16. Darcy
SIXTEEN
DARCY
I think I’m going to be waiting on Jake in the morning, but I am sorely mistaken. When I pop out on the porch with a cup of coffee while the sun lights the sky a pale purple, I assume I’m going to have some leisurely sipping time. But he’s already sitting on the steps, talking to Barkley and petting him. Stormy races for Jake, leaping up into his lap. Barkley and Stormy seem to have made amends. Perhaps the coyote thing brought them together too.
“Morning, St. Francis,” I say, looking over Jake with a dog on his right and a cat in his lap. “When are the birds going to land on your fingers?”
“St. Francis?” he asks.
“The one who was good with animals. There were two flavors of Francis, but he’s the more popular one.”
“Ah,” he says. “I don’t know my saints. I grew up a WASP.”
“Wasp?” I ask.
“White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.”
I snort. “I should have known.”
He squints looking up at me. “I’m up early to help you, boss, and instead of bringing me a cup of coffee, you just bring me a fresh round of hell.”
“Oh? Is it a WASPy thing for a woman to bring a man coffee?”
He sighs. “No, but it’s a nice thing to do. And you’re such a nice girl.”
“Am not,” I say, turning to go back inside.
“I was talking to Stormy about being a nice girl.”
“Pest!” I call out as the screen door bangs behind me.
And yet, I get the cup of coffee.
“Here,” I say, holding it over his shoulder. “Peace offering.”
He turns his lips up on the first sip. “A little bitter, darlin’.”
I sit next to him on the steps and take a big inhale off my mug. “Ahh. Just like me.”
“I know there’s sugar in there somewhere,” he says, elbowing me before taking another sip and grimacing again. “You spit in this?”
I shrug. “The joy of homemade. Might have a hair in it. Maybe a little spit. Who could say?”
Jake’s looking at his boots, twisting the ball of one foot against the wooden step. “Do you actually not like me?”
I sober. “No, I’m sorry. You’re a nice guy.”
He weighs that. “You have reasons not to like me. I gave you a rough first impression.”
I wave my hand. “I got over that, cowboy.”
He studies me, that autumn oak leaf color of his eyes striking in the morning glow. He wants me to say more.
I lean back against the porch post and look out over the field. “It’s hard for me to trust nice. Nice has gotten me into trouble before. Nice gets your guard down.”
He nods, his voice going uncharacteristically serious. “Sorry to hear that. You deserve nice.”
The coffee sours in my stomach as I think back on all the times I’ve let my guard down in front of him already. I feel raw, exposed, and when you’re exposed, they can get at your deepest weaknesses.
My throat dries at the sincerity of his words. He is nice. And not gross, boring nice. Just genuinely a good guy. A guy who sees other people struggling and helps out. And he seems to not expect anything for it. It’s wild. It has to be sincere. Animals treat him like he shits sunshine, and animals always know.
Then why doesn’t Cane like me? I don’t shit sunshine, but I want what’s best for the damn horse.
“We should get the horses in,” I say, rising to set my coffee cup inside.
“Yep,” he says, putting his mug in my outstretched hand. “Thanks for the brew, boss.”
“Sorry it wasn’t to your liking.”
“I’ll survive,” he muses.
I step down off the porch and side by side, we walk along the path to the pastures. I brush my hand along the tops of the little white flowers blooming along the path. There’s a tense silence between us, and I feel a need to fill it.
“I love these flowers,” I say. “I know they’re kinda weedy but I like that they thrive wherever they land, you know?”
The corner of Jake’s lips lifts. “Nice way to look at it.”
“I think I’m going to start making bouquets to take to the markets. We need a little income boost, and Becca and I could pick in the afternoons before we leave.”
I stoop to pluck a few blooms, arranging them in my hand. Jake studies me, and I display the impromptu bouquet for him. “Pretty,” he says.
I look down into them. “I’d rather have flowers like these than roses. They’re less fussy. They do what they want.”
“Sounds like somebody I know,” Jake says.
I gasp. “You think I’m not fussy? That’s amazing!”
“Oh, I was thinking of Becca,” he says, holding back a laugh.
I groan and he chuckles. “Were you the pesky youngest brother or something?”
“Excuse me, I’m a middle child, thank you very much. I earned my supreme pestering fair and square.”
We get to the pasture where I left Cane and Freckle, and I clang their leads along the gate and click my tongue. “Actually, that makes total sense. That explains your unbothered helpfulness.”
Freckle jogs over first, but instead of going to me, she heads directly for Jake.
“Oh, hey there, girl,” he says, clutching her halter and rubbing her nose.
“What am I, chopped liver?”
“She senses that you’re more bothered than unbothered,” he says with a wink. He makes kissing noises to coax Cane the rest of the way in. “Come on, buddy.”
Cane also heads for Jake. I reach for his halter, but he holds his face away. “Should have named him after the other Cain.”
“Wait,” Jake pauses, “it’s not like raising Cain?”
“No. His name is Candy Cane. Like he’s sweet or something. He was named before he got to us.”
Jake clips Cane with one hand while holding Freckle. “I bet,” he says, petting Cane’s muzzle, “that it’s because he’s a mint whore.”
He passes both leads to me, both horses still on the other side of the gate. He fishes in his pocket and extracts two mint candies.
“Oh, now I see why I’m not the favorite,” I joke. “You’re bribing them. What do you do for the dogs? Carry bacon? Carry dead mice for Stormy to play with? Play your pipe for the kids you coach?”
Jake laughs, a deep and warm sound, as he opens the gate and hands me Freckle’s lead. “I am not the Pied Piper.”
“Yeah, okay, you just coach Little League without having any kids. What’s that about anyway?”
Jake shrugs. “I miss playing and don’t really have time to commit to an adult league. So I coach.”
I sniff, squinting as the sun starts to peek through the trees at the top of the mountain. Little puffs of mist hang just above the trees where the forest exhales, but those clouds will fade by the time the sun fully hits them. “When did you play last?”
“College. Played at Virginia Tech.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, wow. So you were like, good. Wait a minute, did you get to go to school for free? I’m super jealous if that’s the case. I’m going to be in debt forever.”
“Between baseball, my grades, and some financial stuff, yeah. Debt free so far.”
I fan myself. “A smart jock and debt free? That’s a viable pickup line these days. ‘Hey ladies, I’m debt free.’”
“Well, don’t get too excited. I also haven’t exactly been gainfully employed in the real world yet.”
I guffaw. “Yeah, well, not like my degree got me gainfully employed. That was just skill and luck.”
Jake peeks around Cane to look at me where we walk side by side. “Why? What did you study?”
“I have the very useful and high-paying MFA in creative writing.”
I search his expression for any sign of disdain, but it’s not there. Rob made fun of my MFA, one time even telling me I paid a lot of money for someone to say I did a good job writing in my journal.
A lump rises in my throat as the Rob demon that lurks in my brain comes to life. It’s not like you’re going to be some bestseller. The horses’ hooves make soft clopping noises as we cross the bridge to the barn. But Jake just asks, “What do you write?”
“This and that. I try to be well-rounded.”
Jake’s voice goes a little lower. “Sure. What do you like to write, though?”
I fold my lips between my teeth. I haven’t talked about my writing much in the last year or so, putting it in a mental box under the bed. I have an answer, but this has already been too much about me. “Still figuring that out,” I manage.
We get the horses in their stalls and feed in their buckets.
I’m looking over my clipboard of tasks for the week when Jake stops beside me. “See? Walk and talk with the boss wasn’t so bad.”
I flatten my lips into a line and give him a quick glance. “We made it. Thanks for helping. Really.”
“Anytime, boss.”