Hideaway

by Hannah Alexander

  They approached the dock, and Blaze jumped out of the boat and tied the rope around the post. Without speaking or looking at Dane, he reached for one end of the trough while Dane lifted the other. Together, in uncomfortable silence, they carried the water trough up the hill.

  Cheyenne saw them and left the horse munching contentedly as she strolled toward them. She wore denim cutoffs, a tank top and tennis shoes without socks. Her glossy black hair was tousled around her face, and she wore no makeup. She looked great. Dane tried to imagine her wearing a set of scrubs and a doctor’s lab coat. Somehow, the image didn’t fit.

  “Thanks for bringing that, guys,” she said, coming toward them. “I’ve already had to refill the bucket for Courage at least eight times. He keeps kicking it over.”

  “I thought we’d let Blaze have a look at him,” Dane said.

  Blaze gave an impolite snort. “Better not trust me alone with him,” he muttered.

  Cheyenne gave him a curious look as she rushed ahead of them to open the corral gate. “What’s eating you?”

  Blaze jerked his head toward Dane. “Ask him, he’s got the rule book.”

  They carried the trough to the corral, removed the leaky trough and set theirs beneath the hydrant at the corner of the barn.

  Blaze turned on the faucet, then pivoted and saluted Dane in a poor imitation of a soldier. “Guess I’d better ask permission to go check on that horse, sir.”

  “Permission granted.”

  Blaze saluted again, then leaped the fence like an agile cat and whistled to the scrawny animal. Dane watched him leave, and sighed.

  “What was that all about?” Cheyenne asked.

  “He’s pouting over the rules.” Dane watched Blaze walk around the side of the house and out of sight. “We have a lot of them, and one has to do with curfew. He apparently had a lot of freedom and responsibility from an early age, and he’s chaffing.”

  “I’d say. I’ve never been great about following the rules myself, but I can understand why you need them.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad someone does. Sometimes I wonder if I’m being too strict.”

  She touched his arm. “Do you have a habit of worrying too much?”

  “How could you tell?”

  “I’ve seen that look in the mirror a few times. I’ll tell you what I tell myself—stop it. It’ll age you fast. While Blaze is making friends with Courage, how about a piece of gooseberry pie?”

  “Bertie’s?”

  “Mine.”

  “Lead the way.”

  “I’m warning you,” she said as he held the corral gate open for her, then closed it and followed her to the house, “it’s the first pie I ever made, and I’m not known for my culinary abilities.”

  “What a shame. You mean you wasted all that spare time during medical school and you never learned how to bake?”

  “I could do a cake mix, and I learned how to pick up the phone and order a great pizza.”

  In the kitchen, Cheyenne took a pie out of the refrigerator and cut a wedge of flaky crust filled with green, tart-sweet gooseberry filling. “Bertie helped me with it. She said it was almost as good as hers.”

  “Bertie never lies.” Dane took the pie and pulled a chair out for her.

  “She might exaggerate a little.” Cheyenne sat down and leaned back. “I want to watch your face when you take your first bite.”

  Dane obliged, and was pleasantly surprised. “Your first pie, huh? You know, if you decided to change professions, maybe you’d be interested in opening a bakery in the little shop next to the general store.” For that matter, she could open that shop anyway, and treat patients instead of selling pies. It would be a whole lot healthier for everyone, and a whole lot more rewarding for her, if she’d be willing to do it.

  “I’m glad you like it.” Cheyenne leaned her elbows against the table. “I remember one time, when I was about fourteen, when my cooking efforts ruined a whole weekend. I’d been invited to a bunking party by some girls at school, and I was so thrilled about it that I rushed straight home Friday afternoon and decided to bake some cookies for the party.” She shook her head. “I didn’t get invited to a lot of parties, so this was special. I got the recipe out for my favorite oatmeal-raisin cookies and tried to make them myself.”

  “What happened?”

  “It took me so long that I just barely had time to get ready to go, and I didn’t have time to taste the cookies. But the girls at the party tasted them, and those cookies were awful. I’d misread the instructions, cooked them too long, and they were so hard we could barely bite into them. And they were too salty. The girls all got a good laugh out of it.”

  “What did you do?” Dane asked quietly.

  She got up and covered the pie, set it in the refrigerator and sat back down. “I walked home, and took my cookies with me. I never told my parents about it, but that was when I finally decided to learn to read as well as anyone else.”

  “You’ve improved since then, obviously.”

  “That tutor I told you about made a world of difference to me. She helped me see letters in a way that made sense. I’m not a teacher, but I still remember the things that helped me.” She glanced out the window toward the corral. “I have a feeling Blaze might want to spend some time over here for the next few weeks. What could it hurt to try a few simple exercises with him?”

  “Exercises?” Dane could have hugged her. “You want to help him learn to read?”

  “I’ll try. What worked for me might work for him. Recalling that one baking incident when I was a kid helped clarify Blaze’s situation for me. Isn’t it strange what we remember about our childhoods?”

  “Not strange. I think it tells us a lot about ourselves, why we react to particular circumstances in particular ways.” He finished the last bite of pie and carried his plate and fork to the sink, then sat down again. “For instance, I was raised in the city and I hated it, so every chance I had to be in the country, I went. I’ve loved farm life ever since. How about you?”

  “I’m not sure you would call this place a farm,” she said.

  “Did I mention that I had considered trying to buy this place before I bought the ranch?”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “I wanted more acreage to grow hay and graze cattle.”

  She rested her arms on the table. “I love it here. I’ve never seen so many wildflowers in one field. I’ve identified them, too. Daisies, yellow clover, spring cress, fire pink.”

  She loved it here. He resisted the urge to leap on that statement and run with it. Still…” If you don’t mind my saying so, you seem a lot more relaxed and at peace than you did when you first arrived.”

  Her dark eyebrows drew together quizzically. “That’s not exactly a stretch. It just means I haven’t maced you recently.”

  “And I appreciate that. So tell me more about how you inherited Courage.”

  “I didn’t. Austin found him starving on a property he’s selling and thought this would be a good place to fatten him up.”

  “So he’s Austin’s horse?” It sounded to Dane like he wasn’t the only one who was hoping Cheyenne might stay around a little longer. “And he’s paying you for the use of your pasture and your time?”

  “I don’t think so. We didn’t discuss it.”

  The cheapskate. “In that case, I don’t suppose you’d mind if we brought a load of cattle over to graze.” He couldn’t help himself.

  She had a smile that engaged her whole face and made her look barely older than Blaze. Dane had been captivated by it the first time he’d seen it. He only wished he could see it more often.

  There was a loud knock on the screen door behind them. “There you are,” Blaze said as he opened it and came inside. “Cheyenne, you got a currycomb or a brush around here anywhere?”

  Dane couldn’t help noticing that Blaze was apparently still pouting.

  “Not unless there’s one in the barn I haven’t found,” Cheyenne said. “Would y
ou like a piece of gooseberry pie and some milk?”

  “Bertie’s pie?”

  Cheyenne’s lips twitched in mock exasperation. “No. Mine.”

  “Blaze, meet your new tutor,” Dane said.

  Cheyenne gasped audibly. “You don’t believe in thinking things over, do you?”.

  “No thinking to it. I don’t turn down offers as good as yours.”

  “What do you mean, she’s my tutor?” Blaze asked.

  “Have some pie and we’ll talk about it,” she said.

  “You say you baked it?” Blaze asked.

  “Yes, and it won’t poison you.”

  He pulled a chair out and sat down, giving Dane a sidelong glance.

  Cheyenne served the pie. “You want to learn to read, don’t you, Blaze?”

  “I thought you were a doctor.”

  “I’m on leave, remember? This will be a definite change of pace for me.”

  “Well, I’ve dealt with a few teachers in my time.” Blaze tilted his chair backward and folded his arms across his chest. “So what’ve you got they haven’t got?”

  “Dyslexia. Please don’t abuse the furniture, you big brute.”

  Blaze grinned suddenly and straightened his chair. “You’re kidding. You’ve got this, too?”

  “I would appreciate it if you would help me around the farm when you come, like taking care of Courage, keeping the weeds down, painting the barn. I’ll pay you, of course.”

  Blaze picked up his fork. “Tell you what, if one dyslexic can teach another dyslexic to read, you won’t have to pay me a thing.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Blaze took a long swallow of milk and glanced hesitantly at Dane again, as if maybe he regretted his little digs earlier. He set his glass back on the table. “Just do one thing for me, okay? Don’t tell anybody about this.”

  “Why not?” Dane asked.

  “Because if it won’t work, I don’t want to be embarrassed in front of my friends.”

  Cheyenne shrugged. “Fine with me. That’ll take the pressure off both of us.”

  “Hey, you two,” Dane protested. “I want you to put some effort into this.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Cheyenne assured him, “but I won’t beg Blaze to listen, and I certainly can’t bully him into it.”

  Dane raised his eyebrows at Blaze. “Well?”

  “You know I can’t make any promises.”

  “But you’ll try?”

  “Sure I’ll try, but I’ve tried before, and after all these years you’d think something would sink in. It hasn’t.”

  “Why don’t you come back this afternoon?” Cheyenne suggested. “If it seems to be working out, then we can plan a schedule.”

  Blaze’s expression softened as he glanced at Dane again. “Would that be okay with you?”

  “I think it would be great.”

  Cheyenne watched the bass boat leave the dock, then turned around in time to see Austin’s pickup truck—minus the trailer—coming downhill along her driveway. Just like yesterday, Ramsay was in the passenger seat. As Austin pulled to a stop beside her on the drive, father and son gave her a half wave and a nod in mirror-image motion.

  “Guess what we’ve got for you, Cheyenne,” Austin said through the open window.

  “Water trough,” Ramsay told her before she had a chance to guess. “Dad felt sorry for you having to keep that bucket filled, so—”

  “Thanks, but I don’t need a trough,” Cheyenne said.

  They both fell silent for at least three full seconds.

  “Oh, no, don’t tell me you already went out and bought one,” Austin said. “If you did, I know you can get your money back.”

  “Where’s Fella?” Ramsay asked.

  “I’ve renamed him Courage, and he’s out in the corral,” she said. “Why don’t you go visit him? Thanks for the trough, but I didn’t pay for the one that’s out there, some neighbors brought it by.”

  As Ramsay went to see the horse, Austin put his truck into park and switched off the ignition. He reached for his ever present cowboy hat and got out. “Couldn’t have been Red and Bertie who brought it. I can’t see them hauling a heavy—”

  “Dane and Blaze just brought it over a few minutes ago,” she said. She pretended not to notice Austin’s sudden grimace, which looked very much to her like offended pride. “Too bad you didn’t come a little sooner, you’d have met them as they left.”

  “Yep. Too bad.” Heavy sarcasm.

  “Then you and Dane could have had a boxing match on my front yard, and maybe gotten this seven-year feud out of your systems.”

  He scowled at her. “I said I’d be out to help take care of fella.”

  “His name’s Courage now,” she reminded him. “Did you know Gavin Farmer’s father was a veterinarian? I wanted to give the boy an opportunity to work with Courage, and since I’m new here and don’t know any better, I thought it would be a good idea.” She could dish out the sarcasm, too.

  “What’s the kid doing here in Hideaway instead of back home with his father?”

  “His father died last year,” she said quietly. “You and your son aren’t the only ones with pain in your past, Austin.”

  He cleared his throat and strolled to the lilac bush at the corner of the yard. For a moment he stared out across the lake, arms crossed over his chest. When he turned and walked back the scowl was gone.

  “I’m sorry. I guess, to an outsider, it must look like I’m trying to carry on a seven-year feud with the ranch. I’d like to think I’m being a little more noble than that.”

  “Of course you would.”

  “I didn’t just come to bring you that trough. I came to ask you a question and tell you about a rumor making the rounds in town.”

  “I thought you said yesterday you hadn’t heard much about me in Hideaway.”

  “I heard this last night down at the Lakeside Restaurant.”

  “What’s the question?”

  Austin hesitated. “Don’t you care about the rumor?”

  “Not particularly.”

  Austin hesitated. “Are you a doctor?”

  “Is that the rumor or the question?”

  He jerked his hat off, rubbed his head, shoved the hat back. She suppressed a grin.

  “A simple question,” he said. “That’s all. I was just curious about your occupation.”

  “Well, it isn’t that simple, really. If I were a teacher or a doughnut maker or a computer operator, no one would expect me to be on duty twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But when you throw a doctor into the mix, everything changes. That’s when complete strangers come up to you in the grocery store and take off their shoes to show you their ingrown toenails.”

  “So you are a doctor.”

  She shook her head. He wasn’t getting the point. “Okay, what’s the rumor?”

  “I heard you’re treating Red Meyer and the ranch boys.”

  “You heard wrong.”

  “I got the information from a good source.”

  “Doesn’t sound so good to me.” Glueing Blaze’s scalp wound to help stop the bleeding wouldn’t have been considered a comprehensive treatment plan, and writing a script for Red’s cellulitis was an act of desperation because the old coot was so stubborn.

  None of those things meant she was “treating” Red or the kids. Besides, if she were treating them, this would be a case of doctor-patient confidentiality.

  Ramsay returned to the truck. “He looks happy here, Cheyenne. Dad, did you ask her?”

  “Never mind.” Austin climbed back into the truck. “I meant what I said about keeping an eye on the horse, Cheyenne. I’m not the kind of man to ask someone else to do his work for him. I’ll be back around.”

  Cheyenne had a copy of the local weekly news in her hand when Blaze arrived that afternoon. “Show me what you can do, then we’ll get to work on what you can’t do.”

  “Dane tried this.”

  “I’m going to get tired of hearing y
ou say that before we’re finished. I’m not trying to teach you right now, I’m trying to learn from you how to teach you, so humor me.”

  Blaze sat down on the porch steps. “Crazy Columbian.”

  “Right. Now, read.”

  He spread the paper out before him. “Says here, ‘Tonya Whittaker and Jerry Fulp were united in holy matrimony on—’”

  “No good.”

  Blaze grimaced. “Why not? I’m telling you what it says.”

  “You’re telling me what the picture says. I shouldn’t have picked a local paper.” Reading pictures had been one of Cheyenne’s favorite ways to keep people from knowing she couldn’t read the print.

  “I bet you’ve fooled a lot of people that way,” she told Blaze.

  “Almost fooled Dane, but he caught on soon enough. Not as soon as you, though.”

  “Maybe I’m better than you thought. Now read this article here.” She pointed at a paragraph without pictures.

  “Tonya and Jerry are too young to get married. They’re both still in high school.”

  “I’m sorry about that. Read.”

  “I heard tell Tonya was in the family way.”

  “It happens. Read.”

  Blaze tapped his fingers against the paper. “Don’t you care that two kids may be ruining their lives?”

  “Right now I’m concerned about your life, which may be shorter than you think. Read, Blaze.”

  Blaze grinned broadly as he sat back down. “See why my teachers hated me?”

  “Of course. Read.”

  His smile died. “I can’t read. Don’t you hear what I’m telling you? I can’t.”

  “Do you know your ABC’s?”

  “Sure, I know the song by heart. Want me to sing it?”

  “I want you to write it.” She pulled out a pencil and note pad she had stacked with the newspaper. “Make an a for me.”

  His lips tightened. “I hate this.”

  She waited.

  He fumbled with his pencil a moment, then wrote a backward a. “See what I mean? I can’t write. The letters won’t work for me.” He threw down the pencil and notepad and stood up to pace across the yard. “You should be proud. You got more out of me than most does.”

  “More than most do, and stop trying to play stupid with me.”