by Rachel Rust
“Have a nice night,” I said dismissively, opening my car door. I didn’t even bother looking in the rearview mirror as I drove off. Rollins might have been a pain in my ass in years past, but I wasn’t about to let him have that power again.
Chapter Nineteen
She’s Trotting into Discomfort
The next day brought sunshine and unusually warm late-October temperatures. It would have been a perfectly good Sunday to laze in my bed or take a slow walk through town. But instead I found myself inhaling horse manure at the Stone stables.
Nathan extended his hand to me.
I placed mine in his. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“What’s wrong, country girl?”
I snorted. “I’m so not a country girl. What if I die?”
“You’re not gonna die.”
I stared, unconvinced, at Gracie and her black coat and mane. She was saddled up—ready for my impending humiliation and destruction. Next to Gracie stood Elvis, also saddled and looking striking as ever with his shiny brown-black coat.
Nathan helped guide my left foot into one of the stirrups hanging off Gracie, and instructed me on how to bounce in order to get up and throw my right leg over the saddle. Somehow I managed to do this without falling backwards or launching myself over the other side. My butt settled into the saddle with no issues. But Gracie was much wider than anticipated, and my legs stretched uncomfortably across her. She also seemed much more powerful now that I was at her mercy. Even the slightest movement on her part jostled me.
After adjusting the stirrups to meet my feet, Nathan went over to Elvis. In one swift move, he was on—far more graceful than me. “We don’t have to take ’em far,” he said, turning Elvis around with a quick prod of his heels and a slight yank on the rein. “Couple hundred yards back behind the stable, there’s a ravine with some trails. Once we get going, Gracie’ll follow us. You won’t have to do much. And if for any reason she freaks out, remember the main rule.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t fall off.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said as he and Elvis plodded past Gracie and me. He grabbed the reins of Gracie and gave it a tug. And away she and I went together—her graceful and sweet, me stressed with apprehension of broken bones.
Nathan and I rode side by side down the trail through the tall grass. It was level with an occasional dip in the hardened ground. The wooded area of the ravine was in plain sight, nestled into a large depression amid expansive flat steppes.
Gracie and I began to fall behind.
“Give her a kick,” he said.
I stretched my legs back as far as I could and kicked. Gracie jolted. I shrieked and tensed as she trotted a few feet before falling back into her slow plod next to Elvis.
Nathan laughed. “I’m assuming you didn’t go on many horseback riding dates in Minneapolis?”
“I didn’t go on many dates in Minneapolis.”
“What about around here?”
“I’ve dated people,” I said, avoiding his side-eye gaze.
“Like Shane Fitzgerald?”
“You know him?”
“He plays baseball for Shadville. I used to play against him”
“How’d you know I dated him?”
Nathan smiled. “Gossip travels fast in a town this small … whether it’s true or not.”
“Yeah, well, Shane is old news.” My next words had to break through a barrier of pride. “He dumped me for another girl.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. Shane’s a tool.”
My mind saw Nathan punch Shane—and it was good. Pay-per-view, popcorn-munching good. I smiled inside. “Okay, now it’s your turn. How many girlfriends have you had?”
“Only three actual girlfriends,” Nathan replied after a little thought.
Actual girlfriends? I considered asking for clarification, but quickly understood that maybe I didn’t want an explanation. “What was the name of your last girlfriend?” I nudged Gracie again because we were falling behind. This time I was prepared. There was no shrieking when she picked up the pace.
“Roxanne … Roxy.”
“Does she live around here?”
“She did until she moved to Shadville over the summer. But, we broke up last year before I moved down to Denver.”
“Why’d you break up?”
“Because she’s psycho.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”
“She was always clingy,” he said. “She’d leave notes on my car all the time. If I made any plans with anyone other than her, she’d freak. And if I even said one word to another girl about anything, she would flip the hell out. She even threatened to key my car once after I had given Nina a ride home.”
“Yikes. How long were you and Roxy together?” I asked.
“About six months. She was halfway normal for the first week.”
I laughed. “Then why the hell did you date her for so long?”
He didn’t answer.
My face clenched up when only one explanation came to mind: Crazy psycho bitch sex. “Never mind.”
Nathan continued his silence. A silence which now seemed extremely deliberate: An admission without having to admit to anything. My matching silence was also deliberate. If I didn’t speak of his other girlfriends—particularly of the naked-mattress-dancing variety—maybe they would magically cease to exist.
Or maybe the entire town of Shadville would cease to exist. It could keep our no-good exes and disappear off the map.
With only the sounds of hooves on dirt and an occasional snort from one of our horses, Nathan and I continued down the path toward the ravine. The sun shone on his face and radiated into his smooth black hair. His body moved in unison with every move Elvis made. Poor Gracie, on the other hand, was probably wondering what she had done wrong to have to carry such an awkward and unsophisticated passenger such as myself. I tried to copy Nathan’s relaxed state, but that made me one breeze from tipping over onto the ground.
Country girl, my ass. I couldn’t even ride a stupid horse.
Chapter Twenty
He Has a Few Tales
I always found it amusing to watch people ride horses if they weren’t used to them. Some freaked out, as if one second from death. Others, like Lydia, played it cool. But there was always something in their posture that gave away a hidden terror. Forced relaxation in their shoulders, only to be replaced by popping veins in their hands, clutching the reins or the horn for dear life.
Once we arrived back at the stables, I dismounted quickly from Elvis and Lydia stared at me from on top of Gracie. Her ability to play it cool was wearing off.
“Take your right foot out of the stirrup,” I said, stepping up to the left side of her horse. “And just swing your leg over.”
Lydia’s right leg appeared over the back of Gracie, and I reached forward, knowing exactly what was about to happen. Her left foot in the stirrup pushed in as she moved, and Gracie lurched to the right, causing Lydia to lose her balance. I grabbed her around the rib cage to slow her freefalling dismount. But as she fell back into my chest, my grip shoved forward, causing my palms to cup the sides of her breasts.
I jerked my hands back the moment her feet found the ground.
She turned to face me with a laugh. “Oops.”
I half-grinned as my cheeks flushed. “Takes some practice.”
She watched in silence as I unsaddled the horses. Either she hadn’t noticed or didn’t care that I had just copped a feel, but the phantom sensation of her in my hands stayed with me as I fumbled with the cinches, something I never did. With broken concentration, and taking almost twice as long as it should, I finally got both horses unsaddled and secured back in their stalls.
I showed Lydia to the arched opening in the shelter belt and led her into the grassy field between the stable and the house. The evening sun was still bright, and the cool air whipped at my face. I had always liked that field; it was a buffer between the chaos of the house and
the demanding workload of the stables. Surrounded by the dried blades, I could usually find a bit of peace, even if it only lasted for the five-minute walk.
Lydia turned to face me. “That was fun.”
“I’m glad you had a good time.” My eyes scanned her chest, her curves mostly hidden under her University of Minnesota hoodie. I wondered what she had on underneath.
She smiled, not seeming to mind to the look, or maybe she was just too nice to call me out for being a pig. God knew I felt like one sometimes.
Her fingers slipped between mine and together we battled the relentless winds all the way across the open field, then ducked through a small opening in the house’s belt of trees. On the far side of the backyard, behind the garage, was a large concrete pad with two basketball hoops. It was here where I had spent countless hours, shooting baskets, practicing techniques, and pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist.
Lydia stepped up onto the concrete. “If you’re so good at basketball, why was there a chance Coach Donnelly wasn’t going to put you in the game last night?”
I walked to the far corner of the court and grabbed a basketball from the shed butted up against the garage, unsure how I felt about her question. I hated the topic, yet at the same time I wanted to talk to her. I liked talking to her. She was inquisitive without being intrusive. I had never known anyone else like that before.
I stared at the ball for a while before finally speaking. “Two years ago, I punched Alex during a semi-champ game. Clocked him right on the court. Got suspended for the rest of the season, and we ended up losing the championship.”
“You punched Alex? Why? You guys are friends.”
I turned to face her. “It was a pretty intense game, and Alex and I … we had been bickering all day. And plus, it was right after his mom died, so he wasn’t too stable and—”
“Alex’s mom died?”
“Yeah.” I dribbled the ball a few times, then caught it, tucking it under my arm. “One of the reasons Alex and I have always been friends is because we both have fucked-up parents.”
Lydia didn’t respond, perhaps curious but too nice to ask about what she really wanted to know.
“Alex’s mom killed herself two years ago,” I said. A twinge of guilt washed over me for revealing Alex’s personal family issues, but I trusted Lydia. I couldn’t quite put a finger on why; I just did.
Her eyes grew big. “I didn’t know she committed suicide. No one ever talks about her. I figured she moved away or something.”
“Nope. Took a bunch of sleeping pills and then took a nap in the bathtub.”
Despite the horrified look on Lydia’s face, I knew Alex’s story was not the story she wanted.
“What, um … what about your parents?” she asked, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
Despite being prepared, the question socked me in the gut. What about my parents? The truth was I had no damn clue what was up with my parents.
I slumped down along the side of the garage, knees bent up, head relaxed back on the white siding. Lydia sat next to me, and the scent of her flooded my nose. I inhaled deeply, sucking it in as though it was the shot of adrenaline needed to discuss my messed-up parentage. “Long story short, my parents were only eighteen when I was born. And then my mom left when I was three.”
There was a lengthy pause before Lydia spoke. “Do you ever see her?”
“I haven’t heard from her in fifteen years—not since she took off.” My blood ran hot as the words came out. Sometimes I wished, as awful as it was, that Alex and I could swap mom stories, thinking maybe an awful suicide story would be better than the vague unknown I had been left with. I closed my eyes and held my breath on the next exhale, pushing the elusive mental image of my mother deep into the recesses of my mind. “After she left, I spent most of my time with my grandma, my dad’s mom. She was basically my parent, until she died of cancer when I was six. After that, it was only me and my dad out in Pierre. But he couldn’t handle being a dad, I guess. So, Ed and Heather worked out a plan to have me move here and start kindergarten. And, well, I’m still here.”
The air went silent for a long while, except for the brutal wind forcing its way through the thick layer of branches and pine trees.
“Where does your dad live now?” Lydia asked, her voice small, as though scared to continue the conversation. “Do you ever see him?”
“He’s still in Pierre, but I don’t ever go see him. We talk on the phone a couple times a year.” I stared at the trees as the branches swayed back and forth, amazed they didn’t snap in half from the constant stress of the wind. “Everyone assumes he’s a drunk, but he’s not. He’s just immature, I guess. Like he never grew up.” I wished it was as easy as telling people my dad was an addict of some kind, but the truth was never that convenient.
My hands gripped the basketball tight, fingertips pressing against the rubbery tread until they burned from friction. And then I continued pressing with each image of my father, with each auditory memory of the smoker’s voice crackling on the other end of the phone, not giving a damn about his son’s life in Thorn Creek.
I squeezed the ball harder.
A soft hand landed on mine, and my fingers relaxed. Lydia took the ball away. “Can I ask you something?” she said.
Anything. “Yeah.”
“Do you think the issues with your parents are why you … I mean, do you think it played a role in why…”
“Why I became a criminal?”
“Criminal seems like a bit of an overstatement.”
Laughter erupted from me before I could stop it. “Criminal is a pretty accurate term, trust me. Nearly got myself thrown in prison.”
Lydia’s eyes widened with the P word. She stopped spinning the ball. “What did you do that almost landed you in prison?”
I exhaled hard. “A few things.” I didn’t have to look over to know she wasn’t gonna let me get away with a non-answer. “Do you know what an M-80 is?”
“Like a firecracker?”
“Kinda. They’re like a massive firecracker, and they’re illegal. But they’re really good for making explosive devices. And I went through an explosives phase … which is pretty much one big federal offense.”
“You blew something up?”
My lip curled, not out of arrogance but because she sometimes seemed a bit naïve for a city girl. “I blew a lot of somethings up. Including the bank’s night deposit box … although it ended up taking out an entire wall of the bank.” I looked over at her. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Why not? What—you never got caught?”
I shook my head, still amazed that I had gotten away with it. Sure, they had come out and questioned me, but nothing ever came of it. That had been the moment I realized the simple things in life were the most priceless. Like wearing gloves and knowing the location of security cameras. But despite not being arrested or charged, everyone in town had pointed the finger at me. Especially Chris DeMarco.
Lydia handed back the ball and stood up. I thought she was leaving—not that I would blame her—but instead she bent down and grabbed one of my hands, trying her best to yank me to my feet. I hopped up and her arms wrapped around my waist. Her red hair danced under the early evening sun. I didn’t know whether to embrace her or walk away for her own good.
“What else did you do?” she asked. “If I’m going to hang out with you, I want to know exactly who I’m hanging out with.”
“Maybe you don’t wanna know. What if I tell you I’m untrustworthy? Then why would you ever believe anything I say to you?”
“I’ll take my chances,” she said.
My arms wrapped around her waist, ignoring the voice in my head telling me to let her go. My own selfishness took over and pulled her in closer. I began by telling her about my first brush with the law, when I was in sixth grade and threw Theo White Eagle’s iPod into the Cheyenne River after we had gotten into an argument over something so minor that I couldn’t even
remember what it had been. “Theo ran home and told his parents, who called the cops. I think getting me in trouble was what made him wanna become a cop himself.”
Next came stories—most scaled down for content and language—about spray paint, mailbox baseball, explosives, guns, street signs, and car windows. Just listening to myself—my stories—it was amazing that the town hadn’t taken up pitchforks when I moved back.
Lydia was quiet for a long time, but her grip around my waist didn’t let up, so I took that as a sign that she wasn’t gonna leave. At least not yet.
“Is that why you moved to Colorado?” she asked.
“Partly,” I said. “People here hated me, and also because Sam and I weren’t getting along. But mostly it was because after I punched Alex, his dad got pissed. He couldn’t prove that I blew up the bank, so he went full force with an assault charge and I ended up with ten months’ probation. Ed and Heather didn’t think I could stay out of trouble for ten months, so they sent me to live with my Uncle Rodney—Ed and my dad’s younger brother.”
“Why’d you move back?”
My insides tightened. I never would’ve moved back voluntarily. It had been easy staying out of trouble in Colorado. No one judged me or pissed me off down there. “Rodney’s in Arizona right now, trying to expand his business. He got a good opportunity and couldn’t pass it up. So, I moved back with Ed. Didn’t have much of a choice.”
Independence had crossed my mind a million fucking times. I was eighteen. I could get a GED, move out on my own. Except the concept looked better on paper. It grated on me that I had to rely on family. I didn’t have the money to get my own place, and my car was in pieces.
I was stuck.
“What did you supposedly burn down?” Lydia asked.
“What?” My mind snapped back to the present conversation.
“Lance mentioned arson, so I was wondering what you burned down.”
My jaw clenched. “I didn’t burn anything down.” But fuck you, Lance, for saying that to her. “Couple years ago a house burned down outside of town, but I had nothing to do with it.”