by P. Dangelico
Huh.
Another broken high note tears the peace asunder. The left eye cracks open. Then the right. What the actual funk…
When it’s hot out, we usually place animals that need to be quarantined in that paddock so that either Mona or I can keep a close eye on them. At present, the donkeys and mini ponies are in there just in case we get a stray coyote passing through, which we sometimes do. That way the large horses in the paddocks surrounding this one provide another layer of safety.
Kicking off the covers, I jump out of bed in a huff and grab my trusty binoculars. I peel back the curtain to inspect the property and freeze. Oh, hell flipping no. That’s no coyote. It’s something much worse.
I charge out the door and rush down the steps without a spare thought to what I’m wearing. By the time I’m on the porch, however, shoving on my red cowboy boots, I realize all I have on is a navy tank top and my pajama shorts. No bra. Sigh. With my c-cup, going without a bra is really not decent.
Do I care? No, not tonight. Tonight, all bets are off.
This dilemma is debated for less than a second because anger and exhaustion kick modesty out of the way. I have exactly five hours to sleep before I have to get up and do it all over again and not a minute to spare.
As I march to the paddock, I catch the lights on in the guesthouse and make a sharp left turn in that direction. Pounding on the door happens, lots of it and with no hesitation whatsoever. I, the person who needs to be up at dawn, shouldn’t be the one dealing with this nonsense. I didn’t sign up for this and the loss of my sacred space, as well. And yet here I am.
When the door finally swings all the way open, Shane stands before me wearing a questioning expression, reading glasses, a ratty plaid robe, and sweatpants. That’s it. Two articles of clothing and one accessory. The rest of him is naked. The chest dusted with dark hair in my direct line of sight gets my immediate and total attention, another up-close and personal experience that will no doubt invade my dreams later. If I ever get to them.
I’m embarrassed to admit my body goes beyond the standard-issue hot and bothered. It gets a foreign feeling it hasn’t felt in ages. Credit where credit is due, though. His chest really is a work of art. Ancient Greek sculptors would weep in their graves if they could see this man. My fingers itch to skim over the hard ridges of his stomach, my short nails scraping through the dark dusting of hair on his chest.
The mental malfunction lasts for only a minute, thankfully. He clears his throat and the trance is broken. I really have to put a stop to this lechery because A: he thinks I’m a kid, and B: he’s taken. What part of either of those facts does my body not understand?
My eyes meet his and my mood takes another turn for the worse when I recall that his brother is washing his ball sac in my animals’ drinking water.
“What’s up?” he asks when I fail to speak fast enough for his liking.
“What’s up? Did you just ask what’s up?”
“Yeah, it’s midnight and I’m working. What’s the nature of your visit?”
Oh, no. I will not accept attitude from this one.
“What’s up, Hemingway, is that your brother is causing problems again. He’s in the paddock soaking his ass in my animals’ water trough. Come fetch your boy.”
With that said, I don’t wait for a response. I turn on my heels and dash in the direction of the godawful sound. Which has not abated one iota. In fact, it sounds like it’s getting louder.
The man in question is exactly where I saw him last, in the donkey’s water trough. Unfortunately for me, he appears naked. You know how I know this? The moon is full tonight and the sky clearish. I can see perfectly his bare arms and legs dangling over the rim of the tub. I highly doubt he remembered to put on swim trunks, but a girl can dream.
Pepper and Hazel are crowded under the run-in shed, while the mini horses, Raven, Pumpkin Spice, and Piglet––as bold as brass––are inspecting the intruder. Piglet has his snout directly over the water like he’s about to bob for apples. God forbid.
“Quit your bitching,” I hiss after a particularly bad broken high note and shoo the ponies aside. “You’re going to wake the neighborhood.”
Aidan scans me from head to toe and gives me a lopsided smirk. “Neighbors?”
“Yes!”
He glances at an approaching Hazel. “All I see is a bunch of asses.”
Hazel, who’s reclaimed her natural curiosity and is now standing at the foot of the tub, doesn’t look pleased with this guy splashing about in her water.
“Funny, I see only one ass,” I counter.
He makes a finger gun. Then thinks the better of it and shrugs instead.
“You’re drunk,” I announce, because there’s no question; I can smell it. “That’s against the rules. Where’d you get it?”
“I’ll never tell, but she’s a sweet lady.”
Freaking Mona.
“My brother hates me,” he grunts, head thrown back like someone in physical pain.
Oh, please with the drama.
As for his brother hating him, I disagree. All one needs to witness is his brother’s worried expression every time he looks at this loser to know hate plays no role between these two.
“I doubt it,” is the best I can do. Drunk, depressed, whatever he is, it’s not my job to make him feel better. My job is to foster him for the next month and a half. That’s all I agreed to. I can keep him alive. Other than that, he’s not my concern.
“I’m a fuck-up…”
Well, at least he’s honest. “Stop being so awesome. You’ll ruin me for all other men.”
How is this my life? I moved out here to live a nice, quiet existence, away from all the bullshit, and now I’m stuck trying to talk this fool––who one could argue is the top movie star in the world––into getting out of a tub filled with hay bits and animal slobber. At midnight. This is not what winning at life looks like.
“I don’t know how to fix it…” he continues as if I haven’t spoken. Something tells me Aidan Hughes is not a good listener. “I should’ve… I tried to… truth is I’m…” Another pause. He rubs his face. “I just… I dunno… sometimes I can’t help it.”
“I beg to differ. You can help it. For starters, you can remove your sorry self from that tub you’re soaking in so that I can add disinfect the trough to the list of many chores I need to accomplish in the morning.”
He looks up at me with the most pathetic, searching blue eyes. His perfect beauty in the face of my lack of sleep enrages me even more.
“I’m sorry… I know I’ve been awful. You shouldn’t have to put up with me… I don’t deserve your hospitality…”
Fuck. He’s going with genuine remorse for once. I have no defense for this. It’s my Achilles heel. My shoulders slump in defeat. I’m ready to accept that I won’t be getting any sleep tonight. With that in mind, I grab an empty tub with a few straws of hay left, flip it over, and sit.
“You wanna talk about it?” I force the words out of my mouth.
“No,” he blurts out defensively. Then he digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Yes… I think.”
I think about what I’m about to say because if I am going to lose sleep tonight, I want it to be worth something.
“Aidan… I don’t see you as the kind of person that would hurt anyone––least of all an old lady and her cat. So what gives? What are you so angry about?”
A moment of silence. “Do you know my father is a 3-star General?”
This sets me back. His father? This is about his father? “No, I didn’t.”
Aidan nods. “He’s retired and living in Sarasota with my mother.”
“That’s nice. My parents are divorced.” Then I realize the obvious mistake. “Not legally, but they’ve been separated since I was six.”
“That sucks,” he says, off-handedly.
“My mother took off one day after my birthday and never came back. She’s still out there, saving the world.”
&nbs
p; “That sucks.” It’s a major effort not to roll my eyes. “My father used to hit me. He liked hitting me… the old man’s favorite hobby.”
My heart sinks. “Aidan––”
“He liked to put up his fists like this”––Lifting his hands, he curls his fingers in front of his face––“and say, ‘Fight me. Show me whatcha got.’ I remember thinking his fists looked like the big cans of tomatoes you see in the supermarket.”
He looks up at me, open and defenseless.
“He wanted to teach me to be a man because I liked to watch movies instead of going outside to…” He exhales tiredly. Like the story is getting too heavy to carry on his own. “I dunno… lift rocks or some shit.”
I’m getting a clear idea of what the problem is, and it breaks my heart.
“What about your mom?”
“She tried… he told her he was raising sons, not daughters.”
“And Shane?”
I can’t imagine that his brother wouldn’t protect him from this abuse.
“Shane’s five years older than me…” he continues. “He enlisted in the Marines out of high school. He was the good son.”
It all makes sense now. The veiled animosity. The cold war between them and why Shane doesn’t treat Aidan with the same contempt. Maybe being an only child wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
“Got the old man’s name and everything.”
There’s a long pause. It’s obvious that major, unresolved issues are in play between them, but none are getting solved tonight.
I yawn, unable to stop myself. “I’m sorry, Aidan. I really am… and we can talk about it whenever you want. But can you get out of the water now?”
His gorgeous mouth kicks up on one side. With a nod, he begins to lift himself out of the water and my reaction is immediate and dramatic. Standing abruptly, I back away and cover my eyes with my hands. I know it’s juvenile, but it’s a knee-jerk reaction. I can’t, in good conscious, perv on both brothers. I draw the line at one. If I’m going to sexually objectify a Hughes, I want it to be Shane.
“It’s safe to open your eyes,” I hear over the sloshing of water. I crack one eye open, see the Arena swim trunks, and smile.
“You dig these?”
“No,” I tell him, incapable of keeping the smile off my face. It takes an outsized ego to try and pull those off. That and the outsized package between his legs. “But don’t let me stop you.”
Aidan stuffs his feet into his Adidas slides and we begin to make the journey back to the trailer. He’s a little unsteady on his legs, and the moonlight isn’t as bright as it was ten minutes ago, the moon half hidden behind a cloud, so I take his arm and sling it around my neck.
“You’re a good bird,” I hear him mumble.
On the way back, we almost walk into Shane.
“Nice of you to join us,” I spit out.
He blinks, expression hard to read because I’m tired and it’s dark. “I was––”
“Save it. Here, take him.”
Shane takes Aidan’s arm from around my neck, and without a word, guides him away.
“Night, Tweetie,” I think I hear Aidan say. Which is a weird ending to an even weirder night. Then again, I’m starting to acclimate to weirdness.
The following morning, I drag my limp body down to the kitchen at six. I’m barely standing. I haven’t even taken a shower because I’m already running behind. My hair’s a ratted mess, sticking up in places it should never stick up. I didn’t have time to run a brush through it, let alone wash it, and with my natural wave, it doesn’t take much to make me look like a lunatic. I have ghoulish dark circles under my eyes. And I’m not even quite sure what I’m wearing because I never bothered to check as I got dressed.
You know who doesn’t look like a walking disaster? Mona. Her makeup is perfectly applied, and her black hair perfectly blown. Dear, dear, dear Mona.
She’s pouring coffee when I step into the kitchen and she’s pouring it in a mug for her lover. Meanwhile, Darby is comfortably seated at our kitchen table, glasses on, reading a book like the little lord of the manor. In front of him sits what look like the remains of a full breakfast he recently decimated. Pancakes, eggs, bacon. The works.
Mona finishes pouring and Darby takes her hand and kisses it.
I clear my throat. She glances over at me with a dimpled grin and does a double take. The smile literally melts off of her face. “Oh, sweetie, you look par boiled.”
“You don’t say…” I walk in and sit at the table across from Darby.
“Would you like some coffee?” she asks, all sweet and innocent. “I can make you some eggs and toast the way you like it, with melted butter.”
“Just coffee, thank you. I’m already late.” That said, I swipe Darby’s cold toast and the half-melted butter sitting on the table. Mona slides a fresh cup of roasted hazelnut in front of me and I dump two spoons of sugar in it. Then I slather the toast with a good thick layer of butter and stuff it in my mouth. All the while, Darby watches with concern.
Mona takes a seat at the table, as well. Sipping her coffee, she does the same; watches me devour the toast and suck down the caffeine I need to function.
“Do you bow wha I did lass nigh?” I say to my lovely boss.
“Sweetie, don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s not pretty.”
I swallow and exhale. “Do you know what I did last night?”
“Dug up dead bodies from a graveyard for extra money?”
“No. Take another wild guess.”
“Entertained dirty dreams about Shane Hughes?”
The woman’s power of observation is downright creepy sometimes. “Who says I have a thing for Shane Hughes?”
“You sayin’ you don’t?”
Gosh dang it, I can’t lie to her. It’s beyond my control.
“Moving on. What I was doing last night was trying to talk Aidan Hughes out of the donkey’s drinking water. I found him soaking in it at midnight, drunk, and singing very badly. And you know what he told me…”
“What?” she asks, eyes wide and innocent while the tight purse of her lips suggests otherwise.
“He told me you gave him the alcohol. I thought that was very strange seeing that you know that he cannot have any while he’s here. Is this true? Did you supply a criminal with a substance he cannot have according to the sentencing guidelines?”
“Well… yes and no,” she says, looking not in the least bit guilty.
“Yes and no? I didn’t get enough sleep to decipher this.”
“We gave him some truth serum. Didn’t we, Darb?”
Darby lifts his attention off the book he’s been reading the entire time this conversation has been going on and nods. The two of them smiling at each other like this is all perfectly normal stuff.
“Truth serum?” I have no other choice but to go with it.
“Huh-hum.” She nods. “That’s what my mamma called whiskey.”
“Whiskey. You gave him whiskey?”
“He came over while Darby and I were playing cards out on the patio. So we invited him to join us in a few hands and he did. That boy looked so darn upset we gave him a little of Darby’s stash––so he could get whatever’s ailing him off his chest––truth serum like my mamma called it. And he started talking about how he loves his brother but––”
I put a hand up to stop her, already knowing where the story was headed.
“Got it. I heard it all first-hand last night.”
“So then you know.”
“No more truth serum. You could be liable and I don’t want to find out by how much. Can we please stick to the rules?”
“Oh, foo-wee with the rules.”
“Mona…”
“Fine.”
I get up to head to the barn when Mona pats my hand. “Remember when we discussed getting someone else to work the rescue part-time and we said we’d have to find the perfect person who we could trust and who we could also afford?”
�
�Umm… yeah,” I say, a little worried about where she’s going with this.
I know for a fact we can’t afford to pay very much. So even though it would take a lot of the burden off of me, it would also make me worry whether I could trust such a paragon of virtue to take care of the animals on the days I have off.
“I think I found the perfect person.”
“Who?” I say with major skepticism.
“Darby.”
“Darby?” I say as gently as possible. Yes, she’s my friend, but she’s also my boss, and this is her new boyfriend.
She nods, the excitement all over her face.
I start with the most obvious question. “What does Darby know about caring for animals?”
“I trained cutting horses most of my life,” Darby answers. Taking off his reading glasses, he places them on the table. “Trained four Open Futurity Champions and three Open Derby Champions. My ex-wife got the property in the divorce, but I still give a clinic or two a year.”
I do a piss-poor job of keeping the shock off my face. “Wow. So… why would you want to work here?”
He glances at Mona, a soft smile lifting his silver mustache. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Oh,” is the best I can do. I suddenly feel like I’m intruding in a private moment. “Okay… maybe we can talk about it some more later.”
Mona nods. “We’ll see you at lunch.”
Chapter 9
“I’m all yours. Where do you want me?” Aidan asks, his voice filtering into the barn.
Man, those are some loaded words. I glance over the top of the stall I’m cleaning and find him standing in the center aisle dressed in board shorts and flip flops. No shirt again. He smiles. Although it’s half-hearted and doesn’t reach his eyes.
Hallelujah. A breakthrough. I’m just happy he’s here. It’s almost sick the satisfaction I get from seeing him. Progress is a big thing with me. It’s a part of the rescue process I love most; seeing the animals get better. Hopefully we’ve turned a corner and can continue for the next month as friendly acquaintances with a common goal.
“The stalls get stripped today,” I inform him, “grab a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow.” I eyeball his outfit, my expression clearly indicating that his attire is inappropriate for the job at hand. “You should probably change out of those flip flops unless you want to get crap between your pedicured toes.”