by Judy Clemens
“Claire deserves it.”
“Yeah.” Her expression went wrong, like she’d just tasted sour milk. “Unlike those two.”
The Greggs, of course. We’d neared their area, and were in good view of them and their animals. The two middle girls—the original, older two had graduated and moved on to other things—had side-by-side stalls, and their Guernseys could have been twins. A little larger than Breezy, they stood tall and strong, with clear-cut markings and pretty, trimmed forelocks. Not exactly what you would see if you came to my place. But then, I have Holsteins, which have a different look altogether.
“I need to go,” Amy said. “See you later?”
“We’ll be around.”
She left, offering one more glare toward the offending exhibitors, and we turned our attention to the family we’d come to check out.
The Gregg girls were in full-out decoration mode, hanging posters and ribbons and glitter. It was like a Hobby Lobby had exploded. The girls, apparently not content with buying a champion, had decided they needed to win the stall decoration contest, as well. Maybe that was the only way they would feel like they had actually done something to deserve winning a prize. But then, if their parents thought what they were doing cow-wise was legit, their daughters probably thought so, too.
The cows in question were pretty nice. And by pretty nice, I mean perfect. Great build, great coloring, great udders. It was no wonder they’d won at the State Fair the year before.
“Pretty, aren’t they?” The Gregg mom was talking to me. She’d obviously just had her hair done, and her lipstick was on in nice, clean lines. I stifled a desire to kick wood chips on her clean pants and un-scuffed boots. Very grown up of me.
After a slight pause, during which I was biting my tongue, Nick said, “Yes, they’re very nice.”
We watched the girls climbing all over the stall, covering every available surface with sparkle. It was amazing how unlike a cow stall a square box made of wood could actually become.
“They have such nice personalities, too,” the Gregg mom said. “We’re very fortunate.”
And then I couldn’t help it. “They are nice cows. Practically perfect in every way. Too bad I can’t congratulate the people who actually raised them.”
The smile froze on Mrs. Gregg’s face, and her voice rose. “What do you mean by that?”
“Mary, what’s wrong?” Now the Gregg dad was getting in on it.
She took a little hiccup breath. “She was saying that—”
“Nothing,” I said. “I was saying nothing.”
Mrs. Gregg’s chin quivered, but I didn’t feel sorry for her. That’s what she got for being a cheater, and teaching her kids to be cheaters, too.
“Well, you were obviously saying something, because my wife is upset.” He wasn’t going to let it go.
Fine. “We were just having a conversation about who should actually get the credit for your cows. Your family, or the people who actually turned them into champions.”
Nick grabbed my hand and pulled. I dug in.
Mr. Gregg, all fake farmer in his pressed denim pants and plaid shirt, looked me up and down, his eyes hesitating at the steer head tattoo peeking around from the back of my neck. His chest puffed out, and he made his hands into fists, pushing against the tops of his legs. “And who would you be?”
“Nobody,” Nick said. “She’s nobody. Come on.” That was to me, of course.
I let him drag me away this time, aware I wasn’t helping matters for anybody by pointing out the Greggs’ bad decisions. Except my own sense of justice.
“Hey—” the Gregg dad called after us, but Nick hustled me out of the barn and into the crowd of incoming kids and animals.
“Nobody?” I said, yanking him to a stop. “I’m nobody?”
“As far as he’s concerned, yes. Do you really want to start a fight in the dairy barn? In front of all those kids?”
I turned away, glaring across the sea of people. Dammit, Nick was right. But it was just so wrong.
“Geez, what’s with you?” Zach and Randy were coming back from the food tent.
“Nothing,” I said.
The boys gave Nick some kind of look, and slowly walked away.
“Dude,” Randy said over his shoulder to Nick. “I am so glad I’m not you right now.”
“You won’t be soon,” I said.
Randy’s head jerked around, and he walked a little faster.
Nick smiled.
“What?” I snapped.
He smiled some more. “You have such a way with people. It’s no wonder you have so many friends.” He slid his arms around my waist and kissed me, right there on the fairway. “So, my sweet girl. Ready to go home now?”
He was lucky I didn’t slug him.
Chapter Six
Zach held his hands up as we approached his stall to say goodbye. “I didn’t do anything, I swear. Please don’t kill me.”
“Nah,” I said. “I’ll just kill Randy.”
Randy stepped behind Zach, as if he were really afraid.
Austin sauntered over from his stall, wiping his hands on a rag. “Can I watch?”
I made a gun with my fingers. “I’ll let you know time and place.”
“You mean it’s not right now?”
“I enjoy the anticipation.”
He gave me a thumbs-up.
Randy didn’t.
“Barnabas doing good?” I reached into the stall to rub the calf’s head. He butted up against my hand, and I kneaded harder as he pushed forward. I almost expected him to start purring, or to flop on the ground so I could rub his belly.
Zach laughed and patted Barnabas’ back. “He’s great. Seems pretty happy.”
“He’s always pretty happy. Aren’t you, sweetie?” Barnabas looked up at me with bright, liquid eyes, and I rubbed his ears.
“We’re heading out,” I said to Zach. “You need anything else?”
“I’m good. Thanks for bringing me and Barnabas over.”
“You got it.”
“You coming to the concert tonight?” Opening night of the fair always featured a local country artist, this time Rikki Raines, a girl who’d grown up in the county and had started to make a name for herself in the surrounding areas. The teens seemed to be fans, from the different T-shirts I’d glimpsed throughout the day, proclaiming the wearers to be “Rikki’s Rowdies.” I’d even seen several bright white wigs, which emulated the long, bleached locks of the singer.
I glanced at Nick, and he shrugged. Country wasn’t exactly his glass of milk, but it was always a good time to see people. I’m not always a people-person, but when it came to the fair, I was “fairly” assured of seeing people I liked. At least, some of them. “We’ll see what we feel like by that time. If not, we’ll be by tomorrow.”
His eyes shifted sideways, and I turned. Bobby had come up, accompanied by a girl. This girl was completely different from anything we’d seen so far. Not a farmer, like Claire, but also not the obscene mannequin we’d experienced at lunch. This girl was cute. Bouncy, but in a good way. And a real way, from what I could tell. She looked like an actual teenager, tallish, with good bone structure. Her long, shiny hair was sort of an auburn color, and a smattering of freckles dusted her nose. She wore sparkly flip-flops, bright pink shorts, and a white blouse, tied at her waist. If she wore makeup, it was expertly applied, so all I noticed were healthy skin and bright green eyes. She was the real deal.
“Hey,” Bobby said into our silence.
Zach nodded, his eyes still on the girl.
Uh-oh.
“This is my cousin, Taylor,” Bobby said. “She’s from Doylestown, and, um, she’s doing that pageant thing this week. Taylor, this is Zach. He’s the one staying with us this week.”
Nick made a noise, and I elbowed him, but I looked at the girl. “You’re bunking with Bobby and Claire, too?” Because that could be trouble.
“No,” she said, exhibiting perfect teeth. “I won’t be staying
overnight here at the fair. I don’t have an animal to take care of, so…” She shrugged prettily. If shrugging can be described as pretty. “I’ll leave the hard work up to these guys.”
Oh, she knew how to work it.
“That’s Austin,” Bobby said. Austin had—geez, what a coincidence—come back over to rejoin the conversation.
Austin smiled. “Hey, Taylor, nice to meet you.”
She returned his smile, then moved toward Barnabas. “Is this your calf, Zach? Ooo, he’s so cute!”
Yup, definitely working it.
I glanced at Nick, and he winked. “You ready now?”
I turned to say goodbye to Zach and give him a “have fun and be careful” speech, but—what a surprise—he wouldn’t have noticed if I’d suddenly grown a second head, seeing how he was introducing Miss Cutie to his calf. Nick and I started toward the back of the barn, and met Claire coming in. I saw the moment she noticed what was going on behind us. Her face went from shy eagerness to surprise, then anger, and finally to acceptance.
“Hi, Claire,” I said.
But she didn’t hear me. She hesitated, then turned around and walked back out of the barn, her shoulders tight.
“Poor girl,” Nick said.
“Yeah.”
She was already out of sight by the time we got outside. But someone else was waiting, just around the other side of the trailer where kids would be emptying their wheelbarrows of manure each day.
“You!” Mr. Gregg stomped up and leaned toward my face, way breaking that whole personal space thing. He lowered his voice, and hissed, “You stay away, you hear me? Don’t you come near my family, or my cows.”
“Hey,” Nick said, but I held him off.
Gregg leaned in even closer, so I could feel his breath. He was only a few inches taller than me, and a little bit rounder, so I wasn’t too worried about my safety. My boots could do some damage if they needed to. When he didn’t move, I put my hand on his chest and pushed him back.
He slapped my hand away. “Don’t you touch me.”
“Then I would suggest you back up. Now. Or you’re going to feel my foot somewhere you wouldn’t want it.”
His mouth worked, but he took the step I’d suggested. “I’m serious,” he said. “You stay away, or…or you’ll be sorry.”
“It will be my pleasure.” I smiled.
His eyes flicked from me to Nick. “You, too.”
Nick blinked. “What did I do?”
Gregg didn’t answer him. Instead, he twitched his nose, and stomped away. Nobody approached him, or even looked at him with interest.
Nick shook his head. “Like I said. You’re always making new friends.”
“Who would want to be friends with him?”
“Apparently not you.”
“Or anybody else at this fair.”
He watched until Gregg was gone. “I just don’t want him coming after you.”
“Let him.”
“Stella—”
“I’m kidding. Kidding.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think you are.”
He knew me so well. How sweet was that?
“Come on,” I said, putting my arm around his waist. “Stop worrying about Mr. I Buy My Kids Their Lives. Let’s go home.”
“Do you have friends there?”
“You know I do. Queenie loves me. And Lucy tolerates me.” I rested my chin on his shoulder. “And maybe I’ll show you just how good a friend of yours I am.”
He looked down at me, and at my lips. “Really?”
I smiled, and raised my eyebrows, just a fraction.
He swallowed. “Just how fast can we get there?”
Chapter Seven
Later that afternoon I was headed out to the barn when my phone rang. This was not the phone in the house. It was not the phone in the barn. It was the new cell phone—with the pink, sparkly cover—Miranda had bought for me and insisted I carry at all times “in case something happens to Nick.” Now, I really didn’t want to start carrying a phone, and there were lots of times I didn’t, like when I was milking, or scraping the barnyard, or when I was actually with Nick, because if the whole point was to take care of him, I would do better being with him in person than counting on technology. If we were gone somewhere and Lucy needed me, she could always call him—he’d had a phone ever since I’d met him. I loved him anyway.
But just at that moment, I happened to have my unwanted accessory on me. “You want to answer it, Queenie?” I held it out to her.
She sneezed.
“Fine. I’ll get it. This time. Royalcrest Farms.”
“Stella Crown?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Becky from up at the bank.”
“How did you get this number?”
“It’s on your answering machine. It said if you didn’t answer at that number and it was an emergency to call this one.”
Miranda. I was going to strangle her. “So what’s the emergency?” Although I knew it couldn’t be good. The words “bank” and “emergency” should never be in the same conversation.
“You had a big bill come through today, and, well, you don’t have enough funds in your account to cover it. I need to know what you want to do.”
“What was the bill?”
I heard papers shuffling. “Insurance. Bi-annual premium.”
“Shit.” I rubbed my forehead in case it helped. It didn’t. “Can’t you just use some money from my savings, like you always do when I overdraw?”
“See, that’s why I’m calling. There’s not enough in your savings, either, so the only other possibility would be to take it out of your line of credit, but that would push you right up to the limit of that, also. It would be the last time you could use your LOC until you paid some off.”
I stood in the middle of my driveway, staring at my barn, but not really seeing it. Red was the only color I could identify, because that was the color of every bank account I’d ever had. Also because I was plenty pissed off. At Becky, the bank girl. At the economy. At Miranda, for changing my answering machine. At Nick, for having money I didn’t want to ask him for.
“Ms. Crown?”
I sighed. “Use the line of credit. I’ll figure something out for the next big bill.”
She cleared her throat. “You’ll have to figure out something for the little ones, too, I’m afraid.”
I hung up on her.
“Stella?” Lucy was standing in the doorway of the barn. “Everything okay?”
“Sure. Everything’s just dandy.”
She frowned, swiveling sideways to let Queenie and me through. “That didn’t sound very convincing.”
“No? That’s probably because I was lying.” I kept walking straight through to the office, Queenie on my heels. I slammed the door behind us and dropped into my desk chair, my head in my hands. Queenie lay on the floor beside me, her nose on her outstretched paws. Her eyebrows shifted as she watched my half-hidden face, and I reached a hand down to rest it on her head. The door opened. I didn’t look up. “Did my slamming the door not give you a hint that I wanted to be left alone?” When Lucy didn’t respond, I looked up. Miranda. Even better. “What?”
“Geez, don’t bite my head off. I only came to get you to think about something, okay? Just let me finish before saying anything.”
“Miran—”
“Uh-uh. No talking.” She waggled a finger in my face. I wanted to break it. Or bite it.
She kept on going, like I’d given her the go-ahead. “I know you think this wedding should be how you want it, and of course it is your wedding. But think about Nick. It’s his wedding, too. Don’t you want it to be nice? Here. I have it all budgeted out, because I know you’re concerned about the money.” She pulled a paper out of a pristine manila folder and slid it across the desk. “Everything, down to the penny. I’ve been calling in favors. We do have a lot of friends in Virginia, you know. But look, see? The caterer, flowers, musicians, photographer, videographe
r, dresses—including your dress, tuxedos, honeymoon, going-away clothes, transportation…it’s all there. Take a look and let me know what you think.”
Something very cold and very ugly was creeping up my throat, and I knew there was no way Miranda or our relationship would survive it. It didn’t matter what she’d written on the paper. No matter how many favors she’d called in, no matter how many “friends” she had, there was no way I could afford whatever wedding she thought we should have. More than that, there was no way I wanted to afford it.