Fences: Smith Mountain Lake Series - Book Three

by Inglath Cooper

  The auctioneer taps the microphone, and says, “We’ll start the bidding at fifty dollars. Who’ll give me fifty, give me fifty, give me fifty? Do I hear forty-five, forty-five, forty-five? I’ve got forty-five in the top right corner. Now give me fifty, give me fifty. I’ve got fifty. Do I hear fifty-five, fifty five?”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Tate raise the paddle.

  “I’ve got fifty-five,” the auctioneer says. “Thank you very much. Anybody got sixty?”

  “Two hundred,” Tate says, raising his paddle again.

  I look at him, my eyes wide, but he keeps his gaze on the auctioneer.

  “What’s Tate doing, Mama?” Corey asks me in a low voice.

  “Being a hero,” I say and squeeze her hand.

  67

  Jillie

  BY THE TIME it’s all said and done, Tate has bought the remaining horses, ponies, and one mule left in the sale. At some point along the way, I stopped feeling as if I should intervene because, to be honest, I don’t remember the last time I felt as happy as I feel right now.

  The girls’ ponies had been the last two to be auctioned off, and as soon as the auctioneer declares Tate the winning bid, I let out a huge sigh of relief, feeling as if a wall of stone has been removed from my shoulders.

  “You really did that,” I say, turning to look at him now, unable to hide my shock.

  His grin is that of a little boy who’s just traded for the one baseball card he’s been waiting to find. “We had a barn to fill. Think this ought to do it?”

  “Did we just go from a hunter-jumper barn to a sanctuary?” I ask, shaking my head a little.

  “Is that insane?” he asks.

  “No, but it’s certainly not going to be profitable.”

  Just then, both girls launch themselves at Tate, throwing their arms around his neck and hugging him so hard, I think he might fall off the bench behind us.

  “Thank you, thank you so much, for getting our ponies back!” Kala squeals.

  “How are we going to get all of them home?” Corey asks, pulling back to look at him with a serious face.

  “I need to get to work on that,” Tate says, standing, as he adds, “your mama deserves a hug too for making all of this happen.”

  Corey launches herself at me, arms tight around my neck. Kala’s hug is less boisterous, but nevertheless, convincing. “Thank you, Mama,” they say in unison.

  And for the first time, maybe ever, it feels as if my daughters look at me and see something they like and admire. Nothing has ever felt more meaningful.

  68

  Jillie

  FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS, we work nonstop on the laundry list of things to do to accommodate the fact that we now have twelve out of our eighteen stalls filled.

  Tate had hired four different haulers to bring all our new residents home late Saturday afternoon. Tate and the girls and I stood on the porch, watching the trailers roll down the long driveway, one after the other.

  Pure joy had coursed through me. All of a sudden, the farm had purpose and meaning. And I was overcome with a heart-deep desire to make something completely wonderful out of Tate’s seemingly spur-of-the-moment decision to save each and every one of those precious souls.

  We followed the girls, who were running along behind the trailers, cheering and laughing. And then we unloaded the animals one by one, leading them to their individual stalls.

  We had managed to round up twenty bales of excellent, orchard-grass hay from a neighbor down the road. We hung bright red water buckets by each door, filled with cool, clean water. Once we had everyone inside their stalls, and Tate had paid the haulers, we stood, taking turns watching each one munching at their hay, visibly relaxing before our eyes.

  I cried watching them. I couldn’t help it. I thought of all my aspirations to make it in the equestrian world when I was younger. About the thought of getting back into that world now. And I wonder if any of it could ever be as meaningful as this. I wonder too if Tate had somehow understood this when he looked at the faces of those abandoned and betrayed animals and saw the reward of creating a haven for them. And down the road, maybe others like them.

  That first night, Tate and I had stayed up long after the girls fell into their beds exhausted. Making yet another list of items we would need, including hiring someone to help with the stall work.

  A full week from the day we brought everyone home, it seems as if they’ve always been there. Kala and Corey are giving the little pony they’ve named Zippy a bath in the wash stall. The farrier had come on Monday morning and trimmed her hooves. Her relief had been so evident that I wanted to cry for all the pain she must have suffered for so long.

  Her coat had been shaggy and unkempt, most of her winter hair still matted in place, despite the warm weather. I had used clippers to shave all of it off, so that her coat is now smooth and short and so much more comfortable for the summer weather.

  Tate has gone into town to pick up some feed at the Southern States store. I’m in the office placing an order for pine sawdust for the stalls when I notice the girls’ laughter has gone silent.

  As soon as I finish the call, I walk down the barn aisle to see where they are when I hear a familiar voice.

  “Where is your mother, dear?”

  It’s Judith, her dismissive tone raising the hair on the back of my neck.

  “I’m right here, Judith,” I say, turning the corner to where she’s standing at the edge of the wash stall, her arms folded across her chest.

  “How can I help you?”

  “I’m sure you think you pulled a fast one on me, Jillian. Buying the ponies at auction.”

  I look at my daughters, their faces frozen with fear, and I know what they’re thinking. That she’s going to take them back. Over my dead body.

  “Girls, put Zippy in her stall. Run back to the house and wait for me there.”

  “But, Mama,” Kala starts.

  “Now, please, Kala,” I say.

  Judith has the decency to wait until the girls are out of the barn before she says, “You do like to have the last word, don’t you, Jillian?”

  Vitriol underlines each syllable. I say nothing, but simply wait her out.

  “The problem is,” she says, finally, “so do I.” She looks at me, long and hard, before adding, “He was having an affair with Poppy, you know.”

  The statement slams into me, and I can feel the barbed cruelty of its intent. Amazingly, my voice is neutral when I say, “I knew he was having an affair with someone. And I had told him I wanted a divorce.”

  Her face blanches, she drops her arms, and I can see that she hadn’t known this. Realization dawns across her face, closely followed by renewed blame for my role in his death. “Well, his suicide must have been quite the convenience for you then.”

  Throughout the years, Judith has said some harsh things to me, but this one stretches even her boundaries. I feel the blood leave my face, and my fingers throb with the desire to slap the smugness from her expression.

  “Did you ever think that maybe some of your harshness might have made life less than bearable for him?”

  Her eyes narrow. “That would certainly lessen your guilt, wouldn’t it?”

  “Actually, no. I have plenty of it regardless.”

  Surprise flickers in Judith’s eyes then, as if this is the last thing she would have imagined me admitting. “If you hadn’t been pining after that Callahan boy, your marriage might have had a chance, and my son wouldn’t have felt the need to look outside it.”

  “I only wish that had been true, Ms. Taylor.”

  The assertion comes from Tate, his voice deep and serious. Judith turns quickly to face him, and I can see that she’s thrown by his appearance.

  She folds her arms across her chest again and gives him a steely stare. “I suppose you’re the knight in shining armor coming to the rescue of those ponies.”

  “Someone needed to.” He stops a few feet back from her, holding her gaze like a ma
gnet. “Just wondering. Did you put any thought into what you were doing to your granddaughters? Or did revenge trump all that?”

  “That’s none of your business, Mr. Callahan.”

  “Anything that pertains to Jillie and her children is my business.”

  Judith throws me an icy glare, I-told-you-so boldly written there. I start to deny her conclusion, but why should I? She’ll believe what she wants, regardless of what I say.

  “Unless you came here today for some positive reason associated with your granddaughters, I’d like you to leave, Ms. Taylor,” Tate says.

  Outrage erupts across her face before she looks directly at me. “I came here today to let you know I’m suing you, Jillian, for the stock left to the girls in trust by my son, Jeffrey. I won’t have our company being vulnerable to your sudden decision to find some way to access that.”

  The accusation floors me. It would never have occurred to me to do any such thing. Suddenly, I am dizzy with anger. It erupts from my center like a volcano long dormant, and it is all I can do to keep my voice from trilling upward as I say, “I want you to leave. Now. Do not ever come near my daughters again. You’re toxic, Judith. I will not have you poisoning whatever good memories they have of their father. Go. Get out!”

  I scream the last two words, and they seem to echo off the ceiling above us.

  Judith’s face tightens, her lips a thin line, when she says, “You will regret that.”

  She turns and walks down the aisle, her back straight, her steps measured and even on the concrete.

  I turn away from Tate, folding up the water hose and turning off the faucets to give myself something to focus on. It isn’t until I hear the engine of her car start that my shoulders fold inward and the pain inside me will no longer be contained. A sob breaks free from my throat, and I feel Tate’s arms wrap around me, pulling me against him.

  I feel too humiliated to say a word. He kisses the back of my hair, and this soft act of compassion is my undoing. I turn toward him, burying my face against his chest and crying the tears I have denied myself.

  We stand this way for a long time, until my sobbing turns to sniffling and then silence.

  “It’s not your fault, you know,” he says, rubbing the back of my hair.

  “It feels pretty awful to be this hated.”

  “Ever think it might be herself she hates?”

  I pull back and look up at him with narrowed eyes. “I don’t think so.”

  “She seems like a miserable person to me. Some of the unhappiest people I’ve known are the ones who try to control everyone around them, only to figure out at some point that it isn’t possible.”

  I consider this, realizing it was the case with Jeffrey. She hadn’t wanted him to marry me, had done her subtle and not-so-subtle best to convince him he would be better off without me. But I think it is only today that I truly realize the extent of how deep her hatred went.

  I can’t quite meet Tate’s gaze when I say, “I should have left the marriage years ago.”

  “Why didn’t you?” he asks in a quiet voice.

  I pull away from him, start to pick up the sponge and the brushes the girls left in the wash stall. I want to answer the question. But the answer is too humiliating, too painfully illuminating. Because how do I admit that I hadn’t thought I deserved the freedom?

  69

  Angela

  SHE’S NEVER SEEN her mother this angry.

  She has memories that compete, but fall short by a good measure.

  She’d heard the front door slam from her upstairs room. Against her better judgment, she’d walked slowly down the staircase, finding her mother in the living room just off the foyer.

  “What is it?” she’d asked.

  Her mother whipped away from the window where she’d been staring out at the field beyond, her face transformed by fury. “She’s made a fool of this family.”

  “Who?” Angela asks, knowing full well the answer.

  “Your brother diminished the Taylor name when he married her.”

  “But Jeffrey’s gone. And Jillie doesn’t live here anymore. You made certain of that.”

  Her mother’s eyes widen in outrage. “Are you questioning my right to want her out of this house?”

  “No, Mother,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s your house. Your right.”

  Judith folds her arms across her chest, stares at Angela for several long moments. “There was a time when you hated Jillie for owning what you couldn’t have.”

  It’s cruel, even for her mother. Angela flinches, lets the words sink in before saying, “That was a long time ago.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re not still pining for him. And she still has him. Meanwhile, you’re living at home like a nineteenth-century spinster whose dowry wasn’t enough to get the man.”

  Angela’s hand flies to her chest, as if she can prevent the dagger edge of the words from penetrating her heart. But she’s not successful, and the pain that spreads through her opens her eyes wide to the truth of her relationship with her mother.

  “You’ve always hated me,” she says. “Despised the fact that I don’t have your backbone. Your willingness to take down anyone in the way of what you want. I tried to be like you. I tried to destroy a life because I couldn’t have what I wanted. That’s what you would have done, right?”

  Judith’s hard gaze turns to steel. “Do you think I would have been able to hold this family and the business together all these years if I weren’t made of that kind of determination?”

  “You mean that kind of ruthlessness?”

  A long silence follows the question. “I think it’s past time you found a place of your own.”

  There was a time when the thought would have filled Angela with dread. Making a life for herself without the comfort of the five-star existence she’s lived in this home.

  But that’s not true anymore. Above all, what she wants now is the ability to figure out who she is on her own. Whether she really is like her mother, determined to put her own needs and desires above all else. Or, if there is more to her than that, it’s time she let it have a chance to come to life.

  70

  Poppy

  ANGELA IS NEVER late on Monday mornings. Punctuality is one of her hallmarks. And so, when she wanders in to her office at nine-thirty, looking as if she barely knows she’s arrived, Poppy is curious.

  Although the coffee at the community pot is a bit stale, she fills a cup and carries it with her to Angela’s desk. “Everything all right?” she asks, handing the cup to her and noticing that her hand shakes a little as she takes it.

  “Yes, fine,” Angela says. “Thanks.”

  “Crazy weekend?”

  “You could say that.”

  “What happened?” Poppy asks, sitting in the chair across from her.

  “I’m going to move out of my mother’s house.”

  Shocked, Poppy manages an even, “Why?”

  “Don’t you think it’s long past due?” she replies with an uncharacteristic snap.

  “Does it matter what I think?”

  “We both know it does.”

  “So what was the reason?”

  “She’s selling the business.”

  “What?” The word comes out abrupt and instantly rage-tinged, despite her immediate realization that she needs to rein it in.

  Surprise narrows Angela’s eyes. “It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, should it? I expected her to want to sell it after Jeffrey died. She’s never had any confidence in my ability to keep the place afloat.”

  Poppy forces herself to say the words she knows Angela needs to hear.

  “Of course you do. And have. What else has kept the doors open?” It is all she can do not to add any reference to her own contribution. Even though they both know Angela could never have run this place without her.

  “Thanks, Poppy,” Angela says, looking at her with sincere appreciation.

  Poppy thinks how pathetic and needy Angela
truly is. No wonder her mother has zero respect for her. Neutralizing her voice, she says, “How soon is she planning to announce the sale of the company?”

  “Immediately,” Angela says. “She’s already talking with investors.”

  Which means scrutiny of all accounts and records. Poppy has been good at covering her tracks, but the thought of her methods being tested leaves her with an uneasy feeling. “Well,” she says, standing from her chair. “It sounds as if we all might be facing some big life changes in the near future.”

  “I’m sorry,” Angela says.

  “It’s not your fault.” Poppy is amazed by her own ability to conceal her real feelings. What she would like to do is scream at Angela for being such a ridiculous pansy where her mother is concerned, for not standing up to her the way anybody with a backbone would. “Any idea when prospective buyers will start coming in?”

  Angela shakes her head. “I’ll probably be the last to know.”

  No doubt. Poppy gives her a sympathetic smile. “Maybe the new owners will want to keep you on.”

  Angela looks surprised by this. “I can’t imagine working for anyone else.”

  I can’t imagine them wanting you to, Poppy thinks to herself. “Maybe this is an unexpected opportunity for us both to do something different with our lives.”

  “You don’t seem very upset.”

  Poppy shrugs. “This might be the excuse I need to finally see what the rest of the world has to offer.”

  “You mean move away?”

  “What’s holding me here, other than this job?”

  Angela fails to hide her hurt, and it renews Poppy’s contempt for her dependent and weak nature.

  “Maybe this is a wake-up call for you too,” she says.

  “Where would I go?”

  “Anywhere you want.”