by Danica Avery
“You're seriously gonna ask me that?” Burley said, and when she briefly met his eyes, she saw frustration.
“Well... I mean... You’re from around here. You know the other horse people.”
“Lady, you’re unbelievable,” he said, and she narrowed her eyes.
“Fine, I’ll figure it out on my own.”
“You do that.”
Dove felt like she wanted to smack him! Was he this insufferable to her grandpa too? She looked back to the window and said nothing more. Burley didn’t either and silence again surrounded them, though unlike before, now she couldn’t focus on the scenery.
It felt like an incredibly long drive into town and she was grateful when they finally arrived at the local hardware store. She grabbed her purse and notebook and, holding her chin high, she got out of the truck and went on ahead of him into the store. She didn’t bother asking for his help once they were inside. Even though... honestly, she wasn’t very familiar with home improvement.
She rented an apartment back home, so it was up to her landlord to deal with the projects she planned to take care of now. But she had looked up a lot of things on the internet, so she vaguely knew what it was she needed to be doing. For what she didn’t know, there was a very helpful man working there named Logan.
Logan was quick to ask her if she needed any help, and she didn’t hesitate to flip open her notebook, showing him her checklist for this trip. Logan was all smiles until Burley caught up with her. He looked at the taller man with a frown, then he looked at her, seeming as if he was trying to figure out if the two of them were there together.
What was that even about? Was he hoping she was single and thought Burley might be her man? Ha, in his dreams. He was hott but that attitude was going to get him nowhere.
“So, do you think I can get all this today?” she said, pulling Logan’s attention back to the task at hand.
Happily, she was able to get most of what she wanted. She managed to assign Burley to cart duty as she went around with Logan and for the things that were too big, like the low budget replacement doors, Logan said he’d have them brought around for her. She didn’t feel so happy when they got to the checkout counter... but she unfortunately knew she’d have to make an investment before she could make any money back.
Pleased with her haul, and pleased Burley tolerated it, she left the store with him.
“You know, for this town being so small, I was worried I’d even be able to... Oh!” Dove stopped abruptly, hand flying over her mouth with a gasp. Burley’s truck! It was trashed!
4
Burley
The navy blue truck had been covered in graffiti. On one side, the word ‘leave’ was written in white spray paint in large letters, so that it covered almost the entire side of the truck. Across the hood were the words ‘get out’. There was another word written on the tailgate. It started with the letters m, u, and r, but it looked like someone had interrupted the culprit, because the rest of the word was just a long scribbly line that trailed off.
On top of the graffiti, the truck had been pummeled with eggs. There were splatterings of yolks all over it, and even some eggshells on the pavement and in the truck bed. The truck looked nothing like it did just an hour ago when they went inside the store.
Burley stood there, staring at the destruction, with a frown on his face. He knew it was a bad idea, agreeing to help Dove into town. There was a reason he rarely left his house. There was a reason he didn’t want to find a new job. The people of Heart’s Peak hated him. It wasn’t without reason, and honestly, a part of him didn’t blame them. He had made a big mistake, and now he had to pay for it.
“I didn’t think stuff like this happened here!” Dove exclaimed. Shock and worry covered her face. She didn’t move to approach the truck.
“It doesn’t. To most people,” Burley said.
“What do you mean?” she asked, confused.
“Nothin’. Don’t worry about it.” He pushed the cart closer to the damaged truck and walked around it, seeing the unfinished word on the tailgate. For a moment, he closed his eyes and he shook his head, an attempt to shake away a painful memory.
“Don’t worry about it? Are you serious? Your truck is completely trashed! We need to call the police! Wait, are you okay?” Dove sounded concerned. She cautiously followed after him, watching where she stepped, so as not to step on the broken egg shells all over the pavement.
“I’m fine. We’re not callin’ the police. They won’t care,” he said. He reached to drop down the tailgate, hiding the three letters from his sight, and from Dove’s. He didn’t need her putting the pieces together. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore than he had to.
“Of course they’ll care. Someone vandalized your truck!” she exclaimed, gesturing towards the truck. She spoke as if he was being ridiculous. He realized, to her it probably did sound stupid. But he knew Heart’s Peak, and he knew the police force personally. They wouldn’t do anything about this. They would think he deserved it.
“Just let it go, Dove. You’re new here. You don’t know this town like I do.”
“What? What does that even mean? Why are you being so weird about this? This is serious. Someone needs to be arrested for this.”
“I said, let it go. It’s my truck, ain’t it?”
Dove held a look of exasperation on her face. “I can’t believe you’re going to ignore this.”
There was defeat in her tone of voice. She was giving in. She didn’t agree with it, she didn’t understand it, but she was going to let it go.
“It’s still driveable. That’s all that matters.”
Burley began to load the car up with her supplies. When the men showed up with the doors she had purchased, no one said a word about his truck. No one even so much as looked at him. The whole thing likely seemed really strange to Dove, but Burley wasn’t surprised in the least.
The ride home was silent except for the quiet country music playing over his radio. Burley kept expecting Dove to say something more about the truck, but she didn’t say a word.
When he pulled his truck into Old Bennett’s driveway, she finally spoke up. “Either the people in this town are some kind of alien pod people or they really don’t like you.”
Burley couldn’t stop the laughter that escaped him.
“Alien pod people?” he replied.
“Yeah. No one said a word about your truck. It was totally weird!”
He shut off his truck and opened the door. “Well you ain’t wrong about them not liking me.”
“Okay... What does that mean? Why don’t they like you?” She followed his actions, by removing her seatbelt and opening her own door.
“I did somethin’ a year ago. Somethin’ bad. When you live in a small town, people don’t forget things easily.”
“What did you do?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said quickly. With those words, he moved to shut the door. He walked around to the back of the truck. He probably told her more than he should have, but honestly, she was going to find out sooner or later. It was inevitable the longer she stayed in Heart’s Peak. When she did find out, she’d hate him, just like everyone else.
He helped her unload his truck, and by helped, that meant he pretty much did all the work, and she only lifted a hand to help when he needed her to. He didn’t know how she expected to fix up Old Bennett’s house on her own. She didn’t look like she had ever done a hard day’s work in her life.
“Thank you for helping me out today. I never could have fit all this stuff in my car,” she said with a smile, standing on the porch of Old Bennett’s house. Her long, wavy blonde hair draped over her shoulders, and her blue eyes shone brightly in the evening fall light. Burley noticed for the first time, her elegant features. She was a real beauty. Like that of an angel. Too bad that angel would never be interested in a man with a demon weighing heavily on his shoulder.
“Don’t mention it. I still wish you’d reconsider sellin’ the place bu
t it ain’t my right to tell you what to do.”
“I’m sorry. I really do have to go back to New York. But I appreciate everything you’re doing with the horses. And this today. You’ve been a big help.”
“It’s the least I can do for Bennett’s granddaughter. He was a good man.”
Dove seemed a little surprised, as if his comment caught her off guard. Then something that almost looked like guilt came over her face.
“He was a good man,” she agreed. “I wish I had come home to visit him more.”
There it was. The reason for the guilt. He knew that feeling well. Guilt had sunk into him a year ago and had been eating at him ever since.
“We all make mistakes, huh? I’ll be seeing you, Miss Donoghue.”
5
Dove
Days passed and Dove found herself no closer to solving the mystery that was Burley Johnson. She saw him outside scrubbing the egg off his truck, but no amount of scrubbing would remove the spray paint. She couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened and how he handled it. Why did he think the police wouldn’t care? What could’ve happened to make the whole town turn against him?
She wanted to pry him with questions but it hadn’t felt appropriate. Especially when he hadn’t actually been rude to her since their trip to town. He hadn’t even asked her again about keeping the house and horses. He had been pleasant, if she dared say so herself.
Not that she saw a lot of him. She had been working her butt off on the house, following video tutorials she found online and doing her best to make the place more livable. It was a relief not having to worry about the animals in the stable. Burley had been taking care of everything for them.
Now, as she ventured out to the stable, was the first time she had to since her arrival. It was evening and the sun was low in the sky. The temperature had lowered along with the sun, and she burrowed her chin down into the neck of her jacket to fend off the chill. She felt annoyed she had to come out at all and almost didn’t bother. She only did because she didn’t have the heart not to.
When Burley finished up with the horses today, he asked her to occasionally check on the pregnant mare, because he believed she’d be delivering any day now. What was she even supposed to check for, she didn’t know. It wasn’t like she knew horses well enough to know any signs of labor. As she slipped into the stable, turning on the lights, she felt an uncomfortable sensation.
Horses made her nervous. Being around them alone wasn’t her idea of fun. She looked around at the different long faces of horses that were settled in for the night, and hugged her arms to herself, silently hoping Burley left all those stall doors secured. One horse snorted at her right as she was passing and it nearly made her jump out of her skin!
Okay, okay, which one was the pregnant one?
She quickly went to the stall Burley had told her and looked in, finding the brown horse laying on the ground. It seemed perfectly fine. Except... wait, what was that lump of white protruding from under her tail?
“Oh! Oh no!” Dove blurted out to herself in a sudden panic. This wasn’t supposed to happen on her watch! She needed Burley here ASAP! She fumbled for her cell phone, grabbing it out of her pocket, only to remember she didn’t have the man’s number.
Letting out a curse, she ran out of the stable and all the way over to Burley’s house. She pounded on his door, again setting off his dog, and if he thought she looked like a crazed woman, he was kind enough not to let on. He had to grab a few things, and then the two of them went back over.
“You got this?” Dove asked, once they were back on her property. Burley looked at her incredulously.
“I’d appreciate if you came too. Might need an extra hand,” he replied. Dove looked at him with reluctance, because she had no desire to get close to that horse, but something about the way Burley was looking at her now made it hard to refuse. She sighed and went with him.
In the stable, it was strangely quiet. She expected the horse to be noisy, like how women giving birth on TV or in movies were always screaming in agony. It wasn’t. The horse still looked calm to her.
“There, there, Violet. You’re doing great,” Burley said, as he set down the supplies he was carrying. He spoke in a gentle voice, and gave the horse a comforting touch on the head, before he went about checking out the situation.
“Is it supposed to look like that?” Dove pointed at the white lump and Burley nodded his head.
“Yeah, that’s just the sac,” he replied. Then Violet was suddenly moving to stand up. Dove squeaked out in surprise and stumbled backward out of the stall, moving so suddenly that it brought a little chuckle out of Burley.
“Why’s she getting up?!” Dove again spit the words out in a panic.
“Don’t worry. They sometimes get restless while they’re foaling. She’ll settle down again. Just give her space,” Burley explained. Dove, for the first time, felt impressed by how knowledgeable he seemed.
“That’s a good girl,” he said to the horse, and he stroked his large hand down Violet’s back, before he moved to the stall door. He stood there to seemingly wait, while Dove peeked in around him. She had this mental image of the horse pushing past them and running out of the stall. But before too long, Violet was laying back down.
The birth itself seemed to be surprisingly quick. Burley offered the horse more comfort and was there to assist as he was needed, like helping the foal to get free of its sacs. He didn’t hesitate at all to get his hands dirty, touching things that Dove never would dare.
She found that kind of gross, but at the same time, there was a sweetness to the whole thing. Burley was so gentle with the mother and the foal. A man looking as big and tough as him, she would’ve expected him to be rough with the animals, but he wasn’t at all. She could see how much he genuinely cared about them.
“I can’t believe how big the baby is,” she commented in awe. A perfectly healthy-looking foal now laid there in the straw, legs all splayed, head bobbing on a brand new neck. It was so much bigger than she thought it would be! How did that big baby even fit inside a horse? Dove couldn’t help but be amazed.
She also couldn’t help but notice how adorably cute it was. The adult horses were intimidating. Even the mother was huge and scary. But the foal? She wanted to give it a hug!
“Heh, yeah. He ain’t like a puppy, that’s for sure. Looks like you’ve got yourself a male. What do you want to name the little fella?” Burley said, glancing over at her, but still doing things to care for the horses.
Dove felt a little startled by the question.
“I... I hadn’t thought about a name,” she admitted. She wasn’t keeping the horses, so names didn’t matter. She hadn’t even known Violet’s name until tonight.
“Fair enough,” Burley replied. He didn’t press her. He never did, she noticed.
She was silent for a minute as she thought it over. She didn’t need to bother with a name. She could just tell him to figure one out. Yet for some reason, she really wanted to now. Maybe it was because she literally watched this little cutie being born. The foal was looking at her now, eyes bright and alert.
“How about... Bennett?” she suggested quietly.
Burley paused what he was doing and, for the first time she could ever recall, he looked at her with a smile. It made her pulse quicken. He had a beautiful smile.
“I think your grandpa would like that,” he said. Dove smiled brightly, feeling happy and warmed.
Burley spent a little more time tending to the horses. Violet looked absolutely spent. She had seemed scary when Dove came into the stable tonight, but now she looked sweet as she showed affection to her new baby. A loving mother, peaceful and gentle.
“We should give them some time to rest now. I’m gonna go get cleaned up, but I’ll come back to check on them. I want to keep a close eye on them tonight,” Burley said, as they were leaving the stable together. The sun had fully set now.
“You can just clean up at my place,” Dove found h
erself offering. Then she was quick to add, “I mean... if you want.”
She didn’t get another smile out of Burley, but he did give her an appraising look, as if he was debating.
“Sure. That’d be nice.”
6
Burley
Dove didn’t need to show Burley where the bathroom was. He had been in Old Man Bennett’s house too many times to count. He walked through the familiar house that was beginning to look unfamiliar, thanks to all the improvements she was making. He had to admit, she was working harder than he thought she would. She was really shining the old place up.
He stepped into the bathroom and over to the sink to begin washing his hands and arms. He was glad Violet and the baby had both made it through the birth safely. Birthing was something that came natural to animals, and most of the time, the horses didn’t need any help. But like with humans, there was always a chance of complications. That was why it was important for him to be there. Thanks to Dove, he had been.
He picked up the girly looking hand towel and dried off his arms. Glancing at the mirror, he took in the reflection staring back at him. His long, dark brown hair, was currently pulled back into a bun. He was wearing a red and black flannel, over a plain white t-shirt. There was a sorrow in his brown eyes, that had been there since the incident.
He ran his hand over his face, all the way down to his thick beard, and let out a heavy sigh. He left the bathroom and walked towards the kitchen, where he had left Dove just minutes ago.
“I made us some hot chocolate,” she said. There was a bright smile on her face. A smile that could light up any room. He had been growing fond of that smile over the last few days. Miss Donoghue was much more than he originally gave her credit for. He kind of felt bad for the harsh words he had given her that first day they met.
“Sounds good. I can never pass up hot chocolate,” he replied. He approached her. She was standing by the counter and she offered him a mug. He looked down at it. It was filled to the brim with melted marshmallows.