CHAPTER TWO
Honey
I’m walking toward my house, replaying my entire encounter with Bigfoot - I didn’t even get his actual name - and trying to figure out where I went wrong, when Dani shouts my name.
I spin and head toward the fence line, where I can see my sister with a … I squint. Is that a camel?
“Where have you been?” Dani’s brown curls have mostly sprung free of the bun she’s tried to corral them into and there’s a smudge of what looks like icing on her cheek. “The white board says you got off work at two.”
Shit. I should have anticipated this and had a back-up story ready. “I met up with friends after work. Is that a camel?”
She glances over her shoulder and slumps. “Yep. A group came through town loaded up with exotic and domestic animals. They said they wanted to have a petting zoo at the spring Fling next week, but they didn’t have permits for the animals and, when the officials called in Jared, he found signs of neglect and abuse.” Jared is the local large animal vet and our cousin Brittany’s husband.
The camel snorts like he, too, is disgusted. “How long are we keeping them?”
Dani shrugs. “Until the powers that be decide if the owners can have them back. If they can’t, some of the animals will have to go to a zoo or something. We can’t keep all of them.”
“What else is there?”
Dani raises her hands like she wants to rub her tired eyes, then lowers them, probably because she’s remembered she touched animals who might be ill or infected. “Luckily, Jared found a local reptile expert to take the snakes and lizards.” She closes her eyes.
“That was quick.”
“Not really.” She lets out a jaw-cracking yawn. “Jared called me into the mess at eleven. The reptile guy just left with the snakes and lizards about fifteen minutes before you got home. We’ve got two white-tailed deer, an opossum, a serval, a miniature donkey, and two sheep.”
“Wow.” I’m exhausted just thinking about what needs to be done. “I can’t believe I missed it. What can I do?”
“Jared’s still checking out the animals. And they’ve all got food and water. If you can just feed and check on the rest of our crew?”
“Of course.”
I go inside long enough to slip out of my flip-flops and into big rain boots, then I load up a wheelbarrow with hay and oats from the feed shed and head to the closest barn, where we house Daisy’s horse, Zephyr, a donkey, and two alpaca. The animals all greet me with their various noises or just by following me from the pasture into the barn. We mostly allow them to come and go from the barn as they please, especially now that it’s June and the weather’s warmer, but I’ll shut them up in their stalls for the night.
They don’t complain. I give them all pats as I load their stalls up with their dinners, but they’re more interested in food than me.
It takes over an hour to get all the animals fed and tucked in for the night. Also, I might spend extra time with the two potbellied pigs we currently have because they’re my favorite. They just have so much personality.
By the time I make it back to the house, my stomach is growling, and it’s almost five. No one is in the kitchen and the house is quiet and still. I sigh and try not to let it bother me that my sisters are all out with their boyfriends, living their lives, and not here with me.
Just like when we were kids, and I was always left behind.
I pull bread and peanut butter from the pantry and grab jelly from the fridge. I decided a couple months ago to try a vegan diet, but I’ve never been much of a cook and haven’t quite figured out what to feed myself yet.
I’m halfway through the apple I grabbed after I finished my sandwich and watching reels on my phone when it rings in my hand.
I spit out the apple and answer, desperate for something to do. “’Lo?”
“Hey, Honey. This is Joe from the diner. My kid’s sick and I’ve got no one to watch her. Think you can cover the rest of my shift?”
“You sure you don’t want me to watch your kid so you don’t miss out on Friday night tips?”
He’s silent for a long moment. “Sorry, but I don’t know you.”
“No problem. I’ll be at the diner in fifteen.”
“Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.”
I hang up, liking the feeling of being someone’s hero.
I race to the back of the house and up the spiral staircase to my room. Soft music is coming from Dani’s room, which means she’s still home and, if I had to bet money, her park ranger boyfriend, Grant, is in there with her.
I dress quickly and don’t even bother running a brush through my hair before I shove it into a high ponytail. It’s so thick, it takes a long time to get it to look good up and I don’t have time for that.
I hurry back downstairs and step into my sneakers before rushing outside.
I almost hit Goldy with the front door as she’s on her way in.
I skid to a stop. “Hey, are you in for the night?”
She smiles warmly. “I’ve got a chapter to finish and get to my editor.” Her brow creases. “I thought you were working day shifts this week?”
“I’m filling in for someone. See you tomorrow? Maybe we could get everyone together for a couple rounds of cards?”
Her frown has a worried edge I don’t like. “I’m camping with Henry and Max tomorrow night, and we’re heading out early. Maybe next weekend?”
“That’s actually better for me. I might pick up an extra shift at the diner tomorrow.” Or I might track down Bigfoot again to persuade him to help me, because nothing else I’ve tried is working to get my sisters to all hang out together.
She brightens, clearly relieved. “Perfect. Have a good night at work.”
“You too.”
I sprint to my car to make up for lost time.
***
“You look tired,” Lila says as we take a breather near the pass-through, waiting on our food.
“I’ve become a morning person since I switched to days,” I say. “I’m lacking my beauty sleep.”
Lila laughs as she moves around the area. She’s always moving, looking for what’s next. I long for an ounce of her energy right now.
She’s a year younger than me, in her last year at the college, and she’s probably my best friend in town. Her big brown eyes smile with the upturn of her full lips. “You’re always beautiful, Honey. And I’m glad to have you on shift with me again, you traitor.”
“Order up,” Hal hollers as he puts two plates on the pass-through.
“We’re standing right here, Hal,” Lila says. “You don’t have to yell.”
“Just wanted to make sure you heard me over that gossiping you got going on.” Hal gives her a cheeky grin. He’s a couple of years older than us and the biggest gossip in the place.
Lila rolls her eyes and takes her plates.
“See you later, traitor.” Lila hip checks me as she passes.
“You know I’d switch back to nights if I could.” I’ve got the most flexible schedule of the wait staff, and I take shifts according to where I’m needed most.
“I know,” Lila calls back over her shoulder.
“Order up,” Hal says in his indoor voice as he places my order on the pass-through.
I carry the food through the restaurant, and my thoughts immediately return to Bigfoot. I can’t figure him out. He’s good-looking and wealthy, so why’s he running around the forest in a fur suit? And he seems like the kind of guy who’d be primed for a little flirting and helping a damsel in distress, but he wasn’t taking any of my bait.
I even flirted with a few frat bros earlier in the evening and was easily able to convince them to come help out at the farm this weekend, so I haven’t lost all my skills.
Something about Bigfoot is different, and it’s bothering me that I can’t figure him out. Maybe he’s a criminal in hiding? Or, he’s a true recluse and hates people? I need to see him again and get a better read on the man.
Ellery grins as I set her plate of hamburger and fries in front of her. A headband covered in tiny books holds back her auburn curls. She’s the children’s librarian at our local library and she’s lived in Catalpa Creek all her life. She seems nice enough, and she’s a great tipper. “Thanks, Honey.”
Seated with Ellery is Gentry, who works as a receptionist at my brother-in-law, Noah’s clinic.
My cousin Levi has a crush on Gentry and has been begging me to get information on her, but she can’t stand him. She’s pretty, but there are dark circles under her eyes like she’s working too hard. She’s got custody of her teenage sisters and is working to support them after their mother vanished last year.
But her smile is warm. “Your Noah’s sister-in-law. How are things on the farm? My sisters have been begging me to take them out there.”
“The farm’s doing great. You and your sisters are welcome anytime. In fact, we currently have several exotic animals I bet your sisters would love to see.” I set a plate of food in front of Gentry. Maybe I can arrange for Levi to be there when they are. “Can I get you anything else?”
“You like games, don’t you?” Ellery asks.
I freeze. My first thought is that she’s talking about the sorts of games con artists play.
She smiles at me openly, waiting patiently for an answer while I silently freak out. I didn’t con Bigfoot. I just asked for a favor. And no one here knows about my past.
“I do like games.” I take a step back from their table like I’m in a hurry. “You probably know my family’s a touch competitive.” I suspect everyone in town has heard about our family games taking place at the house.
“Do you have any interest in…” Ellery looks around like she’s checking to see if anyone’s listening and my heart beats into overdrive. “Poker?”
I shrug, blinking against the spots in my eyes that are popping up along with my blood pressure. “I’ve never really played.” My family’s games tend toward the physical, sometimes dangerous, vs sit-down games.
“Neither have I,” Gentry says. “I suggested something simpler like Go-fish, but Ellery’s got her mind set.”
My laugh sounds strange even to my own ears. I need to calm down, but I can’t seem to convince myself these women are just being friendly.
Ellery gestures for me to come closer and I oblige. “I’m thinking about starting a secret underground high stakes poker game just for women.”
My heart flips and relief washes through me. That’s why she’s acting so weird. It’s just a secret game. “What are the stakes?” Money isn’t something I have a lot of, but I suspect I’d be good at poker. Isn’t it all about reading people and keeping a straight face?
“She’s a children’s librarian.” Gentry leans forward. “Her idea of high stakes is twenty-five dollars.”
“That’s one and a half paperbacks.” Ellery lifts her chin. “That’s not nothing.”
My instinct is to say yes, but I can’t get pulled away from my goal. If I have any hope of bringing my sisters close again, to experiencing the full house I never got to have as a teenager, I have to be at home as much as possible. I need time to come up with ideas to bring us all together.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t have the time right now.”
Ellery’s smile falls for only a moment, but unhappiness lingers in her eyes. It’s not the first time she’s made an overture of friendship, or the first time I’ve turned her down.
“Order up,” Hal hollers, saving me from making more excuses or apologizing.
“That’s me. Do you need anything else?”
They’re all good and I hurry away from their table, feeling like I’ve made a mistake. Maybe I should try harder to make friends in case my sisters never decide they want me in their lives after our year in the house has ended.
I shove the thought down. Failure isn’t an option.
The rest of the evening shift passes in a dizzy blur of faces and plates of food and laughter. Lila and I work well together and she keeps me smiling all night.
After we close up and get everything cleaned up, she and I walk out together. In early June in the mountains, it still cools off considerably at night and the air feels good against my heated skin.
Lila sees the man leaning against my car before I do. “Do you know him?”
It takes me a moment to focus in on the person, standing just out of reach of the light pole and leaning against my front fender, one knee bent.
At first, I think it’s one of the guys I flirted with earlier. They’d mentioned something about meeting up to go to a party when my shift ended. “It’s fine.”
Then the man tips his head and raises two fingers to his brow and my blood goes ice cold.
“You sure?” Lila’s probably noticing that my steps have slowed.
“Of course.” I force confidence into my voice. “I know him. It’s no problem.” And I don’t want her to know him. I don’t want him to know she matters to me.
“Let me know when you get home.” She gives me a quick side hug. “I’ll be by the farm on Wednesday.”
“I’ll text you.” Of course, Lila makes time to help out at the farm, even with her busy schedule. She’s genuinely kind.
Unlike me, who just pretends to be.
Dell knows I’ve seen him and, if I run and beg Lila for a ride home, he’ll just follow me or track me down. Dell’s never been good about letting something go. Especially not me.
I stop a couple of feet from him. Encountering an ex-boyfriend is never an easy situation, but it’s worse when that ex is a reminder of a very dark time in my life, of a person I wish I’d never been. And of my terrible taste in men.
He was my bad boy phase. It lasted way too long.
It still makes me cringe that I used to believe I loved him. I was so desperate to be loved and feel like I belonged I stopped paying attention. I stopped listening to what I didn’t want to hear and only saw what I wanted to see.
“It’s been a minute.” I cross my arms over my chest and try to peer through the darkness to get a read on him. He doesn’t move out of the shadows. “Didn’t think I’d see you again after I turned you down last time.”
“Used to be, you thought an hour was too long to go without seeing me, babe.” His features are in shadow, but I once knew them as well as my own, maybe better. The way his face was always stubbled, no matter how often he shaved. The sharp lines and planes of his cheeks and the emptiness in his deep blue eyes.
Once upon a time, I thought I could fill that hole in him, and it took me way too long to figure out he’s got no interest in loving anything or anyone. He’d rather rage against the world and every conceived slight, twisting and destroying every beautiful thing he can find.
I believed if he could get past the anger, he could be a good person, but judging by the hard set of his jaw, he hasn’t gotten there yet.
“I was a stupid kid. I’ve outgrown it.” I don’t ask how he found me. Dell and I were together back in Roanoke, where I lived until I moved here nine months ago to live with my sisters.
Roanoke isn’t a small town, but the locals gossip just as much as they do in Catalpa Creek and my mother has a lot of friends and no reason to keep my whereabouts a secret. I’m also well-known in the area, more for the trouble I caused than for anything good, and people hate to see the bad girl make good by coming into a free house and a huge inheritance from her father.
It wouldn’t have taken much asking for Dell to find me.
“I like your hair.” His expression softens, and I see the boy he used to be when he let down his guard. “The blue streak is new.”
“What do you want, Dell?” As much as I hate to admit it, I’ll probably give him whatever he wants. Mixed in with all the bad are memories of laughter and the knowledge that he learned to be hard because his life allowed him no other way to be.
There’s still a part of me that wants to help him and an even bigger part of me that’s guilty about the man he’s become. I taught him what my father taught me. I helped Dell slide more fully into a life of crime.
He steps toward me, the light catching enough of him for me to see his blond hair is long and greasy, his stubble more of a beard. He’s not doing well. “Maybe I just want to see my best girl. I’ve missed you.”
“I’m not that girl anymore, Dell.” I steel my spine. Backing down or showing any sign of weakness is not an option. I will not let him drag me back into the past. “If you’re here, it’s because you want something from me, just like you did the last time you showed up. Remember that? Last summer, when you thought you could convince me to help you with a job and wound up in jail instead.”
He steps forward again, the light catching his eyes this time. He’s squinting in that way he does when he’s trying to figure something out. Like he’s trying to get a read on me, trying to decide how to play this.
Years ago, I taught him that a good con artist has to be a good listener, but listening’s never been one of his strong suits.
He relaxes as he studies me and dips his chin. “If you’d’ve helped me out, I never would have ended up in jail.”
I stand my ground and sublimate the feeling of guilt that’s trying to rise up. “You were driving a stolen car, Dell. You getting picked up for that isn’t on me.”
“I was so good to you, baby. When you and your mama got into a fight, I gave you a place to stay. I taught you everything I know and split everything I earned with you.”
“What about Maya? Is she here?” Maya is Dell’s sister, his favorite partner in crime, and the only one I’ve ever known who can keep him in line. Or as much in line as anyone could ever keep Dell. He’s always been a dreamer, with very few of the traits he actually needs to make any of those dreams come true.
“Maya’s dead, Honey.” His jaw works as he looks away. “She made some bad choices, and they killed her.”
“What kind of bad choices?” My throat tightens and guilt rises back up. “Last time I talked to her, she told me she was doing really well.”
He winces. “You left her and, when things went bad, she had no one to talk to. She got mixed up with some bad people and made a choice that killed her.” He reaches out and lays a palm on my shoulder. “You starting to understand what happens when you turn your back on the people who should matter to you?”
I don’t flinch. I don’t give him any indication he’s getting to me. “She could have called me. She and I didn’t always get along, but I would have helped her if I’d known.”
He rubs my shoulder and slides his hand down my arm, squeezing my biceps. “You know as well as I do she wasn’t the type to ask for help, Honey. You abandoned her. Don’t pretend to care she’s dead now.”
A tear slips free and slides down my cheek. “I’m sorry, Dell. I know how close the two of you were.”
He looks down at his feet and swallows hard, but when he faces me again, there’s no sign of sadness or emotion of any kind on his face. “Good. Then you should understand how much you owe me.”
My answer is reflexive, something I say to myself over and over again whenever the guilt about leaving him and Maya the way I did creeps in. “I don’t owe you anything, Dell Rutherford.”
He moves his hand from my arm to my neck in a heartbeat, squeezing gently and dropping his forehead against mine. “Things were good when we were together, Honey. We were making money hand over fist. Remember those days?”
He doesn’t smell great, like he hasn’t bathed in a few days, but I don’t pull away. This is Dell’s version of a hug, the closest he’ll ever come to admitting he needs comfort. I can give him that when he’s grieving for his sister. “I remember.” I let myself slip back into memories of the good times. “We had some fun.”
He lets go and backs away, his smile not reflected in his sad eyes. “We had the best time. I understand you’ll be coming into a fair bit of money in a few months.”
I nod again. It wouldn’t have taken much digging on Dell’s part to find out what I’m going to inherit if I live in the house with my sisters until the end of the year. I doubt he knows how much I’ll inherit, but he wouldn’t be here unless he at least suspected it’s a lot.
He looks around, giving away his own nervousness for the first time. He scrubs a palm over his face. “I want to go straight, Honey, but I can’t get a decent job with a felony conviction. I just need you to front me some money so I can open that repair shop I’ve always wanted to run.”
I search my memory. “A repair shop?”
He nods. “You don’t remember? I wanted to open a mechanic shop, fix cars.” He shakes his head. “It’s like you never paid any attention to anything I said.”
“You hate fixing cars. You complained every day when you worked for your uncle at his shop.” He was good at it, though. The only thing in his life that ever came easily to him.
He frowns and scratches his head. “Oh, yeah. Well, things have changed.” He ducks his head, not making eye contact. “I’ve got a kid, Honey. I want to do right by her, but I just need a couple hundred grand to get started.”
He’s lying. “What’s really going on, Dell?”
Finally, he looks up and meets my eyes. “The details don’t matter. You’re coming into a whole lot of money and, if you still care about me at all, you’ll help me have a better future. Isn’t that what you always said you wanted for me? A better life?”
I did say that, and I’d meant it. At some point, though, I had to admit to myself I couldn’t help him when he wasn’t willing to help himself. “Are you serious about going straight? You don’t have to tell me what you’re doing, Dell, but I need to know you won’t be using the money to do something illegal.”
He runs a hand through his hair and grips the back of his neck. Slowly, he lowers his hand and looks into my eyes, his expression serious. “I’m going straight, Honey. I want to be a good person.” He looks away, chewing on his lower lip. “I’m starting a business that’s going to make me a very rich man, but I can’t tell you about it, because I don’t want anyone stealing my idea.”
He’s lying. Even as blind as I was to his faults when we were together, I learned his tells when I taught him to be a con artist. He’s just shown me every one of them in the space of five seconds. “I’m not getting any of that money for a few months.”
He pulls at his hair and scowls. “I’m living out of my car, Honey. I’m barely scraping enough money together for three meals a day. I need money now.”
The tight feeling in my chest is a mixture of that guilt I’ve been trying to ignore and sadness. “I don’t have the money now, Dell. I can give you a couple hundred bucks, but that’s all I can do.”
He drops his arms, shoulders slumping. “Maybe we could go back into business together. You know we could make that much in probably less than a month.”
“I’m not conning people anymore, Dell.”
His laugh is wry as he shakes his head. “You’ve gotten real good at lying to yourself, Honey, but I know you. You’re no angel. You enjoy the game just as much as I do.”
I cross my arms across my waist and squeeze. He’s wrong. I’m not that person anymore. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to do anything illegal to help you.”
His expression hardens. “Maybe I should meet your sisters. I bet they’d love to hear how you left me to fend for myself when I needed your help.”
My blood goes cold, but I keep my expression placid. Dell can’t ever find out how badly I want to keep my past a secret from my sisters or he’ll have way too much leverage on me. “Just give me some time. I might have another way to get the money.” And, if I’m lucky, he’ll give up on me and move on. He always did bore easily.
His smile is still gorgeous, even with his sunken cheeks and the dark shadows under his eyes. “That’s my baby girl.”
He turns and walks off into the shadows. He doesn’t ask for my phone number or promise to call me.
If he needs me, he’ll find me again. He knows me as well as I know him, and that sinking feeling in my gut is the thought that he’s right about me. I haven’t changed nearly as much as I’d like to believe I have.