The Staying Kind

by Cerian Hebert

  “What about her mother?”

  Sadie grimaced. “That one. She took off on them when Jessa was about eight. Never said goodbye, has never been in touch with them. Married some man before the ink dried on the divorce papers. Into real estate out in Vegas. She calls her folks on occasion, mostly when she’s asking for money.”

  Rio wrapped her arms around herself, pressing her lips together tightly to keep from saying anything. Lucky kid. Better to have the mother desert them than have her make her child’s life a living hell. At least Jessa had a father who loved her. Took care of her. More than Rio ever had.

  Quickly she shrugged away the bitterness. She couldn’t let herself think that way. Not fair to the kid and not fair to Travis. Rio hated when she let her bitterness swell inside her. There were times when she felt like it would explode and kill her with its toxicity. She could only stuff it away, not let it rule her.

  Finally, she replied, “Wow, poor kid. Must be a tough thing to live with.” Rio had no plans on giving up any information on her own past, but she could certainly sympathize with this girl.

  “And then her dad went to war. She lived with her aunt and uncle for over a year while he was deployed. In fact, he arrived in the States not two weeks ago and in to town last week. I pray things will settle down for both of them. They have to get to know each other again, and there’s lots of healing to be done.”

  “I can imagine,” Rio said. “Well, I hope things work out for them both. Now what about your proposition?”

  Sadie clapped her hands, her face transforming from a scowl to a bright smile. “That’s right. Well, at least there’s the good news to follow the bad. Here it is. My doctor told me my riding days are over. This danged hip won’t have any more of it. It kills me to have to stop, since I’ve been riding for as long as I can remember. Those are the breaks. Growing old stinks. I’ve been fighting it for long enough. I want you to ride Dante for me. Show him next year.”

  Rio’s heart leapt in her chest. “What?” She couldn’t possibly have heard the words correctly.

  “Don’t look so surprised. You have a knack with horses. I’ve seen you with him, he’s as fond of you as he is with me, and he doesn’t take a shine to too many people. Even my last girl couldn’t lead him, much less anything else. I’ve seen you on Fleur and Barnaby. I know you haven’t had much experience. There’s something in you more valuable. Raw talent.”

  Before she could help it, Rio felt a wash of excitement run through, starting in her heart and heading for each limb before she could attempt to rein it in. She’d refused to let herself become too attached to this kind of emotion. She’d loved the opportunities to exercise Sadie’s horses. Wanting more would mean wanting to stay longer, though. That had never been in the cards.

  “Dante deserves someone with experience. Sadie, you’d be wasting him on me.”

  “Nonsense. Everyone has to start somewhere. I may not be able to ride but I still know how to train. This big ole arena will let you ride all winter long, prepare you for the spring show season.”

  Sadie’s suggestion pushed Rio’s panic button. “Sadie, I don’t know if I’ll be here much longer,” she blurted out before she had a chance to think about it, or the consequences of giving away her plans to her boss.

  “What are you talking about? Aren’t you happy here?”

  As quickly as she’d announced her thoughts on leaving, the answer came into Rio’s head before she had a chance to think it through. Yes. I’m happy here. She’d been happier here this summer than any place she’d been. Ever.

  That wasn’t the point. And now Sadie stared at her with hurt written all over her face. Rio blamed herself for it.

  “I love it here, I really do. It’s been a fabulous summer and I couldn’t be more grateful to you for letting me have this chance. But I have to move on. Soon. I’ll wait until you find a replacement. I always go south in the winter.”

  Sadie’s jaw tensed and her eyes narrowed, and there was a glint there. A fighting glint Rio recognized.

  “You’re staying right where you are, young lady.”

  “Where are you, Jessa?”

  Travis paced the living room, keeping his attention out the windows at the view of the driveway. He’d called her friend’s house an hour ago and had been assured Jessa had left already. A while ago. Tina only lived a quarter mile up the road. Jessa had made the walk a thousand times or more. It shouldn’t have taken her more than fifteen minutes, tops.

  This was becoming more and more typical of her behavior and Travis found it harder to stave off the bitterness he felt toward Laura for being the catalyst to Jessa’s conduct. Jessa had been like the sun when the family had been together, a bright, happy child who loved to dance and sing and play.

  Then Laura took off, leaving only a note to say she couldn’t deal with being a wife and a mother when no one was around to help her. She didn’t even bother saying goodbye, not to him, not to Jessa. She left it to him to try to explain why her mother wasn’t a part of their lives anymore, and to pick up the pieces of their broken family, while his wife found another man who could give her the life she really wanted.

  In all the years since Laura’s abandonment, the only contact they’d had was through his ex-mother-in-law, Daphne Montague, and the lawyer who handled the divorce proceedings. After Laura walked out she let others handle her business with Travis. Last he’d heard, she and husband number two lived somewhere in Nevada. Doing what, he didn’t know. He wouldn’t care, except for what Jessa had been dealing with.

  His deployment to Afghanistan hadn’t helped. No matter how he explained it, no matter how much his sister and brother-in-law tried to comfort her and make her a part of their family, to Jessa it had been one more parent abandoning her. And Travis paid the price. Winning his way back into his daughter’s life, repairing the hurt she’d suffered, was his first priority.

  Right now she didn’t want to be helped, yet she didn’t have a choice. Nighttime began to creep in, and as darkness fell, worry gnawed at his head and heart. No matter how much independence Jessa wanted, he couldn’t let her put herself in harm’s way.

  Travis grabbed his jacket and car keys and headed out to his truck.

  He loved their rural and quiet neighborhood. On the stretch between his house and where Jessa’s friend Tina lived, there were only two other houses, well separated by expanses of woods and fields. If she wasn’t still walking, then she had to have stopped at one of the neighbor’s houses.

  First he drove the length between his house and her friend’s. She was nowhere in sight. Beyond Tina’s house there wouldn’t be anything of interest until their road came out at an intersection of a main road, with a convenience store and gas station there. Jessa wouldn’t hike the nearly two miles.

  Travis swung the car around and headed to his place. He’d slowed when he passed the first driveway. The house belonged to an elderly couple. No lights were on. Which left the other neighbor.

  Travis gritted his teeth. In the past Jessa hadn’t shown any interest in them, much to his relief, but the more rebellious she became the bigger chance the Bartlett kids might attract her attention, and appeal to any craving to walk on the wild side.

  He turned the truck into the drive and pulled up in front of the sprawling ranch style home. Before he got out, he studied the building. Mustard yellow with black trim and bare cement stairs. No lawn to speak of. That wouldn’t have mattered, because the yard resembled more of a junkyard, filled with several dirt bikes and four wheelers. Bicycles where discarded across the yard and two cars parked next to the house, all their tires flat, like they’d been sitting there for several years.

  If the five kids were racing around the yard and through the woods, raising hell, the chaotic scene would be complete.

  The yard was empty of all the Bartletts, which meant
he’d have to go knock on the door. For a long moment he sat in his truck and stared, wondering if Jessa could really be hanging out there. The old Jessa wouldn’t be. The new Jessa might. He didn’t know if he should be angry or just plain sad.

  Afraid of what he might find, yet determined to get it over with, Travis climbed out of his truck and strode to the house. From the front steps he could hear the chaos inside. Three boys and two girls, ranging in age from nineteen down to seven lived within these walls, each one wilder than the next. As far as he knew both parents were home at night. They did precious little to rein their children in. He knocked on the door, then again before anyone answered. The boy who yanked the door open appeared anywhere between Jessa’s age and late teens, tall and lanky, hair too long, one brow cocked arrogantly.

  “Yeah?”

  “I was wondering if my daughter, Jessa Lithgow, was here.”

  “Yeah, she’s with my sister. Hold on.”

  Instead of going up to find her, the boy yelled at the top of his lungs. “Brandy!”

  He had to yell two more times before he received a response, a door opening somewhere and someone shouting a reply.

  “What?”

  “Jessa’s dad is here for her.” Without another word, the boy shot past him, jumping off the porch and onto the bare ground below. He headed for one of the dirt bikes, leaving Travis to stand by himself in the doorway. In another few minutes a girl walked from the hallway and leaned over the wrought iron railing from the landing above the foyer. She could’ve been Jessa’s age, but because of her heavy makeup and teased hair, Travis couldn’t be sure. Her low-cut sweater showed off more than it hid.

  “Hi Mr. Lithgow,” she said pleasantly, a wide smile on her face. “Jessa will be out in a sec.”

  Travis nodded. His stomach began to clench. He had a very bad feeling about this. A “sec” dragged out for more than several minutes. Eventually Jessa appeared from the gloom down the hall. She kept her gaze pinned to the ground, only mumbled a goodbye to the girl who still rested lazily against the railing.

  “See you tomorrow,” Brandy said.

  Jessa didn’t speak until they were outside and even then, she rushed to the truck. Travis paused to examine his daughter. She’d be tall like him, and already had developed into a young woman. Which, as it would any father, disturbed him. At least she covered her figure underneath faded jeans and a navy blue hoodie sweatshirt. She wore a baseball hat low over her forehead, her hair tucked up underneath.

  Travis froze. Jessa didn’t normally wear a baseball cap. He studied her as she climbed into the cab of the truck, silent and morose. As usual. Travis shrugged irritably and pulled the door open.

  They’d deal with this as soon as they arrived home and had some privacy. At the moment another Bartlett boy joined the first, and they stared at Jessa with great interest. They didn’t even stop when Travis shot them the look of death. So this was the way it would be.

  In silence Travis drove to their house; let her walk inside. Before he could close the front door, Jessa had already made it to her room. He heard the door shut behind her.

  This is a long way from being over. They had a few issues to deal with and they’d be handled before dinner.

  “Mom, where are you when I need you?” he mumbled. His mother would know what to do. If only she were here. Even his sister would have a better idea of how to deal with a rebellious teenaged daughter. Travis sure didn’t have a clue.

  He stopped outside her door. He didn’t want to push it open so he knocked first. “Jessa, we need to talk.”

  “Later. I have homework to do.”

  “No, now. I’m coming in.”

  Before she could protest, he pushed the door open. Jessa sat on her bed, her knees tucked tightly against her chest, her arms wrapped around them. She stared past him, her mouth puckered in a sour frown. The baseball hat was still on her head.

  “Take off the hat.”

  Jessa still didn’t meet his hard stare. “Why?”

  “Because I want to see what you’ve done to your hair.”

  “Why?”

  “Jessa, take it off. Now.”

  Finally, she complied, dragging the hat off angrily and tossing it to the floor. Instead of long golden blond waves falling around her shoulders, black hair, about ear length and damp, sprang loose.

  Travis could barely breathe. Anger hit him first. How could Jessa, who’d always been so proud of her appearance, a girl so smart and good-natured, do something so far out of character?

  It struck him this might exactly be her character now. It still didn’t make this right. Not by a long shot. Anger and frustration increased in leaps and bounds.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “What?” She slanted him a narrow glance.

  “What possessed you to do that to your hair?”

  Again she glanced away. “It’s my hair. I was sick of looking all goody-goody. So what.”

  “So what? Is this what you were doing over at the Bartlett’s? Did Brandy do this to your hair?”

  Jessa shrugged indifferently. “She cuts and colors her own hair all the time. Big deal.”

  Travis drew his breath in long and hard and let it go in a rush. “You are not allowed to go over to the Bartlett’s house anymore. Starting tomorrow you’ll go to Aunt Sadie’s to help out in the barn, after which you’ll come home and do your homework.”

  “What?” Finally, Jessa showed life. She sat up straighter and glared at Travis. “No way. You are being so unfair.”

  “No, what is unfair is me wondering where the heck you were for an hour this afternoon. Do you have any idea how worried I was?”

  Jessa narrowed her eyes and stared at him. “Great, so now you don’t trust me.”

  “Look in the mirror, Jessa and then ask me again.”

  Travis spun around and left her room, leaving the door open behind him. “Dinner will be ready in about half an hour. Come out and set the table.”

  Chapter 3

  Rio worked extra late. She’d hoped Sadie would go in so she could stay at the barn in for another night. As she hung up the last bridle, her boss came into the tack room.

  “My goodness, girl. You still here?”

  Rio smiled, forcing herself to remain nonchalant. “I didn’t want to leave these undone. I was finishing up.”

  “It’s getting dark. You can’t walk to your room now. I’ve got supper on, why don’t you come on in and have something to eat. Then you can stay in the guest room. I’m sure you could do with a hot shower and change of clothes too.”

  Rio chuckled and examined her grungy jeans and sweatshirt. Well, she’d been wearing them for two days straight.

  She had a couple changes of clothes down at the cabin but she didn’t know if she dared go for them. She couldn’t take the chance of being caught again, even by Sadie’s nephew. Especially by Sadie’s nephew. There’d been a look in his eyes, steady and penetrating.

  He’d probably hand her over to the cops given half a chance. Like some big old boy scout. She silently admonished herself. She was the one doing wrong. If he did want her arrested, she couldn’t blame him.

  “All my clothes are at my motel,” she lied.

  “Never mind. You’ll probably swim in it, but I have a nightgown you can wear and we’ll throw those things in the washing machine.”

  Sadie’s suggestion sounded worlds better than another night on the old dusty sofa and washing up as best as possible in the horses’ wash stall with horse shampoo. On the sly. At least for one night she could sleep in a real bed in a real house with electricity and running water. Hot, glorious water. How long had it been? Man, she couldn’t remember, and thinking about it depressed her.

  “Sounds fine,” she said with a tired smile. “I’ll clean up an
d be right in.”

  Rio closed up the barn for the night, saying goodnight to the horses before shutting the big sliding door. The hulking, white farmhouse stood three stories tall, including the attic. The kind of place that had once housed multiple generations of one family within its walls.

  She’d been inside often since coming to work at Cobble Creek. The place always felt so empty, even with Sadie’s lively banter. Rio wondered why Sadie hadn’t gotten married, had never filled this house up with a big family. She certainly enjoyed people; she would’ve made a loving mother, a wonderful grandmother.

  Maybe that’s why Rio had stayed so long, because she’d become so comfortable here with this woman, who hadn’t shown her any distrust. Had always been so warm and welcoming. Not many people treated her with such kindness since being on the road. Perhaps that made Sadie foolish. In Rio’s book, it was a rare trait and one she wasn’t eager to leave behind.

  Pushing the kitchen door open, the comforting and delicious scent of fried chicken and fresh baked bread enveloped her. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

  “You seem content.”

  Rio jumped. She hadn’t seen Sadie in the doorway. She smiled. “It smells like heaven in here.”

  “Thank you. It’ll be ready soon. First things first. I’ll show you the guest room and give you a nightgown. You don’t mind having dinner in a nightgown, do you? Shower first. Give me your clothes and I’ll toss them into the wash. Then dinner.”

  “All right.”

  Sadie led the way. “Bathroom is across the hall. Take your time, dinner won’t spoil if you want a long, hot shower. You’ve earned it today.” Sadie closed the door behind her, leaving Rio alone in the homey, old-fashioned bedroom.