shit, last time Dray and I had a fight, I baked an entire tray of brownies and by the end of the day, only the slightly burned edges were left.” She tapped her chin. “Can’t remember what it was, but Mr. Hothead stomped out of the house muttering his usual string of cuss words. It was something stupid, no doubt, but I’m used to it. After Dray cools off, he usually stomps right back in and snatches me from whatever I’m doing to make it up to me with sex. So, an occasional spat can be worth it.” We left the pen, and the goats returned to their antics on the slide. “Talk to Nix tonight, have some wild sex and everything will be better in the morning.”
Chapter 9
Nix
“That is the third time you’ve looked at that picture since we got here,” Clutch’s deep voice rolled down over my shoulder.
I flicked off the phone and stuck it in my pocket. One really annoying thing about having a friend as tall as Frankenstein was his ability to look over my shoulder. “And what the hell is your point?”
He laughed. “Hell, Nix, if you can’t figure out my point then you’ve been inhaling too many ink fumes.”
“It’s a great picture. Cassie has tons of talent.”
“Yeah, you’re staring at a picture of Scottie because Cassie has so much talent.”
