Chapter Nine #2
child but looking Noah’s way. “Are you sure this is necessary? I’ve been
thinking about vaccines…”
Henry cleared his throat, and his gaze narrowed.
Nell sighed. “I do believe in science, but is it necessary
since the goats are all adults? How can we know they need this?”
“Because all goats need to be vaccinated for tetanus and
Clostridium,” Noah said as he handed Henry the syringe. “It’s safe, Nell. I
know you don’t like to think about putting chemicals into the animals, but
there’s a reason we no longer lose whole herds. It’s not going to hurt him.
It’s going to ensure he has a good long life.”
“But what if he’s already had it?” Nell asked with
uncertainty.
Shane held the goat as Henry carefully cleaned the spot he
was going to use the needle on. “Ma’am, these goats were all neglected. The
owner didn’t feed them. I seriously doubt they kept to a careful vaccination
schedule. They didn’t love these goats like you obviously love Poppy there.”
Nell’s eyes filled with tears, and he worried he’d said
something wrong. Then she nodded and leaned over. “What did you say the dosage
was, Noah?”
Noah started talking to her while Henry expertly filled the
syringe. Poppy and her mom were suddenly invested in the lesson, while Henry
got on with the job.
“Thank you.” Henry pinched the skin and slid the needle in,
administering the dose. The goat barely moved. “That was exactly the right
thing to say to her. My wife is a loving woman, and sometimes she worries she’s
doing it wrong. Sometimes she needs to be reminded that love is the most
important part, and she does that spectacularly.”
“She’s a kind woman.” From what he could tell Nell tried to
help everyone she could.
“She is.” Henry petted the goat and nodded at Shane to let
him go. The little thing happily ran into the meadow. “Brooke seems to be
settling in at the G. I saw her yesterday with Beth and the kids.”
The Flanders family was spending a lot of time out at the G
while they were setting up their sanctuary. “She seems to like it, but it’s
only temporary. She’s looking for a new job.”
It was a lie, but one he kind of needed to tell himself. She
wasn’t looking, from what he could tell. For days she’d seemed perfectly happy
to go to the theater and work with Cleo and her group and come home and work a
bit more before she started dinner. She read while they cleaned the kitchen,
and then they went to bed. For hours.
It was heaven.
It wasn’t going to last.
“Do you think so?” Henry mused as he looked over to where
Noah was showing Nell how to measure the dosage.
“I mean she’s not going to stay. She needs to work, and the
theater is only open in the summer. Besides, I can’t see her staying. Sometimes
I wonder how she grew up in this place.”
Henry looked at him, the glasses making the man seem very
intellectual. “Why do you say that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s very…what’s the word…chic.
I see her in fancy hotels. Not here.”
Henry seemed to think about that. “Are you sure you’re
seeing the real her? Because I assure you Brooke Harper has vaccinated some
horses in her time. She used to work the farm on her summers off and on the
weekends. I know she worked the sheriff’s dispatch when she was younger and
Callie needed time off. She’s also taken her turn on alien watches and worked
many festivals with me and Nell, selling organic cider and crafts. You think
she doesn’t fit in here?”
Shane shook his head. “No. I know everyone loves her. I just
can’t see her leaving the city.”
“You know I would have said the same thing about Logan
Green. I would have told you that kid was never getting further from Bliss than
Alamosa,” Henry admitted. “And I was wrong. The world is bigger and smaller
than we think it is. I’ve seen most of it. I’ve seen the good and the bad. The
beautiful places of this earth and the war-torn ones. I lived in DC for a long
time. I don’t ever want to live anywhere but here. I’m glad my Nell doesn’t
want to go anywhere else because this is my home.”
He had some questions since Henry seemed so open in the
moment. “Is it true you worked for the Central Intelligence Agency? You don’t
have to tell me. I can mind my own business.”
“I get the feeling you do that a lot, and what’s the fun in
that? One of the things I love about this place is how no one minds their
business.”
Oh, he got a bad feeling that he’d opened a door better left
closed. “I mean some people do.”
“Nah,” Henry said. “And yes, it’s true. In another life I
was a man named John Bishop. I worked intelligence, and not in some ivory
tower. I was an operative, and a deadly one. And then I found this place and I
discovered another part of me. We don’t have to stay the people we are when
we’re younger. We don’t have to be who they told us to be. In my case I didn’t
stay who the Agency said I was. Cold. Unfeeling. Unable to care about real
people because of abandonment issues.”
That cut close. “I get the feeling you’re trying to tell me
something. You should be clear. I’m not real smart.”
Henry’s lips tugged up in a rueful grin. “Oh, there it is.
You see, you are smart. You’re good at solving problems. You’re excellent at a
lot of things, but you downplay everything good about yourself. In another
life, I would have recruited you, Shane Kent. I would have taken you under my
very deadly wing and taught you how to play the game.”
Shane laughed at the thought. “I would be a terrible spy.”
“Not after I trained you,” Henry said in all seriousness.
“I’ve noticed you’re organized and you see mechanical problems easily. You also
hide your need for praise. I would have become the father figure you so
desperately needed, and you would have found yourself in my debt and later in
my pocket.”
Okay, Henry was kind of scary. “I thought about going into
the military, but Bay didn’t want to.”
“Bay saved you,” Henry said quietly. “I assure you if you’d
gone into the military, you would be on a Special Forces team very quickly, and
then someone like John Bishop would have come knocking on your door. All I’m
saying is it’s become apparent to me that you’re hiding a lot out of fear. You
might not even realize it’s fear. For you it seems like a logical thing to do,
but I’ve learned when we close ourselves off to possibilities, it’s always fear
that drives us. Fear. Shame. It’s all the same. You’re looking at Brooke
through a pair of glasses someone else put on your face. Like I did once. I saw
Nell the way I’d been taught to see. With cynicism and a belief that all people
are basically the same. It took falling for that magnificent woman to get me to
take them off. It’s hard when you think it’s the only way you can
see.”
“You think I’m seeing Brooke wrong?” He knew the question
sounded simple, but he got the complexity Henry was talking about. He hid his
intelligence because anything he had when he was a child was something to be
taken away. He qualified for AP classes and honor classes and his stepmother
decided if he was so smart, he could get a part-time job that took up all his
time to study. And then he had some money, so she made him pay rent.
That woman had fucked up his life.
“I think you’re protecting yourself and you think you might
be protecting her. You’re wrong. Brooke is smart, and I believe she’s already
figuring out that getting fired might have been a blessing in disguise. It’s
hard to let go of something you’ve told yourself you wanted all your life. It’s
damn near impossible to admit what you truly want is smaller and yet infinitely
more. That what you want isn’t a job or a level of financial security. That
what you want is a feeling.”
To be loved and appreciated. To know the work he did served
the people he loved, and he had an unassailable place among them.
Henry was right. He wasn’t fucking dumb. He’d been excellent
at school, and when there was no more school and no way to go to college, he’d
read. He’d taken shit from everyone for enjoying a book. Bay had too, though it
never seemed to bother him. There was a deep well of certainty in his brother
that he didn’t possess.
Or was he wearing the wrong glasses?
“I can’t work at the G forever. Even if she stayed, she
would need more than I can provide,” he heard himself saying.
“But she doesn’t.” Henry put a hand on his shoulder.
“Another thing you’ve had placed in your head. I know Brooke. She wants a
teammate. Probably two, given how she grew up. She’s a unicorn, you know.”
He realized how often he played down his own intelligence
since his first instinct was to ask Henry what he meant. But he knew. “Because
where else would we find a woman we don’t have to convince that the
relationship we want can work. She’s unique.”
“She is indeed. Stop coming up with all the reasons why you
don’t deserve this. Start enjoying what you have. You want to know what will
keep her by your side? Build something with her. Help her. Grow with her. Or
you can let the people who hurt you win. It’s as simple as that. Poppy,
sweetie, I don’t think the goat wants you to ride him.”
But it kind of looked like the goat did. That goat was
bowing down and letting the girl climb all over it. It was weird, but then
everything about the Flanders family was weird. And true.
He watched Henry scoop up his daughter and wondered if his
stepmother’s cruelty would haunt him forever.
Wednesday
“But I already took the beet.” Bay had done a
double dose because apparently there was a certain part of the ranch that
attracted aliens, and he’d worked there for a couple of days. So Cassidy had
shown up with her monthly dose for all the ranch hands.
He’d had to brush hard so his teeth weren’t purple.
Brooke gave him a stare as she downed her own. “The worst
that can happen is you don’t get hypertension. You know beets are a superfood.”
“No, honey, the worst that can happen is one of the spores