In a Heartbeat

by Tina Wainscott

  Always, landing was the scariest part.

  Mitch alighted from the bike and removed his helmet. A lock of hair had escaped his ponytail, curling over his forehead. Harvey barreled into the garage, panting and dripping and full of exuberance. “Hi, there, fella,” Mitch said, kneeling down and scrubbing the dog with his fingers. When Mitch rose, Harvey ran over to Jenna, giving her the same kind of enthusiastic welcome. Despite the fact that dogs carried a troop of dirt and germs, and Jenna’s immune system was suppressed due to the drugs she took, she knelt down and pet him, too. She felt so welcome here, so comfortable.

  “Oh, brother, Etta’s here,” he said, looking at the Cobra parked in the far spot.

  Jenna turned to follow his gaze. “Etta?” Girlfriend? A spike of jealousy lanced her.

  “Betzi’s mom. She worked for a family in Dallas for who-knows-how-long, and when they passed away, they left her a nice little booty. She travels all over, but we get the pleasure of her company every few months. Great, just what I need. More chaos.”

  He hung up their helmets on hooks evidently made for that purpose, grabbed up their bags and led the way inside. At the door, he stopped and blocked Harvey’s way inside. “Sorry, fella, but you know how Etta gets around dogs. You’d better stay outside.”

  “She doesn’t like them?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “She’ll start playing with him, get him so riled up he’s tearing around the house like a black tornado.”

  He’d put on the country music station for the last couple of hours of the ride, and the music inside the house was a continuation. Luckily it wasn’t a slow song that would remind her of the dance she and Mitch had shared. Nope, she didn’t want to think about that at all.

  “War!” a woman’s voice boomed out, followed by a cackle. “Let’s see what you got, girlie.”

  Mitch dropped the bags by the back stairs and walked into the kitchen and family room area. Betzi was filling ceramic cups with chopped tomatoes and lettuce, and an older, small woman with eye-popping red hair was seated at the far end of the counter hovering over a deck of cards.

  “Mitch!” Betzi rushed forward and gave him a hug. Then, to Jenna’s surprise, she gave her a hug, too. “Good to have you back.” She shot Mitch a sly look, then said to Jenna in a lower voice, “You just keep biting him, you hear.”

  Jenna’s mouth dropped open, but before she could ask just what Betzi had meant by that remark, the other woman walked over and inspected her. “So you’re Paul’s wife, eh? Well, he could’ve done a lot worse, a lot worse.” She gave Jenna a nod of approval. “Welcome to the family. I’m Etta, Betzi’s mama.”

  Jenna shook Etta’s outstretched hand, fighting the urge to cringe in pain. The woman had the grip of the Hulk. “Uh, thank you.” I think. “Nice to meet you. I’m Jenna.”

  Etta had Betzi’s bright blue eyes and a smooth complexion for a woman who must be at least sixty. She wore a pink and black polka dot sleeveless blouse, and her biceps were nearly as big as Mitch’s.

  “That comes from bench-pressing one hundred and eighty pounds,” Etta said, obviously catching Jenna’s stare. “I’m the top contender in the over 65 division in the American Body Builders Association.” She reached over and pinched Jenna’s arm. “Could use a little muscle yourself, girlie. Want to borrow my Iron Biceps tape? It’s almost as good as the Iron Buns tape.”

  “Er, thanks, but no thanks.”

  Mitch, who was busy checking out those ceramic cups Betzi had been filling, looked up. “Don’t pick on her, Etta. She just had a heart transplant nine months ago.” He popped a piece of tomato in his mouth.

  Before Jenna could warm under his defense, Etta said, “My boyfriend, Howard, had a heart-lung transplant, and he was back playing tennis three months after the operation. Best way to treat that heart is to get it pumping, and there are some great ways to do that, if ya know what I mean.” She bobbed her matching red eyebrows up and down. Jenna flushed as red as Etta’s hair. “Don’t get embarrassed, girlie. Sex ain’t nothing to be ashamed of. Healthiest thing a body can do.”

  Jenna couldn’t help but look at Mitch, but quickly turned back to Etta. “Is … that so?”

  “Certainly. A good, old-fashioned orgasm gets your blood flowing, works your heart, burns calories, is even good for your complexion. Don’t mourn for too long. Six months is plenty long to boo-hoo before getting back in the swing of things. I’ve outlasted three husbands, and though I loved each and every one of them, bless their hearts, not a one of them was worth giving up my life for more than six months.” She looked over at Mitch, who was getting out a couple of plates. “Maybe Mitch can help you.”

  Jenna’s mouth dropped open. Just the mention of an orgasm in the same stream of conversation as Mitch knocked her off-balance. “Wha — ?”

  “Sure. Don’t you know some virile young men you could fix up with Jenna here? What about Dave? He’s a hunkeroonie, good with the horses; bet he’d get her engine revving.” She made revving noises, vroom, vroom.

  Mitch did not look amused. “She doesn’t need my help, believe me.” He nodded for her to join him, that lock of hair bouncing with the movement. “Nice hair, Etta. What color is it this time? Cheeky Cherry? Colossal Copper?”

  Etta sat down in front of the two decks of cards. “Rah Rah Red.” She tilted her head coyly. “You like?”

  “It’s astounding.”

  “C’mon, Betz, finish the war. We both put down kings.”

  Betzi rolled her eyes and headed over. “When they said I’d probably be taking care of my mother in her old age, I never imagined …”

  “You just watch your mouth there, girlie! I’m younger than you are. Inside where it counts.” Etta picked up her next card with long fingernails painted to match her hair. “You’ll never beat this card.”

  “What are these?” Jenna asked as Mitch handed her a flat tortilla.

  “Tacos. You’ve never had tacos before?”

  “Not like this.” She watched Mitch pile shredded beef, salsa, little green peppers and tomatoes on his tortilla and followed suit. After her first bite, she was grasping for the glass of iced tea, chugging half of it down without even adding sugar. “Hot, hot,” she said, rapidly sucking in air.

  “Oops, should have warned you about the hot peppers,” Mitch said with a sheepish shrug. “The meat’s spicy, too.”

  “After Miguel, life was nothing without spices,” Betzi said.

  “Who’s Miguel?” all three asked simultaneously.

  Betzi gave them a sly smile, laying down an ace to win the last round. “I met him when I was living in Dallas. He was a master chef at one of the best Mexican restaurants in the city. We dated,” she said with a coyly innocent look. “He taught me a lot about spicy hot.”

  “Betz, you’ve been holding out on me!” Etta said, tossing her cards at her daughter.

  Mitch and Jenna laughed, their eyes meeting over their tacos. Their laughter faded, and both looked away, clearing their throats. When she saw that Betzi was watching them, she said, “The tacos are great, minus the peppers.”

  “Too bad we don’t keep a fire extinguisher next to the peppers,” Mitch said, referring to her earlier comment.

  Betzi refilled Jenna’s tea. “I figured tacos would be nice and light after a long drive, and they’d keep in the fridge until you got here. And Mitch, really, you could take the food to the table so your guest can sit down and eat.”

  Jenna waved that away. “I’ve been sitting on the back of a bike for two days, Betzi. The last thing I want to do is sit down. But thanks, anyway.”

  “He could have offered,” she said, “If he were a gentleman.”

  “When did you ever think I was a gentleman?” he asked, looking at Jenna for confirmation.

  “He’s a safe driver,” was all she could say. She had a flash of him carrying her into the house, rubbing her legs to get her warm again. Everything had happened in such a haze that night, as though it were a dream. But now she remembered
: she had reached for him, pulled him closer, kissed his hands. She found herself looking at those hands, covered with taco meat juice. “And he’s a perfect gentleman.”

  He lifted an eyebrow at that, but wisely didn’t comment, instead licking the drops she’d just been looking at. Betzi regarded them both thoughtfully, and Jenna made sure not to look at Mitch. Why? What would her eyes reveal if she did? Jenna shook her head, chasing away the thoughts. She was just tired from a long trip, from the prospect, too, of facing what was ahead.

  Etta slapped both halves of the deck of cards together. “I’ve got to do my Iron Abs workout tape before bedtime. You want to join me, Betz?”

  “I can work up a sweat just watching you. No, I think I hear a good book calling me. Goodnight, kids.”

  “Jenna,” Etta said. “You come find me in the morning, and I’ll introduce you to Dave. I think he’ll snap the life right into you.”

  “Er, no thanks, Etta. I’m not interested in meeting anyone right now.”

  “Nonsense!” she said in the same way Betzi said it. “You’ve got to stop mourning, girlie. Get on with your life.”

  Jenna set her taco down. “I’m not mourning anymore. I just have no use for men at this point in my life. They’re nothing but trouble.” She shot Mitch a sideways glance. “But thanks for your concern.”

  Etta merely waved her off. “Nonsense! Can’t imagine having no use for a man. Can always find use for a man. Goodnight, kids.”

  They walked down the hall toward the garage, disappearing around the corner. Mitch shook his head, but he wasn’t smiling. He packed up the leftover food while Jenna rinsed the plates and put them in the dishwasher.

  “Who’s this Dave?” she asked, more for the sake of conversation than curiosity.

  “He’s my head horse trainer, and I consider him my best friend. We’ve known each other since we played football together in high school.” She detected an undertone beneath each word, or maybe she was imagining that what he was really saying was, Don’t even think about getting involved with him. “Come on, I’ll take your bag up to your room.”

  “How many people work here?” she asked, following him up the stairs.

  “About fifteen, including some part-timers. Dave and I work on training the horses, I buy them, Tawny heads up our breeding program, Burt’s the property manager, and a whole assortment of others.”

  She passed the collage of pictures, but none of that sadness lingered. Instead she saw Mitch holding her, the very beginnings of all the strange feelings she had for him. He saw her pause before them, but continued on to the room where she’d asked Mitch for his sperm. What a mess their relationship was, all the way from the beginning.

  “Make yourself at home,” he said, remaining in the doorway. “I’ve got to go out and check on my horses, make sure everything’s hunky-dory.” He hesitated, then pushed himself away from the door frame and started to go.

  She felt gritty, longed for a shower, but found herself saying, “Can I come with you?”

  He stopped and turned around, jamming his hands in his front pockets. “Are you sure you want to prolong your exposure to trouble?”

  “Hmh,” she said, walking toward him. “Like a few more minutes would matter.”

  “All it takes is a few seconds to go from zero to sixty, babe,” he said, purposely not looking in her direction.

  Or from kissing his hands to being in his arms. “I’ll try to control myself … babe.”

  He shot her a sly smile, leading the way down the stairs. Babe. Had she and Paul exchanged endearments? Her life with him seemed to be rapidly receding into the past, even though she never forgot whose heart was beating within her.

  They walked side by side through the thicket of pines toward the large barn structure. Harvey followed, always their shadow. Strategically placed lights shed enough light for them to see the way, and lit the structure bright white. Lights burned in some of the upstairs windows of the upper part of the “T”, but the long structure was dark.

  “Are people still working?” she asked, not sure she wanted to meet anyone yet.

  “People live up there.”

  “Really?” She looked up to see curtains adorning the windows, one with a sun catcher in it.

  “I set up some apartments for visitors, but for the time being one of my employees needed a place to stay for a bit. And Dave’s staying here until his house is finished.”

  One of the curtains shifted, and Jenna saw someone peer out. Mitch pulled out a set of keys and opened the door.

  “Wow, what kind of barn is this?” she asked, taking in the plush lobby and desk, the hallway beyond and the staircase leading upstairs.

  “We put our horses to work around here. One answers the phones and greets guests.”

  She laughed at the mental picture that created. “I want to see one take that circular staircase.”

  He chuckled. “You wouldn’t want to see it from too close an angle, I can tell you that.” He checked a chart on the desk, flipped through a pile of message slips, then nodded for her to follow through another door. The floor was rough bricks leading to a large door at the opposite end. Flanking them were rows of horse stalls. She could smell the beasts, their manure and hay and other sweet smells. As soon as the door closed, more than a dozen heads popped out of their stalls to see who was visiting.

  “Hiya, fellas,” Mitch called out.

  Jenna felt an odd nervousness, even though the horses were obviously penned in. Mitch kept walking, his shoes making soft thudding noises on the bricks. Harvey walked down to the end of the stalls, obviously interested in something down there. Mitch walked over to the first inquisitive horse and rubbed its cheek, murmuring something soft to it.

  Jenna cleared her throat. “Was Paul, by chance … afraid of horses?”

  Mitch nodded, continuing to stroke the horse. “Much to the mortification of our father. You, too?”

  “Well, I don’t think I used to be. I mean, I’ve never been around horses much, but I have no reason to fear them. Yet I feel afraid.”

  “Paul had no reason either, but he was terrified of them. Dad bought a couple of show horses when we were teenagers. He was even talking about buying some racehorses, getting involved in the whole scene at Manor Downs in Austen.” He tickled the horse beneath its chin. “For me it was love at first sight. But Paul, he didn’t go for them. Dad was a bit of a bully, and he tried to force Paul to like ’em. Lot of fights over that,” he said, nodding and obviously remembering those fights well. “He never came around.”

  Jenna moved closer. The plaque on the stall read Led Zeppelin, and Led certainly looked harmless enough. “Did your father build this place, then?”

  “No, he was only getting into horses when he was killed.” He cleared his throat. “Paul and I were supposed to go to Rice University, but with the whole murder investigation, and afterward … well, that never happened. But I already knew what I wanted to do, so I got a B.S. in Animal Science, and everything else I learned along the way. Come here.”

  Those words, spoken so softly, shivered through her. She walked closer, and he took her hand in his, guiding it to the horse’s cheek. The hair was coarse and smooth, and the horse didn’t seem to mind awfully much that she was touching it. She grinned, tickling Led beneath the chin like Mitch had done. Led returned the favor, twitching his lips and tickling her arm with his whiskers.

  “Led here’s a showjumper, with lots of ribbons to his credit. Smile for the lady.”

  And Led did, baring his teeth. Jenna laughed. Now her nervousness was due to her proximity to Mitch, not the horse.

  “Well, it’s about time you decided to come back home,” a female voice said from the vicinity of the doorway.

  “Yeah, well, I needed a vacation. Tawny, this is Jenna Elliot. Jenna, this is Tawny Ayres, our breeding specialist.”

  Tawny fit her name well, long and lean, with waist-length, straight brown hair. Jenna found herself smoothing her hair down in some ing
rained female instinct. Tawny shook Jenna’s hand, another hardy handshake. The girl’s smile didn’t cover her assessment, like a cat checking out an intruder. “Elliot?” She looked at Mitch. “Didn’t run off and marry someone on me, did you?”

  Jenna picked up on that second territorial clue. She glanced over at Mitch, answering for him. “That’s what Betzi said, too. No, I was married to Paul.”

  Tawny’s eyes widened. “Really now? So where is the little stinker, anyway?”

  “Dead.” Jenna thought it interesting that Mitch hadn’t told Tawny about everything. Of course, he’d probably left for New Hampshire soon after Jenna had. “He died in a car accident last year.”

  “Oh.” Her pretty face fell for a moment.

  “Did you know him?” Jenna asked.

  “Yeah, sure. It might sound, I don’t know, kinda mean, but it feels like he’s been dead anyway, being gone so long.” She shrugged off her words. “It’s nice that you could come visit us.” An out and out lie, Jenna could tell. Tawny looked at Mitch. “Everyone here missed you.” Clearly including her. “Midnight was a real stinker, speaking of. Nipped Dave today, stepped on my foot.”

  “Midnight Blue’s my personal horse,” he said to Jenna.

  She could only nod, her throat curiously dry. Tawny caught him up on some of the happenings during the week, and Jenna was left to stand there and try to act as though she knew what they were talking about. She felt grubby and wished she’d just stayed in the house, taken a bubble bath and gotten some sleep.

  “Mitch!” A little boy of about three nearly flew from the doorway and into Mitch’s arms. He scooped him up as though he’d done it a hundred times before, tilting him this way and that and eliciting squeals and giggles from the boy. “Put me on your shoulders! Where you been, Mitch? We missed you.”

  “Scotty, you’re supposed to be in bed,” Tawny said, though she didn’t seem terribly upset.