Chapter 5
Monday morning, Tessa woke up and got dressed for work the way she always did. She gulped down a mug of liquid courage in the form of strong coffee and headed out to the barn to feed critters and do a quick round of medications before she took Makayla to school and went to the store.
Feeding went surprisingly smoothly. Arlo’s note was clear and Fern had organized and clearly marked who got what food.
Pills went fine, and Biscuit, the boy horse, was cooperative when she squirted his paste medicine into his mouth.
She’d put it off as long as she could, but her last chore was giving the cat his shot.
She delayed feeding him until last in hopes that a dish of cat food would lure him down out of the rafters.
Sure enough, she rattled the kitty kibble in his dish, and Chairman Meow launched himself off his perch.
Her triumph only lasted an instant, however, for he jumped directly onto her shoulder.
Her silk blouse was slippery, and the cat promptly slid off her shoulder, over her collarbone, and down her chest.
She yelped as claws dug into her skin, which must’ve scared him, for he ricocheted off her chest and went airborne. She lunged for him but missed, and he streaked down the barn aisle and disappeared outside.
Drat. She didn’t know much about cats, but she suspected she wouldn’t see hide nor hair of him until at least suppertime tonight.
She hated to skip his shot, but she had to leave in about five minutes to get Makayla to school on time.
The cat had gone a week without any shots.
She supposed skipping one more dose of insulin wouldn’t kill him.
That was when stinging pain registered in her brain.
She looked down and was shocked to see four long, parallel tears in her silk blouse, each one with a thin line of blood marking a scratch behind it.
She went to the open barn door the cat had shot through and looked around.
There was no sign of a tabby cat anywhere.
If she was lucky, he would keep on running and never come back.
She wasn’t lucky. He was back in his usual spot in the rafters at suppertime, more irascible than ever.
But this time, she closed all the barn’s exits before she tried to catch him.
He flatly refused to come down from his perch, even for supper, and she ended up fetch a can of smelly tuna fish from the house to lure him down for food and his shot.
Tuesday morning, she dressed in a pale blue cashmere sweater for work.
It met its tragic end when she leaned into Biscuit's stall to administer his joint paste and the gelding, apparently offended today by its fake apple flavor, shook his massive head and sprayed a mixture of slobber and half-chewed bute paste across her chest in a wide white arc.
She stood there covered in slime while Biscuit regarded her with impassive calm and not one shred of remorse.
Wednesday morning, Tessa got smart. She laid out the lavender linen button-down she planned to wear for work on the back porch rail where she would see it and not forget to change out of the old cotton oxford she put on to feed animals.
But when she got back from a surprisingly uneventful feeding and medicating session, the blouse had mysteriously vanished. She called inside to Makayla, who was practicing her violin, to ask if she’d moved the shirt, and Makayla hollered back no.
Tessa searched the yard, eyeing the geese suspiciously. She demanded to know if they’d stolen her blouse, but they merely looked up innocently from their dish of goose pellets and then went back to eating breakfast. She searched the barn next. No sign of the blouse. She headed for the paddock.
That was where she found the remains of one lavender sleeve. Just the sleeve. Loretta stood there with the smug contentment of a creature who'd recently consumed something expensive and deeply enjoyed it.
"You ate my blouse," Tessa accused.
Loretta brayed enthusiastically, declaring the blouse a particularly fine vintage of linen.
"That was Eileen Fisher, you horrible animal. Eileen. Fisher."
Loretta brayed with even more enthusiasm and did a funny little sidestep that looked suspiciously like a victory dance.
She was starting to develop a deep dislike for that donkey. But, in her defeat, Tessa was forced to accept that her existing wardrobe was not going to survive this experience.
As soon as she got to the Fashion Bow-tique, she headed for the rack of cotton t-shirts. She stood in staring at them and almost couldn't bring herself to do it. Her mother's housekeeper used them as dust cloths, for crying out loud.
Charlotte Rice, her business partner and fellow WoWS sister, found her standing there holding a gray crew neck T-shirt while she questioned every life choice she'd ever made and wondered where she'd gone wrong.
"You look like someone’d forcing you to hold a tarantula," Charlotte observed wryly.
"It's a t-shirt, Charlotte. And I'm about to have to put it on my body."
"They’re comfortable. Half the planet lives in them."
"Half the planet hasn't had it drilled into them since birth that a lady does not leave home in anything that isn't tailored, lined, and can't be accessorized in a pinch to work at a cocktail party."
Charlotte plucked the shirt from Tessa's hands and tossed it on the counter along with several more T-shirts in different colors. "Your mother isn't here. A llama with mange is. Priorities, Tess."
Of course she was right. Charlotte had a maddening talent for being right about things Tessa least wanted to hear.
Charlotte had come through the adjoining door between their two stores to review the photographs Tessa had taken of Charlotte's newest gown design.
They went through the pictures and picking out their favorites to add to the portfolio Tessa was building for an upscale New York wedding boutique—a fancy one, the kind Tessa's mother would actually walk into—that had expressed interest in carrying Charlotte's gowns.
The buyer wanted a presentation for a full line of wedding gowns by the end of the month.
Charlotte had been designing and sewing like mad for the past three months, filling out her portfolio with an array of silhouettes to fit all body types and tastes.
She'd sewn a half-dozen sample gowns, using a variety of fabrics and decorations to accommodate any budget from modest to sky's-the-limit extravagant.
"The lighting in the Foster Ranch barn shots is gorgeous," Charlotte said, scrolling through images on Tessa's laptop. "But we need at least four more setups. Can you take more pictures this weekend?"
"I'll figure it out." She'd figure it out the way she figured out everything lately—by not sleeping, which left her running on coffee and grim determination.
"You know, Fern's barn would make a nice location," Charlotte said casually. "All that old wood. The light in the late afternoon—"
"I am not dragging a ten-thousand-dollar wedding gown into a barn that contains a donkey with a fabric addiction and a cat that casually shreds my nice shirts."
Charlotte grinned. "Just a thought."
But later, driving back to the farm with her bag of cotton t-shirts on the passenger seat, Tessa thought about it.
The light in Fern's barn was nice. But the really gorgeous light was in Mick’s woodshop, which had a pair of large skylights.
The sun flooded in, golden and warm, in long, dusty shafts that were a photographer's dream. But that would mean entering Mick’s private sanctuary, which had been locked shut for four long years, ever since he died.
She couldn’t do it. Not now. Not yet.
Marketing Charlotte’s wedding gowns was the one area of her life where she felt competent. She'd always loved photography and had been studying it in college when she met Mick, eloped in two weeks, and dropped out of school.
She knew lighting and angles. How to make tulle look like it was floating and how to style a train so it swept across a rustic backdrop with just the right amount of effortless drama.
She'd taught herself social media marketing, built up Charlotte's Instagram following, and even contacted the New York boutique.
Knowing how to package and sell fashion was the first thing in her life that was entirely hers.
She didn’t do it because her parents expected it, or because Mick liked it, or to rebel against the life she came from.
She'd built her little clothing store into a success, and she was doing the same now for Charlotte's wedding dresses.
But knowing what to do wasn't enough. She also had to actually do the work and meet the New York boutique's tight deadline.
Which meant she would have to work through the weekend, while she simultaneously kept Makayla clothed and fed and kept alive a dozen animals she knew practically nothing about caring for.
Back at the farm that afternoon, Tessa was collecting eggs—one of the few chores she'd actually gotten the hang of—when Arlo appeared at the fence line. He leaned against the top rail with Brown Dog at his feet, gray muzzle resting on his paws, tail making lazy sweeps in the dirt.
"Afternoon," Arlo said amiably.
"Afternoon, Arlo." She'd learned that conversations with Arlo moved at a glacial pace and couldn’t be hurried along by any force known to humanity.
"Fern always said Tuesdays were the day to check the north fence line," he remarked, gazing at the mountains.
Tessa paused with an egg in each hand. "Is that so?"
"Just something she used to say." He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. "No particular reason."
"Thank you for that riveting piece of trivia, Arlo."
He touched the brim of his hat and shuffled back toward his property with the unhurried gait of a man who’d done his part and was content with it.