Sold! In the Show Me State

by Jessie Gussman

  “Then what are you doing here? Didn’t she feed you supper? And aren’t you supposed to be staying there?” Pastor Wyatt asked. Although his questions were probing and a little bit nosy, they didn’t seem that way coming from him, because his eyes shone with genuine caring.

  “We both decided it was better if we went our separate ways.”

  Both men froze.

  “You quit?” Deacon said softly. Maybe he was trying to hide the disappointment in his voice, but he wasn’t entirely successful.

  Chandler’s chest constricted. His breath hitched painfully, rivaling the pain in his hands.

  “Want to come on over here and sit down and talk to us about it over coffee?” Deacon asked, pointing to their table and leading the way over.

  Chandler thought about not following, about turning around and walking out, but he couldn’t do that to his brother.

  They’d barely gotten situated at the table, with Chandler around one side and Deacon and Pastor Wyatt on the other, when Amy, the waitress, bustled over with the coffeepot.

  “You two boys want refills?” she asked.

  Deacon held his hand up as a no, but Pastor Wyatt said, “Yes, please.”

  She filled his cup up, then turned to Chandler. He knew her from school, although they never really hung together.

  “Chandler, saw you at the auction yesterday. You looked mighty fine standing up there on the stage.” She put her hand on her hip and tilted her head. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

  “Yeah.” Gossip traveled faster than wildfire in a small town, and a lot of it started here at the diner. He wasn’t even going to go there. He didn’t want to do that to Ivory.

  “Well, can I get you anything? A cup of coffee? Piece of pie? We got some mighty fine pumpkin in the back there. I think there’s one piece of lemon meringue left. Grandma Baker made that. It’s really good.”

  “No, thank you.” Ivory hadn’t made any dessert with supper tonight, but the roast and mashed potatoes and gravy were better than even his mom’s. And she hardly put any time into it at all.

  It was pretty amazing, when he thought about it, that she’d made something that good after working all day.

  “You boys just holler if you need anything.” Amy gave them all one last look and hustled off. The diner wasn’t full, not at this time of night, but she did have other customers.

  “We were coming out to see you, to encourage you. But you’re here now, did you...quit?” Pastor Wyatt asked over his steaming coffee cup.

  “I told you, we came to a mutual decision.” Chandler knew he was going to be interrogated, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. But he didn’t have to answer now. He could avoid it and wouldn’t have hesitated dodging Pastor Wyatt’s questions, but he couldn’t hurt Deacon that way. Deacon had put up with a lot of his stuff over the years.

  After this failure, he figured he probably owed it to his brother, especially after Deacon stuck his neck on the line for him yesterday.

  “What happened?” Deacon asked again.

  Pastor Wyatt had his hands steepled in front of him, and his caring gray eyes were focused on Chandler.

  Neither one of them were there to hurt him or to give him a hard time. They truly cared about him.

  It felt good. Especially after all the time he’d spent in Hollywood, where no one truly cared. It was all about appearances and money. At least that had been his experience.

  There had to be good people in that town. He just hadn’t run into any. Including himself.

  “I don’t know.” Okay, that wasn’t the entire truth; he felt guilty as soon as he said it. “I guess I was a jerk to her when I was younger, and she doesn’t like me. And I think she had buyer’s remorse.” He turned his hands around on the table. “And I did work today. You know me.” He pasted a carefree grin on his face, because he wouldn’t bare his heart, even if he did love his brother. “One day of hard labor is enough to last me for the next ten years. She fired me, and I quit, and we came to a mutual decision to part ways. And that’s the truth.”

  Pastor Wyatt nodded with a thoughtful look on his face.

  But Deacon spoke immediately. “And you’re okay with that?”

  Chandler started to nod yes, but in his heart, no, he wasn’t. He hated that he quit something yet again. Even if the lady had wanted him to.

  “We just decided we were better off apart. Some people just don’t rub along together very well.”

  “You’re not getting divorced, and you’re not married. This is just thirty days of you working for her.” Pastor Wyatt spoke, and Chandler allowed a ghost of a smile to touch his lips. He supposed it did sound like something a divorcing couple might say. It hadn’t been how he’d meant it. There’d been no relationship to speak of between Ivory and him.

  He wouldn’t even have touched her, if she hadn’t burned herself.

  With that thought, he figured he’d probably seen more of Ivory than either of those two men ever had.

  A little voice in his head said he’d seen more of Ivory than any man in the town had.

  His eyes narrowed as his hands flipped back down on the table, the cool tabletop underneath them feeling good on his burning and seeping blisters.

  Funny how a burn hurt right away, but his blisters had taken some time to start really bothering him.

  His day on her farm had shifted the way he thought about Ivory, but he realized it was probably true. Thinking back over the few times he’d seen her in town, he recalled she’d always worn baggy clothing, usually a hooded sweatshirt, except in the very hottest of weather, and often boots. She looked like a bum who had raided the closet of someone who was seven sizes bigger than she.

  The image of her mother, and the idea that she was just the same, had been so permeated in his brain.

  He’d been wrong.

  “Is that the way it’s going to end?” Deacon asked.

  “It has to be. The lady doesn’t want me.” At one time, he might have said “lady” referring to Ivory with a sneer or at the very least an irreverent grin. But now he thought the word suited her.

  The pressing together of Deacon’s lips showed that he was disappointed, but he didn’t say anything more.

  Pastor Wyatt set his coffee cup down. “My wife has been working with Ivory for a few weeks. She’s finally started to come to some of the ladies’ meetings. I didn’t grow up in this town, but I understand her upbringing and experiences haven’t been the best. I was very happy, and my wife was happy, when she bought you.” His lip twitched just a bit, and Chandler thought maybe the good pastor had been concerned about the auction taking a turn toward the unbiblical. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Pastor Wyatt and Deacon had a plan B to keep that from happening.

  Pastor Wyatt continued. “She could really use a hand out there, and there are not a lot of people who’d be willing to do it for nothing, because as I understand it, that’s all she can afford to pay.” Pastor Wyatt glanced at Deacon, and Deacon shook his head just a bit. Chandler wondered at the byplay between them.

  Did it have anything to do with the five thousand dollars Ivory had been handed? Because when Pastor Wyatt said she couldn’t afford to pay, that money would have been a man’s wages for a few months over the busy time of summer.

  He imagined that Ivory wished now she had kept the money and used it to hire someone who would actually have been a help to her.

  Too late.

  At least the money went to a good cause.

  “I can go back out.”

  This was one of those times in his life Chandler wanted to take his lips off and examine them. That thought hadn’t even been in his head; how did it come out of his mouth?

  He had to make his lips turn up in a smirk, because he didn’t want them to read too much into that statement.

  It shocked him to realize he wanted to go back. Almost to the point of needing to go back.

  Deacon’s eyes lit up, and Chandler didn’t need a crystal ball to know that wa
s what Deacon really wanted him to do.

  Deacon glanced over at Pastor Wyatt, and Chandler got the impression that whatever Deacon was going to say was something Pastor Wyatt didn’t know. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but after you left, there was a big bunch of guys in the corner in the back of the rec hall taking bets. Most of them said you wouldn’t last for thirty days, and more than half of them said you wouldn’t last ten.”

  Chandler blinked at Deacon, who looked down at his hands, which were big with rough knuckles and wrapped around his empty coffee cup. His first finger tapped one tap every two seconds, just a little tell. Deacon wasn’t quite as relaxed as he looked.

  A little thought crept into Chandler’s brain. He said the words before they had completely mulled around in his head. “Did you bet?”

  Chandler would’ve said without reservation, even thirty seconds ago, that Deacon would never bet money on anything. He would never bet. It was wrong.

  Deacon swallowed, and his finger tapped a little faster.

  Pastor Wyatt looked over, his eyebrows up, his mouth open.

  Dishes clanked somewhere, and someone laughed. The bell for an order coming up rang, and a low murmur of voices filled in the air pockets as Chandler waited on Deacon.

  Deacon’s head lifted, and his chin jutted out. “I bet five thousand dollars you’d last the whole thirty days.”

  Chandler’s eyebrows shot up, and his hands fisted, sending seeds of pain up his arms. “Five thousand dollars?”

  Chandler didn’t need to repeat it; Deacon hadn’t stuttered, and he hadn’t had a problem hearing him. He couldn’t believe the faith his brother had shown in him. And he let him down.

  Unless he went back.

  It’s what he wanted to do. He hadn’t wanted to quit, not really. And yeah, Ivory didn’t want him, but she’d bought him, and they both signed the paper agreeing to thirty days. He had every right to be out there for the next twenty-nine.

  He nodded. “That’s all I needed to hear, bro.” He slid out of the booth seat and stood. “You know where I’ll be if you need me.”

  “Do you need something for those hands?” Deacon asked without getting up.

  Chandler almost said no, but he didn’t even own a pair of gloves. And he’d guess, if Ivory had any, they’d be way too small for him.

  “Gloves?”

  “I have some in my truck.” Deacon slid out of the booth and walked out of the restaurant with him.

  Chapter 9

  Ivory didn’t know what she was expecting in the morning, but it wasn’t to wake to the sound of pounding. She didn’t have a clock, but the sun wasn’t even up, although the gray light of dawn poured in her window. Her leg burned along with her wrist, and she was careful how she moved as she rolled in her bed, leaned up on her elbow, and peered outside.

  Chandler was out in the field that he’d left last night, and he was slamming the post hole digger up and down on the ground. He must have hit a rock, which was what woke her.

  She noted the gloves on his hands and wondered, for the first time, if he needed them yesterday and if he had blisters on his hands that she’d missed, because of being more concerned about the pain of his comments and then the pain of her own burns.

  Regardless, she wasn’t sure whether she was happy or irritated to see him out there.

  There definitely was some kind of stirring in her chest and a feeling that made her lips want to turn and tilt and her heart smile. But there was also the idea that she had to deal with him.

  She hoped she’d forgiven him. He’d apologized, but she’d hated him for so long she wasn’t sure exactly how she felt about him.

  She got out of bed and put the flowing skirt back on after taking a good look at the burn on her leg. If she wore jeans today, it would be rubbed raw before breakfast. She didn’t want to go to the hospital, and she wasn’t going to, but she wasn’t going to be foolish about it either. Burns really were easy to get infected, and she wanted to take care.

  Ten minutes later, she was walking up the field toward Chandler. There was no point in putting it off. She needed to find out what was going on.

  His back was to her. She supposed since he was on her property—although what kind of logic that was she wasn’t sure—she could admire him as much as she wanted to. After all, it was how he made his living. Acting was only a small part; he wouldn’t be paid to be on the big screen if he didn’t look good. So she wasn’t the only one who wanted to stare at him.

  And maybe, maybe she’d been a little wrong about him, or maybe he’d changed, because yesterday, he’d been a lot nicer than she was expecting.

  Still, she didn’t quite think his insides matched the good looks of his outside, but she could be wrong.

  She doubted it.

  She stood to the side, and when he saw her, he gave one last slam into the ground and allowed the post hole digger to stand there while he straightened and lifted his cowboy hat, wiping his forehead before setting it back down.

  She held out the bottled water she carried.

  He took it. “Thanks.”

  Uncapping the bottle, he drank half of it before lowering it and wiping his lips with the back of his glove.

  She looked away, up the hill at the beehives where she’d been working yesterday and where she hoped to be working at least long enough to get some equipment to clean today.

  “You’re back.” It was obvious, but she wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “Yeah.”

  They stood in silence as the seconds ticked by. Awkward silence, and neither one of them seemed to be the one to want to break it.

  Finally, he said, “How’s your burns?”

  “They hurt. But I took some pain meds for them, and the pain should be gone in another fifteen or twenty minutes.” Her eyes went to his hands and the gloves he wore. “You have gloves today?”

  “Yeah.”

  She needed to figure out how to ask questions that elicited more than a one-word answer. “I have to feed the animals, and then I was going to cook breakfast. I was here to see if you wanted some.”

  “Yeah. Please.”

  “It’ll be ready in forty minutes. Can you come down?”

  “I’ll be down in thirty.”

  “Okay.” She started to turn, but his voice stopped her.

  “Is this where you want me today?” His voice wasn’t hesitant, nor humble, but there was a definite deference there, letting her know she was in charge. In case she doubted.

  “This’s fine. It needs to be done. The sooner we get this fence up, the sooner the animals can be out here grazing. The hay I’m feeding them will still be good next winter.”

  “I’ll do my best to get it done as fast as I can. You have barbwire?”

  “No. We’ll have to go to town for it when we’re ready.”

  She’d said “we.” She supposed she should have just said “I,” although maybe he’d want to go with her. She really didn’t know anything about him other than what she remembered, and obviously he’d changed from what he was when he was a teenager, just as she had hopefully.

  “How many eggs you want?”

  “How many do you have?”

  “I’ve plenty. I always have extra. I sell them sometimes, but we’ll feed ourselves first and only sell what’s left. Don’t skimp.”

  “I’ll eat four.”

  She nodded and turned, walking away.

  Thankfully she was able to do most of the feeding using her left hand. Not that the palm of her right hand was burned, but she didn’t want to risk scraping the blister and exposing the raw skin underneath. Not only would that hurt, but it would also be more likely to get infected.

  She’d gotten the packet of bacon out of the freezer the night before to thaw. It was cooking in the oven when he came in the kitchen. When she heard his boots on the steps outside, she poured the eggs into the skillet which was hot and ready and pushed the bread down in the toaster.

  She turned with the butter and a
knife to set on the table.

  He stood inside the door, watching her.

  Suddenly the room felt small, and her lungs seemed to have a hard time expanding. And when she breathed out, her breath seemed to shake.

  To cover her unexpected reaction, she said, “You can wash your hands at the sink.”

  She set the butter down on the table and didn’t watch as he walked across the room. But when she grabbed the spatula to turn the eggs, she couldn’t help but notice that he was holding his hands oddly and not allowing the water to wash over them like one would normally expect.

  It made her look closer, and when his hand was just so, she could see the red and oozing blisters at the base of his fingers. She couldn’t stop her gasp.

  His head turned at the sound.

  His cheek bunched, and he didn’t say anything, but turned back to the sink and continued carefully running the water over his hands. He didn’t use soap.

  She wouldn’t have either.

  Maybe he was going to ignore it, but she wouldn’t. “Your hands look worse than my burns do. I don’t want you working on the fence anymore today.”

  “They’re fine. The gloves help.”

  “Your hands will get infected, and then you’ll be no good to anybody. They probably already are. Why didn’t you say something?”

  He snorted. She almost thought he wouldn’t answer her, but he spoke, and his voice was a little sarcastic. “You grew up in Missouri, in Cowboy Crossing. You really think I would admit that my hands are sore and bleeding because I worked yesterday?”

  Right. He was right. Of course he couldn’t admit that.

  “Well, you don’t have to admit it. But we will both find something easier to do today. And tomorrow as well. And possibly the next day. After that, I think we’ll be good.”

  “That’s interesting. Yesterday, you were just telling me you have more work than you could handle, and it all needed to be done immediately. And now, we’re just going to take the next three days off?” He blew out his nose and turned the water off. “I don’t think so.”

  Well, that definitely raised her hackles. “Who’s in charge here? Me or you?”