Em and Em

by Budzinski, Linda

  He held his hands up in the universal don’t-blame-me sign. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  He reached down to pick up the phone, but she practically pushed him out of the way as she dove to grab it first. “I got it.”

  Charles backed off. “Okaaay. Clearly I’ve intruded on something.”

  “No, it’s nothing. It’s …” Ember’s voice caught. This was all too much. The constant lying. The hiding. Especially now, knowing that Zach might be in trouble despite her self-imposed exile—or maybe even because of it. And the worst part was, she knew the only way she’d find out for sure what was going on with him would be through a series of tortuous 140-character messages that he may or may not bother to return today, tomorrow, or even this week. She crumpled into her chair, and the tears started.

  “Whoa, whoa.” Charles crouched beside her. “What’s going on?”

  Ember buried her face in her hands. “Nothing. I can’t …” She broke down and sobbed. When she finally lifted her head, she was almost surprised to see Charles still crouched beside her. She wiped her eyes and met his gaze. “I need you to leave me alone.”

  “Ember, if you’re in some sort of trouble …”

  “No.” She forced a smile. “No trouble. I’m a little homesick right now, that’s all. I’ll be okay.”

  He reached out and put his hand on her arm. “I’m sorry.”

  The tenderness of the gesture and the look of concern in his eyes were too much. The tears started again.

  “Is there anything I can do?” he asked. “Besides leave you alone? Because I’m kind of not doing that.”

  Ember smiled in spite of herself, but she shook her head. There was nothing he or anyone could do.

  “I have an idea. Something guaranteed to cheer you up.” Charles pulled her out of her seat. “Come on. You can finish texting your friend on the way.” He led her into the hallway and turned toward the exit.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The ranch.”

  “What ranch?”

  “My ranch. I have something I want to show you.”

  Ember stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” Charles’s eyes teased. “Never been to a farm before, city girl? I promise, the cows won’t bite.”

  Ember stuck out her tongue. Charles was half right. She had never set foot on a farm before, but it wasn’t the cows that scared her. It was her mother. If her mom found out, she’d be in huge trouble. She’d forbidden her from visiting anyone’s house without her approval. Before she was allowed to stay at Claire’s the other night, her mom had insisted on meeting both of her parents. Ember told her she was being overly protective, and even Deputy Steuben pointed out that their entire reason for moving here had been because it was such a safe community, but her mom was like a bear with cubs ever since the death threat. Go figure.

  “Come on.” Charles motioned to her to keep walking. “It’ll be fun, you’ll see.”

  “Can you get me back here by four? So my mom can pick me up?”

  “Sure.”

  “Promise?”

  He tipped a nonexistent cowboy hat. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ember took a deep breath and followed him. She felt a fluttering in her stomach as she climbed into his truck, partly because she knew she was doing something she shouldn’t, but also because she was curious to see Charles in his element. Despite the cowboy boots and the occasional piece of straw she noticed stuck to his jeans, she often had to remind herself that this tall, thin, bespectacled boy was a rancher. She couldn’t imagine him riding a horse or lassoing a steer or whatever it was cowboy types did.

  And she had tried to imagine it. More times than she cared to admit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The barn was dark and cavernous and smelled of sweet, dried hay. Ember paused inside the door to allow her eyes to adjust. Humongous rectangular bales lined one wall, stacked almost to the ceiling. The rest of the building was filled with tractors, tanks, wire fencing, and a bunch of machinery she couldn’t begin to identify.

  She hid her disappointment. She’d been hoping for animals—sheep and chickens and pigs—like in the storybooks and movies. Like in Charlotte’s Web. This all seemed so … industrial.

  “Up here.” Charles scrambled up a steep set of stairs leading to a loft.

  Ember hesitated. Was she crazy to follow him up there? After all, she didn’t know him that well. What if under that sweet geek-boy exterior he was no different from Jimmy and Brad and their teammates? She hadn’t seen another soul when they’d pulled in. Perhaps she was a lamb being led to slaughter.

  Charles peered over the edge of the loft. “You coming? You’re going to love this.”

  “What is it? Can you bring it down?”

  “It’s a surprise. And no.” Charles’s forehead creased, and he nodded toward the stairs. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

  “No.” Ember took a deep breath and climbed up. She stopped near the top of the staircase and peered around. The loft was empty except for a few scattered piles of hay. Charles sat in the far corner, a huge grin on his face. Her stomach clenched. He’d said he could “cheer her up.” Was this what he had in mind—a literal roll in the hay? Was that how he thought of her?

  Ember gripped the railing so hard her palms hurt. It was as though she had a blinking neon sign hanging over her head. “I’m Easy!” She’d thought she could leave the hot tub, the video, and her whole miserable sophomore year behind her, but maybe she couldn’t. Not even halfway across the country. Not even with new hair, a new wardrobe, a new name. Maybe she was and always would be the Girl in the GIF, Emily Slutkowski.

  Charles motioned for her to join him in the corner. She stood frozen, suspended between the desire to flee and the inevitability of giving in, as she had with all those other boys. Her eyes welled up. And that’s when she heard it. A tiny, almost imperceptible cry. Something stirred in the hay behind Charles.

  “What’s that?”

  He laughed. “Come see.”

  Ember practically flew up the final few steps and into the loft. She’d been wrong about Charles’s intentions. Maybe even wrong about the neon sign.

  He moved aside, revealing a writhing lump of fur nestled in the hay. Actually, upon closer inspection, Ember realized it was several lumps of fur. Kittens. Tiny black and orange and white kittens. “Aw. How cute.” She knelt down and stroked one. It was so soft, so tiny. “How old are they?”

  “Four days. Maybe five.”

  “Where’s their mom?”

  Charles glanced around. “Not far, I can promise you that. We’ll have to move them soon, once they start walking.” He nodded toward the ledge. “Wasn’t very smart of her to have them up here.” He scooped one up. It was orange with white paws and a white patch over one eye. “This little guy’s my favorite. Calico Jack.”

  Ember reached over and grasped its tiny paw between her thumb and forefinger. “Calico? You do realize that makes no sense?”

  “And why not?”

  The glint in Charles’s eyes told Ember she was walking into a trap, but she decided to go there anyway. “Because he’s not a calico?”

  “Aha! Right you are. But witness the patch and the boots. Calico Jack was the name of a famous pirate in the 1700s.”

  Pirate? Ember smiled. So Charles was a nerdy, strip-dancing, football-superhero, pirate-loving cowboy.

  “Want to know what Calico was best known for?”

  “What?”

  “He had two women on his crew. Unthinkable in those days. They had to be seriously tough chicks.”

  Ember recalled his comment about her being tough after she’d taken the hit during her first assignment. “And you’re into seriously tough chicks?”

  He smiled. “Could be.” He set the kitten down and began stroking the others. “Oh, no.” His expression turned serious. “Crap.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  He gave her what had to be the most un-reassuring smile ever and
shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “Never mind what? Tell me.”

  Charles’s eyes held an apology, though she couldn’t imagine why. “One is missing,” he said finally.

  “Missing? Oh, no. Did something get it? Like …” She scanned the rafters. “An owl?”

  “No, not an owl.”

  “Then what? Oh, God.” Ember jumped to her feet. “A snake? Do you have snakes?”

  “No. It wasn’t a snake.” Charles looked away.

  Ember felt a chill across the back of her neck. “Tell me. What happened to it?”

  “You have to understand that six is kind of a big litter for a cat. That one was tiny, and—”

  “What?” Ember backed away. She’d been rejected lots of times by lots of people, but never by her own mother. “No. No, no, no.” She dropped to her knees and began crawling across the loft, rifling through the piles of hay.

  “Ember.” Charles’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. “Don’t.”

  “What do you mean, don’t? We have to find it.”

  “You might not like what you find.”

  He was right, of course. She might be too late. But she had to try. When she’d finished scouring the loft, she climbed down the steps and scanned the barn. No way could she search this entire building. If the poor thing was even in here. If it had been brought outside, into the late-October chill, there would be no sense in looking.

  Charles followed her down and rested his hand on her elbow. “It’s okay. It’s sad—horrible—but it happens. I’m … I’m sorry.”

  Ember wanted to pull away, or push him away, or scream at him and tell him it wasn’t okay. She hated that being a rancher meant he could take this so casually, and she hated that she had romanticized ranching like some silly Little House on the Prairie fan girl. But that wasn’t his fault. Besides, something about the way his voice caught when he said he was sorry told her that he was truly, terribly sorry. He’d brought her here to make her feel better and instead he’d given her a whole new reason to be upset.

  She sighed and wiped away a tear that had crept into the corner of her eye. “This sucks.” She turned away, and as she did, something caught her eye. Just a few feet away, under one of the tractors, two bright green eyes pierced through the dark.

  Mama.

  Ember walked over and bent down to glare at her. She was black and white and had a sweet face that gave no hint of the atrocity she’d committed.

  “Where did you take it? Where’s your baby?”

  The cat bolted up the steps toward her litter.

  “You’d better run,” Ember shouted. “We’re calling Kitty Protective Services on you!”

  Charles cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered up into the loft. “Even better, we’re having you spayed!”

  Ember sagged against the tractor. “Not to state the obvious, but you should have done that a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, but she’s not ours. I’m not sure whose she is. She just shows up every once in a while and hangs out in the barn.” Charles walked over and kicked one of the tractor tires. “Kind of reminds me of you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. You showed up here, but I get the impression it’s temporary. Or at least, you want it to be temporary.”

  He had that right. Ember was tempted to put her finger on her nose and shout, Ding! Ding! Ding! Instead, she shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Anyway, what does it matter? We’ll all be off at college in a couple of years, right?”

  The kicking grew harder. So did Charles’s voice. “Right.”

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  He placed his boot on the hub of the tire and leaned into it. “College is a sore subject around here. My folks want me to go to agricultural school, but I want to study journalism.”

  “So what are you—”

  Charles held up a hand. “Shh. Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  He dropped to his knees and peered under the tractor. “There it was again. Did you hear it?”

  This time she did hear it. A tiny mewl. Her heart lifted. It had to be close by.

  “I can’t see it, but it sounds like it’s right on the other side of this tire.” Charles reached under and felt around but came up empty handed. The mewling grew louder.

  Ember dropped to the ground and began to slither under.

  “Whoa,” Charles protested. “No you don’t.”

  She peeked out. “I’ll be in and out in five seconds, promise.”

  “Um. No. Crawling under a two-ton monster on wheels? Not happening.”

  The kitten meowed—whimpered, really—from just a couple of feet away. Ember ignored him and shimmied under to the inside of the tire. There in the wheel well sat the tiniest kitten she’d ever seen. She grabbed it and carefully backed up, inch by inch, her elbows scraping against the rough cement of the barn floor.

  “Got him!” She rolled over and held the kitten up. It was black with a white belly, and it fit perfectly in the palm of her hand. Her elbows were bleeding, and she had grease in her hair, but she didn’t care. “You’re safe now, little guy.” She sat up. “What should we name him?”

  Charles gave her that same apologetic look. “Nothing. We’re not naming him.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Right. Because farmers don’t name their animals. Except you named Calico Jack, so how is this different?”

  “Calico Jack is big and healthy. He’ll be around for a while. This little guy needs to be handfed every two hours and kept warm and dry and out of trouble, and even then he probably only has a fifty-fifty chance of making it.”

  Ember’s shoulders sagged. She hadn’t thought about how they’d keep the kitten alive once they found it, but Charles was right. They couldn’t exactly put it back up in the loft. Someone would have to take care of it. What would her mom say if she brought home a kitten? And not just any kitten, but one that needed to be nursed? She held it out to Charles. “Can you keep him?”

  He shook his head. “We barely have enough manpower to take care of the cattle. No one’s going to take a break every two hours to feed an undersized cat.”

  The kitten nudged Ember’s thumb with its head. She kissed it lightly on one ear. No way was she giving up on this adorable creature. “Then I’ll take him home. My mom can nurse him during the day, and I’ll do it at night.”

  Charles reached over and stroked its teeny head. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Promise not to name it, okay? Not for a few weeks.”

  “Too late. He’s Oliver.”

  “As in Twist?”

  “As in Twist.”

  Charles took Oliver from her and inspected its underside. “How do you know he isn’t a she?”

  Ember blinked. Why had she assumed the kitten was a boy? She shrugged. “If he turns out to be a girl, we’ll call her Olivia.”

  “So if this little guy is Oliver Twist, does that make you Nancy?”

  “Nancy? The hooker?” Nice. Ember grabbed Oliver out of Charles’s hands and strode toward the door. “Screw you. Let’s get out of here. I need to meet my mom.”

  “Hey, hey. That was a joke.” Charles ran up and stood facing her, cutting off her exit. “Nancy may have been a prostitute, but she was also the purest soul in the novel.” He leaned in, and his voice dropped. “And she was brave. She totally would have crawled under a tractor to save an orphaned kitten.”

  Ember’s face reddened. “Not sure if that was bravery or stupidity.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It was heart.”

  As the expression in Charles’s eyes morphed from playful to serious and the hard line of his jaw softened, Ember felt something inside her slip away—the cage she used to contain herself here, and not just here, but back home, too. Before she knew what she was doing, she kissed him. It was a quick kiss at first, but then, when he didn’t pull away, she kissed him again, a hard, determined kiss. Her head throbbed as she breathed him in, a combin
ation of fresh hay and leather, so different from the beachy smell of …

  She pulled away. Zach. Just a few hours ago he’d messaged her to let her know he was in trouble—his life possibly in danger because of her—and here she was kissing some other guy. What kind of girlfriend was she?

  What kind of girl was she?

  Charles stood still as a scarecrow, a dazed look on his face.

  “I’m sorry.” She turned and strode toward the exit. “Let’s go.”

  “Sorry?” The sound of Charles’s cowboy boots echoed sharply on the cement floor as he followed her. “What the hell? That was …”

  “A mistake. Forget it.”

  He grabbed her arm, stopping her just inside the door. “You can’t do that and then say forget it.”

  She pulled her arm away. “I just did.” She tugged at the bar on the door, but it didn’t budge. She’d need both hands and better leverage to open it—impossible since she was holding Oliver. She gritted her teeth. “Can I get some help here?”

  Charles rested one hand on the bar. “As soon as you tell me what’s going on. What was that about?” He sounded angry, hurt.

  Ember studied his face. This was different. She was usually the one feeling used and confused. Had she caused that pain in his eyes? She looked away. “Like I said, it was a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  Charles said nothing. Ember focused on Oliver, petting him, whispering into his ear. “It’ll be okay. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  After a long few seconds, she heard the door slide and felt the cool rush of air on her face. She tucked the kitten to her chest, ran toward the truck, and leapt in. The ride back to school was long and filled with a stony silence.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Ember was right about Zach not responding to her message for another week. Sort of. It took him four days, which was practically a week, and it felt like two.

  Her phone buzzed partway through the first quarter of the Bruins’ last home game of the season. She slipped under the bleachers to check it.

  Zach: Coming home for Thanksgiving?