Maple Dale ~ My Forever Home (Maple Dale Series)

by MaryAnn Myers

  Mindy looked at him. That seemed unfair, but on second thought, if she could forgive her father eating meat, why not Shane? Then again, her father didn’t actually hunt an animal down. No, he bought the meat at a meat market after someone else killed the animal. What was worse?

  “No meat tonight. Okay?” Mindy shuddered.

  “Okay.”

  The two walked to his truck.

  “What about fish?” Shane asked.

  “Are you kidding me?” Mindy’s jaw dropped. “Fishing is the cruelest of any animal hunting on earth. Did you know the average fish heart after the fish is caught….”

  Shane held up his hands. “All right! All right! How about we just have some macaroni and cheese? How would that be?”

  “That would be fine.” Mindy climbed up into his truck and sat tentatively as they started down the hill. “I hope he’s gone. I can’t tell you how many deer are killed on the road here.”

  Shane nodded. “That’s why….”

  “Don’t go there,” Mindy said. At the bottom of the hill she told him to turn left. “There’s a really nice Italian place a couple of miles up the road. They make pasta to die for.”

  “No pun intended,” Shane said.

  Mindy smiled. “I’m sorry. I just….”

  “I know. I understand. Look,” he said, pointing. There was a hawk roosting in a tree, wings spread.

  Mindy turned, looking into the hawk’s eyes as they passed. “They’re so beautiful. It’s just a shame….”

  “It’s nature’s way,” Shane said. “Come on. Didn’t you ever read Little Tree?”

  “Yeah, and I also read Bambi.”

  They rode for a few minutes in relative silence, only the radio playing softly – a country western song about fried chicken after church and apple pie.

  “The Education of Little Tree is one of my favorite books,” Mindy said softly.

  Shane glanced at her. “All right, I confess. I didn’t read the book, but I did see the movie.”

  Mindy chuckled and a mile up the road pointed out the restaurant. Shane liked the looks of the place. It reminded him of a mom and pop restaurant down home. He smiled when she reached for his hand as they walked inside.

  “Hey, Mindy!” Ronnie, the owner-proprietor said, motioning for them to seat themselves.

  “Where’s Angie?”

  “Sick again. Oh that woman.”

  “She’s pregnant,” Mindy explained to Shane. “Number four.”

  “She just keeps having babies to get out of work,” Ronnie teased.

  Mindy grabbed two menus off the shelf on the way to their seats. “A booth okay?”

  Shane nodded and they sat down by the window and got comfortable.

  Mindy waved to Howard Lewis sitting across the way.

  “Who’s that?” Shane asked.

  “An icon in the horse business,” Mindy said. “They don’t come any better than Howard.”

  Penny Smith was sitting at a table off to the left having dinner with two of her dressage students. Mindy waved and Penny waved back.

  “Is this a favorite haunt for horse people?”

  “Definitely. The food’s delicious, they don’t mind the dirty boots, and the service is quick.”

  A young man appeared at the table to take their order. “What’ll it be? The usual?” he asked, turning to Mindy first.

  “Which is…?” Shane asked.

  “Penne pasta with marinara, salad with Italian dressing, a side of eggplant parmesan, and lots of hot bread with extra butter on the side.”

  “I’ll have the same,” Shane said.

  “Iced tea?”

  “Coors Light.”

  When the young man looked at him, Shane produced his driver’s license. Mindy asked to see it too. “So you are twenty-two.”

  Shane nodded, put his wallet away, and the two of them just sat looking at one another for a moment. “Do you have brothers and sisters?” Mindy asked.

  “Two sisters. Both are older than me, and a younger brother. He’s your age.”

  Mindy sat back when the server brought their drinks. “Thank you.”

  Shane picked up his beer and nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Your salads will be right up. Uncle Ronnie, you got their salads?” The young man was back in a flash, placed their salads down along with a hot loaf of fresh Italian bread slathered in a buttery sauce.

  “To die for and then some.” Mindy tore off a hunk, added even more butter, and handed it to him. “Huh? Am I right?”

  Shane nodded. “When you’re right, you’re right.”

  Mindy buttered herself a hunk and chomped it down. “How does one become a seismic reader? Wow, sounds kinda voodoo-doo-ish, doesn’t it? What do you do for a living? I’m a seismic reader.”

  Shane laughed and took a swig of beer.

  “Do you drink a lot?” Mindy asked, as casually as she could.

  “No. Not particularly. Why?”

  “My dad’s a recovering alcoholic. I would just hate to think….”

  “You come with a lot of baggage, you know,” Shane said.

  When Mindy looked at him, he smiled. “Just sayin’.”

  Mindy laughed. “I guess I do. So what’s your story?”

  “Just a normal kid from the holler.”

  “Are you a redneck?”

  “I can be on occasion.”

  Mindy chuckled. “I do like how you roll, Shane Thornton.”

  Shane cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Mindy laughed. “Eat your salad. They bring out the meals fast.”

  They talked about school over dinner, talked about why Mindy didn’t want to go to an equestrian college, even the ones that practically offered her the red carpet. They talked about the two years Shane spent in tech school.

  “Did you get any tuition assistance?”

  “Yeah,” Shane said, motioning for another beer. “Two part-time jobs and the coal mine every summer.”

  By the time they got to dessert, they practically knew one another’s entire life history. They walked out into the night under a star-lit sky. “This was nice,” Mindy said. “Thank you. Thank you for dinner too.”

  “My pleasure, Ma’am,” he said, pretending to tip his hat. When they piled into his truck, he looked at her and then leaned over and kissed her. “So, what are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Well, Saturdays are kinda my day off since we’re not showing this weekend, but with Bethann not back yet…. Why?”

  “I was wondering if you want to ride down home with me. I’m only going for a few hours. I promised my mom. It’s her birthday.”

  “How far is it?”

  “Two, two and half hours.”

  Mindy sat back, thinking. “I’ll see if I can get Mrs. Butchling to hang around. Maybe we can stop along the way there or back and visit Sassie Susie.”

  “Sassie Susie?”

  “The kinfolk I told you about.”

  By the time they pulled into the barn their plans were set. “I feed at seven, so pick me up around eight.” Mindy kissed him good-night and walked into the barn to check on the horses. She was pleased to see Rex in his stall. All appeared well for the moment.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Christine looked across the breakfast table at her daughter and shook her head. “You don’t even know this man, Mindy. And now you’re going to take off on a trip to West Virginia with him?”

  “He’s hardly a man, Mom. He’s only twenty-two.”

  “That’s a man,” her mother said. “What do you know about him?”

  “Everything.”

  “Christine,” Richard said.

  “I’m just asking.”

  “I told you. He seems like a nice kid. Come on. They’re not running off to get married. They’re going down for his mother’s birthday?”

  “Really?” Christine glanced from her husband to her daughter. “Really?”

  “I just said that, Mom. See! You never listen.”

  “I do.
I really do. I just must have blanked that out.”

  “Well, it’s true. It’s his mother’s birthday.”

  “Did you get her a gift? I don’t think it would be right to show up without a gift.”

  “I don’t even know if Shane’s taking her a gift. If he isn’t, why would I take one?”

  “To be polite. To make a good impression.”

  “Ohhhhh, so now you want me to make a good impression. I get it.”

  Richard laughed. Even Christine laughed.

  “So, is he picking you up?”

  “No, I’m meeting him at the barn. I’m going to go feed. I talked to Mrs. Butchling last night and she’s going to be at the barn off and on all day.” Mindy looked away for a second.

  “What?” Christine asked.

  “What if his mother doesn’t like me?”

  “Oh, honey,” Christine said. “Why would she not like you?” She glanced at her husband, imploring him to say something.

  “Everyone likes you, Mindy. Almost everyone at least,” he teased.

  “Richard, was that necessary?”

  “I’m kidding. I’m kidding.”

  When Mindy’s cellphone rang, she stared at it as if it were a ghost. “When did it start working?” She picked it up. “Hello.”

  “Mindy, it’s Shane. I’m at the barn and Rex is missing.”

  “What?”

  “He’s not in his stall?”

  ”How did you get my number?”

  “It’s written on the blackboard.”

  “How did you know it was mine?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because your name’s written next to it.”

  “I’ll be right down.” Mindy grabbed her purse and headed out the door.

  Her father called after her. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, yes, fine, fine. I’ll yell if it’s not.”

  As she drove her Jeep down the hill, trying not to speed, she scanned the front yards of all the houses she passed. No horse. She hoped beyond hope that he had just gotten out of his stall again and was roaming the grounds. She parked outside the barn. Shane was waiting for her.

  “He’s fine,” he said. “I found him. He’s down in the arena.”

  “What? What’s he doing?”

  ”He’s with that girl Julia. Near as I can figure, she’s just walking him.”

  “Oh my God,” Mindy clutched her heart and heaved a sigh of relief. “I was so afraid that man….”

  “What man?” Shane motioned for her to put her parking brake on when her Jeep started to roll forward. “Who?”

  “I’ll tell you later.” She stepped down out of her Jeep on wobbly legs and started down toward the arena. A myriad of thoughts ran through her mind as she approached the breezeway. “Was he colicked? If so, how would Julia know? What’s she doing here this early? What’s going on?”

  Julia looked at her with a big smile on her face. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I felt like walking and figured Rex might want to walk too. He likes this.”

  The horse walked along as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Was uh, everything okay when you got here?” Mindy asked. She didn’t want to come right out and say, was he loose in the barn? Was his stall chain still intact?

  “Fine,” she said. “I think he just woke up.”

  “Oh, well that’s good to know. I’m going to go feed now. Don’t be too long.”

  “I’m done,” she said. “We’ve been at this for a while.”

  “All right. I’ll see you up at the barn?” She looked at Shane as they walked up the hill. “Who am I to say? I used to trail ride Malaki at midnight under a full moon.”

  “Why?” Shane asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s what I mean.”

  Shane laughed. Julia and Rex came up the hill behind them. The three of them fed the horses, and just as Mindy was about to climb into Shane’s truck to leave, her mother and father arrived.

  “I’ve been trying to phone you since you left.”

  Mindy checked her phone. Her battery was dead again. “Ah, geez.”

  “Is everything okay?” her father asked.

  “Yes.”

  “See. I told you.”

  Christine looked at Shane. Shane looked at Christine.

  “Oh, sorry,” Mindy said. “This is my mom. You already met my dad. Mom, this is Shane.”

  Christine shook Shane’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Though I don’t mind telling you I’m a little concerned about you taking my daughter off this way to another state.”

  “It’s my mom’s birthday,” Shane said and glanced at Richard.

  “I got his license plate number, make and model. No worries.”

  Mindy laughed.

  Richard reached across and shook Shane’s hand and standing next to him then, motioned for him to look up into the surveillance camera. “Now if you’ll just give me your cellphone number and home phone number, you two can be on your way.”

  Shane gave Richard the phone numbers and his mother and father’s names and phone number as well. Mindy shook her head at the concerned look on her mother’s face as her father recorded all the information on his cellphone.

  “Mom, don’t worry. Okay? Besides, Leah’s watching out for me. Remember?”

  “Leah?” Shane said. “Who’s Leah?”

  “I’ll tell you all about her on the way.” The two climbed up into Shane’s truck and Mindy waved. “We’re going to go see Sassie Susie too. I’ll call you from there. We’re going to stop and get some feed to take to them.”

  Shane looked at her as they started down the hill toward the highway. “You have interesting parents,” he said. “Then again, you haven’t met mine yet.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  They stopped for donuts. They stopped for French fries. They stopped twice so Mindy could, “Go potty.” They stopped to buy Shane’s mother a birthday gift. “I am not going empty-handed,” Mindy said. “Does she like scarves?”

  “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “Does she have a favorite color.”

  Shane had to think. “Blue maybe.”

  “What color are her eyes?”

  Shane had to think about that too. “Brown. No, green.”

  Mindy purchased a green scarf and had it gift wrapped. “I hope she likes it,” Mindy said, when they were back on the road.

  “Are you kidding me? She’ll love it. She doesn’t get many gifts.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mindy pointed out the exit to Sassie Susie’s. “This is where we’ll get off on the way home.” She’d shared the story about their first trip down to Susie’s in the blizzard hauling Malaki and a trailer load of deer.

  “That was so dangerous,” Shane said. “I know these roads.”

  “I have to admit, it was scary. Particularly when that large buck was standing right in our path.”

  “Was it an eight-point?”

  Mindy looked at him, wondering if he was referring to her aversion to hunting or the deer back home. “As a matter of fact, it was. And then when Big Dave had all those deer antlers on the back of his truck….”

  “I’m starting to wonder if you like living on the edge or you just find yourself ending up there all the time.”

  Mindy laughed. “Probably a little of both,” she said, and fell silent for a moment.

  “You okay?” he asked, reaching for her hand.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m thinking I’m living on the edge right now.”

  Shane smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall. I promise.”

  Mindy nodded, staring out the side window. “How much further?”

  “It’s about five miles till my exit.”

  In what seemed like the blink of an eye, they were pulling up the drive to his family’s farm. There were at least ten pickup trucks scattered outside the barn and outbuildings, two cars parked by the garage. The house itself wasn’t large, but wasn�
�t small either. On each end of the porch was a hanging swing with an assortment of lawn chairs in between.

  “Is this where you grew up?”

  “Yep.”

  “I like it,” Mindy said, the first of the two of them to open their door.

  Shane got out and when Mindy walked around the front of the truck, he took her by the hand. “Gramps is hard of hearing and Aunt Barb can be a little hard to understand. She has a lisp.”

  A man walked out onto the porch, smiled, and then glanced back inside. “Ya’ll might want to come out here.”

  “That’s my dad, Blake,” Shane said, and a second later. “That’s my mom, Dee.” One by one, the entire Thornton clan filed out onto the porch. Mindy looked up at all of them as they lined up next to one another and then just stood there.

  “You didn’t tell them I was coming with you, did you?” she said.

  “No, I was afraid you might change your mind, and then I’d have all sorts of explaining to do. Dad, Mom, this is Mindy Morrison.”

  Shane’s mother nodded. His dad smiled.

  “And this is my sister Jackie.” Shane rattled off the names of all the uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews, his other sister Jasmine, his little brother Derek. “This is my family. Where’s Uncle Jake?”

  “He’ll be here,” his father said. “He’s moving a little slow today.”

  “Probably sampled a little too much of this year’s moonshine,” Shane said.

  Mindy looked at him.

  “Just kidding,” he said.

  “It’s nice to meet you all,” Mindy said. “Oh, I forgot.” She hurried back to Shane’s truck for the birthday gift and hurried back. “This is for you. Happy Birthday.”

  Shane’s mother took the gift and thanked her. “Come in. Come in. We’re just about to set the table.” The family all filed back in - Shane and Mindy bringing up the rear, followed by his brother Derek who kept patting him on the back.

  “Keep that up and I’m going to smack you,” Shane said.

  Derek laughed. He wanted some eye contact with his older brother, wanted to know….

  Mindy looked around the large living room. “The restroom’s down the hall,” Shane’s sister Jackie said. “If you want to freshen up, Jasmine will show you where.”

  Mindy followed Shane’s older sister down the hall and when they’d gone. “Restroom? Freshen up? Listen to you, lahdeedah!” her cousin Kathy said. “Unless she’s going in there for a rest….”