Ain’t He Precious?

by Juliette Poe

  “Your dad shot your mother?” I asked, horrified.

  Trixie shook her head quickly, snickered, and said, “God, no. But he went to special services and picked up a starter pistol. No bullets in those, but they look and sound just like real guns. He says he just wanted her to shut up.”

  “What did your mother do?” I ask, thinking that this family was just plain nutso.

  “Well, when he started firing at her, she flipped backward over the recliner,” Trixie said, and then started laughing all over again. “First thing she did was start patting at her chest, thinking… It’s true… you don’t feel it when you’re shot. But then she realized she wasn’t shot, and thought he must have missed her. So she poked her head around the side of the recliner and saw my daddy bent over double, laughing his ass off with the smoking gun in his hand. She thought he’d flipped his shit and was crazy. Started crawling on her hands and knees to the door to escape, but he grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and stopped her. Explained it was just a starter pistol.”

  Trixie laughed and laughed over that story.

  I, on the other hand, was glad she hadn’t ever invited me home.

  But according to Trixie, outside of the sometimes volatile nature of their early relationship, there was attraction, interest, mystery on both parts, and a whole lot of stubbornness that kept them together. They survived a culture war of North versus South, but, eventually, Catherine—who had no desire to leave Whynot and her family farm permanently—convinced her retired Yankee marine husband to become a southern farmer.

  Fascinating story, really.

  We travel down a two-lane paved road with numerous potholes that Trixie expertly navigates before making a right-hand turn onto a gravel driveway. A large, wooden sign proclaims:

  Welcome to Mainer Farms—Established 1742.

  The moment she turns off the main road, I see the farmhouse about two hundred yards in the distance. It’s massive—three stories, gray clapboard siding, white trim, and burgundy shutters. A wide porch spans the front, and a detached double garage sits to the right. On both sides of the gravel lane are tall fields of bright green cornstalks, but I know the farm is fairly large so I imagine I’m only seeing a small crop at the moment.

  “Where do you sell the corn?” I ask curiously as we bump our way down the gravel road.

  “That’s field corn there,” she says. “For animal feed. We use a good chunk of it ourselves, but then sell the rest to a third-party distributor. The only other thing we actively farm besides the cattle are soybeans right now.”

  “What about the leased land?” I inquire.

  “Same… corn, soybeans… some tobacco, although a lot of that is produced overseas now.”

  “Really?” I ask as I turn to look at her. I thought North Carolina was the king state of tobacco.

  She nods. “Federal funding has been drastically reduced. North Carolina still leads the nation in tobacco production, but a lot of other countries produce for export now. It’s not been economically feasible for us to stay in it with the size of farm we have.”

  “And you never had any desire to join in the family business?” I ask as I take in the charming but massive house and the gorgeous land complete with a burning sunset behind the rolling fields. There’s a certain level of calmness that has resounded within me over the beauty of what I’m seeing, which is odd. I’ve never been a nature type of guy, preferring concrete sidewalks under my feet to dirt and hay.

  “You know I haven’t,” she chastises with a laugh. “You know the law is my passion.”

  “Yet you chose to move back here,” I point out, and damn it… I hope that doesn’t sound bitter.

  Because I’m not bitter.

  I didn’t like her choice back then, but I accepted it when I realized it wasn’t just a desire to return home. It was very much a need born of a pure love for her family and hometown. A love that was perhaps just a bit more entrenched than what we had.

  Trixie brings the car to a stop in front of the house, turning onto a small patch of worn grass where other vehicles obviously park. When she cuts the ignition, she turns in her seat toward me and says, “I chose to use my legal skills to help Whynot. It’s where my heart was calling me.”

  “There was a time your heart was calling to me,” I murmur, and no… not an ounce of bitterness, but there is a ton of regret for what could have been.

  She gives me a soft smile before uncharacteristically lowering her gaze to stare at her lap. “That never stopped. Even after I left and moved back home.”

  I want to ask her if so, why did she not come back to me?

  But I don’t, because I know she’ll throw it back at me.

  She’ll ask me why I didn’t come to Whynot with her.

  Because finally, after three years of being together at law school, I got an invite to her home. The only problem? It was an offer to live there permanently, and that was so far out of my well-laid plans for my life that I couldn’t even consider it. Especially not when I’d been offered my dream job at Hayes Lockamy, one of the most prestigious firms in Boston. Trixie had been offered a job there too, but her heart was pulled in a different direction.

  Luckily, before we can get mired down into what-if’s, what-not’s and hell… because of where we are… why-not’s, my attention is drawn to the front door of the farmhouse, which is opening. I can only assume it is Trixie’s father who stands there.

  “Your dad doesn’t look all that happy,” I observe, and Trixie’s head shoots up.

  Her eyes lock on her dad’s through the windshield as she murmurs, “He’s not your biggest fan.”

  My head snaps to the left. “What the hell, Trix? Your dad doesn’t even know me. And does he have a gun on him?”

  She looks at me with a sheepish grin. “Sorry… but he didn’t take kindly to the way I moped around after moving back home from law school.”

  “And he blames that on me?” I ask incredulously, a little uneasy she didn’t respond about the gun.

  “Maybe,” she mumbles. “Yes, I guess so.”

  “Jesus,” I mutter, scrubbing my hand through my hair. “Can you just take me back to my car and I’ll drive to Raleigh for a hotel?”

  “No can do,” Trixie says quickly. Before I can even blink, she’s scuttling out of the car.

  I drop three “F” bombs and open the car door. I hope to hell I don’t get shot, because I’m thinking if he has a gun, it’s not a starter pistol.

  When I stand up and look at her over the top of the car, she whispers to me. “His bark is worse than his bite, I promise.”

  “I’m really beginning to regret this trip,” I whisper back to her. I’m more than half serious with that declaration, but I instantly regret those words when her eyes fill with guilt and apology.

  A thumping noise catches my attention, and I turn to see Trixie’s father clomping down the wooden porch steps. He doesn’t spare Trixie a glance, but walks straight to me. Thankfully, his hands appear empty. He even extends one out for me to shake.

  “Gerry Mancinkus,” he says tersely, and I’m forced to take his hand. He gives me a death grip, a warning and a punishment all at once, crushing my fingers with surprising strength for a man his age. He’s got to be at least sixty.

  “Ryland Powers,” I answer and because I’m not without manners, I choose not to show him my own strength in return but merely say, “Thank you for having me in your home.”

  Gerry grunts, releases my hand, and turns back to the house. “Well, come on, you two. Catherine’s got the food all laid out. We were just waiting for you to show up.”

  “We had a quick drink with Pap,” Trixie explains as we follow her dad up the steps.

  The minute we get in the house, my nostrils flare with uncontrolled delight. The scent of something so tantalizing and practically hypnotizing is in the air, and I almost walk right into a brick wall of a man standing in the foyer, bouncing back about a foot.

  “Ry… this is my brother,
Colt,” Trixie says by way of introduction.

  I’m not a small guy by any means, but Colt Mancinkus towers over me by several inches. He gives me an affable smile and says, “Hey, Ry. Good to meet you.”

  “You not staying for dinner?” Trixie asks as Colt moves past me to the door.

  “Picking up a shift at Chesty’s,” he tells his sister, and then he’s gone.

  “He likes to help out there when he can,” Trixie explains as she moves further into the house.

  To my right is a large formal living room with delicate-looking cherry furniture done in flowered prints of mauve and green. To the left is a large dining room with a carved table that can hold twelve. It’s currently empty, and Trixie keeps walking down the large hall, turning left into what I immediately know is the kitchen as the amazing smell gets stronger.

  The kitchen is massive, and it appears to be newly remodeled given the fact I know this house is pretty damn old. The floors are a lustrous, shiny wood done in thick, knotty planks. There’s a huge center island done in distressed cream wood with pearl-gray granite on top. The rest of the cabinetry is the same, except the cabinets up above the counters have glass panes in them to showcase beautiful white dinnerware and green-coin glass goblets and plates I remember my grandmother collecting.

  A woman who is without a doubt Trixie’s mom, if the dark chestnut hair is any indication, briefly stirs something on the stove before she opens the oven and pulls out a large sheet of buttery golden biscuits. My stomach lets out a huge rumble of appreciation despite the fact I have no clue how any of this stuff even tastes yet.

  “Want a beer?” Gerry asks—well, practically barks at me—as he walks to the fridge.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you,” I say.

  Trixie says, “Me too, Daddy.”

  The woman at the stove turns around, wipes her hands on her apron, and beams a beautiful, welcoming smile at me. “And you must be Ryland,” she says, and her voice is like Trixie’s but sweeter, with a bit more twang, and it makes me think of bright sunny days and picnics for some reason.

  “Yes, hello… How do you do?” I ask as I step forward and hold my hand out to her.

  She ignores my hand, takes two steps toward me, and gives me a big hug. I have to bend down to let her arms wrap around my shoulders, and I give her an awkward squeeze as she gushes, “Trixie has told us so much about you, and we’re just honored you’d stay with us during your visit.”

  Gerry grunts with what sounds like disapproval and thrusts a beer at me. It’s a Coors can, and I mutter thanks as I pop the top. He hands Trixie hers, and she gives him a warning glare in return that says not so subtly, Be nice.

  “Dinner’s ready,” Catherine says as she turns back to the stove. “Since it’s just the four of us, I thought we’d just eat here in the kitchen nook. Much more cozy that way.”

  “What can I do to help, Mama?” Trixie asks as she steps up to the stove beside her mom. I watch as she tilts her head and rests her temple on her mom’s shoulder for a brief moment, wrapping her arm around her waist for a squeeze. For the first time in fourteen years, I get a slight understanding of what Trixie’s family means to her. That very gentle, intimate move speaks volumes.

  This is a revelation of sorts, because while Trixie talked about her family a lot while we were in law school, she didn’t visit them, so I assumed she was sort of independent from them as well. But that simple move of a daughter resting her head on her mom’s shoulder, even for a moment in time, is a broad and unequivocal statement that speaks to the depth of their bond.

  Something shifts inside of me, and I feel like I’m starting to see a side of Trixie that I didn’t know existed. This baffles me and slightly angers me as well, that I would not have known such a thing in three damn years, but mostly it gives me a tiny measure of peace that she didn’t leave me behind in Boston on what I had thought might be a whim.

  CHAPTER 5

  Trixie

  “How do you not weigh three hundred pounds eating like that all the time?” Ry asks as he stretches his long legs out from the rocking chair he’s occupying. He’s got a Mason jar filled with ice, sweet tea, a healthy shot of peach moonshine, and a mint garnish. He took a sip of mine I’d made after dinner and decided that it wasn’t as awful as it sounded.

  I laugh, take a sip of my own drink before answering. “I work out almost every day. If I didn’t, it would not be a pretty sight.”

  “Would it be rude to undo the top button of my pants?” he asks as we watch the stars pop out in the inky sky and the lightening bugs floating around the front yard.

  “After Mama’s chicken and dumplings, it’s almost a given you’d have to do that,” I reassure him.

  He does nothing more than take another sip of his drink and gives a contented sigh. I’m not sure if it’s because of the awesome home-cooked meal he’s just had, the fact he’s on his third drink of moonshine, or it’s a beautiful summer night with low humidity and the soft chirp of crickets relaxing us.

  “Your dad totally hates me,” Ry says offhandedly.

  “He totally doesn’t hate you,” I assure him.

  “He glared at me all the way through dinner,” he points out. “I kept waiting for him to pull a gun.”

  “Only because for every bite of chicken and dumpling you took, that was less he’d have for leftovers tomorrow for lunch,” I say kindly. “It’s not a shooting offense in these parts.”

  “Still the eternal optimist,” Ry says with a low, rumbling laugh.

  And God, that sound makes my belly flip. I’d never forgotten that laugh, but I hadn’t remembered the effect it had on me.

  “Your mom is wonderful though,” he continues. I now recognize the loose lips sort of tone he’s got from the moonshine. “I can see right where you get your southern charm.”

  I snort. “You never found me charming. Sassy, stubborn, undeniably foolish at times, but never charming.”

  “Your accent is totally charming,” he says with complete sincerity.

  I let that compliment settle in and tell myself I’m a fool a hundred times over for even liking it. Ry has always been my biggest regret, but it’s not a fixable one. I have my life here, he has his back in Boston, and those lives are firmly entrenched.

  I have to remember that, so I bring out my innermost glutton for punishment by deciding to delve into Ry’s love life. The one he had without me for the last eleven years.

  “So… tell me all about Leslie,” I say in a friendly tone as I pull my legs underneath me on my rocker. I use the momentum to get a soft sway going back and forth, which is fine. My drink is half empty and won’t spill.

  “Nothing to tell,” Ry says, but his tone is soft… deferential to this woman. “We were together for a while, but it didn’t work.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say truthfully. I want Ry to be happy. Leslie, I don’t care about so much, but it’s clear he’s still fond of her. Even through the frustration in his voice today when I overheard their conversation, he was gentle with her in the end.

  Turning to look at me, his face partially shadowed as the porch light sits over his left shoulder, he says, “Don’t be. It’s life.”

  “Pragmatic,” I observe.

  “I’ve had practice,” he says bluntly.

  “Ouch,” I murmur.

  “I’m sorry, Trix,” he says softly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “No, I get it,” I tell him truthfully. “I ruined our plans.”

  “I don’t know if ruined is the right word,” he offers me magnanimously.

  “I changed our plans at pretty much the last minute,” I tell him in sharp rebuke of myself. “I gave you only one option… to move here with me. It wasn’t a good one. I made a selfish move.”

  I almost rear backward in my rocker when Ry stands abruptly from his chair, turns, and squats down beside mine, carefully placing his Mason jar on the porch floor. He places a hand on the wooden arm of my chair, halting my rocking momentum. “Trixie… ju
st stop. It’s not like you just up and left in the middle of the night. We had discussions about it. Several discussions, actually. You considered the Boston job carefully. You considered us carefully. Hell… we even hoped that maybe we could make it work long distance for a while. And while you gave every bit of that careful consideration, I never once considered letting that Boston job go and coming here with you. So, if anyone was selfish, it was me.”

  I’m shaking my head before he can even finish. “No, that’s not true.”

  Ry’s hand shifts and comes to my shoulder. He gives me a gentle squeeze. “I just don’t think it was meant to be for us. There was something off in the timing of it all, and we both had things that were just a bit more important to us than the relationship. It was on both of us, okay?”

  I stare at his beautiful face, now completely shadowed, and yet I know it so well I can still see every gorgeous plane and imagine the sparkle in his blue eyes. Those are things I’ll never forget.

  My hand comes up to cover his, which is still resting on my shoulder. “Thank you for saying that. And for coming here to help me with this case.”

  “I’m glad to help you. I’ll always be glad to help you.”

  I smile at him, and for a moment, I have an insane urge to lean forward, let the rocker tip just a bit so my mouth will touch his. But I don’t, because Ry made it clear that our time had passed and what we have now is probably just a good, solid friendship at the least. At the most, it’s a cordial and working business relationship.

  Instead, I nod and drop my hand from his. He stands up, eases back into his chair, and says, “Okay… tell me more details about this case.”

  I lift my jar, take a healthy swig of my favorite alcoholic drink, and give him what he needs. I’d only told him the basics on the phone last week when I called him… out of the blue… after eleven years of silence.

  “Last December, Dan Ogletree was on his way home from work when he picked up a nail in his tire. He pulled off onto the shoulder of the road as far as he could go without hitting the ditch, but his car was completely off the roadway. It was dark, of course. He got out to get the spare tire out of his trunk—”