“What?”
“Busy. He was always busy.”
“A hard worker.”
“Yeah.” But more than that. Intentionally preoccupied maybe. And why was that? “I guess so.”
Emily shrugged. “Your mom, too?”
“No, she . . .” Casie took a deep breath. “I think she was disappointed in me.”
“What?” Em's fork stopped midway to her mouth. Her brows dipped low.
Casie shook her head. “Nothing. Listen, I have toâ”
“Why do you think she was disappointed?”
“I don't know.” She laughed. “It doesn't matter. I meanâ”
“Why?” Emily asked again.
“Life was hard here. Sometimes I think she needed a distraction and that she was disappointed I wasn't more . . .” She shrugged. “Fun.”
“I bet she wasn't disappointed in you at all,” Emily said. “She probably felt like you were disappointed in her. I mean, that's how people are, right?”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged again. “We're all insecure. Fragile as porcelain, wanting proof that we're loved.” She laughed. “I bet she always wanted to be smart like
you
. Kind . . . like you. She just worried because you were so serious and she wanted you to be happy because she loved you so much.”
The words seeped into Casie's soul like a sun-warmed balm. Which was ridiculous. What did Emily know? She was hardly more than a child. And it wasn't as if it should matter. Not anymore. But somehow it did. “You think so?”
“I know Mom's crazy about me, even though we're way different.”
Casie drew a steadying breath, felt herself relax a little. “Did you two have a fight or something?”
“What?”
“Mothers are . . .” She felt a corner of her heart melt a little. “They're precious. We shouldn't take them for granted.”
“You think I don't know that?” Emily asked and scowled.
“Don't get me wrong,” Casie said. She hadn't meant to offend the girl. “I'm happy to have you here, but why aren't you with her?”
Emily pulled her gaze away, started on the next strudel. “She and Doug needed time alone. I didn't want to intrude. When he got that job in Madison, I thought it was a good time for me to bounce. How 'bout you? You ever feel like a fifth wheel?”
“Around my parents? No. More like a mediator.”
“How so?”
Casie shook her head. “They were so different. Mom was an optimist. Always up, ready for anything. Dad was . . . he was kind of a downer.” Like his daughter.
“But they loved each other, right?”
Casie inhaled carefully. “There were times I would have sworn they hated each other's guts. Now . . .” She shrugged, uncertain.
“Some people say that just because someone hits you, it doesn't mean they don't love you. They just don't know how to deal with their feelings.”
“What?” Casie asked.
“Just because he was mean sometimes doesn't mean he didn't care.”
“He didn't . . .” Casie said, watching Emily. “He wasn't
abusive
.”
“Oh.” She stopped chewing. “My old man, my real one . . . he wasn't very nice, I guess. I mean, he's been gone forever. Mom booted his ass out the door long ago cuz she was afraid he'd mistreat me like he did her.”
“I'm sorry.”
Emily shrugged, finished off another strudel. “No biggie. I barely remember him. But you lived with your parents the whole time, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it great? I mean, to have a man around the house all the time? One that was kind of . . . you know . . . kind of a part of you?”
“Great?” She fiddled with the dishcloth, glanced at Emily. “It was all right, I guess. I mean, it wasn't perfect. He and Mom would get angry at each other. Quarrel. Slam doors.”
Emily blinked, looking perplexed. “Isn't that what families do?”
“I just . . .” Was it? “I swore I wouldn't live like that.”
“You wouldn't quarrel? Ever?”
Casie laughed a little. “I'd rather not.”
“So Bradley never raises his voice?”
“No,” she said, but somewhere in her gut she wondered if that was because he didn't have to. Because she agreed to every suggestion before it was even voiced. “No, he's very . . .” She skittered away from her thoughts. “Very nice. But listen, I should get going.”
“Nice?” Emily wrinkled her nose, making a comical face. “Sounds like you're talking about a soufflé.”
“Well . . . he's smart, too.”
Emily scowled. “Now he sounds like a Jackie O jacket. What's he like in bed?”
Casie refrained from sputtering, but she couldn't help the hot blood that infused her face. “I'm going to go feed the lambs.”
“The lambs? Are you kidding me? Haven't you heard the old adage? You're supposed to let sleeping sheep lie.”
“I think you have the wrong species.”
“Yeah, well, they're not even crying yet. Why wake them up?” She blinked, tilted her head a little. “Sex talk doesn't stress you out, does it?”
“No.” It was an out-and-out lie that all but blistered her cheeks. “Of course not.”
“Then tell me about your guy,” Emily said, going to the refrigerator and pouring herself a half quart of milk.
Casie was in hell. First Dickenson's hot presence. Now this. “My guy?”
“Your doctor. What's he like in the sack?”
“I don't thinkâ”
She turned, milk carton forgotten in one hand. “You
have
slept with him, right?”
“Yes, we've . . .” Casie glanced toward the window. This would be a primo time for some sort of emergency to demand her attention. “We've had relations.”
“Relations . . . ,” Emily snorted, then pressed the back of her fingers beneath her nose as if to keep milk from spewing from her nostrils. “Jesus, I mean, geez, I guess your mom wasn't as open about sex as mine, huh?”
“Dad would have died if she was.”
She laughed again, looking thrilled. “So he
was
uptight. But they must have had sex, too. I mean, you were born, right?”
“Uptight?” Good God, when would this stop? Was this what it was like to have children? But no. Young Cassandra Carmichael would have never asked such questions of her mother. Not if she had been double dared and paid in gold. “I guess so.”
“But your mom wasn't?”
“No.”
“Funny how opposites attract, isn't it?”
She didn't say anything. She'd never quite thought of her parents as being attracted. They had just . . .
been.
“Sometimes people just balance each other out. You know? Make each other whole. Don't you think?” Emily asked.
Balance? A year ago, Casie would have never seen her parents' situation like that, but maybe she'd been blind.
“Does Brad do that for you?” Emily's voice had gone quiet, her expression thoughtful.
“What?” Casie brought herself back to the present with a blink.
“Is he just smart and classy or is he funny and earthy and sexy as hell, like Mr. Dickenson?”
“Whaa . . .” She made a noise like a leaky tire and Emily grinned.
“Not that
you're
not sexy, cuz you are. I mean . . .
I
think you are, and I'm not gay or anything. And Mr. Dickenson obviouslyâ”
“I have to go!” Casie snapped and thundered down the basement stairs to wake up the lambs.
C
HAPTER
16
I
t was Saturday morning, more than twenty-four hours since Emily had found the orphaned calf; Casie had put off the inevitable as long as she could. The dead cow would have to go.
The weather was still chilly. A sharp rain stabbed in from the northwest, driving needles against her face as she headed for the tractor shed. The old Farmall groaned when she turned the key, huffed once, and fell silent. Stifling a curse, Casie scrambled down from the cracked seat, found the plug-in that hung down beside the oil pan, and attached it to an extension cord that only had one dangerously rodent-gnawed spot. Plugging the cord into an outlet, she reminded herself to find the electrical tape at some point, but in the meantime, while the engine warmed up, she threw hay to the horses and dumped grain in the bunk for the weanlings. The pinto was getting fat and sassy. The grullo, however, still looked knobby kneed and sharp ribbed. Both of them watched her with gleaming eyes, standing back against the wall of the barn.
“Come on,” she crooned. “Do I have halitosis or what? Come on over. I'm not as bad as you think I am.”
The grullo remained where he was, but the pinto tossed her head and advanced until Angel thumped a hoof against her stall door. Startled by the noise, the filly spun away, tail flipped over her back as she raced a quick circle around her buddy.
Casie turned toward the mare with a grin. “I'm coming,” she said, and opening the gate that separated the weanlings from the open area of the barn, went to feed the gray. The goose honked, precariously perched on Al's hairless back, and the goat, always an early riser if there was the possibility of food, grinned at her over the gate. Someone was always hungry on the farm. “So Ty hasn't been here yet, huh?” she asked.
The mare banged the door again, impatient and demanding as only a healthy horse can be.
“Maybe he has finals today,” Casie guessed and reached over the uppermost plank to dump a can of oats into the old mare's bucket. Then, finding a wooden-doweled tote filled with ancient grooming tools, she creaked open the door. Stepping inside the stall, she ran the curry along the gray's reedy neck.
Angel snorted, blowing oats across the legs of Casie's jeans. She smiled at the mare's contentment. Okay, so maybe the Lazy was all but bankrupt, there was a dead cow not five hundred feet from where they stood, and she still wasn't mature enough to talk to a teenager about sex, but at least the mare's condition was improving. “So things are good, huh, girl?”
Angel sighed contentedly and thrust her knobby head back into the bucket.
“If you don't watch it, you're going to get as fat as Al over there,” she said and motioned to where the goat stood with his front hooves wedged between two planks in an effort to gaze over the top of the fence. “You probably don't need to worry yet, though,” she said, scraping the curry beside the mare's withers. They were still bumpy, but starting to flesh out, and her spine, still visible, seemed a little less lethal. “Maybe it's time I turn you out with the others.”
The old gray shook her head and snorted.
“Oh, come on, they're not that bad,” Casie said and grinned. “Some of them are decent looking.”
The mare gave her one doubtful monocular glance.
“The dun is coming along pretty well.” Angel remained silently unconvinced.
“I'll show you,” Casie insisted, and lugging the tote back out of the stall, closed the gate behind her. In a matter of minutes Tangles was in the barn. The two horses touched noses for a second. Angel took a halfhearted nip at the gelding and they both squealed in that high-pitched way that spoke of angst and aggression and possible friendship all in one sharp note.
“Be nice,” Casie ordered. Tying the gelding to the stall post beside his own bucket of grain, she retrieved the curry and began brushing the clay-colored hide. “See how well he stands,” she said. The mare continued eating, obviously unimpressed. “He hasn't bucked me off in . . . hours.” She grinned. Tangles cocked a hip and sighed. “And the grullo . . .” She glanced over the dun's red dorsal stripe, her heart wrenching a little at the sight of the colt. Small and scraggly, he continued to watch her, big eyes round, as his companion ate his oats. “I know he's wormy,” she said. “But catching him's going to be like . . .” She brushed harder. Tangles munched, content with this new turn of events. “. . . choreographed suicide. And I can't do it alone. So who am I supposed to ask for help? Mr.
Dickenson?
” She rolled her eyes at the thought. “The man already thinks I'm a moron.” More brushing, the tempo increasing. “
He's
the one who's a moron. And nosy. What kind of man doesn't know a private conversation when he hears one?” The memory of her telephone call with Brad made her cheeks feel warm. Or maybe it wasn't the conversation. Maybe it was the part
before
Brad had called that made her feel light-headed. The memory of Colton's scent, the rumble of his voice, the way he had leaned in . . . for the sugar.
“Damn!” she murmured. “Doesn't heâ”
“Hey.”
Casie actually squawked at the interruption. Tangles jerked his head up, spewing grain juice, and Emily jumped back.
“Geez!” she rasped.
Casie put a hand to her chest. “Holy Hannah, Em, you scared the living daylights out of me.”
“Yeah, well . . .” She scowled and took a tentative step forward. “You didn't exactly do my heart any good, either. What are you doing out here so early?”
“I was just about to check the cows,” she said, and felt oddly guilty about a half dozen things: the fact that she was wasting her time, as Clayton would have put it, the fact that she was intentionally avoiding the subject of the dead cow's exodus, the fact that she was talking to horses . . . “What are you doing up?”
“I thought it was my turn for first check.”
Casie eyed the girl's face. Her usual exuberance was gone. Dark rings etched shadows beneath her eyes and her face looked gaunt. Guilt solidified in her gut.
“Nope,” Casie said, shaking her head. “It's mine. You feeling okay?”
“Sure, I'm fine. Just a little case of the cramps. You know.”
She did know. Aunt Flo could be a nasty old witch, but these days abdominal pain rarely stopped her from eating. In fact, she'd never eaten so much in her life as since Emily had taken on the job of chief cook and bottle washer. Last night's hotdish had been concocted using a dozen unidentifiable things she'd found in the freezer. Some of Em's impromptu recipes were unmitigated disasters. The hotdish was not. And the bread pudding following the meal was the stuff dreams were made of.
“Well, you might as well go back to bed for a couple more hours at least,” Casie said and wondered if there would be enough pudding left for breakfast.
Emily watched her resume Tangles's grooming. The gelding had finished his oats and stood, now, one hip cocked and head drooping contentedly.
Emily sidled half a foot closer. “He likes that, huh?”
“Yeah. They usually do. It feels good, and it's beneficial. Good for their coats, circulatory systems. Everything.”
The girl nodded, ventured a cautious step nearer. “He doesn't bite or anything?”
“Define
anything
.”
Em gave her a disgruntled snort. “Does he bite or doesn't he?”
Casie grinned, happy despite everything . . . or maybe because of it. “He hasn't yet.”
“You're not very reassuring.”
“Horses aren't . . . very reassuring, that is. I mean, they're just like us. Emotional, scary, sensitive, pushy, needy, kind.”
“But bigger.”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“Where'd you learn about them?”
Casie thought about that. A half dozen memories threatened to fire up her emotions, but she kept them at bay. “Mom was great with animals.” She smiled a little, swallowed an unwanted lump in her throat.
“Like you.”
“No,” she said and laughed, though she was surprisingly flattered. It had been a long time since she'd cared what anyone thought of her equestrian skills. “She was a gamer. Barrels. Jumping figure eight. All the speed events. She was fearless.”
“I saw you on him”âEmily nodded toward Tanglesâ“the first time, remember?”
Casie nodded and pulled the gelding's tail over his left hock to brush it out. The burs were long gone, allowing the chestnut hairs to sweep to the floor. “I was an idiot to just jump on him like that.”
Emily cocked her head and dared to relax a little, even resting a shoulder against the nearby stall door. “How come you do that?”
Easing a snarl from the end of the horse's dock, Casie glanced toward the girl. “What's that?”
“How come you degrade yourself?”
“What are you talking about?” Casie asked, and releasing Tangles's tail, reached for the saddle pad that hung over a fence.
“Did somebody make you that way or is it an innate quality? Like brown eyes or blond hair?”
“Holy cow, Emily,” she said. With her former tranquility disrupted, she tossed the pad onto the dun's back and lifted the saddle atop it. “It's a little early for such existential discussions, isn't it?”
The girl shrugged. “It's a valid question. Nurture versus nature.”
“Yeah, well, I'd love to sit around and beat that horse to death, but I've got cattle to check.” She tightened the cinch a little faster than Tangles would have liked, but she was suddenly in a hurry to be gone. Removing the halter, she slipped the bit between his teeth, buckled the throatlatch, and turned toward the door. “Go back to bed.”
“You sure?” Emily asked, brow wrinkling.
“Absolutely. I'm going to need you fresh and sassy for the nine o'clock feeding.” Once outside, she thrust her left foot into the near stirrup and swung her leg over the cantle. She had been working with him regularly. Still, given his history, it would have been prudent to ride inside the pen first, but she was afraid Emily might follow her there and continue her line of questioning.
In a minute she was trotting down the narrow dirt trail that meandered toward the stock pond. A few cows watched their progress with suspicion. One or two meandered off a couple of steps before stopping to watch them go by, but all in all, the morning quiet was uninterrupted.
Halting on the crest of a conical hill, Casie rested her hands on the pommel and glanced around at the herds of livestock spread out below her. Jack hunkered down nearby to watch the day unfold. The sun was just rising, glowing orange and hopeful on a land bright with life. A pair of calves frolicked together, tails flipped over their backs, but in a second they careened to a halt, butted heads, then wheeled away and raced back to their doting mothers. Below them on the winding course of Chickasaw Creek, two Canadian geese came in for a landing, fanned tails wiggling as they touched down.
Casie drew a deep breath of life. A quiet wave of contentment stole over her, calming her senses, steadying her nerves. All was well on the Lazy this morning. Speckled-faced lambs were huddled cozily against their mothers' woolly sides; a meadowlark warbled from a dry patch of goldenrod.
Beneath her, Tangles tugged on the reins. She eased up on them, allowing him to drop his head to graze. The smell of fresh-cut grass added to the morning's bouquet, as sweet as summer melon, bringing with it a thousand age-softened memories. Laughter, hope, a sense of home, of being, of continuity.
But the sound of a distant engine brought Casie out of her reverie. She gave herself a mental shake. There were things to get done and the sooner the better. Nudging the dun toward home, Casie let him walk down the hill, then squeezed him into an easy, ground-covering lope.
She hummed as she pulled off the saddle, smiled as she turned the gelding loose with the others. But her next task would not be so pleasant. She glanced toward the house, hoping Emily was fast asleep.
A few weeks on the farm and the girl already looked haggard and worn. No need to add the reminder of the cow's death. Hurrying to the tractor shed, Casie unplugged the vehicle, climbed onto the seat, and turned the key. It started with little more than a grumble. Grateful for small favors, she backed it out of its shed.
Jack darted and dodged, narrowly avoiding Bear, the Lazy's most aggressive bovine, before finally succeeding in chasing the cattle back from the gate.
Inside the cattle barn, the corpse was bloated and stiff, legs reaching, eyes staring. Casie lowered the tractor loader, removed the log chain she had placed there, and wound it once around the arm that supported the loader. Then, closing her eyes to the task for a second, she fortified herself with the knowledge that at least she hadn't allowed Dickenson to do the job. Without asking herself why that was, she dragged the free end of the chain forward to wrap it around the gaskin of the dead animal.