Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
ELLE
W hy was there a base drum pounding next to my ear in my dream? A steady beat, and then it stops, whoever was singing in this band sounded like a cat’s tail being stepped on. Pound, pound, pound.
“I know you’re in there. Get out here now,” the voice yelled. But it wasn’t in my dream. It was coming from the window above my head. “Look, lady, get your lazy ass out of bed, or I’m coming in.”
Hopping out of bed, I grabbed my robe and slid it on, tying it as I left the quiet darkness of my room and walked into the kitchen. Glancing at the dingy white cupboard door that was hanging off its hinges and down to the peeling linoleum flooring, I wondered what the hell I was doing in this place. Surely, there was another option for us. But right now there wasn’t. “What the fuck do you want?” I yelled as I pulled the door open.
“Nice of you to join the land of the living.” The man sneered as his eyes fell to the place where my robe gaped in my hurry to get it on. Realizing what he was staring at, I adjusted it and held the cloth together with a death grip.
“I worked nights, you ass hat. What the hell do you want?” I stared at the near toothless man, with his overgrown, grey, patchy beard harboring what looked like were the remnants of his lunch tangled in it. His ice-blue eyes could’ve been the one nice thing about him, but they were always bloodshot, and I wondered if he wasn’t a little jaundiced because they had a yellow hue to them.
“I sold the place. You’re out in three weeks.” His smirk as he let his eyes graze down my body made the bile in my stomach lodge in my throat.
“Three weeks? Why wasn’t I given the option to buy?” I crossed my arms over my chest covering the outline of my breasts.
“Offer wasn’t anything you could come close to.” The man turned and walked off the rickety front steps. “Be out in three weeks.” One last look at my body, and he licked his lips before wandering back to his truck. The old piece of shit rumbled to life, and the wheels kicked up rocks and dirt as he sped off.
“Fuck. Fuck.” I yelled into the vast emptiness. What was I supposed to do now? I was weeks away from being homeless. Troy would absolutely love that, and then he’d have grounds to get full custody of Parker.
Custody wasn’t something we’d ever fought over, and I didn’t take child support from him since we’d agreed on a fifty-fifty arrangement, but being homeless as a parent had severe consequences. I had to provide a safe place for Parker, and if I couldn’t Troy sure as hell would provide it.
“Mom, who was that?” Parker asked as he popped his head out of his room.
Jumping three feet in the air at the sound of Parker’s voice, I turned and pressed my hand to my chest. “When did you get back?” I asked.
“An hour ago. Figured you needed to sleep, so I’ve just been in my room playing my game.” That boy and his video games. I didn’t get on him about it because he was always willing to drop everything if I needed help. It was also his only way of interacting with other deaf kids like him. They’d created a little club of sorts, and while I wasn’t excited for him to be talking to people online at the start, I’d gotten to know some of the other parents when they were as protective as I was. “That guy, who was he?”
“Billy Hays, he said we have to be out of here in three weeks. The place sold.” I watched his eyes fill with disappointment and worry. My bighearted son has had to deal with more moves in his life than I care to think of.
“Are we leaving Weston Gap?”
“No, I promised you wouldn’t change schools again, and you won’t. I’ll get this figured out.”
“Should we talk to Dad?”
“No.” I said more harshly than I’d intended but the last thing I needed was Troy “Moneybags” Wilson riding into save the day, thinking because he’d done me a favor, it would mean I owed him something in return. It will be a cold day in hell before that man climbs back in my bed. “I’ll deal with it. We might have to move into town for a bit until I can find another ranch to rent, but I promise it won’t be long.”
“What about the horses?” I could see the stress starting to show as he clenched his fists. Quickly, I moved to him and took his face in my hands.
“Look, if worse comes to worse, I’ll ask Doc Jake if he can board them for a bit. They’ll still be close enough to town that you can be out there whenever you want. Okay?”
“Okay. Sorry, this is the way you had to wake up.” He put his arms around me and squeezed me tightly.
“Any time I can wake up to you being home, nothing else matters, and I’m sorry if my yelling scared you.” I hugged my boy tightly and looked over his head to the door, silently hoping that was the last visit from my landlord.
Going back to sleep wasn’t an option now. I’d be running every scenario through my mind and really trying not to focus on the worst-case scenario.
There was only one way to clear my mind, and that was to go for a ride. Dressing quickly, I talked to Parker and headed out to the arena. Life was clearer on the back of a horse. My problems wouldn’t be gone but it freed my mind and I could focus solely on the horses movements.
Work and home were my entire life, and I wanted a place we could permanently call home. I let my mind imagine what that could look like. A large, sprawling ranch-style home with ample living space, a state-of-the-art kitchen I could bake in, and a huge fireplace that would keep the area warm and cozy. Perfect for snuggling up under a blanket with books and hot cocoa.
Saddling the horse I needed to work on, I led it from the barn into the arena. “Are you ready to work?” I asked quietly as I ran my hand over her neck. As if she was answering me she nodded, and I couldn’t help but smile. Sliding my foot into the stirrup, I swung my leg over the back of the animal and settled onto the saddle. Tapping the horse’s sides, we began to move.
My mind wandered back to the pipe dream of my own home. Being a nurse didn’t provide any extra money for the dreams I had. Plus, between Parker’s needs and the horses, I always seemed to come up short. Broke but happy is what I always told my mom when she asked how things were going. She’d like nothing better than for me to come home, my tail between my legs so she could say, “I told you so.”
My family never thought my ex-husband was good enough for me. He wasn’t from a well-off family, but he made his own way. We struggled for a lot of years, but he’d finally made his name in the reining horse competitions, and he’d become very successful, which his bank account showed.
The horse under me bucked slightly, and I immediately focused on putting this horse through her paces. “Sorry, girl, I was lost in my thoughts,” I muttered as I patted her neck. I had a week off work, and my to-do list was already a mile long, and it just got longer. Now, all I could focus on was doing whatever it took to find Parker a stable place he could call home.