There had always been talk off and on of selling the ranch, but the recession had apparently impacted everyone. Madison, the stepsister just below her in age, had pushed hard for the sale. Carter guessed she needed the money the most, although her other sisters seemed to be just as needy and ready to sell, too.
The thought of letting go of what had once been her refuge, made her stomach heave. She loved this place. And it still rubbed her raw that her great-grandfather had included her stepsisters in his will. Some leftover familiar regret on his part.
“Let it go, Carter,” she said to herself again.
She put the combination into the keypad of the garage, hoping it hadn’t changed. It worked. The garage door opened, creaking and moaning like an old man getting up in the morning. Her great-grandfather’s old truck was still there—a 1950s version of a pickup, which probably was not in working condition. It sat next to her grandfather’s somewhat 1980s younger model. There wasn’t any room for her car, so she left it parked just outside the garage.
She lowered the garage door to the same creaking and moaning, and followed the path to the house—a large, two-story Tudor-styled home.
She opened the back door with her key. All the family members had one, although most rarely used them. The back door opened into a large kitchen and breakfast area. The floor was littered with stuff –junk, papers, and magazines. The old wooden kitchen table could easily seat 20 people, and in its glory days was packed with family and friends. It now stood covered with the same mess that was on the floors.
What the hell, was her first thought followed by, What is that smell?
She walked through the kitchen, flipping on the hallway light. She made her way toward the front, taking in the grand, square-shaped foyer and staircase that followed the wall leading up to the second floor. It was free of junk up here at least. She sighed at the dust that covered everything, and at the signs of the house’s aging. When had it fallen into such disrepair?
That was a question for tomorrow. Sleep was calling her name. She only needed a clean bed to fall into. She could even ignore the smell for now. She turned off the lights behind her as she made her way upstairs to her old room. The air was cleaner up here, she thought, dragging her suitcase behind her.
#
Rafael drove around front and parked, his eyes scanning the old Woodson homestead. He was searching for the light he’d thought he’d seen when he was driving toward his home. He’d been down at the local bar yukking it up with a few of the locals, including the sheriff, an old buddy from his picking-oranges-for-a-living days. The house was dark.
He made his way to the door, his favorite baseball bat in hand, in case there was an intruder inside and not Jack. Maybe he hadn’t even seen a light. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. He didn’t think so.
He unlocked the front door, using the spare key under the mat. Jack Shine, the Woodson family’s property manager—and it was a stretch to call him that—had placed it there for emergencies. He was a drinker—okay, a drunk—so there were always nights when he’d been too drunk to remember his name, yet alone his house key.
Rafael closed the door quietly and stood still, listening for sounds of movement. It was quiet. This place needed a good scrubbing, he thought. And what was that smell?
The light he’d thought he’d seen had come from upstairs, so he headed in that direction, keeping his movements quiet, wanting the element of surprise in his pocket. What a pain this had turned into, this house managing, even if it had been for just a week.
He walked quietly toward the last bedroom. The ones leading up to it were all open, and empty. The one at the end was the only one closed. He slowly opened the door, and sure enough, found someone lying across the bed. It was dark, but he could make out the silhouette of a small body. Whoever it was must have been asleep. He lifted his bat and tiptoed over to the end of the bed, his hand outstretched to shake whomever this was awake.
Carter’s scream mixed with his grunt of surprise as she let loose with a can of pepper spray into what she hoped was the intruder’s face. She usually slept like the dead, and with the last angst-filled, sleep-deprived week, she was exhausted. She’d managed to change the sheets and fall into bed. She’d been sleeping soundly when she was awakened by the sounds of feet moving up the stairs.
She’d always slept with pepper spray because one never knew; and it was either pepper spray or a gun. She was afraid she might accidentally shoot herself with a gun, so pepper spray it was. Thank the Lord she had it with her now. She heard the bedroom door open and the heavy footfalls of someone approaching her bed. Sounded male. She’d listened as the steps moved closer to her, playing the possum role until whoever it was, stood beside her bed. They put their hand on her and she put her finger on the nozzle of the pepper spray and fired.
It was a man. His height and build, plus the treble of the curses that were now echoing throughout the quiet house, confirmed her suspicions. She grabbed the blanket from the bed and threw it over the man’s head. This was the second step in her be-prepared-in-case-someone-breaks-into-the-house scenarios. This was Carter’s famous recipe for how to capture and disable an intruder. She heard him yell, and heard what sounded like a bat hitting the floor; metal by the sound of it against the wood.
She searched around in the dark for the bat as he blindly stumbled about, still moaning. She gave up searching and reached for the umbrella, step three and started to hit him with that. His moaning turned into yelps as she commenced to beat him, like her stepmother used to do to her sisters for some major infraction or another. A string of words poured from her lips as she hit him. His words were muffled, lost in the sound of Carter’s as she continued whacking him with the umbrella.
“You think you can come in here and mess with me,” she said. Whack went the umbrella. “Hell, no!” she said, followed by another whack. “You can’t just break into someone’s house and expect to get away with it. Not with this woman, anyway,” she shouted and whacked at his ankles this time, which caused him to fall. He hit the floor, hard, and went still. It was quiet now, except for the sound of her breathing; hard, like she’d run a race.
Now what, Carter? She asked herself. Is he dead? she wondered, but that thought was quickly replaced by Get the hell out of here! She could head to the bathroom, lock herself in, and then call the police. Fuck that, she thought. Her gut and her head were in agreement. She wanted out. She’d take her chances in her car.
She grabbed her cell from the nightstand and shot out of the door, moving from a jog into a full sprint down the hall, hitting the stairs fast, slipping on the last one, but managing to remain on her feet. She grabbed her keys on the hook next to the back door and sprinted the short distance to her car. Carter opened it and got in, locking the doors. She dialed 911 from her cell and hung up a few minutes later. Her hands were shaking and her eyes were glued to the back door, and fuck, she’d left her inhaler inside along with her purse.
#
About two minutes later, although it seemed like forever, she watched the lights of a police car, its sirens wailing, come blazing around the corner. It pulled in next to her and parked. Two officers jumped out; one headed to the house, the other to her car.
“He is still inside,” she said, having gotten out of her car to meet them.
“Get back in your vehicle, ma’am,” the officer said, before following his partner into the house in that policeman way—guns drawn, all caution. Oh God, she could have been killed. Now that the sheriffs were here, her whole body started to shake. She was thankful to have gotten out, thankful to be alive, even with the wedding and all that had transpired the prior week. It all seemed so insignificant compared to almost getting raped or killed. She started to shake harder.
A few minutes later, one of the police officers returned. He was talking into his shoulder, which always looked odd to her, even though she knew his shoulder contained one of those walkie-talkie thingies. It was still strange to see someone having a conversation w
ith their shoulder.
The officer approached her car. She lowered her window.
“Ma’am, may I see some identification?”
“What?”
“May I see some identification?”
“Why? It’s my house—my family’s home,” she corrected herself.
“It’s standard procedure,” he said.
“Okay,” she said, looking around in her car. “I left it inside the house,” she said, looking at her car’s contents, again, surprised that she hadn’t thought to grab her purse on her way out. Too afraid to delay had been the only explanation.
“I’ll walk in with you.”
“Is he still in there?”
“Yes, but my partner is with him. He hit his head when he fell to the floor, knocked himself out. An ambulance is on the way. You sprayed him with pepper spray?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, he didn’t have a chance to touch me. I sprayed him, covered his head, hit him a few times and got out the hell out of there,” she said, walking into the kitchen and going to her purse that laid in one of the kitchen chairs. There hadn’t been room on the table. She pulled her license out of her wallet and handed it over for his review.
“Your folks own this property?” he said, gagging a little at the smell. He covered his nose with his hand.
“I know, it’s awful,” she said, taking her driver’s license from his hand as he handed it back to her. He apparently recognized the name of her family.
“My great-grandfather purchased it in the 1930s. It’s been in our family since then.”
“Are you usually here? I know your family has a property manager,” he said, looking at the mess surrounding them.
“No, I’m not. I drove down earlier this evening, taking a break from work and all,” she said, refusing to explain why her home looked this way. It wasn’t any of his business anyway, even if she’d had an answer.
She could see the ambulance lights flashing out of the kitchen window, approaching the house.
“Ma’am, do you know a Rafael Garcia?” the officer asked.
“No,” she said, after thinking about it for a second.
“He’s your neighbor.”
Carter was silent. “My neighbor? I didn’t know I had any. What was he doing here?” she asked.
“Don’t know if you know this or not, but the property manager hired by your folks took off about a week ago. Rafael, the one you sprayed and knocked out, has been keeping an eye on the property,” he said.
“Oh. What was he doing here?”
“He said he saw lights on, and knew the place should be empty. He was just checking. He said he knocked, but no one answered.”
“He should have said something,” she said, crossing her arms at her chest.
“He said he thought you were an intruder and that you hit him with the pepper spray before he could identify himself.”
“Well, he had a bat. And how was I to know he was harmless,” she said, working to keep from sounding defensive. “He could have said something,” she added.
“He says that he tried to, but you probably couldn’t hear him. You were talking a lot,” he said. It looked like he was trying not to laugh.
“Is he okay?” she asked.
“Yes. The paramedics will be here any minute to check him out. He’s got one heck of a knot on his head,” he said. Again, he sounded amused.
They stood and watched a red county paramedic truck roll into the drive. Two EMT’s stepped out. One went around to the back of the truck and retrieved this toolbox looking thing. He approached the cop who had been speaking with Carter.
“Hey, Red,” the first one said, immediately covering his nose. His partner was following and lifted his hand to his nose, too. He gave her a nod before they headed toward the front of the house. They were certainly taking their time about it.
#
Rafael laid there with his eyes closed, wishing J.D. and Vernon, the town’s paramedics, would hurry up and get there. His eyes were killing him and his head hurt like a massive hangover, minus the alcohol. He heard footsteps and laughter again, the ever-present laughter from his two buddies –Sheriff Frank, and his deputy and younger brother, Garrett. They were a bowl full of jokes tonight after finding him on the floor, knocked out cold, his head wrapped in a blanket.
He’d come in to look for an intruder, which he’d been told was the great-granddaughter of the family that owned the place. How was he to have known that?
“Is this our patient?” JD asked, his voice threaded with humor.
“Take a look at the knot on his head. Might have knocked the rest of his screws loose,” Garrett said, from his stance above.
Rafael lay there, enduring their jokes mixed in with the giggles and the smothered laughter of J.D. and Vernon as they washed his eyes with some solution, bandaged his head and tried to convince him to go to the hospital.
“Hell, no. I’m not going to a hospital,” he said, sitting up, trying to get his bearings.
“I’ll drive you home then,” Frank said.
“Fine,” Rafael said, knowing they wouldn’t let him leave any other way.
“Want me to carry you out on a stretcher?” Vernon asked, laughing at Rafael’s go to hell look.
They all made their way downstairs. Carter looked up to find the other sheriff, or maybe he was the deputy, come into the kitchen. The two paramedics were trailing behind at what must have been her neighbor, Rafael.
He was one fine man, hurt or not, she thought, watching him enter the room. He was tall, brown-skinned—not African American brown, but Latino—with a head full of jet-black hair, wet and curly, in disarray, maybe more wavy than curly, with a few waves hanging over the white of his bandage, falling into his eyes. The area surrounding his face was red, matching the red of his eyes. His shirt was wet and had adhered itself nicely to a well-toned and shapely chest.
What had she been thinking, spraying him with pepper spray? He was meant for other things—not that she did those other things—but if she did, he was one for doing them with.
She met his blood red eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t know,” she said.
He gave a short nod of his head in acknowledgement, but didn’t say much else. She watched him walk out the door, and over to his truck, which someone had pulled around.
Surely he wasn’t going to drive himself home, she thought, and her question was answered as one of the officers helped him in and then walked around to get behind the wheel.
Rafael sat in the passenger seat, glancing again at her. He had heard her name was Carter, and she looked oddly familiar, but he couldn’t place her. She was cute, and obviously didn’t sleep in much—nice short boxers, nice legs and a sports bra covering some nice breasts.
She stood at the back door and watched them leave.
“Not bad. I wouldn’t mind being hit over the head with what was it? Oh yeah, an umbrella,” Garrett said, looking away from her to catch his friend’s expression. He laughed.
Rafael was silent. His eyes were locked with hers as Garrett drove them away.
#
Four
Saturday morning
Carter sat in the kitchen the following morning, a cup of coffee in her hand, taking stock of the house. Now that it was daylight, she could see it better. Boy, was it in bad shape.
It wasn’t falling-down-on-her-ears bad shape, but as close as one could get to it. It needed major cleaning and some repair work. Remodeling would be their best option. That was more of what it truly needed to bring it back around to its glory days. This was more than missing a property manager for a week. This was I give up, just let yourself go; dust and cobwebs are my friends now. Can I have some paint, please?
Jack Shine had done more than just manage the property. He had apparently made it his home. He’d left old dishes in the sink covered with dried-on food—before dinosaurs walked the earth dried-on food. There were stacks of mail, old newspapers on
the counter and the table, mixed in with empty liquor bottles. Seems Jack had a fondness for vodka. If the number of empty bottles she’d found were any indication, his liver was probably on life support now.
All the mail was addressed to him—three years’ worth of mail, according to the postage stamps, all saved and accumulating, lying in stacks on the floor, kitchen counter and on a few surrounding chairs.
There was one stack, sitting alone next to the door, from a bank in Lubbock. That was a long way from here. Jack had been employed for her family for almost four years, she thought. When had he moved in here?
The floor was also littered with paper and used take-out containers; apparently Jack didn’t cook much. Stuff was everywhere, except for the table. That spot he’d reserved for his newspapers; local ones as well as ones from other parts of the country. He must have spent the bulk of his time in this room. And why wouldn’t he. He didn’t have to worry about her family checking in on him.
She’d gotten up early, still rattled from last night’s intruder incident. She spent an hour cleaning up the area around the sink in order to make a pot of coffee. Thankfully, she’d brought some with her; coffee and a mini-version of an espresso machine. She’d found the source of that foul smell. He was now in the garbage can outside.
Her agenda for the day was set: first she’d clean the areas she’d be living in, which included this room, her room and its adjoining bathroom.
Just pile it on, why don’t you, she thought. A week before she’d been preparing to disrupt Bentley’s wedding and now she was sitting in a home that looked like it would make a Hoarder’s episode. Throw in last night’s craziness, a scene from one of those slasher-type movies where she’d tried to kill her neighbor with his smoky eyes and good looks. Too bad she wasn’t in the market anymore.
It was cooler outside by several degrees, she noted, as she made her way to the back door, stepping onto the old wrap-around, screened in porch. There was less of Jack’s junk out here. She took a seat in one of the big chairs, listening to the birds as they welcomed in the new morning and breathed in the fresh air. She sighed. How to put into words what coming home felt like. How did one verbalize the impact of being separated from a core piece of oneself? Maybe it was like losing a foot; you still felt the itch, and then tried to bury that itch under layers and layers of lost. She wiped her eyes. She would not cry.
When You Fall... Page 4
