27. Audrey
AUDREY
I woke up the next morning to a warm breeze, the eyelet curtains billowing in my bedroom, nothing but the sound of birds chirping, the wind blowing through the big oak tree that stood next to the house.
I checked my phone for the time, worried I’d overslept the alarm to get Ella to school, but we were right on time for the slow mornings that made school days more manageable for Ella and for me.
I lay in bed and thought about Ridge, regret tingeing my memory of his kiss. I shouldn’t have told him about Dean, shouldn’t have brought him into my mess.
But it was hard to have regrets when I could still call up the warmth of Ridge’s lips on mine, the solid presence of his body next to me on the porch step.
You’re not alone…
I wasn’t sure anyone had ever said those words to me. And I was very sure no one had ever meant them.
I’d had good parents, solid parents. A nice younger brother.
But they hadn’t wanted to hear about Dean. Hadn’t wanted to face the truth under his veneer of respectability, a veneer that allowed them not to worry, to believe Ella and I were in good hands.
To believe they hadn’t raised that kind of daughter.
The kind who got beat up by her husband. The kind who called the police on him.
My parents liked to think of themselves — of all of us — as good people. Good people didn’t have serious domestic disputes. Good people didn’t have their neighbors calling the police when they fought.
And good people definitely didn’t call the police on their spouse because they were afraid for their life.
For the life of their child.
“Mommy?” I looked up at the sound of Ella’s voice, coming from the door of my new room.
She looked sleepy, her blonde hair tousled, her Bluey nightgown rumpled.
“Good morning, sweetheart.” I opened my arms and she came running.
I pulled her into bed and rolled her over until we were lying side by side.
“Did you have a good sleep?” I asked, brushing a strand of hair from her face.
She nodded.
“Me too. What should we have for breakfast before school?”
“Pancakes!”
“Blueberry or chocolate chip? I think there’s stuff for both.”
“Chocolate chip!”
“Chocolate chip it is. And how about some bacon?” I’d been dreaming about the salty, fatty bacon Ridge had cooked yesterday morning.
Had it only been a day? I felt like I’d been here forever.
Like I belonged here.
A clang of alarm went off in my mind. This wasn’t home.
Ella sat up. “Let’s go, Mommy! I’m hungry! And if you’re still tired you can have coffee.”
I laughed. “You said the magic words, kiddo. Go get dressed for school while I handle breakfast.”
I got out of bed, pulled my hair into a messy bun, and made my way to the kitchen. The house was filled with morning light that painted the wood floor gold and made the rooms look like they’d been dusted with glitter.
I’d left the windows open while we’d slept, and the breeze that had woken me up drifted through the house like a caress.
I set about making coffee and mixed the batter for pancakes while it brewed, then lay strips of thick-cut bacon in the cast iron skillet I’d found in the cupboard.
A few minutes later the smell of sizzling meat and coffee filled the house.
Ella appeared in the doorway wearing her favorite dress, short-sleeve cotton with cherries all over it. “All done!”
I gave her a high five. “Good job.”
“Can I go outside?” she asked.
I hesitated, then walked to the front door.
I opened it and looked around, half expecting there to be a reason to say no, but there wasn’t one. There was nothing but the mowed front and side yards and the fields stretching up the knoll that hid the main house.
“Stay on the mowed part.” I’d made a promise to myself when I’d become a parent that I wouldn’t say no without a good reason.
“Okay, Mommy.”
I’d have to get her some outside toys if we were going to be on the ranch for the summer. It wasn’t something I'd had to think much about in our apartment in Carlton.
I went back inside, leaving the door open so I could see Ella through the screen if I took a few steps back from the stove. Then I went back to the kitchen to finish pulling bacon out of the pan and ladle the pancake batter into a little of the leftover bacon grease.
I was lifting the last pancake out of the skillet when I heard Ella squeal from the front of the house.
I turned off the stove and went running, bursting through the screen and onto the front porch, my heart racing.
But Ella was fine, kneeling in the grass at the front of the house, Blue licking her face while she giggled.
“Mommy, it’s a dog!”
I laughed and stepped off the porch. “His name’s Blue. He lives at the big house.”
“Blue like Bluey!” she said.
Movement at the top of the gently sloping hill caught my eye and I spotted Graham, moving as quickly as I’d ever seen Graham move even if it wasn’t quite a run.
He looked like something out of an old movie in his worn jeans, a black henley, and his cowboy hat, his boots cutting a path through the long grass.
I was suddenly aware that I was still in the tiny shorts I used as pajamas, my tits bare under a cropped tank top with thin straps, my feet bare.
“Sorry about that,” he said, stopping a few yards away from Ella. “He took off like a shot. Must have smelled that bacon.”
The bacon. Right. I hadn’t even thought about Blue, the bacon, the open windows.
“Look, Mommy! Blue’s my friend!”
“Blue’s not a pet,” Graham said. “He’s a working dog.”
I looked at the dog, licking Ella’s face while she giggled and rubbed his neck, and raised my eyebrows.
“Looks a lot like a pet to me.”
Graham whistled for the dog, but Ella was petting him, and he rolled all the way onto his back to give her better access to his belly.
He met my gaze. “Mind if I come get him?”
I like that he asked if he could approach Ella. He was telling me it was my call, that I was in control of how much access he had to her.
I nodded and he approached cautiously, like Ella was an unfamiliar animal.
He crouched down and held out his hand. “I’m Graham.”
Ella looked at me. “Is Graham a stranger?”
I’d taught her not to give her name to strangers, and I hesitated over the question, wanting to get it right, not wanting to be like Dean, who let strangers come around our daughter all the time.
But the Bulls had given us a nice place to stay. Graham had set up the house. Ridge and Holden had stood up for me with Dean.
As threats went, they seemed pretty low on the list.
“No, sweetheart. He’s our landlord for the summer, like Susan at the apartment.” Susan was the woman who owned our building in Carlton.
Ella put her little hand in Graham’s big one. “I’m Ella.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Ella. Blue here sure does like you.”
“He’s soft,” she said, rubbing his fur.
He eyed the dog, eating up Ella’s affection. “Softer than I realized, I guess.”
“Can I play with him?”
“Well, like I said, he’s a working dog. He has to help me with the cows, the horses.”
Her eyes widened. “You have cows? And horses?”
“Sure do,” he said. “You ever ride a horse?”
She shook her head.
He nodded. “Well, that’s something we can fix this summer, if it’s okay with your mom of course.”
Ella jumped to her feet. “Can I, Mommy?”
I crossed my arms over my tits, trying to minimize my exposure to Graham. “I’m sure we can work something out, but right now you need to eat breakfast so we can get you to school.”
She kissed the dog’s head. “I have to go to school now, Blue, but we can play later.”
“He can’t play,” Graham said. “He’s a…”
“Working dog?” I finished for him as Blue trotted after Ella, tail wagging.
Graham whistled, louder this time, and called Blue’s name with a bit of bite.
Blue stopped following Ella and ran back to Graham.
“You enjoy your breakfast now, Ella. And be good for your mom.”
“I will!”
I was still standing at the foot of the porch when she ran into the house, the screen door slamming behind her.
“I’ll send Ridge to fix that screen,” Graham said.
I nodded. “Thank you.”
He tipped his hat and turned away, and I wondered if he knew I wasn’t just saying thank you for the offer to fix the door.