Chapter 4 #2
“Thank you. I’ll try it.”
When I get to Ned’s, I hop out and pull the bike out of the bed. Ava and Wren are still talking in the pickup, so I knock on Ned’s door. When he doesn’t answer, I follow the path to his workshop. Inside, he’s stooped over a stack of plastic bins.
“You know where that stack of sandbags is?” he grumbles. “I want to fill some more to place around a couple of the cottage doors.”
“I got enough shit… stuff to keep track of at May Ranch. I can’t keep track of yours.”
He stands and turns toward me, grinning. “I thought you were Danni. She’s always moving stuff. Making it more organized, she says. But her organization is my chaos.” He squints at my polo. “Nice shirt. Not your typical style.”
“Skye is trying to make me even more handsome than I currently am. I told her that might be dangerous.”
He chuckles. “She’s got a good eye.”
“I thought I had a good eye.” I lift an eyebrow. “You got a bike tire that needs repairing. I put it on the front porch.”
“Wren?”
I nod.
“She okay?”
“I think so. I can help you with the bike, but I need to drop off Ava at May Ranch first. She’s riding with Lacy, and it looks like her lessons are going to be cut real short because of that brewing storm. It’s coming in quicker and harder than they thought.”
“That’s why I was looking for those darn extra sandbags. I don’t want to be surprised.” He closes the bin and stretches his back. “I’ll text Danni and ask if she knows where they are. How ‘bout you? You ready for some flooding?”
“It’s looking like all this flooding is becoming our new norm. We’re doing all we can to fence some more grazing land because of it. Once the mentees arrive, that’ll be their first task—to get those poles up.”
“You’re all set for them?”
“Yep. Tank got all the funding. And everything’s ready, except for a few more homey touches to the cabin, but Lacy’s on those.”
Ned swipes his forehead with a red handkerchief. “Tell Wren I’ll bring her bike to her a little later.” He straightens out and studies me. “Thanks for looking out for her. Glad you’re a gentleman, Johnathon Fox. I’ll tell your mother. She’ll be proud of you.”
“I was thinking of leaving Wren there on the road. She wasn’t too happy about us stopping. And she’s prickly as a bull thistle.”
Ned grins. “Maybe it’s just you.”
“Most people find me charming.”
“You mean, besides your mother?” He chuckles. “Speaking of, how’s Nita?”
“Her memory’s worse.”
“I know, son.” He puts an arm around me and squeezes. “Tell me what we can do. Rena and I visit her every Tuesday and take her out to eat, when she’s up to it. But we can do more. We can take turns sitting with her. You know your mom’s just as much family as you are.”
I look down, nodding, sadness clogging my throat. “It’s tough. The changes keep sneaking up on me. But thanks, Ned. Maybe we could sit and talk about what else I could be doing for her? Extra ears would help.”
“You bet.”
When I return to the truck, Ava’s sitting in the pickup alone, humming a song, her feet stuck out the window.
“Where’s Wren?”
“She’s walking home. She took her stuff.”
I step away from the pickup and look down the path. She’s not in sight. “She could have waited for some help.”
Ava shrugs. “She said she had to go.”
I hop back in the truck, and swing back toward the road to May Ranch.
“You should smile,” Ava says.
“I smile.”
“You should smile more. “
“Good advice that I think would go unnoticed if you’re talking about Wren, who’s got a stick up her—” I glance over. “Never mind.”
“Wren’s nice. Everyone’s wrong about her.” She’s biting her thumbnail again.
“That’s good. You bring out the best in people. You know that, Ava?”
“Yeah.” She grins over at me. “I know it.” She tucks her legs under her. “Wren told me she used to sleepwalk. Like me. But since she’s been here, she hasn’t.”
“Maybe since she’s on vacation, she’s more relaxed?”
“No.” Ava shakes her head slowly. “She doesn’t seem like she’s on vacation.”
“Why do you say that?”
She doesn’t answer right away, so I glance over.
She’s looking out the window again, chewing at her thumbnail, like she’s trying to figure something out.
Finally, she says, “When she dropped her bag and everything fell out, her sunglasses slipped off. Her face is all bruised up. She has a bunch of makeup covering the bruises, but you can still tell, though. She looks like Sherry after she had a fight with one of her loser boyfriends. She’d put a bunch of makeup on her face, but it didn’t hide everything.
” She taps her fingers against her thigh, then sits on her hands, as if realizing what she’s doing.
Skye told me once that when Ava’s nervous, she taps to self-soothe.
“Sherry was my first mom,” Ava says softly.
“Is that why you told Wren, when she got in the car, that she should go to Heaven’s Spring to get healed?”
“Yeah.”
I pull the car off to the side of the road.
“What are you doing?”
“Right over past those palmettos, in that grove of oaks, there’s a bunch of wild blackberries. Let’s pick some for Lacy.”
Her hand is still on the seatbelt, her eyebrows furrowed. “Do you like Lacy?”
“I love Lacy. Like a little sister.” I tug on a wisp of hair that’s escaped her ponytail. “Like I love you.”
She smiles at the dashboard.
“If the bears haven’t been greedy, and we have extra, we’ll send some home with you so you can make Skye some blackberry muffins. And if you have plenty, you can throw some my way.”
She grins, nods, and hops out of the truck.
“Grab a bucket from the cargo box in the back of the truck,” I call out to her.
She follows me to the grove of trees, swinging the bucket in her hand. “Aren’t you going to ask me?” she says.
“Ask you what?”
“Wren’s secret. How she doesn’t sleepwalk anymore.”
An eastern indigo snake glides across the path, a flash of iridescent blue-black. “Not a lot of those around here anymore,” I tell Ava, who’s stone still now, watching it with wide eyes as it slithers into the scrub.
“It’s pretty. Is it poisonous?”
“Nope.” We continue on, tromping between a clump of palmettos. “If it’s a secret, should you be telling me?”
“I trust you.”
I set the comment and the rush of warmth that comes with it aside. It’s big—Ava trusting me, Ava trusting anyone, after what she’s been through.
“Okay, what’s the secret?”
Ava stops and puts the bucket down. “She has a big dog named Monster. Really big. He lies on her legs every night when she’s sleeping, because she thinks he doesn’t like being alone in the dark either.
And even though she gets leg cramps because he’s like a hundred pounds, she said it’s worth it because she hasn’t walked in her sleep a single time since she got Monster.
So, I’m going to ask Mom if we can get a really big dog.
” She takes a deep breath and looks at me, waiting.
I bite off a laugh because her expression is so sweetly earnest. “How about I ask Bear if he’ll loan Hilda and Rocky for a few days? One dog for each leg.”
A spark of pure joy flits across her face, then she purses her lips. “I’d have to tie them to my legs to make them stay.”
“True. They don’t like to be too far from the cattle they protect.” Hilda and Rocky, Bear’s livestock guardian dogs, spend most of their time outside. If they’re inside for too long, they get antsy and pace.
“Meatball it is, then. I’ll ask Bear.”
“Would you really?”
“If I say it, I’ll do it.”
“Do you think he’ll sleep on my legs?”
“Meatball will sleep anywhere.” I chuckle. “But you’ll have to see if your Mom’s okay with a big dog lying on you all night. She might be afraid you’ll wake up with pancake legs.”
She giggles.
While we gather up wild blackberries, Ava belts out pop songs—a good bear deterrent—and I think of Wren.
Frustratingly prickly, beautiful Wren. I’ve seen her around Paradise Springs before today.
A couple times downtown, sitting on a bench, alone, sipping her coffee, and once when I passed her at Meyer’s Crossing.
She’s noticeable, even when she’s surrounded by the clumps of tourists milling around due it being the height of tourist season.
Is Ava right, though? Is she here for reasons other than a simple vacation?
When we arrive at May Ranch, the sky is gray, heavy, and suffocatingly close.
“Get some riding in before the rains hit,” I tell Ava.
“Text me, and I’ll take you back to town when you’re done.
Make sure you help Lacy get the horses settled in for the storm.
Bear and I’ll be out in the south pasture. ”
She hops out of the truck. “Okay,” she calls out before slamming the door shut and rushing toward the wooden steps that lead up to the main entrance of May Ranch.