by Judy Clemens
Lucy shook her head, but didn’t say anything.
“How’s that bad?” Al asked. “Sounds like a good deal to me. You yourself said she’s staying on working here.”
Lucy eyed me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.” I watched a hawk circle in the sky, three smaller birds flitting around it, annoying the hell out of it, I was sure.
“But another thing going on in Philly,” I said. “Jordan’s in love with Genna, or was before someone killed her, but she was actually dating some other asshole who thinks he’s a god and now has a groupie girl in his apartment. The same girl who’s taking Genna’s place in the band and has been screwing the asshole god-guy for months. Meanwhile, you’ve got the old drummer hanging around, even though tensions were high when he left because of the songwriting and how he crashed the band’s van and got the lead singer addicted to painkillers. And all three of the original guys are about sick to death of each other from touring all these years. And don’t forget Genna’s little sister, who hated Genna’s skanky boyfriend and was administering tough love, only to try it on the night her sister got murdered. I think she’s got the hots for Jordan, too, who doesn’t have a clue, being a guy. And speaking of guys, you’ve got one of the band members who seems to be in love with the wife of another band member, but everybody either ignores it or doesn’t even notice.”
I stopped when I realized Lucy and Al were both staring at me, their mouths hanging open and their eyebrows raised.
“Want me to explain?” I asked.
“No,” they said.
Lucy trotted off to the barn while Al pushed the button and sent Belle on her way.
“In you go, Ella,” Lucy said in a minute, giving the cow a smack on the rump. When Cinderella was lowered, her foot whacking the rails, Lucy came and stood beside me. “What about Nick?”
I scowled. “What about him?”
“I assume he fits into this whole anger theme you’re spouting off about.”
“Anger? Who’s angry?”
Al looked up at me. “Nick Who?”
“Stella’s boyfriend,” Lucy said. “At least he was the last she talked to me about him.”
“So you need me to update you?” I asked.
She shrugged. “’S up to you.”
Yes, it was. And I wouldn’t. “I’m going to get the next cow,” I said.
I shut my trap till noon, when Lucy suggested we take a break for lunch. Al came into the house with us, where Lucy whipped up some grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. I ate mine hunched over the bowl while Lucy and Al argued the finer points of sweet corn hybrids and which type of tomato they preferred to grow. I finished my lunch before either of them and went outside to sit on the step. Queenie trotted over and lay on the lower step, her head on my knees. I picked at a clump of hair behind her ear and tried not to think.
Somehow there just wasn’t anything good to think about.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Can you please go to the Biker Barn for me?” Lucy asked.
I opened my eyes and looked up at her from where I sat, my feet on the coffee table and my head on the back of the couch. Al had left twenty minutes before, having finished up with the herd and driven off with his machine.
“For what?” Even I could tell my voice didn’t carry any enthusiasm.
“Lenny got the Harley napkins we ordered, and I want to wrap them around the silverware tonight.”
“For Saturday?”
“Um, yes.” She looked at me like I’d sent my brain off with Al.
“You’re having fancy napkins and actual silverware at a pig roast?” I asked.
“It’s a wedding reception.”
“With a pig on a spit.”
Her nostrils flared. “I’m not sure what’s up your butt, since you won’t talk to me about it. But if you’re not going to share, then don’t hold me responsible for how you’re feeling. Now will you go or not?”
I ground my teeth. “Fine. I’ll go.”
She looked at me some more, and at my feet on the coffee table.
“Right now?” I asked.
“Now would be good.”
I heaved myself off the couch and stomped out to the garage.
“You might want to take the truck,” Lucy called after me. “Unless you think you can fit the boxes in your saddle bags.”
I’d make them fit.
Twenty minutes later I entered the Biker Barn to the tune of the ringing bells on the door, and the smell of tobacco smoke. Bart glanced up from where he studied a catalog, his face lighting up when he saw me. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and stubbed it out in an ashtray.
“Hey, there. If it ain’t the princess, come to make a social call. Bit close to milking time, in’nit?”
I dropped onto a stool by the counter and leaned my elbows on the glass top. “Evenings are Lucy’s, and she’s the one who sent me. I’m supposed to pick up some boxes of napkins or something you got from H-D.”
“Oh, yeah, those. They’re back here somewhere.” He looked behind the counter, his braid swaying as he bent first one way and then the other, then stepped over to the swinging doors that led to the shop. “Len!” he hollered. “Those boxes of napkins?”
I heard Lenny’s voice, but not the words, and Bart came back, passing me and heading toward the office.
“Can you carry them okay?” I asked.
It had only been eight months since Bart had been stabbed by an outlaw biker, almost losing his life. He still wasn’t quite up to speed—especially in his endurance level—and he limped when he was tired, but he never complained. He was just glad to be alive. Alive with some new scars on his face that he loved to show off.
He came back and thumped two boxes onto the counter, ignoring my question. “You bring your bike?”
“Yeah. I’ll squeeze ’em in.”
“Well, don’t squeeze ’em too hard, or Lucy’ll have your head.”
I grabbed them and hopped off the stool, heading for the door. Then I turned around and sat down again.
“Bart?”
He looked up from the catalog he was already back to studying. “Huh?”
“You know what you’re wearing Saturday?”
He smiled. “Oh yeah. I got me a sweet outfit. Wait till you see it. It’s kind of a tux, but it’s got leather stripes down the pants and sleeves, and the shirt’s got custom buttons. You won’t be able to see most of my tattoos, but it looks sharp, anyway. Why?”
I glared at him. “No reason.”
He shrugged and went back to his catalog.
“Bart?”
He sighed and looked up again. “What?”
“When you were hurt, how did you want people to act?”
He stared into my eyes and closed his catalog. “How do you mean?”
“Did you want people like Lenny driving you to physical therapy and shoveling your sidewalk?”
“It wasn’t a matter of what I wanted. It was a matter of what I needed. There’s a difference.”
“But didn’t it make you feel…”
“Bad? Stupid? Like a weak little dipshit? Sure it did. But it didn’t matter. It had to happen. I couldn’t do it myself.”
I traced my finger along the outline of a watch under the glass counter. “How do you feel about all that now? About Lenny?”
His forehead crinkled. “What’re you gettin’ at?”
I took a deep breath and spun sideways on the stool, my eyes wandering over the assortment of leather jackets, chrome accessories, and Hogs. “I guess what I’m asking is, is Lenny still your best friend? Or are things different between you now? Now that he saw you like that, and you had to accept help from him?”
He paused before answering. “Things aren’t any different. We get along just like we did before. We argue, we fight, we annoy each other.” He smiled. “But now we do it with more feeling.”
He came around the cou
nter and sat on another stool. “You want to tell me what this is about? I sure as hell can’t believe you’re simply checking up on me and Len.”
I chewed my cheek. “It’s Nick. He’s…He has MS.” I snuck a look at Bart. He didn’t gasp, faint, or otherwise show any sign of being shocked.
“How long have you known?” he asked.
“Since Monday.”
He nodded. “Have you talked with him about it much?”
I slid off the stool and pulled a wallet off a shelf, opening it and feeling the soft leather. “He showed up on Monday to hit me with it, then left the next morning.”
“How ’bout on the phone?”
I set the wallet down and picked up a key ring. “I haven’t returned his calls.”
“I see.”
I heard his stool squeak, and he joined me at the display case. “You’re wondering how to talk to him?”
I set the ring down with a click and wheeled on Bart. “He assumed I couldn’t handle it. He actually said he wanted to give me an ‘out.’ He thinks I’m so…” I stopped and turned away, my vision blurring.
“He thinks you’re so wonderful, he doesn’t want to tie you down.”
I shook my head, my throat feeling thick. “But what does that say, Bart? He doesn’t think I can take it? I’m so weak that a little illness is going to stop me from loving him?”
Bart put a hand on my shoulder and turned me toward him. “It’s not you, Stella. It’s him. He’s afraid of losing you. By giving you an option, a reason, you save him from rejection. You’d be saying no to the disease, not him.”
“But I don’t want to say no to him.”
He looked at me. “You can deal with the illness? MS isn’t really a ‘little’ problem. It’s not something you can ignore.”
I walked back to the stool and slumped onto it. “Jordan Granger just lost the woman he loved. She was murdered on Friday night. He’d give anything to have her back.”
Bart watched me, waiting.
“I want to be there for Nick, Bart.”
He nodded. “But it will be different from what you’d planned.”
I closed my eyes, and opened them again. “The MS might not progress much. This might be his only episode.”
“It might.”
“But it might be something that has him incapacitated by the time he’s forty.”
Bart sucked on his lower lip, but didn’t say anything.
“You think I can do it?” I asked. “That I’m strong enough?”
Bart gave a small, sad smile. “Stella, you’re probably the strongest person I’ve ever met. Well, I guess you and Lucy are a tie. And if you love Nick, which I believe you do, you’ll be able to overcome whatever this thing throws at you.”
I hoped he was right.
“And you think he’ll still love me?”
Bart laughed quietly. “That’s not the question, Princess. The only love he’s concerned with is what you feel for him, if you can still love him if he’s sick and needing to be taken care of.”
“God, Bart, what kind of person would I be if I couldn’t?”
Bart put his arm around my shoulder. “You’d be someone who isn’t you. Because your heart,” he touched the front of my shirt gently with his index finger, “is bigger than that farm of yours. And he knows it. He just wants to make sure you know it, too.”
I leaned my head against Bart’s chin, his beard scratchy on my forehead. I hoped he was right. All I knew at that moment was that my heart was hurting like hell. And I hoped with everything in me that it would stop.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The boxes fit into the saddlebags without too much squishing. In fact, I figured I’d be able to push the corners out a little so Lucy wouldn’t even be able to tell where they got dented. If she was upset I’d just make myself scarce after milking.
I was pulling my bike into the garage when a Jeep Wrangler drove up the lane, accompanied by Queenie’s frenzied barking. I clicked the lock shut on the bike’s floor bolt and went out to see who it was.
Tom and Tonya Copper stepped out of the red Jeep, Tonya reaching her hand down so Queenie could smell it. A familiar jolt of butterflies hit my stomach, seeing a celebrity like Tom Copper anywhere in my vicinity. I guessed I really was a country girl.
I walked into the drive, checking out the Jeep, its top down for the sunny spring day. “Howdy, folks. That looks like a fun ride.”
Tom patted the hood. “It is.”
“Long as I remember to put my hair in a ponytail,” Tonya said, laughing. The bulk of her hair was tied back, but straggly wisps stuck out at all angles from her face.
“What brings you here?” I asked.
Tom waved his hand toward the outbuildings. “We were up in Sellersville, checking out the reception site for Saturday, thought we’d stop by and see your operation.”
I looked at him, wondering what a well-heeled rock musician was doing checking out a small place like mine.
“I grew up on a hobby farm,” Tonya said. “Just a few sheep and chickens and whatever, but it’s fun to smell a barn every once in a while.”
“Well, we’ve got plenty of smell,” I said.
The screen door on the side of the house burst open and Tess ran out. She stopped short at the sight of our guests.
“Hey, Tess,” I said.
She looked at Tom and Tonya. “Who’re you?”
“Some friends,” Tom said.
I waved at him. “That’s Tom Copper. And she’s Tonya.”
Tess’ forehead crinkled. “The rock star?”
Tom laughed. “Yeah, I play in a band. We came by today to see your place.” He looked at me, apparently unsure if Tess was mine.
“Lucy’s daughter,” I said. “They live with me. Or will until next week, anyway.”
Tess stuck out her lower lip, and I regretted my words. She rallied back, however, and grinned. “Want to see the babies?”
Tonya glanced at me. “Calves?”
“Yup,” Tess said. “It’s my job to feed them bottles in the evenings.”
Tonya’s face lit up. “Can I help?”
Tess clapped. “Sure! Come on.” She grabbed Tonya’s hand and led her toward the barn. I hoped Tonya was up for skipping.
“So,” I said to Tom. “Want to tag along?”
“Why not?”
We followed at a slower pace.
“What are the different barns?” he asked.
I gestured toward them. “Feed barn. Garage. Tractor barn. Heifer barn.” I pointed ahead. “That’s the main barn, where we do the milking and the milk is stored till the truck comes.”
“That one new?” He pointed at the heifer barn.
“Spanking. Just went up last fall, after the old one burned down.”
He grimaced. “Lose a lot of cows?”
“None, actually. I was lucky.”
We got to the barn and walked into the dimmer light, where Lucy was in the feed room preparing for the evening milking. “And there’s the bride-to-be.”
Lucy peeked out of the door and smiled. “Thought that was you out there. You need to see me?”
“Nope. We were up to the German-Hungarian club, checked out the set-up. Thought we’d see where you folks live, since we were so close.”
I studied him, not quite believing the interest in the farm, or even where we lived. I mean, how many celebrity musicians took the time to visit their clients’ homes? “How’d you find us?”
“Jordan. I called him to check in about this weekend, and he mentioned you’d been shuttling him back and forth from Philly, since you live up this way.”
“Not exactly neighbors, but relatively close.”
Lucy pushed the grain bin onto the parlor floor. “Want to help?”
Tom eyed the parlor and the cows’ massive rumps aimed toward the aisles between them. “No, thanks. I’ll just watch.”
Lucy smiled, unde
rstanding, and began scooping feed into the cows’ bowls.
“So would you like the grand tour?” I asked.
He took a deep breath and stuck his hands in his pockets. The interest obviously wasn’t there. But something—and I wasn’t sure Tonya’s childhood was enough—had brought him to the farm.
“I won’t bore you with details,” I said. “We’ll just walk around. Or we can sit and talk if you prefer.”
His shoulders relaxed. “That sounds good.”
I led him down the little hallway to my office and closed the door behind us. He stepped up to the window and peered out, but I wasn’t sure what he was seeing.
“So what’s up?” I said.
He turned from the window. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s clear you don’t care about the farm. Why are you here?”
“Tonya—”
“Sure, her early farm experiences. That’s nice.”
He met my eyes.
“Why don’t you sit down?” I said.
He did. “I’m not sure why I’m here.”
I knew it.
“This whole thing,” he said. “Genna, the bomb…”
“Bobby Baronne running off with the money.”
Surprise sparked in his eyes. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Combination of things. But mostly Mann telling me his theories.”
He leaned forward in the chair, his elbow on his knees. “You think Ricky killed Genna?”
I stared at him. “How would I know?”
It was his turn to look disbelieving. “Because, as I mentioned, you’ve been in Philly a lot, driving Jordan around. Somehow I have the feeling you don’t usually spend much time in Center City, talking to rock musicians and club owners.”
I pursed my lips. Couldn’t argue with that. “I want to help out Jordan. Plus, his mother ordered me to.”
“I have a feeling you would’ve done it, anyway.”
I lifted a shoulder. He was right.
“So you think he did it?” Tom asked.
“Ricky?”
“Yeah.”
I leaned my head back, studying the square tiles on the ceiling. “I hope so.”
“What? Why?”
I looked at him. “There’s no one else I would want it to be.”