“You haven’t killed him yet. That’s good,” he said, coming to a stop next to her.
“I’m okay. We’re okay. You don’t have to keep stopping by,” she said.
“I don’t mind. I had gotten used to stopping by anyway,” he said, watching as she walked away, picking up the water hose.
“Well, I’m taking over, as you can see,” she said.
“Slow down. It’s only been two days,” he said, watching as she bent over to turn on the faucet. “Need any help?” he asked, not making any move to help, instead leaning against the stall watching her.
“No, I’m good,” she said.
That might be true he thought, at least by outside appearances. He was content to watch her bend over in her jeans; nice ass. And she was pretty. He’d thought the same thing about her the night of the pepper spray incident, and pretty much every time he’d encountered her since. Flighty but pretty; and she was shorter than she looked in the video.
She filled her bucket with water, walked around him and inside the stall, placing it next to the feeder. She looked inside the feeder before walking back out. He stood, still watching.
“Got to get some hay,” she said, and started walking toward the barn door. She was surprised to find him fall into step with her, holding the door open for her to walk through. She looked over at him.
“You might need some help,” he said.
“I’ll need to buy some more hay soon; a serious supply. I picked up two square bales when I went into town today. But what I really need are a few round ones. Our property manager sucked supremely, as I’m sure you know. I can’t believe this place has been so neglected,” she said, talking to him as he followed her out the door.
“This place didn’t always look like this,” she said, to his silence. They’d arrived at the hay shed, where two small square bales sat forlornly in the corner, lost in the largeness of the shed. “This place used to be filled to the rafters with hay,” she said, reaching for one. “We also had enough horses to consume it all.”
“Long time ago.”
“Yes, a long time ago.”
“It’s been what?… 80 years,” he said, watching her struggle with the bale.
“How do you know that?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“My great-grandfather, Carter Woodson—my namesake, by the way—built most of what you see, piecemeal. He believed in being owners of land. In those days, landowners were the most prosperous. So after he became a free man, he worked to do the same.”
“It’s a nice legacy to leave for his heirs, however little they appreciate it,” he added.
“I’m not going to get into an argument with you. I’m grateful to you for looking after the horse and our place. So be careful you don’t use up all your goodwill,” she said, still struggling.
“I’m still bugged about the pepper spray.”
“You broke in. I didn’t know you from Adam. Liked the way you scream though; kind of like a girl,” she said, laughing now.
He chuckled. “Let me,” he said, reaching for the hay bale.
She hesitated.
“You’ll be here all night dragging it across the yard. It’s too heavy for you. I promise I won’t think less of you if you admit that,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said, handing it off to him. She followed behind him as he walked back to the barn. “How long have you lived next door anyway? she asked, changing the subject.
“Five years, give or take. I owned the land the first year, but couldn’t afford to do much else. Later on I added the other stuff. When was the last time you were here?”
“My great-grandfather died in 2004, so I came back for that funeral, and then two years afterward, so that was ’06. I can’t believe it’s been five years,” she said. She seemed surprised by that admission. “What are you doing with your land?”
“Organic farming. Just completed my organic certification. How much do you know about organic farming?” he asked.
“Not much. Not much into farming. This was a horse operation mostly. My great-grandfather loved horses; preferred them over people, I believe,” she said, holding the stable door open for him.
“I wish I knew his name,” she said, pointing toward the horse.
“Grey,” Rafael said, setting the bale on the ground before cutting the string with his knife. He grabbed enough for Grey’s nightly feeding.
“Grey it is, then,” she said, looking at Rafael. “If I hadn’t asked you, would you have told me?’ she asked, taking the hay from his hand and laying it on the floor of Grey’s stall.
“I wanted to make sure you were going to stick around, otherwise you didn’t need to know.”
“Are you this nice to all the girls, or is it just me?” she said.
He smiled.
She gave the horse a final pat before heading toward the front of the barn and back outside. He fell in step next to her. Neither spoke until they reached his truck.
“So what’s up for tomorrow?” he asked.
“Cutting pasture for Grey.”
“Good idea. Let me know if you run over your foot. I’ll call EMS,” he said and smiled. She laughed and watched him get into his truck.
“I’ll be fine. Really. You don’t have to continue stopping by.”
“I don’t mind, really. I’m not a hundred percent sure you won’t kill Grey, or yourself yet.”
“Thanks again,” she said.
He gave her a salute before he pulled away.
#
Monday morning
Carter was up early the next day. She’d turned off her cell yesterday. She had grown tired of talking to anyone—friends and family. Talk, talk, and more talk was all anyone wanted to do with her; about the wedding, about her lost job. She didn’t even want to think about her mother and stepsisters—who were always so together—and their upcoming intervention. She just wanted to be left alone.
She looked around her old room, pleased that it was clean, at least. She’d spent last night cleaning it, after Rafael’s departure. Fortunately, Jack hadn’t spent much time upstairs, and praise be to Allah for that small blessing. It had been only built-up dust, cobwebs and peeling paint. A trip to town to purchase more cleaning supplies was in order before she’d tackle the rest of the interior cleaning, excluding Jack’s personal bedroom; that was marked off in yellow crime scene tape—left for another day. She had yet to work up the courage to attack that bad boy.
The open fields and clear skies of the great outdoors was her destination this morning. Today was reserved for cutting pastures, hoping at least one could be weed-free and Grey could be let outside to munch. Her great-grandfather had several fenced-in pastures located just outside both stables’ doors. She had checked them this morning. They were all chock-full of weeds and more grass that she had a right to expect, given Jack Shine. No, the blame for this neglect fell at her family’s feet, not Jack’s.
The fencing surrounding the first pasture had looked solid, at first glance, but she would do another more thorough check once the grass was cut. Horses could find the loose nail, the weak spot in the fence, like little children. They could hurt themselves by just being themselves.
Even more immediate was the care and feeding of Grey. She would grab her breakfast—peanut butter and jelly sandwich and coffee—and then it was out to the barn.
Ten minutes later she found Grey where she’d left him.
“Hey boy,” she said, rubbing his nose. He watched her with a what’s-up look on his face.
“So you ready to eat?” she said, entering his stall, throwing on his halter and lead rope. She led him into a new stall so that she could get his cleaned before she got started on the day’s other work.
“Hopefully we can let you out into the sunshine soon,” she said to Grey, “depending on how far I get with this mowing stuff.” She walked over to the wheelbarrow and rake Rafael had been using. She’d cleaned his stall yesterday, not wanting to hear crap from her neighbor
about her care of the horse. He’d done a good job, not that she’d share that with him. He was too cocky as it was.
She’d been surprised that all of the stalls in this stable had been clean; her neighbor at work, again, she’d bet. It had to be him. Jack Shine and clean were never in the same sentence.
She headed over to the shed, where most of the machinery was once housed. She opened the door and did a quick inventory. A newer commercial riding lawnmower for smaller jobs sat in the corner. Their old tractor sat covered in dust, and cobwebs aplenty. It was once so huge and shiny to her little kid self; those days were long gone.
There were several tractor implements—a front loader, hay spear, brush hog, box blade—that matched the tractor in appearance, covered in more dust, cobwebs and those too, were old. The golf cart sat next to another wheelbarrow. She would have to see what worked and what didn’t; that was a chore for another day.
She checked the mower’s gas gauge. Empty. No surprise there. She checked the shelf above the equipment where the oil, gas, transmission oil and all things upkeep had been stored. Of course, they were empty.
Fine. Now it was over to the garage in search of extra gas. There used to be backup gas for the cars and trucks in there. Please let there be gas in the garage, she thought. It was her last hope or she’d be riding into town, again. That was a 30-minute drive in. Yes! She was in luck. She trucked back to the lawn mower, filled it, and thankfully it started right up. She set off for pasture number one.
She cut her first row, making a mental note that she needed to shore up some of the fencing surrounding the other pasture, but not serious enough that it would be a danger to Grey; just another addition to her to-do list.
It was mostly weeds, with a few sprigs of grass every now and then. She’d have to check to see if they were the harmful-to-horses weeds. She used to be a weed professor; used to know most of them by sight, could distinguish which were harmful to horses, and which ones weren’t. Point one out, and she could have told its life story—by sight. She needed reference books now; she’d forgotten half of what she’d learned.
Bugs, mostly grasshoppers, flew back into her face as she rode the mower down one row and back up the next. The area was clear of any large debris—pieces of wood, metal pipes, anything that could potentially hurt Grey, at least.
She relaxed, taking her focus from mowing, and looked up at the sky—a solid, baby blue sheet dotted with white puffy clouds. Cumulus clouds, she remembered from her great-grandfather’s tutorials. They were the big and puffy kind, according to her childhood definition. She smiled at the memory and felt herself relaxing for the first time in a long time… in years.
She scanned the horizon. Her eyes landed on Rafael’s property. She was still trying to decide what to make of him. He was fine, that was for sure. He looked to be single; no ring on the ring finger or a Mrs. Rafael that she’d seen, unless he kept her trapped in the bedroom, which, given his looks and body, probably wasn’t a bad place to be. He was a farmer by choice. Why would anyone choose farming?
She’d made her way through the morning without a hitch, clearing the first pasture. She was ready for her second.
#
Lunchtime found Carter leaning against the kitchen counter, eating a sandwich and washing it down with bottled water. The water she’d found in the back of the pantry—a package of eight unopened bottles, sitting alone, unharmed. The doorbell rang and she walked toward the front door, sandwich in hand. She took a bite of it on her way to the door, chewing quickly. It was Rafael, standing on her front steps. She opened the door, sucked in air at her surprise, and ending up choking on her sandwich. She started coughing.
He hit her on the back. “You okay?” he asked.
She nodded and pulled back from him, continuing to cough. Did she say he was handsome? And today he was wet. That sweaty kind of wet. He’d just taken off his baseball cap, and was running his hand through all of that black wavy hair. A too tight t-shirt, if you asked her opinion, graced his chest, and he had on some cargo shorts today instead of his usual jeans. Thick socks and boots graced his feet.
A bright shining green tractor sat in the front driveway. Nothing runs like a Deere tractor. She recognized that green with yellow tire insets anywhere. A round bale of hay sat on the hay spear attached to the tractor.
“It’s for Grey,” he said, pointing to the hay, his smile open. With or without the smug countenance, he was a very pretty man.
“You didn’t have to,” she said.
“I have a field full of it, and Grey is thin enough as it is,” he said, moving his face in close to hers.
“Lunch?” he asked, scrutinizing her cheek.
“What?”
He moved in closer to her face, like he was going to kiss her. She made herself stand still. He removed the work glove from his left hand, wiped her cheek with his finger, and licked it.
“PB&J. Hard times, huh?”
“Haven’t had time to seriously grocery shop,” she said, breathing him in. He was all male. He smiled at her like he knew she was impressed with him.
“It must be hard to be you,” she said to his knowing smirk.
“It takes a while. It was more than a little hard for me at first, but you get used to it. What can you do?” he said, shrugging and smiling, adding a wink this time. “I’ll put this in your hay shed, and bring you one more. That should hold you for a while, since you might be sticking around,” he said, walking back to his tractor and putting his glove back on. He waved and she watched him drive away.
#
Monday –later on that evening.
Carter entered the house to the sound of an old school telephone ringing. It wasn’t anything like her cell phone rings with their array of unique songs for the people in her life—so-better-to-screen-you-with caller ID.
This was a simple one-ring-fits-all telephone. She picked it up, trying to recall the age of it. It was a green slimline, not one of those old black rotary kinds, but there used to be one of those around here, too. Her cell phone was still turned off. She’d come to find out that she liked the silence.
Who knew the house number?
“Hello?” she said.
“Carter, why won’t you answer your cell phone?” Madison said. She might have known it was Madison, the greatest ferreter of information in the world.
“Been busy working,” she said.
“I hear we are staging an intervention for you. Going to show you how to get it done. Let you take a behind-the-scenes look at how the professionals do it. So, how does the house look? How long before you think it will be ready to sell?”
“I don’t know. There is a lot to do around here.”
“Mom said it needs to be torn down and rebuilt,” Madison said.
“It’s not that bad. Nothing paint, cleaning, and care won’t cure.”
“So have you started your job search?”
“No.”
“Well you better start soon. Can’t hide out forever,” she said.
“True,” Carter said.
“I’ve been doing some preliminary analysis on the property. Well, I asked Stuart to do that for me,” she said. Stuart was Madison’s spouse and way big into real estate; commercial, which once was a booming industry. At least it had been before the mortgage-backed securities got a hold of it anyway. She wasn’t sure of its current state. It wasn’t her business and Madison was quiet as a church mouse regarding the condition of their finances. “I’ll let you know what he finds.”
Carter was silent.
“Did you hear me? Are you still there?” she asked.
“I am.”
“We should be able to get enough from this sale to make our lives easier, at least financially, for years,” she said, excitement thrumming though her voice.
“Did you want something?” Carter asked.
“No. I just wanted to make sure you were working. This may turn out to be a blessing in disguise, you breaking up that wedding and all. You
can speed the sale along. And here I thought you would be the problem. I won’t hold you. See you soon and I’ll start looking for men to pair you up with. Let’s see who would be into Crazy Carter. Girl, that video of you is priceless, ” she said, and hung up.
Carter placed the receiver in the cradle.
#
Tuesday morning
Lunch the next day was another peanut butter and jelly sandwich and bottled water. Next time, she’d do a better job of grocery shopping when she went into town.
She’d spent all of yesterday and this morning cutting pastures.
“Three pastures done and a big pat on the back for Carter, everyone,” she announced to the empty room. Now it was time for an excursion around the property—a state of the union, so to speak, of the Woodson property, with specific interest in the state of their fencing. It was the second priority after seeing to the needs of Grey.
It was back to the equipment shed, this time in search of the old golf cart. She’d loved that golf cart as a teenager, wandering around in it, exploring the ranch for hours, especially in the summer. Summers had been the best. Swimming in the pond for hours and hours, followed by riding the horses or driving her car—aka the golf cart—everywhere.
She’d take it out for a drive when she’d wanted a change of pace, heading for the nearest tree, where she’d sit back and watch the sky move. Oh, to be a kid again. No pressure—eat, drink, play with horses, and be merry.
Today was her lucky day, and unlike the lawn mower of yesterday, Jack had had the wherewithal to plug the cord into an electrical socket. The dial on the dash indicated it was fully charged. The key was in the ignition and it started right up. She backed out of the shed and took off in the direction of the pond.
Central Texas had been blessed with substantial rainfall this past spring, so the pond, which was both spring-fed and a by-product of the Guadalupe River, was full this year. That was another major selling point—a live water ranch, complete with its own waterfall. She and her stepsisters used to swim in it, when they had come down from the city long enough to swim. Swimming had not been a priority with them—all that yucky, murky water, and did you say bugs and frogs? And maybe a water moccasin or two lived within it. No thank-you-very-much.
When You Fall... Page 7
