by T. S. Joyce
“Do you know how?” I asked hopefully.
“I’m going to beauty school after I graduate. I cut a lot of my friends’ hair already. I can do yours, too, but only if you want me to.”
I sat up and looked at my unruly tresses in the rusted mirror above my dresser. True, my dark locks were overwhelming, but what would I hide my face with? Then another thought occurred, one that was frightening for what it could mean to me and my stupidly hopeful heart. Would Caleb like it?
“How would you cut it?” I asked.
“Well, you can choose, but if it were me, I’d keep it long.”
A wave of relief washed over me that she got it.
She continued. “You have a really pretty natural wave, and if we cut some of the weight off and layer it up, your curls would be looser and more manageable. It would look really cute in a ponytail, too, if you ever felt like putting it up.”
That actually sounded kind of perfect. “Okay,” I said. “When do we start?”
The cool day told of autumn approaching, but we decided to cut my hair outside on the front porch. Sadey had washed my hair in the bathroom sink, and now I leaned comfortably into an old chair with my feet crossed at the ankle over the creaking front porch railing. The pull and play of my hair was relaxing, and I couldn’t help but be lulled into a state of half-consciousness. Beautiful moments were rare in this life, and I was determined to enjoy this one thoroughly.
“Is Becca really Caleb’s girlfriend?” I asked drowsily.
Sadey remained silent, and I regretted having ruined the moment. I don’t know why I’d felt comfortable enough to say anything at all, much less an embarrassingly transparent question like that one.
“There,” she said, snipping the scissors neatly one last time. She placed the scissors and comb precariously on the splintered railing and took a seat on the front steps. She didn’t answer my question until her back was settled against a large wooden pillar. With a faraway look into the woods, she said, “I don’t know that Caleb’s ever had a girlfriend.”
I rested my head against the back of the chair and waited.
“Becca has liked him for a long time. I mean really liked him. But Caleb hasn’t ever formed an attachment to a girl. He took her out a few times last year but moved on and seemed unaffected.” She turned her soft green gaze to me. “I haven’t ever quite figured him out. I’ll tell you two things, and maybe I’m in the wrong for doing so, but I’ll give my two cents anyway. First, I hope that someday I have a man look at me the way Caleb looked at you in the kitchen this morning. But,” she warned, “Caleb’s different. You have to be careful with that one, Mira. I love my brother, but he isn’t like other people. He doesn’t need companionship like the rest of us. He is a good man and a hard worker, but I haven’t actually seen him really let anyone in. Ever.”
He didn’t sound so different to me. He sounded like me. I understood the loneliness that came along with pushing others away.
“Also, Becca is a bunion. I’m glad she isn’t my sister-in-law,” Sadey said through a mischievous grin.
The idea of Caleb and marriage startled me. “How old is he?” I asked, suddenly feeling very young.
“Twenty-three goin’ on thirty-five. If any of us has a chance of taking over Dad’s business, it’s him. He has the head and the work ethic for it.”
It was approaching lunchtime, and I was searching for something to do with Sadey to keep her from getting bored. I guessed the electrical work would take all day. “You want to take lunch out to the boys?” I asked.
“Sounds good. How will we find them though? Your place is pretty big.”
“I have a couple of horses out back. Do you ride?”
She bit her lip. “I have before, but I wasn’t very good at it. Horses kind of scare me.” Her admission gave her brownie points in my book.
“You don’t have to be afraid of these horses. They are older than dirt and sweeter than honey.”
“Let’s do it,” she said with determination. “I could use an adventure. Wait. What about the bears up here?”
I waved my hand nonchalantly. Her brother was the only bear around here, and I doubted he was any danger to her right now. “Nah, you don’t have to worry about them. The one that got Caleb is dead, and they are pretty territorial. Plus they aren’t native to Texas. There won’t be any more grizzlies around these parts.” I hoped it was true. “I’ll bring a rifle if it’ll make you feel better, though.”
“Okay,” Sadey said. Her green eyes held an attractive combination of uncertainty and excitement.
It was still early in the day so we took our time making sandwiches and saddling the horses. I had Sadey brush out Blue before she attempted the blanket and saddle. The extra time primping him seemed to make her feel more comfortable. Probably because he stood there like a brick with his back hoof propped up and resting, like he would either fall asleep or die on her at any moment. It was hard to be intimidated by a horse that acted as if it had taken a dose of moose tranquilizers instead of alfalfa cubes for breakfast.
Bobby was more of an ornery old cuss, but I liked that about him. Every time he bit at me or tried to rub me off on a tree, I marveled at the effort he put into ridding himself of riders. His habits hadn’t changed with old age, and I appreciated his stubbornness. I liked to think that, like my old rusty truck, no one could start him but me.
The ride was comfortable and the conversation easy, but I couldn’t take credit for that. Sadey could probably charm a tree into discussion. She told me about school, about her friends, and what she did for fun. She talked about some of the town’s upcoming social events. She had a knack for telling stories, and they kept me enraptured. That and the lives of the town’s residents were an enigma that I had never managed to solve, but still wanted to. Hearing tales of the town from someone who inhabited the sweet candy center of it made me like the people there. Almost.
“I see them,” Sadey said, pointing excitedly through the woods to the front line of my property. She sat up proudly and grinned.
“Good eye, Sadey,” I said as I squinted to catch the movement she had seen.
The boys were huddled near a wooden post that held up power lines off Dark Corner Road. Caleb saw us first, and his eyes landed on my new shorter hair. I couldn’t read his expression, and I hadn’t looked at it in the mirror so I grew self-conscious. Back went my hair into a ponytail as fast as my nimble fingers could manage. I wished I could hide, but we had already been spotted, and Sadey was waving wildly.
“We brought lunch,” she sang as our horses picked their way around mesquite brush and close enough for them to hear.
“Good,” Brian grumbled over his shoulder. “Saves us a hike back up to the house.”
As he approached Bobby and Blue, Caleb’s boot prints kicked up little clouds of dry sand. He slipped his fingers into their halters and held them while Sadey and I dismounted. Bobby flattened his ears and curled his lips back to nip at Caleb, but he jerked the horse’s head down with a stout yank on the reins, and Bobby was wise enough not to try it again. I did my best to hide my smile. I couldn’t help myself. Bobby’s naughty antics had always entertained me.
“Don’t encourage him,” Caleb chastised me, but the corners of his lips had turned up slightly, and I waited for a remorse that didn’t come.
After the horses were tied, Sadey and I unpacked the saddle bags and laid out an old blanket. The blanket had belonged to my grandfather and was made of a patchwork of old jeans and shirts he and his brothers had outworn. If it was anything at all, it was unique.
“This should take us a few more hours, but it won’t be longer than that,” Brian said around a bite of turkey sandwich. “Looks like someone tried to patch you in before me. I don’t think they knew what they were doing, but they did some of the work for us. Was it your uncle?”
I shrugged. I had stopped trying to guess at Uncle Brady’s actions after the first week of living with the man. I finished chewing and swallowed an
enormous bite to find my three lunch mates all looking at me, waiting for an answer. Human conversation would probably never come easy for me.
“Oh. I’m not sure. I never saw him messing with any of it, but then again I didn’t spend a lot of time with him during the day. He liked to stay away from the house. Or away from me.”
I had answered honestly, but my response seemed to make them uncomfortable. I didn’t offer any more answers for the remainder of our short lunch. It had never been my intention to make them squirm. I wished they would just learn their lesson and stop asking questions. There were no happy or witty stories in my repertoire like Sadey had. I couldn’t, for the life of me, even remember a happy memory other than the day I spent with Caleb after the attack, and that had been traumatizing and bloody.
It was hard leaving Caleb to his work. I worked slowly to pack up our trash and blanket, and my gaze slid to study his silhouette as he dusted off his pants and pulled an old baseball cap over his blond hair. Brian watched me, and the unsolicited attention made it easier to focus on getting Sadey back into the saddle.
“I still can’t believe you got Sadey on a horse,” Caleb said in his deep southern drawl, a smile in his voice. I wanted to look to see if the smile I heard was really on his face, but I looked at the ground instead.
“Ah, it wasn’t me. She’s a natural,” I said.
Sadey positively glowed under the compliment. “See you boys back at the house,” she said as she pulled Blue around and away from her brothers.
I waved at Caleb and turned before he could respond.
One of the foster families I had stayed with had ignored me. No matter what I did or said, there was absolutely no response from the people I’d been struggling to connect with. There were other children in the house. Children more in my foster parents’ favor who would elicit compliments and, in turn, reprimands from them. I would have given my left arm to be reprimanded. At least if they’d made the effort to correct my behavior, it would have meant they cared and I wasn’t just a means to a small monthly check for them.
Being ignored was the loneliest feeling on the planet. By the time I had come to stay with Uncle Brady, I had been trained to ignore the hurt. Or to accept it. All of my training had flown out the window when Caleb McCreedy entered my life, and the need for his approval left me feeling unbalanced.
I lay awake for a long time that night. Caleb would finish paying whatever debt he thought he had accrued, and I would never see him again except for accidental meetings on my rare trips into town. How would I ever be able to go back to the loneliness of my previous life? I was weak for letting a man affect me so, and I became determined to be colder.
I could turn my heart off.
I had done it a hundred times before.
Chapter Nine
Mira
I stared at the tiny cartons of milk that lined the refrigerator. I’d seen the small cartons in the miniature fridge at Jake’s and thought how neat it would be to drink out of one, but it seemed inefficient and wasteful. The empty carton was a small weight in my hand, and I counted fourteen left. I had no guess why Caleb had bought these instead of a gallon of milk. Maybe he didn’t have a concept of saving money or of being frugal. The purchase seemed at odds with the man I had an occasional clipped conversation with. Honestly, his disregard for money bothered me.
I jumped as a loud car horn blasted from right outside the front door. The sound echoed through the house and settled into my bones.
I threw open the front door. “What are you doing?” I asked Caleb, who was sitting in his truck on the front lawn.
“I widened the gate. Go get ready. We’re heading into town.”
“Why?” I asked as my heart skittered.
“Because we need to find you a way to earn a living, and it’s not going to get done from here.”
He sounded irritated, but maybe it was just because he wasn’t a morning person. I’d take that over annoyance directed at me any day of the week.
“Do you want breakfast?” I asked.
“You’re stalling,” he accused. “We’ll grab something in town.”
Breakfast in town sounded absolutely terrifying. Not even a little part of me wanted anything to do with such an excursion.
I turned to retreat back into the house. Maybe he would leave if I took long enough.
“Wear the green shirt,” he called out from the open window of his truck.
Or maybe he wouldn’t leave.
“What did I do?” I mumbled under my breath as I headed for the bathroom.
One green shirt, a pair of stretch jeans that didn’t look half bad, and a pair of Sadey’s black flats later and I was shutting the door behind me. The shoes were a little big but if I shuffled, they stayed put.
“You look…” Caleb started. He cleared his throat. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I murmured.
“Good. Good attitude to have,” he said as he edged his truck down a path he had apparently just bulldozed with the front end of his truck.
“As I’ll ever be means no,” I said testily. “Why are you doing this to me?” I didn’t mean to sound whiney, but I really didn’t want to leave the comfort of my own home today. People didn’t insult me and throw things at me here.
Caleb took off the old gray baseball cap he was wearing and scratched his head. The movement seemed to be more about agitation and less about an itch. “Mira, I’m not doing anything to upset you. Not on purpose. It’s important that the people in town get used to seeing you and being around you and eating next to you. The more you alienate yourself out here, the less they will be able to relate to you.”
“Well, maybe I like the way things are.” Even I could hear the false note in my voice.
“You like it when people are mean to you when you come into town?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I rested my head on the window and did my best to ignore him—if anyone could really ignore Caleb McCreedy in such close quarters.
“No? That’s what I thought. They’re in the wrong, Mira. I’m not defending them, but if anyone is going to make it right, it’s got to be you. You have to be the bigger person on this one.”
“But I’m a very tiny person,” I said, dragging my beseeching gaze over to him.
He looked at me in confusion, and then back to the road. Back at me, then back at the road again. I helped him out with a tiny smile, and he surprised me with a laugh, short and loud.
In a softer tone, he said, “I know you can do this. It’s just going to take some time.” He seemed to relax, and he hooked his arm over back of the bench seat between us.
I held my breath. If I exhaled it would shake—I knew it would. His arm wasn’t around me, but just a few seconds ago, I’d been sitting in front of where his hand was resting. As it were, his fingertips could almost touch the tip of my collarbone had he the mind to do so.
He didn’t. The trip commenced with his arm arched in an almost-touch, and me breathing as lightly as I could without fainting cold against the window.
When Caleb pulled the truck into a parking spot in front of Rooney’s Bar, I raised my eyebrows and nodded. Classy.
“They serve breakfast,” he explained. “Jake’s serves a mean lunch, but nobody can beat Rooney’s pancakes.”
The mention of the delectable, butter-soaked, golden edibles brought an embarrassingly loud grumble from my stomach. He gave me an I-told-you-so look and shut the truck door behind him. I wanted to kick him.
I could refuse to get out of the truck. I turned the thought over in my mind, but one look at him hopping off the curb to open my door for me stomped out that notion. I had no doubt he would drag me bodily from this vehicle. That or he would be disappointed in me, which would be even worse.
Caleb reached for the door, and my naughty little finger pushed down on the lock button just as he pulled the handle. His startled face was enough to better my mood, and I grinned at him through the window before pushing th
e unlock button. He tried to look irritated but mostly he looked amused. I slid out of the truck, and Caleb shut the door behind me so firmly that my hands went over my ears before I could stop them. Why did he have to be so rough with everything? It was like the built up power he possessed in his body leaked out at random times throughout the day. Caleb wasn’t a gentle or apologetic creature. He was a man born of raw masculinity and strength. I wondered how much of that had been from before the attack and how much was from the animal inside of him now.
“Come on,” he said, pressing his hand lightly against the small of my back to get my legs moving.
I pulled my hands away from my ears and allowed him to lead me to the door of Rooney’s. What other choice did I have? My legs were threatening to collapse under his touch.
When I tried to scuttle into the booth in the back corner, Caleb switched directions and led me to a table at the very center of the busy eatery. I wanted to curse, but I kept my colorful words to myself.
Breakfast was just as horrifyingly awkward as I imagined it would be. Caleb acted as if he didn’t notice everyone staring at us. I, however, felt the weight of the unwanted attention with every bite I took. I wished I could just enjoy the food. I was a decent cook, but there was just something about someone else cooking for you that made it taste better. That, and I hadn’t had pancakes in years. And eating syrup was downright orgasmic.
Caleb lacked the ease with which his sister conversed, but I was impressed with the effort. He waited for me to order my meal before he started talking. Mostly he talked about his plans for my house, which were interesting, but not quite as much as the way his mouth moved when he talked. I was scattered and unfocused and his every movement seemed to demand my attention. Everyone’s whispered mumblings about the unlikely event of one Caleb McCreedy taking one Crazy Mira Fletcher to breakfast like we were long time pals was borderline overwhelming to my sensitive ears. I imagined the town collectively crapping a sea urchin at what transpired in Rooney’s Bar this morning.
