He inclined his head. “Yes, six of them. Brad probably put them in the barn.”
Her stomach dropped. Dogs she could handle, but cows?
“Is Brad here?” Dr. Kent asked, moving to the back of his pickup. He let the tailgate down and began pulling out supplies of some sort.
Matty shook her head. “No. I’m Matty Brooks. I’m Brad’s half sister. The more honest and forthcoming half, obviously. He asked me to dog-sit for him but sure as hell didn’t say anything about cows.” It dawned on her that she didn’t know this man from Adam and perhaps she should watch her language. He didn’t look like a prude, in fact, if the vibes she was picking up from him were anything to go on, he was probably about as nonprudish as she was, but still.
He smiled as he reached for a wicked-looking needle. “Well the good news is, especially this time of year, the cows are easy to take care of. I just need to give them a vaccination, and then I’ll turn them out into the pasture. They don’t need to be fed since the grass is good, but you may want to keep an eye on their water. It will refill automatically, but in this heat it’s always good to check it occasionally to make sure the refill mechanism hasn’t broken.”
His words were meant to be comforting but somehow they weren’t—what if something happened to one of the cows? She would never be able to tell if one was sick or hurt unless it was actually hobbling on three legs—or dead.
“Wait,” she said as his words sunk in. “You said the good news is the cows are easy to take care of. Does that mean there’s bad news, Dr. Kent?”
“Call me Dash,” he answered. “I don’t know if I’d call it bad news, but I’d guess if he didn’t tell you about the cows, he probably also didn’t tell you about the cats, rabbits, and chickens,” he continued.
Matty stared at the man for a long moment, waiting for him to laugh and say something like “gotcha!” But he didn’t.
“That son of a bitch,” she muttered then cast a look at Dash to make sure she hadn’t offended him.
He laughed even as he continued prepping his shots. “I’ve heard worse, believe me. Brad really didn’t tell you about the other animals? That’s not like him,” he continued, not waiting for her reply, “he’s pretty meticulous about their care.”
Matty shook her head. Mostly in dismay.
“And he didn’t leave you any directions or instructions or anything?”
She started to shake her head again then stopped. “Actually, I just arrived a few minutes before you did. He might have left something for me, but I haven’t had a chance to take a look.”
Dash held up a second mean-looking needle and tapped the container of liquid with a free finger. “Why don’t you go inside and see if he left anything for you. I’ll take care of the cows, let them out, then stop by. If he didn’t leave anything for you, we can walk through what you’ll need to do. If he did leave something, have a look and if you have any questions we can go over them.”
It seemed wrong to leave him to handle six cows on his own, but as he filled a bucket with water from some tank on his truck and then arranged his supplies in a tidy box, he looked like a man who knew what he was doing.
“Are you sure?” she asked, still feeling a little guilty about leaving him to his own devices.
He smiled and she noticed he had a dimple in his left cheek. “Yeah, I got it. Brad’s cows are pretty docile and the shots are quick. You go on and I’ll be up in about ten minutes.”
She gave him one last look before nodding and turning back toward the house. Isis and Bob trotted after her while Lucy stayed behind. Roger and Rufus, having assessed the situation and moved on several minutes earlier, were already crashed out on the patio; neither even bothered to raise their heads when she walked by.
Fifteen minutes later, Matty looked up from where she sat at the kitchen island to see Dash at the screen door.
“Come in,” she waved him in.
“My boots are filthy.”
“I’m not feeling so inclined to care much about Brad’s floors these days.”
Dash let out a little chuckle as he stepped into the room. “Those the directions?” he asked, nodding toward the paper in her hands.
“All four pages of them,” she answered.
“That sounds more like Brad. Do you have any questions? Anything I can help with?”
She took one last look at the typed, single-spaced text. “I tried to call him but I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear he didn’t answer,” she said, not without a bit of wry sarcasm. Then she shook her head and set the pages down. “And why on earth would anyone want rabbits? I mean they’re cute and all, but you can’t cuddle them and he only has two, so it’s not like he’s collecting angora or anything.”
“Brad’s an interesting guy,” Dash said, crossing the room and coming to a stop a few feet from her.
Matty arched a brow. “That’s an interesting comment.”
“It’s not a commentary, just an observation. Where is he, by the way?” Dash asked, his eyes not leaving hers.
“I don’t actually know,” she frowned. And thinking back to the conversation she’d had with him, Brad hadn’t really left her an opening to ask. “He didn’t say and didn’t really give me the opportunity to bring it up. He just asked me to come up for a few weeks and watch the dogs.”
“From where?” he asked, leaning his hip against the island and crossing his arms.
“DC,” she answered. “I’m a city girl. Dogs I can do, and the cats won’t be too bad, but cows, chickens, and rabbits will be a new one for me.”
“Well, here,” he pulled a card out of his shirt pocket. Reaching for a pen on the counter, he scribbled on the back. “If you have any questions, just call me. Brad takes good care of his animals. My guess is that the biggest problem you’ll have with them is what to do with all the eggs his chickens are producing this time of year.”
“I should be so lucky,” Matty said, taking the card and noting the cell number he’d added.
“You’ll be fine. Once the surprise of it all has worn off, you’ll be able to kick back, relax, and enjoy the country, cows and all.”
“I think I’m going to start now. Brad says I’m welcome to any of his liquor,” she said, holding up the last sheet of paper. It was a weird thing for him to write, he didn’t even know if she drank. “A gin and tonic and a cool bath sounds just about perfect after my long drive. Care to join me?” She meant in the drink, but the side of his mouth ticked up and she realized how ambiguous her question sounded.
“I’d love to, but I have a few other calls I have to make. I’ll take a rain check, though.”
And she knew he wasn’t just referring to the drink. It hadn’t been her intention to suggest they share a bath, but now that it was out there, albeit only playfully so, she couldn’t bring herself to think it would be a bad idea. But rather than comment, she simply inclined her head and rose from her seat to walk him out. He offered again to be a resource for her should she need it and, a few minutes later, was climbing into his truck and heading back down the road. Matty, deciding to skip the drink, stood on the patio for a few minutes listening to the sounds of the country around her. There was a sense of peace and calm about the place.
She just hoped she didn’t ruin it by accidentally killing one of Brad’s animals.
***
Dash eased his truck to a stop at the end of the dirt road that Brad’s house shared. Pulling out his phone, he dialed a familiar number.
“Hey,” his sister Jane answered.
“I just met her,” he said without preamble.
“Met who? Oh!” she said, the realization dawning. “Really? You met her?” she repeated, beginning to laugh.
“Yes and it’s not funny.”
“Yeah it is. After all those years of you saying it was never going to hit you, it’s kind of funny. I’m looking forward to the next month or so, it’s going to be so interesting,” she added, not bothering to hide her enthusiasm.
�
��Nice, thanks for the support. I’m a little freaked out.”
“Yeah, it’s like that. So, what are you going to do about it?” she asked.
“Avoid her,” he answered even as he thought of the cell number—his personal cell number—he’d added to his card.
“Like that’s going to work,” she retorted.
“I know, but at least it might buy me some time to get used to the idea. I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“Oh, you’re such a drama king. It might be scary as shit when it hits, but it works out fine. That’s the way it’s always been,” he sister responded, none too helpfully. “What’s she like?” she added.
Dash thought about Matty, about how concerned she was about doing the right thing for the animals and how relatively in stride she took the shit her half brother had dumped on her. Which, if he let himself think about that particular turn of events, was unusual too. Brad wasn’t usually a ‘shit- dumping’ kind of guy. Usually, Brad was the exact opposite. He frowned.
“Well?” his sister pressed, bringing his mind back to Matty.
He thought of the way she’d looked with her long, black hair, light brown eyes, and a face and complexion that hinted at a Latina heritage somewhere in her genealogy. And her curves—it would have been hard to miss those as she’d stood in front of him wearing a pair of short shorts and a tank top. Matty Brooks was not a waif and for that he was truly grateful.
“I’m not talking about it,” he answered.
“Because that will make it more real,” she taunted.
“You don’t have to sound so gleeful.”
“I’m your sister, of course I do. I can’t wait for Mom to find out.”
“But she won’t find out from you, Jane,” Dash warned. Lord knew what would happen if, or when, his mom found out about Matty.
“Oh please, Dash,” Jane brushed him off. “You know how it works. It’s the same for everyone in the family, and you’ve just acknowledged you’re no different. You and this woman, whose name I don’t even know, will be married within a month. I guarantee it. It’s our family curse, or blessing, depending on how you look at it, so you may as well just embrace it and tell the parents. It’s not like you’ll be able to keep it a secret for long.”
And that’s what he was afraid of—because Jane was right. For as many generations as they could go back in their family, not a single person had had a period of more than a month between meeting the person they would spend the rest of their life with and marrying them. He’d always chalked it up, back in the early days, to arranged marriages and just a different kind of lifestyle. And then, with the more modern generations, he’d just thought the family promulgated the tradition because it was kind of fun and quirky. But after what had just happened to him when he’d met Matty Brooks, he wasn’t so sure anything was made up. Because the feelings that had overloaded every one of his senses had been very, very real.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“You’ll get there.”
“I’m hanging up, Jane.”
“Okay. I’ll be up for the pancake breakfast in a couple of weeks. I look forward to meeting my new sister-in-law.”
“You suck, you know.”
“You love me. Good-bye.” And she hung up.
He’d been hoping for some sympathy. He should have known better. And, unfortunately, the one thing he could agree with his sister on was that it was most definitely going to be an interesting month.
CHAPTER 2
THE NEXT DAY DAWNED clear and beautiful. Matty attributed the lower temperatures to the fact that she was surrounded by open land rather than the concrete jungle of DC and took her coffee out to the back porch to enjoy the cool morning before the day got too hot. She’d explored the house the night before and had quickly realized that the north side of the building, the side that held the kitchen with its huge slate island and large French country–style table, was going to be her primary domain. From the kitchen she could easily access both an office, with windows that looked out across the fields from the back the house, and the upstairs bedrooms, through a passageway to the center hall staircase. The center hall itself, anchored at the front of the house by the formal entry, ran the length of the building, effectively dividing the house into the north and south sides. The office and the kitchen were on one side and a study and large sitting room, both of which Matty had determined to be too formal for her tastes, were on the other.
Her favorite discovery, also off the kitchen, was the screened-in porch at the back of the house. She adored its sweet little loveseat and chairs that gave her a sweeping view of the gardens that wrapped around from the sides of the house and the countryside before her. And the cows.
She eyed them from her perch and spotted all six lazily grazing not far from the house. Isis and Bob were with her on the porch while Roger and Rufus opted to stay inside. Lucy was chasing a butterfly on the lawn. The four cats had made a brief appearance to be fed, and Matty had managed to locate and care for the two rabbits and the six chickens. She still questioned Brad’s interest in the rabbits, but when she collected five fresh eggs from the chicken coop, she kind of understood the appeal of the less than cuddly birds.
She was settling into the new sounds—crickets, frogs, and the occasional chicken cluck—and smells—fresh cut grass and clean air—when her phone interrupted her peaceful musings. She didn’t have to look at the name on the display when it rang. It was seven o’clock, only Charlotte would call her this early.
“Yo,” Matty said, answering.
“You didn’t call last night. You were supposed to call when you got there.”
“I am supposed to call every day. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since we last spoke.”
“Hours in which you could have been attacked by a serial killer or died of Lyme disease or been accosted by a ghost.”
“A ghost,” Matty repeated. “That’s a new one.” No doubt a well-researched new one.
“I was online last night and I looked up the area. Do you know they did a television special on the ghosts up there? There were a lot of Revolutionary War skirmishes in the valley and it was part of the Underground Railroad. Lots of people have died violent deaths there.”
“But not in the last hundred and fifty years or so, right? And don’t mention the serial killer again. He’s dead already.”
On the other end of the line, Matty heard Charlotte let out a long sigh. She knew her friend well and knew that Charlotte was, simply put, a worrier. But she also knew why; they’d shared many of the same early childhood experiences, experiences that had made Charlotte the way she was. And, because she understood Charlotte so well, Matty knew to let her friend do her thing. Once Charlotte got it off her chest, she wouldn’t exactly stop worrying, but she would start to act like the mostly normal person she was.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said.
“You’re welcome. Feel better?”
“I’d feel much better if you were back in DC or traveling with someone. But all things considered, I’m fine.”
“Good, because you’re never going to guess what Brad did,” Matty said then proceeded to tell her friend everything about every one of the many animals. Charlotte could always be counted on to provide sympathetic outrage on Matty’s behalf and it was no different, and no less gratifying, now. They then spent a few minutes railing against Brad and his family and their lack of consideration and general uselessness. When she felt thoroughly vindicated for being tasked with such a different job than the one she’d signed up for, she ended the call by reiterating her agreement to call Charlotte or Carmen, Matty’s mom, every day. The only catch was that Charlotte was off to Greece in a few days for business. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to her mom, they were close and talked often, but they rarely talked every day—not even when they were both in the city at the same time—and given the situation, she had rather hoped to avoid her mom, for the most part.
Still, she knew Charlotte was right;
staying in touch with someone from ‘the outside’ was probably the smart thing to do. She took a sip of coffee and stared out across the valley as she thought about her mom. A familiar wave of sorrow swept over her as she did. Her mother had risked and lost so much in her relatively short life. Abandoned by the man who had taken advantage of her and fathered her child, Carmen Viega had tried her best to make a life for herself and her daughter.
But the brutal truth was, Matty’s father—Brad’s father—had left them to a life Matty tried her best not to remember. Despite everything her mother had tried to do to make it better. And she couldn’t imagine her mother felt any different.
With these thoughts and memories bouncing around in her head, Matty knew she needed to be sensitive to what her mother might be feeling or thinking—for most of their lives, they were all each other had had. So she decided not to wait and made a quick call to check in. The conversation was a bit stilted, but in the end she was glad she had made it. There was no way Matty was ever going to convince her mom that coming to Windsor was a good idea, but the call was more about showing, if not actually speaking, her loyalty to her mom.
After finishing her coffee and making sure the cows were still alive, Matty trotted back upstairs to shower and prep in the massive master suite that took up one entire side of the second floor. She was fairly sure Brad had intended for her to take one of the guest rooms down the hall, but there was no way she was going to pass up the master suite’s jetted tub and king-size bed, not to mention the spectacular view from its huge windows.
Dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, her long black hair pulled back, she returned to the kitchen and opened the fridge. She had five fresh eggs, but she didn’t have much of anything else for breakfast. Or any other meal. Closing the fridge, she drummed her fingers on the kitchen island and debated. She could stick with eggs all day, not make a store run, and just focus on writing. She did have a looming deadline; she did need to write.
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