All the Sky (Signal Bend Series)

by Fanetti, Susan

  Mabel contracted again, and the foal was free. She stood immediately, and the sac broke as the foal stretched its forelegs and looked around. When Mabel circled to get a look at what she’d made, the sac pulled away completely.

  Havoc nudged his sister. “Colt. Pretty one. You should train him up for barrels. Pop would let you, I bet. Bring him home some ribbons, he’d be cool.”

  “Yeah, well. We’ll see. Someday I’d like to be out on my own, and I doubt I’ll have a place that will let me keep a horse.”

  “I’d help with that, you know—getting your own place. Just say the word.”

  She shot her elbow into his gut, and he grunted. “You know that shit’s not gonna happen. I’ll work it out. I’m saving, and it’s not so bad here.”

  “You still looking to teach?”

  A shrug was her only answer—no, then. Havoc knew Sophie had gotten frustrated and demoralized by her search for a classroom of her own. She’d worked for awhile as a classroom aide, but that had only been more depressing. So she contented herself selling used crap on Main Street and helping their parents out.

  He bent down and kissed her cheek. “I’m gonna go in and see Ma—anything good in there today?” Their mother was a pro in the kitchen. Havoc’s mouth watered in anticipation.

  “She’s on a bread kick this week—and there were cream puffs on the table at breakfast, and I know she held some back for you.”

  Havoc clapped once. “Yes! I’ll see ya, Shorts.” He turned and headed toward the open barn doors.

  ~oOo~

  June Mariano was a country wife. Born and raised in Signal Bend, she’d met Havoc’s father when she’d gone off after high school to St. Louis, thinking, in her youthful exuberance, that she wanted more than a small-town life. They’d lived in the city for a few years, but she never managed to acclimate to the bigger, louder, busier pace of city life. Don took her home almost every weekend, but that had only made her homesickness worse. When her father had a stroke in the fields in the middle of a harvest, Don had stepped in, and June had not been more than forty miles from Signal Bend since.

  Havoc went in through the kitchen door and found his mother at the counter, dumping just-cooled bread out of pans. The room smelled spectacularly of herbs and the singular, amazing aroma of hot, yeasty bread. His stomach rolled and growled. It hadn’t been that long since he’d eaten a chicken-fried steak and baked potato for lunch at Marie’s, but Havoc could always eat.

  She smiled over at him as he came in. “Joe!”

  “Hey, Ma.” He kissed his mother’s soft, fleshy cheek. She enjoyed food and enjoyed her own cooking, so she ate what she made. She was round and beautiful, her skin fair, her hazel eyes smart and sparkling behind her glasses. Havoc thought she looked exactly like a mother should.

  Where their father was cold and hard, their mother was soft and warm. But she was also tough, a woman who worked from the moment her feet hit the floor at four-thirty every morning until she tucked them under the quilts at nine-thirty every night.

  She’d managed to take the little Don had given her for the household account and make it into something that had felt like a home. She did all the things country wives did—cooked, baked, gardened, sewed, knitted, quilted, all of it. In some ways, though she’d have slapped anyone who’d say it to her face, she was the ultimate green-earth hippie, because nothing had ever gone to waste. On every bed were several quilts that read like scrapbooks, every piece taken from something else—a ripped shirt or an outgrown dress, even towels. She reused the tinsel on the Christmas tree. She respooled spent thread and yarn.

  She fed her family from their own ground, with an extensive kitchen garden out back. And she could and did slaughter and dress chicken and turkey. She dressed pheasant, rabbit, squirrel, and any fish that swam, whatever father and son might bring home. She drew the line at deer—insisting that the men take it to be processed. And when Havoc and Sophie were growing up, pork and beef, because they kept neither swine nor cattle, were meals for special occasions. In recent years, she’d gotten more used to buying meat at the market.

  And still she always had time to ask how her kids were doing, give them a squeeze, check in on them at night. Not much more than that, but always that.

  “Mabel dropped a colt. Pinto—real pretty.”

  “Did she now? I’ll have to go down later and see.”

  “I think Sophie wants to keep him.”

  His mother gave him a look he knew well. It said, don’t be getting any hopes up. Don’t start something. Let it happen the way it will. “Well, we’ll have to see what your father says.”

  After she set the unpanned loaves on cooling racks, she brushed her hands and opened the pie safe, pulling a plate, covered with a cotton towel, out. She set the plate on the table and pulled the towel away. Cream puffs! Havoc sat down and reached out.

  She slapped his hand. “Joseph Daniel! You wash your hands first.”

  Duly chastened, he washed and then sat back down, grabbing a cream puff in each hand.

  “Been a minute since you were over. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said through a mouthful of flaky, creamy wonderment. “Just this Valhalla thing. Feel like all I ever do is think about that place.”

  As he spoke, his mother poured him a large tumbler of milk. She set it on the table before him and then sat down. “It’s going good, though?”

  Havoc swallowed down half the glass. “I guess. It’s crowded most nights. The books look good since—the books look good. In the black, anyway.”

  In the couple of weeks since Larry Bellen had been sent on his way, Havoc had been struggling to understand the daily business of running a business. After sitting down several times with Dom and Show, and even Shannon, he thought he had a handle on it, but it was a pain in the ass. He wasn’t a moron, but he needed to put his hands on something real in order to retain information easily. He barely blinked figuring out the math he needed when he was building something. He could walk into a room and know its square footage. He had a practically photographic memory for engines. But just numbers on a page? That was hard. He’d had a much easier go learning about the wine itself than he was having learning how to manage the business that sold it.

  “Well, that’s good, then. I’m just glad you’re doing honest work now, and not helping people sell drugs.” She shook her head. “That was always a disappointment to me.”

  “You know why we did it, Ma. We kept people earning who maybe wouldn’t’ve. And nobody in town ever got hooked on it, because we got it out of town.”

  “I know that’s what you say. And that’s what everybody thinks. Mercy, even the Reverend didn’t make a fuss about it. I’m just saying I wanted better for you than that. Your father didn’t need to break the law to keep us fed and in this house.”

  And that’s all they’d had—food and shelter. Which was fine. But not everybody could live as lean as the Marianos had and call that a good life. It was paying off for them now, he guessed. But Havoc wasn’t an austere kind of guy. He liked to have a good time.

  “Okay, Ma.” No point in making the argument that law worked differently in Signal Bend, because actual law didn’t give a shit, for good or bad.

  He finished the milk and, while his mother went to get him another glass, he reached for a third puff. He ate a lot, as much as he wanted, but he’d never had to worry about getting fat. Whether it was the way he was made or the kind of labor he’d done since he was a kid, his body was hard and broad. He worked out, too, but not as much as some of the other guys.

  “Not that I don’t love the company, but you came to raid the larder, yes?”

  He stopped chewing and grinned. “Caught me.” He lived in the clubhouse. There were some good cooks around there sometimes, but mostly he ate at Marie’s. And the food was good there, too. But there was nothing like his mother’s cooking.

  She patted his hand. “There’s a big tub of meatballs and gravy in the freezer. Half a roast in the fr
idge—let me slice off some for your father’s sandwiches tomorrow and you can have the rest. Shortbread cookies in the pantry—I’ll put some in a tub for you. And take the cream puffs. Will that do ya?”

  “Can I have some of that bread, too?”

  Rolling her eyes, she laughed. “You share all this with the boys, right?”

  Well, he wasn’t so sure about that, but he nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  ~oOo~

  Havoc had gone into Valhalla that night in a pretty decent mood. He had a belly full of his mother’s cooking, and he’d watched the colt, Spirit, being born and had hung out with Sophie for awhile before he left, watching the little guy get his legs under him and get his first meal. Then he’d gone back to the clubhouse and grabbed Debbie for a fast and hard tumble. Debbie was a good girl. He didn’t have a regular, but he liked it when she was free and ready. She was up for anything he was. And she knew to get gone when he was done.

  So, he’d been sated and feeling good. Without knowing why, he’d felt restless and dissatisfied lately—or not lately, really. For a long time, if he thought about it. He blamed it on Valhalla, but somehow he knew, in the back of his head, that it wasn’t just that. He didn’t put too much mind to it, though. He just walked around crabby most of the time. So he was glad to have a good day and set aside whatever that crap in his head was for a minute.

  But then Livvie had called in and quit, an hour before her shift. He’d tried to get her to at least come in one more night, but he guessed he’d been not exactly diplomatic, since she’d told him to fuck himself, among other things, before she’d hung up. He doubted she’d have been so descriptive to his face, but with Livvie, who knew.

  Then he couldn’t get hold of Bonnie. He only had two bartenders, and now he had zero. The Prospects were busy. And it was Thursday night, a busy night, with the folkie chick pulling in people to sit around and listen to her whine over her guitar. He was going to have to man the bar himself.

  Good mood killed.

  He could pour a glass of wine, and he supposed he had at least a basic idea of how to recommend most of their offerings. Not that he was happy to know that. But they also served mixed drinks, and Havoc had no idea what went into any of them. The first drink order of the night was a martini. He didn’t even know what kind of booze that meant. There was a Bartender’s Guide under the register, which turned out to be like a cookbook, and he used that. But he didn’t know what a jigger was or how to use a shaker or any of it. He drank tequila, he drank whiskey, and he drank beer. Period, and straight up. He’d once had an encounter with ouzo, but that shit was fucked up.

  He got through the night okay—probably because nobody was going to complain to a guy like him, even though he’d left his kutte over the back of the chair in the office. He had no idea if the drinks he’d made were any good, but most people were there for the wine, anyway. The worst part was having to talk to people who wanted recommendations. He could feel his balls shriveling into little raisins as he talked about “hints of blackberry” and what-all. He was gonna need a good brawl and soon.

  He was back in the office doing the close when there was a knock; he looked up and saw the folkie chick leaning on the door frame. She’d played her sets, coming over between them to sit at the end of the bar with a glass of ice water. He’d noticed her smirking at him several times, but he’d just ignored her, too busy to get into it with her.

  He’d tried to ignore her, anyway. It was the first night he’d been on the floor the whole night, and he found himself paying more attention to her performance than he would have liked. She had a decent voice; it probably wasn’t exactly fair to say it was whiny. More like husky, maybe. And she was good on the guitar. But everything she played did seem sad.

  She was hot, no mistake. Tonight she was wearing another of those flowy tops, but this one left her arms and shoulders bare, just strings for straps. Those collarbones. Damn. She’d lifted her head high during one song, holding a plaintive note, and he’d had a sudden, powerful image of sucking on those sleek lines across her shoulders.

  He’d shaken it off fast; he did not fuck chicks off the roster. But he’d been uncomfortable in his jeans for awhile afterwards.

  She was looking at him like he was supposed to do something.

  “What?”

  “You owe me eighty bucks.”

  Fuck. Right. And he’d already made out the fucking deposit. Awesome.

  As he yanked open the zipper on the deposit bag, she said, “You really suck at tending bar, you know. You suck impressively.”

  He peeled four twenties off the stack. “Like you could do better?”

  “Actually, yeah. I’ve got a lot of experience behind the bar.”

  He held out the money, and she walked to the front of the desk. She had a look he didn’t get at first. He was good at reading people, though, and he had it pretty fast, so he wasn’t surprised by what she said next.

  “Looks like you need some help. I’m available, could start right away.” She took the bills he’d been holding out.

  She was playing it cool, but Havoc could see a hunger in her eyes. He’d be a fucking fool to hire somebody without a full check first—not that a check had turned up anything on Larry Bellen. Still, after that fuckup, he knew he should be extra careful with new hires. And he’d be going on nothing but her word that she even knew the job like she said she did.

  But the weekend loomed, and the thought of spending the whole of both Friday and Saturday nights away from the clubhouse and Tuck’s, missing out on the best parts of his life—he couldn’t deal. He’d go fucking nuclear.

  “You bein’ straight you can do this job?”

  She smiled—it was the first time he’d seen her smile like that, with her whole face. She really was hot. More than that—beautiful. “Sure. Better than you, that’s no lie. I make a mean dirty martini, and I know wine okay. I’d want to study up, but I can fake it in the meantime. Most people around here don’t know nearly as much about wine as they want you to think they do.”

  That sounded convincing. Convincing enough. Havoc opened drawers, looking for the paperwork. One thing he was going to do right was get her info and have Dom do his thing.

  He finally found the blank applications in a file drawer behind the desk. “Okay, what the hell. Here. Fill this out. You can start tomorrow—Bonnie’s on, and she can walk you through. You two are friends, right?”

  The chick—he guessed he should learn her name now—nodded. “Yeah, a little. She’s cool.” As she took the blank form, she held out her right hand.

  She wanted to shake. He hesitated, looking at the hand hovering over the desk—small, with a big silver ring on the index finger and a delicate flower tattoo inside the wrist. After a beat, he clasped her hand in his, and they shook.

  Still beaming at him with that bright smile, she said, “Corinne Hawes. You can call me Cory. And thanks.”

  “Welcome.” Havoc met her eyes—brilliantly blue. Yep, beautiful.

  He did not fuck chicks off the roster, he reminded himself.

  But there wasn’t any harm in looking.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cory and Nolan followed Bonnie around to her back yard. It wasn’t much of a yard, actually. More of a scrubby patch behind her double-wide mobile home. As far as Cory was concerned, though, it was the fucking Jardin des Tuileries.

  Bonnie led them back to an aged Winnebago. As she unlocked the door, she said, “It’s not much, but I aired it out. The water and propane is full, and there’s power. No A/C, though. Sorry about that.”

  She pulled out the steps and climbed up. Cory followed, then Nolan. It looked exactly like the old motor home it was—dark, faux wood paneling, velveteen settee and banquette, a small kitchenette, microscopic bathroom, and a bedroom at the back. There was a bunk over the cab, which would provide Nolan with a sliver of privacy.

  “This is so great of you, Bonnie, really. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Bonnie waved t
he thanks away. “Please. It’s nothing. It’s just sittin’ back here, and it’s hardly cushy digs.”

  Seeing as they were a day from sleeping in the Beast, these were the cushiest digs Cory had ever seen. She turned and looked at Nolan, who was sitting in the velveteen driver’s seat with his hands on the wheel. “Okay, kiddo?”

  He turned to her with a grin. “So much better than okay.”

  Bonnie laughed and handed over the key. “Well, that’s excellent. I’ll let you get settled, and then come on into the house. I got a big plate of leftover fried chicken and a 12-pack of beer”—she looked over at Nolan—“and some soda, too.”

  She scooted past Cory and went back outside.

  When they were alone, Cory sat on the little settee, behind Nolan in the driver’s seat. “This is just until I can save up enough for rent and deposit on a place. I’m going to keep this job.” Nolan smiled a little, looking down at the floor, and Cory knew he didn’t believe her. No reason he should. “I am, Nolan. This is as far as we fall.”

  She had some money saved. Living rent-free with Lindsay and Alex had allowed her some room—not much, what with not having a steady job that whole year, but some room. If not for the credit card debt she and Matt had accrued from those frequent months when they’d had to pay the Visa with the Visa, and which she alone was still climbing out from under, she might have been able to have built a nest egg and get them into their own place.

  There still would have been the problem of the job, though.

  But she finally had steady work again. And she was going to keep this one. She was. Valhalla Vin did a good business, and people knew her there. She could do her shifts behind the bar, and still gig there on Thursday nights, and she’d been able to keep two of her other gigs around the region. It was going to leave Nolan on his own a lot in a new place, but he’d be okay. He wasn’t a kid who needed to be around other people much. The biggest challenge would be the lack of internet back here. Nolan found his happiness online, and Cory made some pennies posting performance vids, but internet was apparently not so easy to get in Signal Bend. Valhalla had wifi, though, so she was hoping she’d be able to find a way to use that. As long as it didn’t get her in trouble. Because she was going to keep this job.