CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Danica
The moment Sam got home from school, she asked if we could go see Midnight.
Who was I to argue? I wanted to go just as badly as she did. Though, it had less to do with the baby horse, and more to do with the man who cared for the baby horse.
I tried reaching out to Clyde’s parents, but my text messages and calls went unanswered.
It was Friday, so I would wait to hear what Cheryl had to say about her sit-down with Mr. and Mrs. Whalley and whether it gave her any hope.
I wasn’t going to let this slide, but I also didn’t want to make things worse for my kid.
I needed to play by the rules … for now.
When we pulled onto Tom’s property, I tossed on the brakes in surprise, causing both of us to lurch forward in our seats and the belts to engage. At least we knew they worked.
There were three parked cars in front of the barn. Two I recognized.
Jolene Dandy’s champagne-beige Ford Focus and Karen Ribko’s silver Hyundai Santa Fe, along with a navy-blue Toyota Corolla.
“That’s weird,” I mused to Sam as I kept my speed to a crawl and parked beside the Corolla.
“Yeah. I didn’t think Tom wanted people coming to his place.”
“Neither did I.” Worry spun through me like sugar in a cotton candy machine, building and getting stickier. We made our way to the barn door, and I held it open for Sam. Voices echoed down through the long, high-ceilinged building; the shrill laugh of Jolene made my eye twitch.
“Oh, Tommaso, why have you kept this place such a secret? And all these beautiful creatures. You could make so much money from tourists. You simply must let us put something about your animals in the next island newsletter,” Jolene went on.
“No, thank you,” Tom said softly before poking his head out of Midnight’s stall, seeing us and instantly smiling. Relief filled his eyes. He turned back to Jolene, Karen, and whoever else was with them inside the stall. “I like my privacy. I do not need tourist money.”
“Yes, but you must share this wonderful place with others. It’s the island way, you know?” Jolene pressed on.
“I have been here a few years now, and while it might be ‘the island way,’ it is not my way. I like my privacy. These are all rescue animals. They deserve peace.”
We reached the open door of the stall, where four women blinked back at us. Jolene, Karen, Brenda Pickford—Otto Pickford’s wife—and a woman I didn’t recognize. Though, by the looks of things, she’d bitten into the sourest lemon in the world and her face decided to stay that way.
“Hello,” I said softly.
Brenda instantly eyed me in a way that made me shift uncomfortably. Like how dare I breathe the same air as her or something.
“Why are you here, Danica?” Jolene asked, intrigue glittering in her copper-brown eyes.
“I, uh …” I didn’t want to out Sam and her anxiety. “Tom and I are …”
Why the hell did you start the sentence that way?
I didn’t do well at all being put on the spot where I had to lie. I was a terrible liar. Always have been.
“Tom and you are …?” Jolene probed.
“We’re friends,” Tom finished for me. “Danica helped me with Midnight. She got goats’ milk from Fred Love when Midnight’s mother died.”
“Yes, we heard about that,” Jolene said. “So tragic.”
“I hope you buried that horse’s body on your own property,” Brenda Pickford piped up, giving Tom a disgusted look. “I don’t want its carcass stinking up my land.”
Sam made a noise of disbelief beside me.
“She has been laid to rest on my land. I assure you,” Tom said patiently.
Brenda gave me another weird look. This one seemed slightly more wary, and then it shifted to Sam beside me, then to Tom, then back to me. A burning unease flickered behind the soulless, muddy-brown of her eyes.
What was going on?
“How did you two meet anyway?” Karen asked. She owned a trinket and souvenir shop down in the main harbor near the ferry terminal and was one of Jolene’s “yes” minions. The woman didn’t really have two independent thoughts in her skull to rub together.
“Uh …” I swallowed.
“Cameron Arendelle,” Tom replied. “Their daughters are friends.”
“Yes, but why did he introduce you?” Jolene probed.
I stepped forward, holding out my hand. “Hi, I’m Danica,” I said to the woman I didn’t recognize and who I’d yet to be introduced to. “My cousins and I own the winery on the island. This is my daughter, Samantha, or Sam. She comes here to brush the horses once in a while.”
“Is that something you offer all the children on the island?” Brenda asked.
Tom shook his head. “No.”
Brenda looked like she’d been slapped the way her eyes went wide and her jaw went slack.
I still awkwardly held out my hand to the unknown woman, and she glanced at Brenda for a second before accepting my hand. She was probably around the same age as the other women—late sixties, early seventies. “Cindy Shoals. I’m Brenda’s cousin.”
“Oh, are you on the island visiting?” I asked.
She glanced at Brenda again, as if asking for permission to answer. “Yeah. Just visiting. Arrived earlier today.”
“Tommaso, I really do think the community deserves to meet this sweet little man. I know the schoolchildren would love to see him,” Jolene went on. “I mean, Brenda could talk to Otto, and he could just tell Palmer Figgs to drive the bus here, and they’d make a field trip of it.”
“No,” Tom said, a little more forcefully this time, and causing all the women to rear back in surprise. “No field trip. No bus. No kids.”
“Not very community-minded, if you ask me,” Jolene said, her knickers in a twist. She clucked her tongue like a scandalmongering, old, brood hen before she ushered her posse out the door.
“I never could understand why you wanted your proposal for Bonn Remmen’s land to be kept a secret.
” She turned to the other hens in her flock.
“Would you believe Keturah and Hattie told me they’d string me up by my ears if I told a soul that Tommaso was the fifth party interested in the land?
” She scoffed. “They can be so rude sometimes, those two. Treat me like the island gossip, they do.”
Karen and Brenda shook their heads, agreeing with Jolene.
I had to roll my lips inward to keep from smiling because I’m not sure I’d ever met a person less self-aware than Jolene Dandy.
She was known as “The Island Mouth” for a reason.
You couldn’t tell her a damn thing if you wanted it to remain a secret.
Hell, she couldn’t even see anything, and keep it to herself.
The fact that Keturah and Hattie had to threaten her brought me more joy than it should, but the gossipy old woman deserved it.
I’m sure she’d be spreading all kinds of rumors about Tom and me, and by this time tomorrow, people would think we were living together and he was buying half my share in the vineyard.
“You do know who we are, right?” Brenda asked after Tom closed the stall door, leaving Raven and Midnight alone with Sam.
I stood beside him for support, but I didn’t dare reach for his hand this time. What kind of message would that send to Jolene? That I was pregnant with Tom’s baby—it was a boy, and we planned to name him Rotini?
“It would serve you well, Tommaso, to remember that Jolene is on the Island Elders Council, and my husband is the school principal,” Brenda went on. Then she zeroed in on me, driving home that last bit. “We’re powerful people, if you ask me.”
We?
Brenda had zero power, yet she seemed to think that by sheer association, she was empress of the island. It was all I could do not to shake my head and roll my eyes.
“I didn’t ask you,” Tom said flatly.
Brenda’s brows rose. “You owe me tulips.”
His nostrils flared and his fingers stretched wide, then bunched at his sides.
I took a half step closer to him, but it didn’t go unnoticed by the women in front of us, and their gazes roamed our bodies up and down.
“I will replace your tulips by Monday, signora. My apologies.”
Wait, what happened to Brenda’s tulips and why was Tom to blame?
Acting like she’d won this exchange, Brenda puffed her chest up in her turquoise vest and lifted her pointy nose in the air before nodding. “Good. Pink and yellow. None of that garish red or harlot purple.”
Why were purple tulips harlots? What made purple a slutty color for flowers? I happened to like purple flowers. Dark-purple calla lilies were actually my favorites. Was I a harlot?
I grew more confused by the second.
Tom nodded again. “I will do my best, signora.”
“We should get going,” Jolene said, resting her hand on Cindy’s arm. “Lots to show Cindy. We’re off to the brewery next.”
I cringed at the thought of these four women torturing the McEvoys, but at the same time, better there than here. Were they going to go to the winery next? Our tasting room wasn’t open yet, but I’m sure that wouldn’t stop them from trying to get Naomi to open it anyway.
Should I text my cousin and warn her?
She did have a stronger backbone than I, and would have no problem telling the old birds to fly away. I didn’t bother messaging her. She’d be fine.
“Enjoy your island tour,” I said to Cindy as Tom and I stood there watching the women leave. He exhaled only when the door slammed shut. We both remained quiet however, until we heard their vehicles turn on, and the gravel crunch under three sets of tires.
“How long were they here before we arrived?” I asked, turning to face him.
“Too long.” He exhaled. “Maybe fifteen minutes.”
“Fourteen minutes too long.”
He huffed a laugh and nodded as we started walking back toward Midnight’s stall. “I was mending the donkey barn when they showed up.”
“What happened to the donkey barn, and why does Brenda Pickford think you owe her tulips?”