Huckleberry Lake

by Catherine Anderson

  Erin realized she had hurt his feelings. “I didn’t mean it that way, Uncle Slade.”

  “Yes, honey, you did. But that’s okay. I wasn’t blind to what went on when you were a kid, and I understand that your father was a heartless son of a bitch sometimes. I also wasn’t blind to the fact that my sister allowed him to be. That sin is on both their heads, but not on yours. I remember once when your mother got you a kitten, and your father took it away for some harebrained reason. Something about chin-ups, as I recall.”

  Erin remembered that incident in her life with heartbreaking clarity. She’d been unable to lift her body weight, and her father had been furious. As a result, he’d taken her kitty to the pound. The memory brought tears to her eyes, not for the heartbroken little girl she’d been at the time, but because this man still ached for her over the injustice.

  She moved in to loop her arms around her uncle’s waist. “I’m sorry, Uncle Slade. You’re nothing like him. If you give me Violet, I don’t need a bill of sale or any other kind of paper to make it official.”

  He gathered Erin close and pressed his cheek to the top of her head. “I always wished you were my little girl. I’m proud of you for what you’re trying to do with Violet. Don’t much like that name, to tell you the truth. She’s too sassy and assertive to be a violet.”

  “Only on the surface, Uncle Slade. Underneath all the bluff, some of us are actually scared to death. Reactions to fear get programmed in. You know?”

  “Which is exactly why you’re the perfect person to turn that horse around. After watching her with you, I think she knows you understand how she feels.”

  Erin hadn’t intended to draw a parallel between herself and the horse, and it startled her for a moment to realize that her uncle had. Only when she really thought about it, she guessed anyone who knew the real Erin De Laney would see the similarities. Until this moment, she’d never considered her father to be abusive, but suddenly, as if a light bulb came on in her brain, she realized he had been in both emotional and physical ways. Being unable to lift her own body weight had not been a crime. It had been a limitation she hadn’t yet overcome, and her father had punished her in a cruel way for failing to measure up to his expectations.

  Erin had finally mastered chin-ups, just as she’d learned to do everything else her dad had expected of her. And deep within her, she burned with anger now because she’d never been rewarded for any of those accomplishments with another kitten.

  After saying goodnight to her uncle, Erin returned to the paddock where Violet stood watching her. The horse made the rumbling sounds again, which made Erin smile. “So you’re talking to me. I don’t know if I can make those same sounds back to you, sweet girl.”

  But Erin tried, and Violet reciprocated by grunting more enthusiastically. After hopping over the fence, Erin moved in on the horse, confident now that the mare had “hooked on” with her, as Wyatt called it. Erin no longer needed to sit motionless under the tree in order to touch the mare on her neck and shoulder. Violet still didn’t want her head touched, but Erin planned to keep working with her on that. Someday Violet would be the best horse on the ranch.

  * * *

  * * *

  The following morning, Erin still didn’t unpack her car, but opening the trunk to dig around for clothing was starting to feel foolish. Looking at it rationally, Erin knew she’d spent several “last days” on the ranch now, and each one had ended only to become another last day the next morning.

  After grabbing a quick shower, Erin filched one of Vickie’s cinnamon rolls and ate it as she walked across the ranch common to find Wyatt and ask him what her assignment was for the day. Domino became her canine escort, regal in his carriage as he pranced along in front of her. He led Erin to the office, a small enclosure within the horse barn where Wyatt did paperwork.

  When she stepped into the office, he sat with his head bent over paperwork. Erin stood there for a moment, waiting for him to acknowledge her presence, but when he didn’t, she realized she had sneaked up on him again. She leaned forward to place her hand on the desk blotter, and he jumped.

  “Damn it, Erin. You did it again.”

  She lifted her hands and shrugged. “I’m sorry. I honestly don’t sneak up on you.”

  He raked a hand through his hair. As it fell in a drift of silky blond strands to his shoulders, she yearned to touch it just once to see if it was fine or coarse. “Not your fault. It’s just unsettling when someone gets close to me and I don’t sense it.” He managed a smile that deepened the creases in his lean cheeks and curved his firm yet full mouth. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m just here to get lined out for the day.”

  His smile deepened and warmed his blue eyes with twinkling light. “Is this your last day again?”

  Erin rolled her eyes and grinned. “I’ve decided to stay on. Uncle Slade gave me Violet last night. It would have been difficult to leave before without an income. Now, with a horse depending on me, it’d be next to impossible.” She rested both hands on the edge of the desk and assumed what she knew was probably a masculine-looking stance, but she tried not to care. “So, no, this isn’t another last day. I’ll be unpacking my car tonight and settling back into my room.”

  He nodded. “Glad to have you back on board. Today, you can stick to the same routine. Spend the morning with Violet and the afternoon cleaning stalls, restocking the horse barn with hay, and I’d appreciate it if you’d wash all the water troughs before filling them. After you’re done with that, you can help Tex.”

  “Fair enough,” Erin said. “But tomorrow, maybe you shouldn’t assign me to work with Violet. Now that she’s my horse, it doesn’t seem fair for me to be on the clock while I’m with her.”

  “Violet is on this ranch, and until you get her turned around, she’s a liability. I’ll keep having you work with her until I feel certain she’s coming right.”

  “Whatever you decide.” Erin stood erect. “Thanks for your time. I’m sorry I interrupted your work.”

  Moments later when Erin circled the horse barn to reach Violet’s paddock, the mare shrieked and reared before Erin even climbed the fence. That was disheartening. Erin hoped they were simply getting off to a rough start, but the horse forced her to do a rerun of every other day. But Erin had no intention of giving up. She would repeat the same routine for months if that was what it took.

  She spent all morning with Violet and then completed her ranch chores before helping Tex. That night after supper at the bunkhouse, she walked back out to Violet’s paddock. Unlike that morning, Violet made her talking noises and allowed Erin to approach right away. Erin had treats tonight, which Violet could smell, but Erin didn’t let her have a goody until the mare allowed her to lightly touch her poll.

  “You’re making great progress with her.”

  The sound of Wyatt’s voice coming from behind her startled Erin. She whirled to face him and then relaxed her body. “Hi. I didn’t realize you followed me out.”

  He sauntered forward in that slow, loose way of his and rested his arms on the top fence rail. “I just wanted to see how she’s coming along. I pretty much put my ass on the line last night when Slade asked me if working with her was putting you in danger.”

  Erin walked over to join him at the barrier. “Thank you for assuring him that I’m safe with her. I truly believe I am.”

  He smiled slightly. “Just don’t forget that even a rock-solid horse can accidentally hurt you. Always be on guard.”

  It was Erin’s turn to smile. “I won’t forget. Tonight she’s calm and had no problem with me petting her right away, but we’ll be back at square one again in the morning.”

  “Has working with her every day taught you anything?” he asked.

  Erin knew he was asking if she had drawn similarities between herself and the troubled equine. “I can definitely see parallels between our react
ions to pressure. Before working with her, I knew, in a vague sort of way, that I had been emotionally abused as a child. Now I see that what my dad did to me was deliberate and cruel. I’m also coming to accept that he abused me physically by making demands upon my body that I wasn’t physically mature enough to do. I’ve considered what you told me about feeling broken and in need of fixing when you were a little boy. In his own way, my father made me feel broken, too.”

  “It’s not a good feeling. Is it?”

  “No.” Erin wished she could lean on the fence as he was doing, but he would be unable to read her lips. “Looking back, I realize now that I constantly tried to fix myself to please my dad. No matter how well I performed, he never praised me, and I became compulsive about pushing even harder to become something I could never be.”

  “The son he wanted,” Wyatt supplied.

  “I believe Violet was punished in awful ways for not being what her last owner wanted her to be. When you can never measure up, when you can never please your taskmaster, it sticks with you, and when you’re pressured in some way later to perform, you feel panicky and just react. Violet does that, and so do I.” Erin gazed off at nothing for a moment and then faced him again. “Unfortunately, seeing the similarities between myself and the horse is only a small victory in a huge battle for me. I did feel broken as a child, and deep down, I still do. Until I began sessions with Jonas, I spent my whole life trying to fix myself in all the wrong ways. I felt that I’d been born in the wrong body. I even felt that my emotional responses to life were wrong. Under Jonas’s guidance, I tried to stop acting masculine. I struggled to accept myself as I was. And I was doing pretty well until I switched jobs.”

  Wyatt shook his head. “You did make some changes, and I’ll acknowledge that it took hard work. But the way I see it, the changes were all superficial, and you were motivated to make them only because you still felt broken and in need of fixing. I’d like to see you work toward being glad you’re a woman, just as I have come to be glad I’m deaf.”

  Erin cocked her head a little to give him a questioning look. “Are you truly glad of that?”

  He chuckled. “I won’t say it isn’t difficult to be deaf, Erin. I’m just saying I’ve accepted it. I’m grateful for all the things that being deaf has taught me. I believe I’m a better person, kinder and more compassionate, than I might have been if I’d been born without the disability. When you work your way up to being able to celebrate who you are, you’ll be a better and kinder person, too.”

  “Am I unkind now?”

  His smile faded. “Not intentionally, but in ways I think you’re blind to how your behavior affects other people.”

  Erin’s heart caught, because she’d never set out to hurt anyone.

  “Take Tex, for instance,” Wyatt went on. “He’s getting up in years. Physical labor is starting to tax him, and he’s struggling to hold his own, fearful that he may be replaced by a younger man. Slade would never do that to him, but Tex worries about it. Have you ever stopped to consider how your fierce determination to hold your own has pushed Tex to work harder than he would if you weren’t showing him up?”

  “Oh, my God.” Erin’s stomach knotted. “I really like Tex. I never intended to make him look bad.”

  “I know that. It’s just that you’ve been so focused on trying to make yourself look good that you’ve paid little attention to how the people around you feel about that, Tex especially.”

  As Wyatt walked away, Erin felt as if she’d been turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at something forbidden. He was so right. She’d tried to outdo all the men here and increased Tex’s angst about growing old. She’d been angry about being born in a weaker, female body.

  And she still was. She needed to work on fixing that, only in the right way this time.

  * * *

  * * *

  It had been five days since Julie had gotten sick with the flu virus, and she had returned to work that morning, feeling one hundred percent back to normal. When she closed up the Morning Grind at five that afternoon, she decided to walk to Blackie’s pawnshop to thank him properly for taking such good care of her while she’d been ill. He’d proven himself to be a good friend, and she hoped to take him out for dinner to show her appreciation.

  As she crossed the town center, she saw him out on the sidewalk, locking his shop door. She broke into a scampering run across the circular thoroughfare to the corner, waving her arm. “Hey, Blackie! Hold up a minute!”

  He wheeled at the sound of her voice, and his suntanned countenance crinkled into a welcoming smile. “Well, I’ll be. You look completely recovered.”

  A little out of breath, she drew up in front of him and grinned. “I really am, and I wanted to thank you for everything you did for me.” Her mind shied away from some of the things he’d done. It was embarrassing when a man saw you at your worst, and she had definitely hit bottom in the throes of that flu. “I honestly don’t think I would have lived through it by myself.”

  He shook his head. “Erin would have come. She was on the phone to check on you several times a day, and the only reason she wasn’t there was because I told her I had everything under control.”

  Julie knew Erin was a fabulous friend, too. But it had been Blackie who’d gone the extra mile for her this time. “I was wondering . . . well, I’d like to do something special by way of a thank-you, and I was thinking maybe I could take you out for dinner and drinks.”

  He arched a black eyebrow. “Hmm. I’m a little old-fashioned about a lady paying my way, so I’ll only say yes if you let me cover the beverages and the tip.”

  “Deal,” Julie said with a laugh.

  “As it happens, I’ve been craving Mexican food for days, and José at the Straw Hat makes a mean margarita.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “The restaurant is only a few doors down.”

  Julie shifted the strap of her handbag on her shoulder. “I, um, wasn’t thinking of tonight. I’m not dressed to go out.”

  He narrowed an eye. “You look fabulous.”

  “In jeans and a top?”

  “You do very nice things for a pair of jeans. And look at me.” He glanced down at himself. “I’m not exactly dressed up, either.”

  He wore creased Dockers and a pressed pinstripe shirt with the long sleeves folded back over his forearms, which were dusted with fine, black hair. “You look amazing to me.”

  Julie hadn’t meant to sound as if she were drooling, but in truth, Blackie was a handsome man who did make her mouth water when she looked at him. He seemed to sense her discomfiture, and his dark blue gaze held hers for a long moment that made her pulse flutter. “Ditto, so let’s do dinner together tonight. It’s not as if the Straw Hat has a dress code.”

  “Okay,” she said, even though she still felt she wasn’t dressed for the occasion. “Lead the way.”

  He laughed and took her arm. “I prefer to let a lady walk beside me.” He released her to step around to her left side. Then he cupped her elbow in his hand again. “On the inside, of course, where I can protect you from careening automobiles if there’s a wreck.”

  Julie giggled. “Do you know how that custom originated?”

  “I do, and I understand that there are no buggies or wagons out on the street to put you in danger of being sprayed with mud or trampled by a runaway horse. But a car could go out of control and come up over the curb at us.”

  Julie pulled her elbow free of his grasp to loop her arm through his. “And what would you do if that happened?”

  “I’d try to get you out of harm’s way, not to say I could.”

  She sighed. “It’s the thought that counts.” She glanced up at him. “I feel very safe.”

  The hostess led Julie and Blackie to a booth that offered them a little more privacy than sitting at a table. When their server arrived, they both ordered a house margarita. In Julie�
��s opinion, José fixed the best ones she’d ever tasted. The server left them to peruse the menu offerings.

  “I already know what I want, enchiladas verde. It’s my favorite.”

  Blackie nodded. “Mine, too.”

  Over their drinks, they began to chat, and before Julie knew it, she relaxed and hung on every word Blackie said. He was a charming conversationalist, a trait he’d exhibited countless times when he visited her shop in the afternoons. But over dinner, talking with him was different. Her attention wasn’t divided between him and the occasional customer who wandered in for coffee and a snack. She also felt no pressure to clean her equipment or dust shelves while she sat in someone else’s eatery. It was delightfully liberating.

  After they finished their meals, Blackie ordered coffee, and Julie did likewise, because lingering over their steaming cups would give them more time together. She was startled when he reached across the table and curled his hand over hers.

  “We’ve got a small problem,” he said.

  Julie’s mind instantly went to the most humiliating turns of her illness, and her chest went tight with anxiety. She definitely hadn’t been at her best when she’d lost control of her body and soiled her black leggings. She couldn’t blame Blackie if he no longer found her attractive with that image of her lingering in his mind.

  “I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said.

  Julie’s brain froze. “What?”

  “You heard me. I tried not to get serious, Julie. But it was difficult to keep the walls around my heart while I was caring for you. You were so sick, and they just crumbled.” His mouth curved into a semblance of a smile. “You’re under no obligation to say anything. I don’t expect a reciprocal gesture from you. I just thought you should know I may want more from this relationship now than you’re prepared to give.”

  “Oh, Blackie.” Julie’s throat went so tight she couldn’t speak for a second. “I love you, too. It started out as loving you only as a friend. Now it goes much deeper. I’m just not sure if it’s the forever kind of love.”