Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
Reese woke up with a terrible head and stomach ache, but she still smiled when she cracked her eyes open to see Stella and Bossy P watching over her closely. They weren’t used to her sleeping over, and they obviously knew something was wrong.
“Morning guys! Rise and shine! Who’s ready for breakfast?” P squawked the greeting Reese usually gave when she came into the barn every morning.
She laughed at the crazy bird’s antics. “You’re something else, you know that?”
“I’m the boss,” he argued.
“That bird sounds confused.”
Ernie’s voice came from out of nowhere, and Reese barely stifled a scream as she scrambled to her feet.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked.
“This is my farm, which means this is my barn, which means I can be here whenever I damn well please. The better question is, what are you doing here? Do you make it a habit to sleep out here? Are you squatting on private property?” He stood in front of the door to Stella’s stall, keeping Reese trapped inside.
“What? No. Don’t be ridiculous. I just… I, uh, came out to check on them one more time and just kind of fell asleep,” she lied. She didn’t want him to know the real reason, although she suspected he already had some idea.
“No one gave you permission to sleep in my barn.”
“It’s not your barn yet. It’s your parents’. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have animals to take care of.” Reese tried to open the stall door, but he didn’t let her.
“On the contrary, PB, we signed the paperwork with the lawyer last night after you threw your little fit. You made Ma cry, you know. She is so damn worried about you and these worthless money pits. It’s ridiculous.”
“Move out of my way, Ernie. I have things to do.”
He sneered. “Ask nicely.”
Huffing, Reese moved to the side of the stall and climbed over. She’d ask him nicely for anything over her dead body. Unfortunately, the disgusting man didn’t give up easily, and he blocked her way again as she tried to exit the empty stall next to Stella’s.
“You know, as soon as my parents are out of here, I’m going to have every single one of these animals euthanized and this barn leveled to make room for the upscale horse stalls I’ll be renting out to rich people who need to board their horses. The need for a good boarding stable is high in this area. I’m gonna be rolling in money!”
“You can’t do that,” Reese said through gritted teeth.
“I can and I will. Unless,” he reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Maybe you and I can work on a special arrangement.”
“Don’t touch me.” Reese stepped back, but he followed.
“Oh, come on, PB. Don’t play hard to get with me. I know you’ve had the hots for me since you were a little girl. I’m just giving you the opportunity to live out your dream. Hell, maybe you can even convince me to marry you, and then all of your problems will go away.”
“My biggest problem right now is you. And I’d rather be dead than let you touch me. Get out of my way.”
She didn’t like the look on his face. It scared her, and he had her trapped, which made things even scarier. The more distance she tried to put between the two of them, the more she backed herself into a corner, quite literally. She was trapped between Ernie and the wall of the barn behind her. Her heart hammered as she realized how bad her predicament was.
“You’d rather die than let me touch you? Who are you kidding? Every girl in town wants a piece of me. What’s wrong with you, anyway? You some kind of prude? You a virgin?”
His tone was getting increasingly louder and more filled with rage. As angry as Reese was, she realized she’d better find a way to talk her way out of this, or things were going to get really bad. But first, she slipped her hand into the front pocket of her jeans and, pretending to hang her head, she tapped her phone screen and turned on the voice recording before slipping the phone back into her pocket.
“Maybe I am,” she lied, hoping that would deter him.
He threw his head back and laughed. “Ha! I can teach a virgin a thing or two.”
Too late, she realized she’d said the wrong thing. Her palms started to sweat, and her stomach turned. Ernie was almost twice her size. If she could just get around him, she could make a run for it. But there was no way she could slip by him, especially as he advanced on her, moving closer and closer until she could feel his hot breath on her face.
“Yeah, I could teach you a few things, PB. Like how to treat a real man.”
His voice was lower now. Quieter. But more menacing by the second, and she was nearly frozen in fear.
“Just let me go, Ernie. I just want to go home.”
“ Just let me go ,” he mocked in a high-pitched voice she supposed was him doing a sarcastic impression of her. “You’re not going anywhere. Not until I take my payment for all the shit you’ve caused in my life. My parents treat you like you were their own kid. Do you have any idea how much that pisses me off? They even talked about leaving half this place to you until I made them see how off-the-charts stupid that was. This place is mine. And now… now you’ll be mine, whether you like it or not, little prude.”
He reached for her so fast she didn’t have time to react, other than the small scream that escaped her throat.
“Ahh!”
He slapped a rough hand over her mouth, so hard it hurt. “Shut the hell up!”
He dragged her away from the wall and pushed her down onto a bale of hay, then even as she kicked at him, he grabbed the collar of her t-shirt and yanked. The sound of the fabric ripping was like thunder in her ears, and everything started to go black as panic choked her. She heard Stella mooing and mooing from her stall.
“Ernie… stop. Please.”
“ Please stop ,” he mocked her again. “You don’t tell me what to do, you little bitch. No one tells me what to do!”
“Please…” she started to beg just as he tore the button off her jeans and yanked the zipper down.
“No!” she screamed as she shoved against his chest with both hands, knowing it would do no good. “Stop it!”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and all she heard was Stella mooing again, as if trying to help her somehow. She’d never felt so powerless in her life.
“Shut up, bitch! Or I’ll make you shut up,” he threatened, his hand coming up to cover her mouth once more.
She struggled against him, but when she tried to kick him, he let her mouth go long enough to slap her across the face. She couldn’t believe how much it hurt. She raised her hand to cover her cheek as her head spun.
“Not enough for you, little bitch?” he growled as he pulled his arm back.
Suddenly she heard an ear-piercing shriek. “I’m the boss!”
The next thing she heard was Bossy P’s wings flapping and Ernie screaming like a little girl as he let her go and stumbled backward.
She could barely believe what she was seeing. Bossy P had his claws dug into Ernie’s shoulder, his wings flapping, and the parrot was frantically pecking at his face, pausing to scream again and again, “I’m the boss! I’m the boss!”
“Call off this damn bird!” Ernie bellowed. “I’ll kill this god damn…” He trailed off as the parrot pecked at his head, and Ernie ran from the barn while Reese stood there in shock.
She got up and stumbled to the barn door, watching as Bossy P kept pecking at Ernie until he reached his truck. She couldn’t believe the agoraphobic parrot had left the barn without her. But he was still going at Ernie, flapping and pecking and screaming “I’m the boss!” as Ernie tried to get the bird off him.
Finally, Ernie was in his truck, Bossy P flapping around and shrieking at him. Ernie rolled down the window an inch and yelled, “Stupid bird! I’m coming back, and you and all your stupid-ass animal friends are dead. Dead! And you! Don’t think you’re getting away with this, you little bitch!”
Bossy P flew back to the barn and landed on her shoulder as Ernie started his truck, the tires squealing as he hit the gas.
Reese knew she was in shock. Her body felt numb all over, and she couldn’t think straight. She soothed herself by stroking P’s feathers as he nuzzled against her cheek.
“Thank you, friend. Oh my God, thank you.”
The tears really started to come, then, and she went back into the barn and opened Stella’s stall. The cow gave a low moo and pressed her big, pink nose against Reese’s chest. Reese looped her arms around Stella’s neck and laid her head against her forehead, and while Bossy P groomed her hair and cooed into her ear, she sobbed into the cow’s black and white fur.
When her tears finally stopped–she had no idea how long it had been–she stepped back, and her phone fell to the ground.
“Oh!”
She’d forgotten that she’d set it to record. How she’d had the presence of mind in those moments, she’d never know. When she tapped on the app, Ernie’s angry voice rang out. She quickly paused the recording, her stomach clenching as a hot wave of nausea washed over her. If she didn’t have the recording, she may have doubted that he’d actually attacked her. It all seemed like some awful nightmare now.
But it was real. And as terrifying as it had been, she had proof of what happened. And maybe, a way to save all her animals. Because they were her family. And she would fight for them no matter what she had to do. And what she had to do was push this whole ordeal to the back of her mind and get the animals fed. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself into action. First to the bathroom to clean up and fix her clothes as best she could, and then on to her chores.
Thankfully, the work was basically all mindless and routine because she had so many things she needed to figure out. Like how she was going to find a space to rent that she could take her crew to. She had a small savings, but it wouldn’t be enough to last them more than a month, if that. She would need to start completely from scratch, because even though all of the animals technically belonged to her, none of the tools and equipment did. None of the hay or feed. Nothing.
Bossy P stayed on her shoulder as she worked. His presence calmed her, but she missed his incessant chatter. She knew he must be traumatized. Her little hero.
She had to find a home for all of them. She couldn’t let Ernie follow through on his threat. It would kill her.
After morning chores, she pulled out her laptop and started researching spaces, but after about fifteen minutes she realized her situation was even more dire than she’d thought. So many ranches were renting out outbuildings, but almost all of them stated they were not open to livestock, and the ones that did were way beyond her meager budget.
She curled up in a pile of hay and threw her arm over her eyes. “Think, Reese. Think!”
She could and should march up to the house and let Jo and Walter hear exactly what they were subjecting her to by giving the farm to their sleazeball son, but what good would that do? It would only hurt the elderly couple, and she really didn’t want to do that after all they had done for her. They had been the only real family she’d ever known after bouncing between foster homes. She hadn’t been a bad kid; just no one had wanted to keep her. Jo had wanted to take her in, but she’d refused because of Ernie. He’d always given off bad vibes, and she wasn’t stupid enough to give him more access to her. Not even back then, when she would have given anything just to belong.
Now here she was again, alone. No one understood what it was like to be an unloved foster kid. To know your mom and dad, the people who were supposed to love and care for you the most, just chose not to. She was five when she had been taken away, and no one had ever come for her. She’d wondered about them when she was young, but now she could really care less who they were or what their excuse might be.
Thinking about the past reminded her of something, and she sat up like a shot.
“Wren!” she exclaimed as she jumped out of the hay and went to find her bag with her cell phone. “Wren works at a ranch! If she can’t help us, maybe she knows someone who can.”
A kind of skeptical excitement coursed through her as she scrolled to her friend’s name and tapped the call button. It rang three times before it went to voicemail, but Reese was desperate. She hung up, then called and called until finally someone picked up.
“Hello?”
It was a man. Where was Wren? Had she changed her number? Reese’s stomach clenched.
“Hello?” His voice was getting increasingly more frustrated. “You call my wife thirteen times, and then you don’t even have the courtesy to say something when we finally pick up?”
Wife? Wren was married! How could she have forgotten?
“I…” she swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Hi. I’m sorry. I just… can I talk to her, please?” Her voice sounded small and pitiful to her own ears, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She’d had a rough night and even rougher morning.
The man’s voice gentled. “Who is this?”
“It’s Teresa, umm Reese. I’m sorry for calling. I need to talk to Wren, please. It’s an emergency.”
“What kind of an emergency? Are you all right?”
Reese shook her head, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. She didn’t want to talk to him, though. She was scared and just wanted to talk to her friend. Wren would know what to do.
She heard some shuffling before she thankfully heard Wren’s voice. “Reese? What is it? Are you okay?”
Hearing a friendly voice sent her over the edge and she broke down. Through her sobs she explained her situation as best she could.
“Motherfucker,” she heard the man grumble, followed by some muffled conversation between him and Wren. Then he said, “Reese, I want you to do something for me, okay? Can you listen and follow my directions?”
“I… I can try.”
“Okay, good. I want you to bring all of your animals into the barn and I want you to close and lock every single door. Any door you can’t lock, I want you to put something heavy in front of it, and then keep your phone in your hand. We’re heading up to the Ranch office now to tell my boss. Help is on the way, okay? All you need to worry about is staying safe. If that motherfucker comes back, you call 911. Tell me you understand.”
Having someone give her clear directions calmed her–and this was her friend’s husband. She could trust him, right? She didn’t have to try to figure anything out, she just needed to do what she was told.
“I understand.”
“Good. Sit tight. We’ll be there soon.”
“Thank you,” she whispered into the phone, but he was already gone.
She took a few deep breaths before going outside to get her goats and secured them in their stall before luring the pigs in and sliding their big door shut. All of the doors had locks so she didn’t have to work too hard to barricade herself and her babies inside. Now all she could do was wait, and hope her phone stayed charged long enough for help to arrive. It was at nine percent. She really hoped they would move quickly.