by Lucy Score
“Help!” Niko yelled back. “I have no idea how to catch a pig or what to do with one once it’s caught.”
Franklin hustled down the hill, his red and blue Hawaiian shirt billowing in the breeze. “Maybe we can herd them into a pasture,” he suggested when he reached Niko’s side.
It was the best idea Niko had heard all day. “Yes! Let’s do that!”
“You run ahead of them and try to scare them back this way, and we’ll see if we can’t coax them into the north pasture over here. I’ll man the gate,” Franklin offered.
Niko’s reply died on his lips when a yellow-eyed, brown-furred blur galloped between them on the path.
“Oh, shit.”
“Clementine.” Hands on hips, Franklin watched the goat charge down the farm lane. “Going after Jax,” he predicted.
“Is that bad?”
“You might want to text him and tell him to get to higher ground,” Franklin suggested.
Texting. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Niko wrestled his phone out of his pocket and fired off a text to Jax warning him about the furry brown missile and then another one to Carter and Beckett begging for assistance.
Carter responded immediately.
“How in the fuck did that happen?” which was quickly followed by “On my way.”
There was no time to explain, not with four hundred pounds of pork hightailing it toward freedom. And Niko sighed with relief. “Okay, Carter’s on his way.”
His phone chimed again. “And so is Beckett.”
“Well, let’s see if we can at least get Dixie and Hamlet turned in the right direction before they get here,” Franklin suggested.
“Good call. I’ll run. You man the gate.” Niko loped off. The sweat was starting to work its way down his spine. He shed his leather jacket and dropped it in the grass and cut around the pigs that were happily stomping through a swath of wildflowers. They paid him no attention as he circled back to them from the other direction.
Great. He was in position. Now what?
Franklin, hanging on the open pasture gate, waved his arms in a shooing motion.
“Right, okay.” Niko raised his arms. “Shoo, pigs. Shoo!”
The bigger pig, Hamlet, Niko presumed, shot him a nonplussed look. Niko tried it again, waving his arms harder. “Shoo!”
Hamlet went back to nosing around in the flowers.
“Come on, guys. I’ve had a shitty day.” And now he was pleading with pigs. Fucking perfect.
“Fine. We’ll do this the hard way then,” he said, hoping his warning tone would convince the pigs to take him seriously.
Dixie rolled on her back in the dirt.
Desperate, Niko stomped his foot on the ground and clapped his hands. “Let’s go!” he yelled.
Dixie stopped rolling, one ear flicking.
“Move!” But there was nothing that hinted that the pigs were even aware of his existence.
“Fine. You asked for this. Just remember that. You could have been good pigs, but no. I have to do it this way.” Niko lunged for them, startling the pigs. They took off in opposite directions, and Niko went after the smaller one. “Get your ass back here, Dixie!” She started uphill, of course, and he hit a dead run behind her. He’d lost a lot today. He was not going to lose a battle to a pig. That was his last thought until his boot caught on a root. He caught air and time slowed long enough for him to brace for the impact. He sprawled face down into the dirt, a cloud of dust rising all around him.
He was debating on whether he was ever going to get up again or just let the turkey buzzards find him when the sound of raucous laughter reached his ears over the buzz of bees and the joyful squeals of pigs being assholes.
He half-rolled, half-flopped onto his side and spotted the source of the noise. Carter and Beckett hung out of the top of Carter’s Jeep laughing themselves stupid. Beckett was in tears as Carter clung to the roll bar gasping for breath
Niko held up his middle finger. It only made them laugh harder.
“Yeah, keep laughing, assholes. It’s your pigs running wild.”
“It was worth it just to see you Superman into a dust cloud,” Carter howled.
Franklin ambled up, the urgency of the task passed, and had the good grace to only chuckle quietly.
Carter finally took pity on him and, still snickering, hung out over the windshield. He raised a bag of potato chips in the air and shook it. “Here, pig, pig, pig!” he called.
Niko watched in fascinated misery as the two walking slabs of bacon trotted back to the Jeep, tails wagging and ears twitching.
“I hate you,” Niko called out.
––—
With the pigs cheerfully following Beckett’s trail of potato chips out of the back of Carter’s Jeep, Niko was tasked with unsavory job of rounding up Clementine and leading her back home. She’d been heading toward the stables, and he was hoping she had a similar vice for people food that he could use to his advantage.
He jogged into the stable, noting that nearly every exterior door was open in appreciation of the warm spring day. Voices carried from the indoor riding ring at the far end of the building. Niko headed in that direction, looking left and right for any sign of Clementine.
“It doesn’t make sense that way,” Jax yelled, dropping the rake he’d been using to coax the sawdust into a neat layer inside the ring.
“Of course, it makes sense,” Reva said, teenage annoyance in her tone.
Niko peered over the shoulder-high wall and took in the argument in progress
Jax shook his head. “No way. I’m not comfortable with that. You can’t just catch a ride with a guy.”
Reva looked baffled. “Why not? He lives just down the road. I’m on his way.”
“You might not be aware of this, but I was a teenage guy with a car once, and I know what teenage guys with cars are thinking when they offer a girl a ride to science camp!”
“He’s offering me a ride, not a teenage pregnancy!”
Jax’s growl of frustration echoed off the rafters as he paced away from the wheelbarrow and then back again. “You’re damn right you’re not getting pregnant! You are forbidden to date! Ever.”
Niko stifled his laugh. At least someone else was having a shitty day, too. Joey, amusement written all over her pretty face and Waffles at her heels, bellied up to the wall on the other side of the gate. She stood on tip toe and finding the view lacking, climbed on top of an upside-down bucket. The dog wasn’t about to be left out and scurried over to the gate and sat as if he too were eavesdropping.
Oblivious to the audience, the argument continued. “Jax. I’m seventeen.” Reva sounded like she was talking to a toddler. “And it’s not a date. It’s a ride into town for a week for advanced placement prep.”
“You’re not seeing the danger here!”
Jax wasn’t either, Niko realized when he caught a movement across the ring. A black and brown head poked around the door to the outdoor ring. Clementine.
“You’re overreacting,” Reva argued. You make it sound like I’m asking permission to attend the senior class orgy!”
Niko wondered if Joey could see the goat, if she’d call out a warning. He shot her a look and judged by the amusement on her face, Joey was perfectly content to watch it all unfold.
“Christ!” Jax shoved his hands through his hair. “It’s like arguing with your mother!”
Jax and Reva froze as the weight of the words settled over them. Joey pressed a hand to her mouth.
“You’re not talking about Sheila,” Reva said, finally. She scuffed the toe of her boot into the sawdust.
Jax ran a nervous hand through his hair. “No. I’m not. Shit. I’m sorry. I just got caught up—”
But then Reva was hugging him hard. And the way her shoulders shook, Niko bet it was about a decade of stored up emotion that she was releasing. Carefully, as if he was afraid he might scare her or break her, Jax wrapped his arms around the girl.
It was the intimacy of the moment
that had Niko opening his camera app and taking one quick shot. The first moment that she realized she had a family. The first moment that she really let herself believe. It went straight to his gut.
Joey felt the moment, too, Niko could see. The normally stoic smartass pressed her fingers to her lips, eyes glistening with unshed tears. Waffles’ tail swished side to side silently over the floor. Niko shifted just a little to add Joey to the frame and clicked again. They were connected, the two adults who chose each other and a girl who’d found her way to them. And if that motley crew belonged together, then he and Emma had a chance. A real one. They both deserved it, if she would just get out of her own way.
And just like that, the anger in him dissipated. Family wasn’t just blood and biology it was a commitment. A hard-headed refusal to accept anything but the best for the ones you chose and the ones you were gifted. He had that here with Emma, whether she liked it or not.
“I’m not trying to be a hard ass here, Reev.” Jax insisted, drawing Niko’s attention back to the action in the ring. “It’s my job to protect you from guys like I used to be. If you stop crying, you can ride with that jackass.”
Reva’s shoulders still shook, but Niko couldn’t tell if it was tears or laughter.
“Sorry, I mean that guy,” Jax amended. “After Joey and I meet him and Cardona runs a background check on three generations of his family.”
Before Reva could reply, she was interrupted by a psychotic farm animal.
Clementine, bored with the scene, bleated out an enraged battle cry and charged into the ring. Niko swore the goat’s eyes rolled back in her head. Jax shrieked like a five-year-old girl coming face to face with her favorite Disney princess and shoved Reva in front of him like a human shield.
Joey, peals of laughter wracking her body, fell off the bucket she’d been standing on. Waffles dodged her falling body and scuttled into the ring, determined to protect her human father from the demon interloper.
“Don’t let that yellow-eyed asshole kill Waffles!” Jax shouted, shoving Reva forward toward Clementine and reaching protectively for the dog.
“You can’t be serious. You’re not afraid of this sweet little goat, are you?” Reva wandered right up to the goat and stroked a hand down the fickle Clementine’s neck. This time when the goat’s yellow eyes rolled back in her head, it was in pleasure. “See? She’s just a sweetheart.”
“Do not let go of her,” Jax warned, backing away. “Joey, if you can stop pissing your pants laughing, I’d appreciate it if you could get a damn lead rope or something!”
“I think she’s going to need a few minutes to get back on her feet,” Niko announced, leaving the relative protection of the wall and stepping into the ring. He grabbed a rope off the hook inside the gate and stepped up next to Jax. “I’m here to collect this creepy-eyed lady and take her back to Carter’s.”
“Yeah. Great. Whatever.” Jax grabbed Niko by the shoulders and pushed him in the direction of the goat. “Stay where you are,” he hissed at the goat.
Niko, remembering his own experience being chased by Clementine, advanced slowly. “Now, let’s just stay calm. We’re just going to put this rope on your disturbing little neck, and you’re going to walk out of here real nice.”
Reva, amused at their caution, helped Niko hook the lead rope around itself on Clementine’s neck. “There that wasn’t so hard, was it, you big babies?”
Something like victory lit Clementine’s ghoulish eyes, and Niko looked over his shoulder at Jax. “Uh, she looks like she’s going to –”
His tentative warning was too little, too late. The goat lunged past Reva and under Niko’s arm. He threw himself over her bristly back and hung on for dear life, but no one was fast enough to stop a determined goat.
Reva’s “oh shit” sounded to Niko’s ears like it came in slow motion as Clementine met her target with a creepy ear-piercing bleat.
“Ah! She’s got me! She’s got me!” Jax screeched as the goat latched onto his jeans. “I don’t have any cookies, you psycho bitch!”
Niko and Reva wrestled whatever goat parts they could find while Joey sobbed with laughter behind the wall.
“I’m so pissed at you right now,” Jax yelled at his wife.
“Looks like they’ve got the situation under control,” Beckett called from the entrance to the ring where he stood with Carter.
“Get your asses in here!” Jax screamed while Niko tried to get Clementine’s neck in a headlock to pry her face off of Jax.
Carter took a handful of chips before passing the bag to Beckett. “Just another day on the farm,” he crunched.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Emma had taken her keys and bag with her when she’d left the brewery, but the idea of confining her pain to her car was too constricting. She needed to move, to walk, to breathe. Blindly she followed the dirt path that connected farm and brewery.
Spring was edging toward summer already with an explosive blooming of wildflowers in the field. The trees were full and green, the grasses in the meadows and pastures a riot of life. How could she feel so much pain while surrounded by so much beauty, Emma wondered?
But the icy feeling in her gut wouldn’t go away. She hated hurting people, and hurting Niko had been the worst thing she’d ever done. She wondered, for just a second, if her mother had ever been cognizant of the pain she’d caused others.
Emma trudged up a small hill, not bothering to look at anything but her own feet, and stopped when she realized she’d found the Pierces’ picnic pavilion, the very spot she’d surprised her sister and father almost exactly a year ago with the announcement she was moving to Blue Moon.
She’d been so excited about the possibilities, the future. How had it all gotten so screwed up? Emma buried her face in her hands.
“What is wrong with everyone?” she demanded to no one.
“Well, I like to think there’s a little something wrong with all of us.”
Emma clamped a hand over her racing heart. “Jesus, Phoebe. You just scared eight years off of my life.”
Phoebe slid off the picnic table she’d been perched upon. “Imagine my terror when a raving lunatic approaches shouting into the void.”
“Touché,” Emma offered a watery smile.
Phoebe patted the bench next to her. “Come sit. We don’t have to talk.”
Too emotionally exhausted to make an excuse, Emma sat. They stared quietly out over the hills and creek, the green and the blues and browns.
“So are you having a freak out, too?” Emma asked, breaking the silence.
Phoebe laughed. “If you call talking to the dead a freak out, then yes.”
“John?” Emma asked. John Pierce was Phoebe’s first husband, the father of her sons. He’d died years before, and the hole in the family was still felt. They’d built this pavilion on the spot where they’d scattered his ashes.
Phoebe smiled sadly. “Yes. I come up here regularly to fill John in on what he’s missing out on. Not that he’s not hovering over us all and pulling strings, of course.”
“Of course.” Emma’s lips quirked.
“I was just filling him in on Reva and Caleb.”
“They’re really good kids,” Emma sighed.
“So are you and your sisters,” Phoebe said pointedly.
“Is that your way of leaving an opening for me to pour my heart out?”
Phoebe grinned, leaning back and resting her elbows on the table. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”
So Emma told her. The whole ugly story.
“The things he said to me,” she shook her head. “I just can’t believe someone who loves me would say those things.”
“Honey, I’m not going to give you advice because the person who knows what’s best for you is you. But I will tell you something that I think you need to hear.”
Phoebe grasped Emma’s hand and squeezed.
“Love is an incredibly beautiful thing. Love is the reason your father keeps a handwritten list of th
ings for me to come here to tell John about. Because Franklin loves me so much that he doesn’t see me still loving John as a betrayal.”
Emma took a shuddery breath and laughed when a tear fell. “That’s my dad.”
“And that’s love. It can and should be the source of your greatest strength, not your biggest fear. Don’t forget that, Emma.”
Emma sniffled and took a breath. “You know, Phoebe, if I got to pick my mom, she would have been you.”
Phoebe pulled her into a hug. “Oh, sweetie. Now you’re going to make me mushy. I love you very much, and I want you to be happy and safe.”
“I love you, too,” Emma hiccupped.
“Do you want to come back to the house and drink a whole pitcher of margaritas?”
Emma laughed. “Thank you, but I think I need to walk and think some more.”
“Well, the offer stands. Anytime you need it,” Phoebe said.
––—
The walking helped her work back up to mad. It was a safer emotion than sad or hurt. And she was fairly certain Niko had earned her wrath. She replayed his words over and over again in her head.
How dare he? Emma fumed as she stalked through the field away from the brewery. How dare he presume to understand her. Just because she’d rejected him, he’d lashed out at her with ugly accusations. She’d been right all along to be reluctant getting involved with him.
She ignored the lovely warmth of the sunshine even as it coaxed her face upward and trudged on down the skinny dirt path that paralleled the pasture fences.
She should have listened to her instincts, Emma railed against herself. They’d always protected her before, but Nikolai had tunneled under her defenses only to plant a Trojan horse in her heart.
She wasn’t her mother, and she sure as hell wasn’t a coward. She was steady, stable. She didn’t run away.
Except she had. The thought stopped her in her tracks.
Hadn’t she? After all, she’d been the one to walk away.
Emma sank down on the bench, oblivious to the riot of flowers, the buzz of long dormant bees. She’d carefully constructed a life that wouldn’t ever open her up to the kind of pain she’d known when her mother left. She’d chosen men for their steadiness, their lack of threat to her independence and her heart. She’d quashed desires and behaviors in herself that she deemed too much like her mother.