If I hadn’t seen him ace his last engineering exam with my own two eyes, I’d never believe August had two brain cells to rub together.
“Well, did you say something? Am I going to have to haul ass out of here with Bridge?”
“No, no, dude. You won’t believe it! I told him he could go fuck himself. Told him I had no idea where you were!”
I breathed a sigh relief.
“You’re going to have to lay low for a while,” I told him. “Don’t go to a lot of places if you can help it. Live your life mellow. Don’t send a lot of packages here or call a lot. My dad will pick up on an increased pattern.”
“I feel like James Bond and shit.”
“Yes, August, that’s exactly what you remind me of. James Bond.”
He laughed. “How are you adjusting? Cricket’s cool, right?”
I looked up and noticed Cricket was perusing the aisles.
“Why didn’t you tell me Cricket was a chick?”
“I just assumed you could tell by the way I talked about her.”
“How? How would I have been able to tell? You’d only say hick things like, ‘Cricket can rope a calf like nobody’s business’ or ‘Cricket can spit fifteen feet’ or ‘Cricket pantsed the school quarterback and got suspended for a week.’ It isn’t conducive to girl-type behavior.”
“At my house it is,” he explained.
“You could have warned me she was fine, though.”
“She is a popular little thing,” he laughed. “I decided to surprise you with that.” We both got quiet. “Oh no, Spencer,” he chimed in, “you can’t. I’m ordering you, bro. Stay away from Cricket. She’s different from the girls we chase.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I have no intention of going after her.” Except that felt like a lie. It didn’t matter; I was determined.
“Good,” he said, calming down a bit. “Besides, she’s with Ethan. They’ve been together since they were kids.”
That weird gut ache invaded my body again and I tried to check it. “Really? I’d no idea they’d been together that long.”
“Yeah, they’re childhood sweethearts and shit.”
Maybe this will make it easier to ignore her. So why does my whole body hurt thinking about it?
“Okay, well, remember what I said, cool?”
“Yeah, I’ve got you.”
“Thanks, August, you’re like a brother to me, even though I want to kick your ass sometimes for being such a douche.”
“I love you too, man.”
“Adios.”
“Peace,” he said and hung up.
I pressed end on Cricket’s phone and breathed a sigh of relief.
Bags in hand, I followed Cricket back to the truck and stuck the purchases behind the driver’s seat on the floor.
“Should we go up?” Cricket asked.
“Yeah, we’ll see where she’s at.”
I climbed the stairs behind Cricket, her amazing backside at eye level. I almost groaned. We walked into the doctor’s office.
“Hey, Perdi, is she ready?”
The beehive receptionist stood and took Cricket’s hand. “Not yet, but I think the baby is just fine.” We both breathed out whatever pent-up stress we were carrying. “How are you?” Perdi asked, her eyes narrowed in that pitying expression people always adopted when they just found out you fell into a big pile of shit or, I guess, cow dung in Cricket’s case.
“I’m fine,” Cricket said, sliding her hand out of Perdi’s. She looked up at me and I furrowed my brows.
“What’s she talking about?” I asked when Perdi went to check on Bridget.
I was so relieved to hear that my little niece or nephew was fine, but the way Perdi acted sent huge red flags in the air.
“Oh, nothing, she’s just nosy.”
My gaze fixed on Cricket. She was fidgeting and noticed I was watching her. She walked to the little sitting room area and plopped down onto a wooden bench, unfolding a magazine so outdated, the cover’s model had decidedly crimped hair and a bright yellow baggy sweatshirt and headband.
I sat down next to her. Her arm touched mine, and that made my hands tremble a little. I played with fire by leaning into her and pretending to take in her magazine. “Think Reagan will get re-elected?” I asked. She grinned her clever little smirk and my heart began to thump in my throat. “Did you see that episode of Punky Brewster last night? Soleil Moon Frye is the bomb.” More grinning.
You should stop, fool. This is borderline flirting.
“Don’t watch a lot of television, but I do like films,” she played along. “More of a Brat Packer myself.”
“Molly or Ally?” I asked.
“Molly. Although, Ally was pretty rad in The Breakfast Club.”
“Yeah, she had a whole who-gives-a-shit-about-what-you-think vibe. Like, I’m gonna toss my pimento loaf onto the top of this weird-ass modern sculpture then pound down this Pixy Stix-Cap’n Crunch sandwich and what are you gonna do about it?”
Cricket laughed, genuinely laughed. Loud. It caught me off guard but after a second, I became painfully aware of how amazing it was, how her whole face lit up, how her whole body shook. I was mesmerized by her.
A few minutes passed in silence then Cricket did something that made me crush so hard on her, I felt like I was going to crumble at her feet. She started whistling the theme to The Bridge on the River Kwai. It wasn’t long before I joined in, but we didn’t get to finish because Bridge finally emerged, looking a little green in the face, but otherwise intact.
I stood. “You okay?” I asked her.
“I’m fine, the baby’s fine. I’m due June twenty-third.”
“Congrats, Bridge,” I said, hugging her.
She hugged back. “Thanks, Spence.” She breathed deeply. “Pretty scared though.”
“Well, it’s a scary thing.”
Cricket hugged Bridge when I let go. “I’m so glad to hear the baby’s okay,” she said.
“Thank you,” Bridge answered. “You guys want to see the sonogram?”
She held out the glossy photo and I saw this tiny little peanut. Cricket aww’d and I just stood there absorbing the little thing, feeling proud and overwhelmed.
“Is this the head?” I asked her.
“No, that’s its rear end,” she laughed. “That’s its head.”
“Tiny little thing,” I whispered.
“Dr. Harmon said it’s about the size of a lime.”
“That’s hilarious,” I smiled wide, tracing my fingers over the tiny outline.
I looked up and saw Cricket staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
She swallowed hard. “Uh, n-nothing.”
Before we went home that afternoon, we stopped by the local bank. I was forced to rely on Cricket’s kindness once again when I asked if she would be willing to get the safety deposit box put in her name to store all the checks we’d gotten cashed right outside of Salt Lake City. She obliged, but if she was surprised by how much cash we had, she didn’t say anything. Little did she know that was just the tip of the iceberg.
“You messed up again. You weren’t careful. She knows how much you have,” Piper told me, stretched on her side beside me on the bed. Her head rested in her hand.
“So what?” I asked, turning over onto my stomach away from her.
The bed covers slipped to my waist, so I tugged them up a little farther.
“Too bad,” Piper purred in reaction, making me recoil. “I like your back. I like your front even more. Turn over for me.”
“Get out of here, Piper.”
“She knows how much you have,” she repeated.
“Again, so?”
“What if she tells the others? What if they want what you have?”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“She could.”
“Even if she did,” I said, losing my temper, “they wouldn’t take it.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Because they’
re good people.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“There is! You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Everyone has a little leech in them, Spencer. Don’t be naive.”
The alarm rang out at four thirty the next morning once more, and once again, I realized that I was indeed not dreaming. When I was dressed in my new clothing, I asked Bridge if she thought I looked like a tool. In perfect seriousness, she said, “Dude, you look like you belong here,” which made me happy as shit. Jonah picked Bridge up again, but this time Cricket didn’t meet me halfway down the drive, much to my disappointment. This is good, I kept telling myself over and over.
Jonah and I repeated cleaning out the stalls much as we did the day before but this time, we placed a bag of something called “bedding pellets” down. We laid the bags down in the corners of the stalls and with a knife, cut a cross section, tucking the flaps into the inside of the bag. What happened next fascinated me because we poured an entire bucket of warm water into the bag.
“Leave it,” Jonah told me. “We’ll come spread the bedding after breakfast.”
“What will happen to the pellets?” I asked him as we made our way up to the main house.
“They spread. That entire bag will turn into at least twelve cubic feet of extra pine bedding. It has the consistency of sawdust, is soft on the horses, better for their allergies, and even increases the rate of urine absorbency, making it more sanitary. We use one to two bags a week, depending on how often the horses use the stalls.”
“Cool.”
“It is.”
After breakfast, we spread the bedding. I was excited to get on a horse because it’d been at least a year, but Jonah informed me we needed to groom them before. I’d never had to do that. Shamefully, the stable hands did all that for us. Jonah taught me how to properly groom a horse so that it didn’t chafe or get rubbed by any loose dirt during the workday. I asked him why they didn’t do that when they put them away and he told me they did it any time a horse is ridden and any time they’re put away.
“Damn, this is a lot of work,” I told him.
Jonah laughed. “We haven’t even started, greenhorn.”
Ethan and Cricket came to stand in front of my stall with their horses.
“Ready?” Ethan asked me.
I nodded.
Everyone mounted their horses and I followed suit, a little bit nervous, and very unaware of what I was supposed to do. I had that same sensation you get when you were new to a school and had no idea who anyone was in your lunch period. You’d take your lunch tray and sort of stand around for a moment looking for a good spot to take a seat, but the entire time you’re searching, all you can feel is everyone’s eyes on you. That’s a shitty feeling.
I sat there on my horse, completely clueless as to who I was supposed to follow. I heard a whistle to my left. It was Cricket.
“Yo, greenhorn, you’re with me today.”
My heart kicked into high gear. I trotted my horse to side by hers, relieved beyond belief. Not because it was Cricket. Because I had a destination. Yeah, that’s it. “What are we doing?” I asked her beautiful face, unable to keep myself from staring.
“We’re going to count head, get a reading on any stragglers in my section, direct them toward the herd again. We’re bringing the entire herd in closer to the ranch.”
“What for?”
“It makes it easier for us to prepare and react to births. We can keep a close eye on them.” She turned away from me. “Eugie, come.”
That old, cantankerous shepherd mix followed behind her.
We started for the pasture. The leather creaked and pulled beneath me. My horse’s tail swished back and forth, its breath fogged the air in front of me. It was freezing out, but I felt comfortable enough thanks to Cricket’s suggestions at the outfitters.
I followed her for a good fifteen minutes, mesmerized by her backside. She was so easy on a horse, not a single movement felt superfluous. She was born to be on that horse.
We were quiet, neither one of us knowing what to say to the other. It was awkward, yet I couldn’t complain, not with the view it afforded me.
Finally, we reached our destination, a rise near the base of Bitterroot Mountain, above Lake Gossamer. We emerged between a wide copse of trees dusted with snow and I took in the sight before me. My senses felt overwhelmed, blasted with an intense beauty. The lake was so blue it didn’t look natural and was so clear you could see all the way to the bottom. It was flanked by two sharp, rocky cliff sides that eventually graduated to peak after peak—a sea of daunting yet beautiful mountains. At the base stood hundred-foot pine trees. They littered the shoreline save for ten feet of varying gray rock peppered with a few red, yellow and green ones, smoothed by thousands of years’ worth of running water. Round and perfect, I absently noted that my mother would have paid tens of thousands for them to line her drive.
“Yes,” I said.
“I-I didn’t say anything,” Cricket responded, furrowing her brows in confusion.
“Yes, this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to. You were going to ask that, weren’t you? How could you not?” I gestured to the nature surrounding us. My gloved hand creaked against the leather as I laid it back on the saddle’s horn.
“Undeniably beautiful,” she conceded as I stared at her. No argument there.
I continued to stare at her and my gut began to ache again. All I could think was the scene, the moment, would have made for the perfect first kiss. And my God did I want to kiss her. My eyes drifted to her lips and she licked them, sending me spiraling.
“Stop that,” she said, biting them together, as if that would blunt her uneasiness.
“Stop what?” I asked, swallowing hard. This time wishing she was biting my lip instead of her own.
My lids felt so heavy, I very nearly closed them.
“That,” she answered. “Whatever it is that you’re doing. I-I...this was a bad idea,” she breathed the last part.
“What is?” I asked softly, my tongue feeling as heavy as my lids.
“Us pairing off. Ethan didn’t like it but Pop Pop insisted.”
I waited a moment before asking, “Why?”
“He thought I could teach you the best. That you would respond best to me.”
“Why would he think that, Cricket?”
“I’m not sure,” she lied.
We sat silent.
“I think you know why.”
Her eyes bored into mine, her chest rose rapidly with her breaths. “No, I don’t.”
“Oh, I think you do,” I said, sidling my horse closer to hers and leaning over, grabbing her saddle’s horn and bringing her within inches of my face.
She became flustered, turned away from me and started counting the cattle in the open pasture south of the lake.
“We’re missing seven head.”
I sat up in my saddle and took a deep breath, still staring at her. You can’t have her. Stop. Become her friend. Only her friend.
I sighed and let her horse go. “Can you spot them?” I asked.
“There,” she said, pointing her gloved hand just east of the lake. “There’s five there.”
“The other two?” I asked again. We searched the lake perimeter in silence. This time I spotted the remaining two. “There,” I said, answering my own question.
“Come on,” she said, her saddle protesting beneath her as she directed her horse back down the ridge.
I kept pace with her. “What’s your favorite thing in the world?” I asked her.
She looked at me skeptically. “Why?”
“Cricket, I don’t have ulterior motives. I just figure I’m going to be here a while, we’re partners or whatever and it’d be nice if I knew a little about you.”
She cleared her throat. “My favorite thing in the world? Let’s see,” she began, pulling a little at her bottom lip. I checked the gut ache yet again. “Besides my family?”
“Besides your family.”
“Eugie,” she said, smiling and glancing at the earth below her.
When she said his name, Eugie peered up at her, tongue lolling and eager to do her bidding.
“Not Ethan?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Ethan is part of my family, Spencer.”
“Fair enough. Do you have any hobbies?”
“I may dabble a little in sculpture,” she said, her cheeks flaming red.
“Sculpture, eh? And your medium of choice?”
“I take scrap metal we used to recycle around the ranch and whatever I can find and make crazy things out of them.”
“That’s bad ass,” I said, genuinely impressed. “What do you make?”
She looked on me strangely. “Do you really want to hear this?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. It’s-It’s just not a lot of people around here think it’s an efficient use of time.”
“Who are these people?”
“Oh, no one really,” she evaded.
Ethan. Ethan was “the people” she was talking about.
“Why do they think this?” I asked.
We rounded the horses around the base of the ridge we’d traversed down and headed for the two cattle at the north of the lake.
“I guess because I could be, I don’t know, doing necessary repairs or whatever instead.” She looked at me with a smile. “There’s always something to do on a ranch.”
“Exactly,” I agreed.
“Hmm?”
“There’s always something to do here. Proof that life does not wait, so why not carve yourself out a little bit of happiness. Granted, I know this is fulfilling work because it helps your family survive.” I sighed. “It’s definitely exhausting work, but why does it have to be what defines you?”
“Trust me,” she said, cryptically, “no one defines me by the work I do here.”
I studied her, but her face gave nothing more away. I could tell it was one subject that was off limits with her so I kept my mouth shut.
“You never answered my question.”
“Which one?” she asked.
“What do you make with this scrap metal you happen upon.”
She smiled down at her hands then looked up at me once more. My heart stopped. She made my heart stop. “I make unusual things. For instance, I’ve always been fascinated by Churchill.”
GREED (The Seven Deadly Series) Page 11
