by Dahlia West
The overhead bulb cast long shadows over his face. Jack pretended that was the reason he looked like a ghoul. His cheeks were sallow, almost yellow in hue, and his eyes were rimmed with dark purple half-moons. He lifted his shirt and inspected the bruising there. As he danced his fingers over the bones, he noticed for the first time that he could see them, not just feel them.
Frowning, he dropped the hem and grasped his belt. He could see the worn line where the buckle had sat for so long. When had he moved it? When had he started taking it in? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, or even what it had been.
He grabbed trash burgers and pizza whenever someone had any at the clubhouse. Weed and Jack Daniels were the only staples that he could recall. He clicked off the light and headed back out to the main barn. The horses nickered again, both of them, as he reached for the apple bag.
“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked them as he rubbed one between his thumbs. He ate it in just a few quick bites and tossed the core into the blond one’s food bowl.
The gray one snorted.
“Well…you’re an asshole.”
He collapsed into the small bed and tried not to picture a fat, mooney-assed rapist farting and jizzing into the sheets Jack was now lying on. He closed his eyes and waited for the Tylenol to kick in. Jack and Hank didn’t seem to have much in common. Hank was fat. Jack was thin. Hank, apparently, liked beer where Jack was a whiskey man.
They had one thing in common, though, thought Jack, as he rubbed his hand along his slightly-concave stomach.
They were both dead.
Chapter Sixteen
‡
Erin awoke in the morning with a low-grade headache and a high-grade throbbing in her wrist. The pills must have worn off sometime in the night. Groaning, she threw the sheets back and set her feet on the plank wooden floor.
As if her arm wasn’t enough of a reminder of Hank’s last visit, her stiff muscles protested the mere act of getting up. Looking down at her legs, the bruises and scratches were all too visible. She stuck out her tongue and pressed it gingerly to her bottom lip, testing the swelling there, too.
She really wanted nothing more than to just crawl back into bed, cover herself up, and sleep until tomorrow. Or maybe longer. Outside, though, Julio the rooster was heralding the day. She almost envied him his small, uncomplicated life guarding the hens.
It made her think about Jack, though, and how he’d come to her rescue. She hadn’t expected it. Honestly, during the struggle, it hadn’t even occurred to her to call out to him for help. But he’d come anyway, and saved her from the worst of it.
And didn’t take any for himself.
She would never forget that.
Jack had had Erin at his mercy for the better part of one full day and he’d never laid a hand on her. Sure he was menacing, downright scary, but he hadn’t hurt her and she believed him when he said that he never would’ve.
When Hank had been presented with the opportunity to take advantage of her vulnerability, her need to present a professional image to the world, he’d jumped at it—jumped her.
The two men couldn’t have been any more different, as far as Erin was concerned.
She hauled herself out of bed, pulled on some jeans and a fresh T-shirt and spent a maddening amount of extra time fiddling with the button, the zipper, and then her boots. Every second that passed would make her day that much longer. And chores were going to be interesting.
She was short-handed, in every sense of the word.
Nothing to do, though, but put one foot in front of the other and get on with her day.
She passed up the kitchen, even though her stomach was rumbling. The animals ate first. That was her way. She hadn’t fed them last night. She’d been way too out of it. So they’d be pitching a fit right about now.
Erin ducked into the barn through the small door and cautiously looked around. The truck was in the driveway. Jack had kept his word and not stolen it. The only sounds she heard were the horses nickering at her in greeting once they spotted her.
She breathed a small sigh of relief at finally being all alone. Or so she’d thought. In the relative dark, Jack’s voice rang out, amplified by the barn’s high walls and ceiling.
“No!” he shouted.
Erin snatched the pitchfork off the wall, tucking it under one arm as best she could. It was out in front of her, though, sharp tines pointed forward. She could still skewer someone easily. She burst forward, and sprinted toward the door of the bunk. It was already open, cracked just a bit. She grabbed the knob and pulled.
It was darker in the small room and it took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust. She’d expected to find someone else, fighting with Jack, judging by the urgency in his voice. But there was no one.
“You bitch!” Jack bellowed and Erin’s blood froze.
She took a step back, thinking he’d meant her, but he’d said that before, hadn’t he? When he was asleep. Peering at him now, in the shadows of the windowless room, she could tell he was asleep this time, too.
She lowered the pitchfork slowly and waited for her heart to stop racing.
This was the second night in a row he’d had nightmares. And this time he sounded as though the devil himself were chasing him through his dreams. The thought almost made Erin shudder.
Jack was huge and seemed positively lethal to Erin’s eye.
What could a man like that possibly be afraid of? She couldn’t imagine, but she was certain she didn’t want to find out.
Erin walked back to the exit and slipped through the smaller, human-sized door. Once outside, she turned, grasped the handle of the larger door and pulled.
It took a bit more effort to do it one-handed, but the wheels thundered loudly in their solid steel track as she opened the door wide. The last several feet were tricky, though, and Erin was forced to use her hip to nudge it the rest of the way.
When she finally had it open, she turned back to face the barn’s interior and pretended to jump when her eyes fell on Jack’s sleep-rumpled form. “Oh!” she cried breathlessly. “I’m…I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were still here.”
He looked terrible. Hair mussed, eyes puffy, badly in need of a shave. He rubbed his face and neck slowly, as if he was still fogged from sleep.
Bee nickered when she saw him.
That seemed to finally bring Jack fully from his stupor. He put one booted foot in front of the other and began to walk. Bee reached out in greeting and actually nudged him as he passed her stall, pushing her nose into his shoulder. Jack patted her on the cheek then, incredibly, headed not for the door but for the shelf where Erin kept the apples. He dipped his hand into the bag and produced one in his palm.
Erin stared at him as he headed back to Bee’s stall and held it out for her, but he was poised to yank his hand away when the horse went for it.
“Not like that,” Erin said, finally able to shake off her disbelief. “Like this.”
She took it from him, laying it flat in her palm, and then held it out. He watched as Bee nibbled it gently, taking large bites of it until she could fit the remaining half in her mouth.
“This is Bee,” Erin told him, to break the awkward silence. “Short for Honeybee. And don’t feed her too many of these. She’ll get impossibly stubborn…and fat. We don’t compete anymore, so she’s not quite as active as she used to be.”
“Compete?”
Erin patted Bee’s neck and tousled her long, blond mane. “We used to barrel race. In the rodeo.”
Bee nudged her, indicating that she was done with the appetizer and now wanted the salad course.
Erin gave her a final pat and headed for the hay bales stacked against the wall. She yanked at the twine, cursing softly. Working around her cast was more difficult than she’d anticipated.
“What are you doing?” Jack asked her.
She sighed. “They eat this. And they’re hungry.”
“All right.” Jack nudged her out of the way and pu
lled the twine off the bale. He parted it in the middle, though.
“No, wait. Here,” Erin told him, unused to having to explain basic livestock care. She bent and pulled gently at one end of the bale, splitting it into its pre-formed sections. “This is a flake. If you’re careful, you can find the seam and just pull one flake at a time. It’s two flakes for each horse.”
She stepped back as Jack reached down, picked up the first flake she’d separated, and pulled off the next one from the end of the bale. He stood up and crossed to the stalls.
“They go in—” Erin called after him.
But Jack had already guessed, correctly, where the hay went, and Erin watched him sliding the flakes one by one into Bee’s rack.
Since he seemed to have things under control, she turned and headed for the steel cabinet, fishing out her keys for the padlock. She breathed a silent sigh of relief when she found the bottle on the shelf, right where she’d left it. She resisted the urge to sneak a look at Jack, though, and instead concentrated on getting King’s morning dose ready.
She fumbled a bit and dropped it a few times before finally getting the cap off. She shook out the pills but paused as she counted and re-counted the orange capsules in her hand. They were all there. All of them. She even re-read the label to be sure.
Unable to stop herself, she glanced over at Jack and gave him an awkward smile.
He shrugged and turned away. “Is that a real job?” he asked, peeling more flakes from the bale for King. “Barrel racing?”
“I won,” she declared. “I made money at it.”
He started to sneer. “Yeah, but how much could you—”
“I bought this place,” Erin said sharply. Pride made her bite down on the fact that she’d borrowed the other half of the down payment.
If Jack had anything to say about the price tag on a run-down ranch, he wisely kept it to himself.
Chapter Seventeen
‡
Jack turned away, feeling badly about insulting her. He took another apple from the bag on the shelf and headed to the gray horse this time.
“You probably shouldn’t try to hand feed that one,” Erin advised.
He chuckled and tossed the apple into the feed bowl. “I figured.”
When he turned, Erin was pulling the top off a large plastic bin tucked into a corner and out of the way. It was awkward, seeing as how she only had use of the one arm.
Jack took it from her before she dropped it onto the dirt floor. “What’s this?” he asked, peering down into the bin.
“Grain. They get fed twice a day.”
“I’ll do it,” he offered and picked up a large plastic scoop that was lying on top of the feed.
She showed him just how far to fill it and he entered the blond horse’s stall. No, Bee, he thought to himself and dumped the grain into the feed bowl. The horse snorted happily. He locked the gate behind him, refilled the scoop, and headed to the other stall. He flipped the latch and stepped inside.
Behind him, Erin shouted, “No, wait! Jack!”
The gray horse hopped a little, coming up on his front legs a few times. Jack was really impressed at the height and power of the beast in front of him. Then the horse lunged, stretching out his neck and baring his teeth.
Jack was not so impressed with that.
“Jack!” Erin cried again, but Jack didn’t take his eyes off the horse. He didn’t move, though, either. He simply cocked his head and gazed at the animal—hard.
The horse grunted loudly and stomped his foot, but came no closer.
Jack grunted in return. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” he growled, then he rattled the feed scoop. “Here’s another one,” Jack told him. “Don’t piss off the Pope when you’re Catholic.”
The horse snorted loudly, but at least Jack couldn’t see his teeth now.
“You want to eat?” Jack asked him. “Or you want to act like a bitch?”
The horse didn’t move.
As Jack finally turned away and dumped the grain into the bowl, he heard hooves pounding on the dirt, coming closer.
“Look out!” Erin called.
Jack turned and raised his hand, pointing just one finger at the horse. “Back. Up,” he demanded loudly. He didn’t know if horses were like dogs and could understand commands, but he knew animals. Fuck, Jack was one, even on a good day.
The horse might not have understood the words, per se, but Jack could tell he understood their meaning quite well. He moved away, to the other corner, shaking his head like he was irritated. He kicked the wall in frustration.
Jack remained in the small space, unmoving, unwavering, sending yet another message. When the horse finally stopped kicking, Jack let himself back out through the gate and closed it firmly behind him.
“You could’ve been killed!” said Erin.
Jack snorted, probably sounding a lot like the gray horse next to them. “I don’t think I came this far to be done in by Mister Ed.”
“Well, don’t do it again!”
Jack almost pointed out to her that he wouldn’t be around to do it again, so it didn’t exactly matter.
She headed outside and he followed her.
He wouldn’t take the truck. He’d promised her that, though he doubted the truck he’d stolen originally was still where he’d left it. Highway patrol would’ve discovered it by now and notified the owners.
It’d be a long walk to get anywhere and, though he’d finally gotten at least a little bit of actual rest last night, he still didn’t have anywhere to go now that he had even a small chance of getting there.
“I can make you breakfast,” Erin said suddenly.
Jack turned to her and could see that she was almost as surprised at the offer as he was, but he was also starving and he wasn’t about to turn it down. “I can help,” he replied, nodding at her arm.
Erin raised a sarcastic eyebrow at him. “Can you cook?”
“No.”
“Okay, then. I’ll do the cooking.” She paused, though, brows knitting together. “But there’s a bit of a hitch.”
“What’s that?” Jack asked her.
“I don’t know,” she said, frowning. “You’re already pretty beat up. I’d feel bad, sending you off just to get your ass kicked again.”
Jack shot her a sarcastic look. He seriously doubted she had a band of crowbar-wielding bikers hidden somewhere on the property. “If your horse couldn’t do it…”
But Erin still frowned, considering. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Because I don’t think your tough-guy routine is going to work this time.”
Jack took two steps closer to her, crossing his arms in front of his broad chest. “Trust me,” he growled. “It’s not a routine.”
* * *
Jack squinted through the mid-morning haze, shielding his eyes from the sunlight, and assessed the situation.
The cocky bastard in front of him was pacing back and forth, like a sentry guarding his post. He didn’t look that big, though, and Jack didn’t see what the big deal was.
He moved toward the chicken coop several feet away, putting the basket that was lying by the back steps under his arm. He didn’t get very far before the only chicken that wasn’t in the pen started coming toward him.
It moved pretty fast for such a small, little thing. It was rust-colored with something that looked like a large, red jellyfish on its head. Jack figured if he was as ugly as that, he’d be one pissed off chicken, too.
The chicken surged toward him, thought better of it, and danced a few feet in the other direction, blocking Jack from the coop that lay beyond. It eyed him warily as it strutted around in a large circle.
Jack made for the enclosure again but again the chicken lunged at him. This time Jack planted his feet and stood tall, like he had with King. “All right, Colonel Sanders, you and I are going to come to an understanding. I’m here to—”
The chicken shrieked and flew at him.
Holy shit! Chickens could fly?!
&
nbsp; It seemed so because it launched itself about three feet into the air and grabbed Jack’s right arm with its beak. He felt the skin tear. “Ow!” he shouted, stumbling back. He batted the chicken away with his free hand. It tumbled to the ground and rolled to its feet.
Blood began to trickle down his arm.
“Now look!” Jack bellowed.
The chicken came at him again. This time, its jump wasn’t as high, and his beak was going right for Jack’s nuts. This chicken did not play around. This chicken fought dirty.
“Shit!”
Jack twisted his hips, flailing at the bird. He swung the basket at it, missed, and fell to the ground on one knee. Now he was eye-to-eye with the chicken.
And Jack wanted to keep his eyes.
The chicken jumped at him again and Jack threw his arm up, shielding his face. The chicken snatched at him again, pinching hard. Jack grabbed him and flung him to the side and then scrambled to his feet. He dropped the basket and broke into a run.
It wasn’t worth it. He’d be a pancake man from now on.
He headed for the wooden steps that led to the side door of the kitchen with the chicken in hot pursuit. Jack wheezed, holding his bruised ribs with his arm, dragging air into his lungs as he ran.
He was in no shape for cockfighting.
He made it to the steps and felt a stabbing pain on the back of his thigh. The chicken was hanging off Jack’s leg.
“SON OF A BITCH!” he roared and batted the thing away again.
Jack reached for the door handle, but it was too far away. It flew open anyway and Erin darted out. “Oh, my God!” she cried. “Are you okay?” She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside.
The door banged shut behind them and the chicken made angry noises at the bottom of the steps. Jack watched as it stomped back and forth, talking shit about him, no doubt.