Chapter 6 Rowe #2
“You don’t have to get it back to me that fast. You’ve got at least a week.”
By then my accounts might be accessible again. “Thank you. Now. Can you help me load this up?”
He nods. “Drive around back here so nobody’ll see.”
“And here we are—that’s been my entire day, and it sucks,” I say, my voice echoing in the now-bare living room.
I’m lying on a pile of quilts I brought down from upstairs. There’s a margarita in my hand, and I’m successfully wallowing in the evil I’ve endured in the last twelve hours.
Cristina, my ride-or-die, walks over and pours more frozen mango margarita into my green-speckled party-for-one glass.
“Congratulations, my friend. You’ve officially had the shittiest day ever, and I’m pretty sure I have no interest in beating it.
Though, when I think about it, the day that you had to give Stella to Sally Ray may have topped this one.
” When I shoot her a look, she scoffs. “What? That was a bad day, too, though not as bad as when Tyrell left me by the side of the road after prom. Now that was bad.”
“I’m not gonna disagree.”
She crosses back to my dad’s old recliner in her eggplant-colored jammie set trimmed in pink feathers.
She looks around the room and sits. “I have to admit, the place does feel empty.”
“That’s because it is,” I announce, listening as my words bounce around the empty room.
Cristina lifts her glass. “Cheers to things looking up!”
“I’ll second that.”
Every Wednesday, one of us hosts Margarita Night. Tonight was my turn, but when I called Cristina and told her how awful today had been, she insisted on making the drinks for me and coming over. We usually watch a movie in our pj’s and then call it a night before she heads home.
The only movie that could possibly make me feel better is Titanic, as it’s a worse disaster than what I’m living through. Unfortunately, the love story kills it for me. A romance like Jack and Rose’s doesn’t exist.
Cristina smacks her lips. “Have you looked over the financials?”
I point to my mom’s office, where her laptop sits on the desk. After I got home from town, I started poring over spreadsheets. I’m no accountant, but even I could tell that we are so far in the red that we’re now approaching the crimson gates of hell.
“Yeah, I looked. We’re screwed.”
Cristina passes me a bowl of chips. She’s on this new no-seed-oil, no-flour, and no-corn diet, so the tortilla chips are made from black beans and cooked in avocado oil.
I take one and drag it through homemade guacamole. It’s pretty good. Not gonna lie—I miss the corn, but these will do.
“Maybe there’s a way to salvage—” she starts.
“There’s no way.”
I throw out my one arm that’s not holding the margarita.
No way am I risking any of this yummy goodness being spilled on the floor.
With all the money I don’t have, no food can go to waste, margaritas included.
The last thing I need to add to my humiliation is hunkering over the floor and using my hands to scoop my slushy alcoholic beverage back into my glass.
“Even if there was a way to save the place, I don’t have the money to pay someone to look through things. Luke made sure of that.”
“What about the money he paid your mom?”
“She took it, and I wanted her to. She doesn’t need to sink more of her cash into the house.”
My bestie rakes her long, dirty-blond hair over one shoulder. “I hate Luke so much. Did you know that?”
“I do,” I reply with a giggle. “But I doubt you hate him as much as I do.”
“Hmm. It might be pretty close.” She tucks her long legs underneath her and swirls the orange liquid in her glass. “I could slash his tires for you. If that doesn’t work, I could shiv a dick.”
I choke on the margarita, I laugh so hard.
“I don’t mean literally slash his nuts off,” she confirms. “Only he’s a dick, so I’ll cut him for you. But not in the dick, because that’s horrible. Even I wouldn’t do that.”
When I stop wiping laughter-tears from my eyes, I croak out, “It’s fine.
I’ll figure out a way through this. I can take care of myself.
After all, I took care of myself just fine when Luke dumped me.
” I prop up a bunch of pillows and lean on them.
“I just don’t understand why they’re both doing this. ”
She pokes the air with her glass. “Ah, you forgot the important ending to that sentence—why are they doing this to you?” She bites into a chip and adds, “Because they can.”
“Because they hate me.”
“They’re evil, is what they are.” Cristina makes a little whimper of sympathy in the back of her throat. “I can loan you the money.”
“No. Absolutely not. I don’t want or need your cash. Besides, you’re saving it.”
“I am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some stashed away for you.”
“No. That is my final answer.”
Cristina’s a massage therapist. She works several towns over and is trying to buy a home.
“You need a miracle,” she tells me before sucking the dregs of her drink through the straw. “Really. That’s what you need. You need some extraordinary thing to happen so that you can save the farm.”
“You mean like maybe piggycorns will somehow turn out to be magical and they’ll kick the unicorns’ butts?”
She grimaces. “Since unicorns aren’t born with magic anymore, I doubt that piggycorns ever will be.”
“But they were magical once,” I say, sounding pitiful even to myself.
“I know.”
It’s true. When the unicorns first appeared on Sally Ray’s grandfather’s farm fifty years ago, they had magic.
Lots of healing magic. Heck, the whole town was magical—at least, that’s what my dad always told me.
But he also explained that Sally Ray’s grandfather got greedy and began overbreeding the unicorns.
Their magic slowly dwindled—and so did the town’s power—until they became nothing more than a horse with a horn.
Cristina nibbles on a chip, studies it, and nibbles again. “These aren’t bad.”
I take one and eat it in one bite. No point in saving calories. Any diet I might have had when I woke up was shot to hell by six this morning.
“Oh!” She covers her mouth with a hand, still chewing. “I saw Clarice Sinclair today. She said that you met some hot stranger. Tell me everything.”
“There’s nothing to tell.” I drop a finger into my drink, swirl the liquid around, and suck it off. Turns out, the margarita is just as good from my finger as it is from the glass.
I must be drunk if that’s as deep as my thoughts are getting.
“What do you mean, ‘nothing to tell’?” she prods.
I drop a hand down beside me and coax Tallulah over.
Yes, the piggycorns sometimes come into the house.
They’re trained, thank you very much. Except for that one time when they got into some old cabbage that may or may not have accidentally been left in their trough by accident when I was in a rush to head into town.
Other than that, they’ve never had an accident.
Ever.
I rub the sweet piggycorn under her chin. She snorts happily before curling up at my feet and letting me run my fingers down the soft pink mohawk that hugs her spine.
The rest of the piggycorns who wanted to come inside lie on a quilt in the corner, huddled together, the sounds of their light snoring filling the room.
“Just what I mean—nothing to tell. This morning the piggies got out, and some guy in a big black one-hundred-thousand-dollar SUV almost killed them.”
She whistles. “And was he hot?”
“No. Yes. Very hot. Very rich. He looked at me like I was a dirty farm girl.”
She pumps her eyebrows suggestively. “You could be, given the right man.”
I toss a pillow at her. She catches it to her chest and chucks it back. “Well, what? You could be. You haven’t been with anyone in years, Rowe. I bet those Collins boys are looking good right about now.”
“Oh my God, I’m going to kill you if you say something like that again.”
She laughs. “All right, I won’t. But it wouldn’t hurt to smile a little bit at a man. I mean, what else have you got to do besides save your family farm and destroy Luke and Sally Ray?”
I burst into laughter just as the doorbell pings. Cristina’s eyes flare. “Are you expecting anyone?”
“No. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Luke with a moving truck ready to take everything.”
“Shut up. Maybe it’s that hot guy from today.” She inhales, getting excited. “Maybe he’s back and wants to date you. Maybe he couldn’t get enough of your whole farm-girl-thing and hasn’t been able to put you out of his mind.”
“Stop it. It’s not him.”
“Well, whoever it is, don’t leave them waiting.” She flicks her hand, and the feathers glued to the end of her sleeve slowly wave through the air. “Hurry.”
The doorbell peals again, and I hoist myself up from the mound of quilts. “I’m coming!”
As I shuffle toward the door, the room tilts. I grab a wall to steady myself. Perhaps Cristina made the margaritas stronger than normal.
Good. Now I’m loose. If it’s Luke, I’m ready to tear into him. What am I saying? Of course it’s Luke.
The pealing doorbell woke up the piggycorns, who are now up and stretching, eager to greet our new guest. They bunch around my legs as I leave the room.
I nudge piggycorns out of my path and yank open the door. “Listen, you, I’ve had just about enough of—”
And then I blink. Because it’s not Luke standing on my front porch.
No. It’s the man from earlier today. The one in the SUV who almost killed me.
He smiles grimly and says, “Hello. My name is Pane Maddox, and I’m here to save your farm.”