Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Bax
“It’s a good show,” Candy said, sitting next to me on the edge of my bed.
Not our bed; I’d burned the mattress in the back yard during a fit of sleep-deprived rage at God after the funeral. Abey had to threaten to arrest me to stop me from dousing my fire with more lighter fluid before I set the whole forest ablaze.
It was weird, but somehow, I felt Candy next to me, even though I knew she was in my head and not really here.
This time, my dream was full of bubbles, like the kind I’d made as a kid with soapy dishwater and plastic rings. They kept popping in front of my face and splashing me.
“What is it with you and TV shows?” I asked her in a sleepy voice, batting at the bubbles with a lazy swipe of my hand. “I can’t figure out why you’d go to all the trouble to visit my dreams and then talk about television.”
“A pretty show,” she said. “I like it. It’s strong. It’s got good bones.”
Pretty? A show was pretty? Were we still talking about Sons of Anarchy , because it sounded now like she was talking about a house.
Wait. Pretty? Was she talking about Bea?
My face heated with shame and embarrassment.
“No,” Candy said. She reached out and let her fingers hover over my forearm. She didn’t make contact, but I felt her touch anyway, like she’d dragged a feather across my skin. “It’s a good show. Don’t change the channel this time.”
“Are you talkin’ about… Bea? The woman I”—my head rolled to the side, my eyes focused on the spot next to me on my bed where Bea had slept, cuddled up next to me all night—“You know?”
Of course Candy didn’t answer. Instead, as she began to fade away, she said, “He’s comin’. Say hi for me?”
And she was gone.
Another bubble burst next to my cheek, and then it dripped up my face, which was physically impossible, but it was also itchy, and it whined.
When I opened my eyes, my hand still searching Bea’s empty spot, two big, brown, glassy orbs stared at me with happy expectation. Figaro’s tongue lapped at thin air, trying to reach my face again, and I heard Athena’s voice in my bedroom doorway.
“Mornin’, sleepy head. Fig needs to go out, but I’m late for cross country. Aunt Abey’s waitin’ for me.”
Fig barked in my face to confirm that he indeed did need to pee. So did I, come to think of it.
“Mornin’. On it. Have a good day. Sorry I overslept.”
“It’s okay, Daddy. You must’ve needed the sleep. See you later.”
She whirled around, my Road Trip off on yet another adventure. Fig lunged after her and followed, and I dragged my ass out of bed. My daughter didn’t need to know the reason I’d slept through two alarms was that I was up all night fucking Bea, and then I dreamt of Athena’s dead mama again.
But I felt like a shit dad for both reasons.
If I really had moved on, why was I still seeing Candy in my dreams? And what had she meant, “He’s comin’”?
Was this, like, some Jesus thing? Candy had barely tolerated church the whole twenty years we were together.
Her parents weren’t religious at all. She only went to keep the peace between her and Merv.
But as the thought left my head, all I could remember from the dream were the bubbles popping and she kept talking about TV.
And where the hell was Bea? I looked at my phone. Oh, duh. She’s already at work. But why hadn’t she woken me?
Before the conversation about Candy, Bea had been so cute as she scrambled around my room, trying to find her leggings tangled up in my bed sheets.
I told her she didn’t have to sleep in her clothes; I’d wanted to fall asleep with the feel of her soft skin against mine, but the anxiety she’d felt about Athena finding us naked pinched up her face, and it was so contradictory to the confident hard-ass I’d come to know.
I tugged on a T-shirt, found my slippers and stuffed my foot into one, and then hobbled down the stairs, listening to the kitchen door slam shut behind Athena when she left and to the sound of Fig yipping and running in circles by the same door while he waited for my geriatric ass.
When Rye had first brought him to the ranch, Fig hadn’t left Rye’s side, but since I’d broken my leg, he seemed to want to stay closer to the house, unless Rye had him working the cows.
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’. Jeez. Hold on, would ya?
” It occurred to me then that Athena could’ve let him out when she left, but she’d probably used Fig as an excuse to wake my butt up.
She’d gotten creative over the last few years with ways to force me to face the days when I’d had a hard time seeing the point.
Fig zipped out the door when I opened it, and I shivered. Dang. Fall would give way to winter soon, if this morning’s temperature was any indication, but the westbound sunrise brought a warm, blanketing glow to my family’s land, and I watched as it traveled right to my porch.
The dog ran to the barn to see what Rye had gotten up to.
I could hear horses and cows causing trouble out there, so I slathered peanut butter on two pieces of toast and poured myself a cup of coffee.
I burned my tongue when I chugged it, but thankfully Bea or Rye had brewed it, ’cause I needed the caffeine today.
After the seriously frustrating effort of trying to get the only clean pair of pants I had left in my laundry basket over my cast, I pulled on a sweater I hadn’t worn in probably ten years and muck boots, which were the only shoes I could fit over the bottom of the cast, and I grabbed my warmer felt hat from a hook by the kitchen door.
I fixed it on my head, gripped my crutches tight, and followed slowly after Fig.
“Why didn’t you call?” Rye asked when he saw me sweating and breathing hard after my dangerous hobble to the barn. He’d cleared the path like he’d promised, but I still found two rocks to trip over and almost pitched myself forward both times and fell on my face. “I would’ve come to get you.”
“Sounded like you had your hands full.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Blue decided he wanted to dip his wick when he saw Tulsa this mornin’, even though he hasn’t been the proud owner of balls for a long time. And then this damn bull decided to kick off again. He’s got the rest of the herd in a tizzy.”
When Red Pepper and I made eye contact through the fencing around the solitary pen Rye had him in, I shot daggers at the animal, but if a bull could smirk, he was, and he tossed his head, like he was saying, “Oh yeah, I remember you. And I know that you know that I’ll kick your sorry ass to Hell and back if I want to. ”
“Dick,” I said under my breath, and Pepper huffed and trotted off to the opposite side of his pen. “So, Tulsa and Blue, huh? Should we plan a horse weddin’?”
Rye laughed. “I’m sure Athena would have a ball with that, but maybe the celebration should be for somebody else?” He speared me with a look, and I knew right then that he knew what I’d been up to last night with Bea.
“Don’t start, and I know you and Athena are in cahoots. Don’t you even try to deny it.”
He slapped a hand to his chest in a surprised, “who, me?” gesture. He said, “I’m happy for you, man.”
“It’s not— She’s not— Just mind your business.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, chuckling.
“How’d you know? Shit. You don’t think Athena knows, do you?”
“Naw. Don’t stress. Your bedroom’s right above the livin’ room, and I was up.
Had a weird dream at one thirty last night.
I popped in my earbuds, but it still took me a good twenty minutes to get back to sleep.
Man, I can’t wait to get into the new house.
Sleepin’ in the barn ain’t the picnic you might imagine, and it’s a pain goin’ back and forth between here and Aubrey’s place, but listenin’ to you havin’ sex is so not my idea of a good night’s rest.”
My face had to be red and hot enough to start a fire. “Can we change the subject, please?”
“Yup, but here’s another whopper. My dream was about Candy.”
Seriously? “We both dreamt about Candy then,” I said. “What’d she say to you?”
“You ask that like you think I had a conversation with a dead person in my dream.”
“I did. I always do. It feels like it’s really her.”
“Yeah, it’s weird you say that ’cause that’s how I felt too.
All she said was ‘Help him,’ and she told me she likes the barn and Tulsa.
Oh, and she brought up the time we all got drunk and I ran through one of my dad’s barns naked and got bit on the ass by a mare.
” Rye let out a throaty chuckle, but then he pursed his lips, pausing.
He stared at me, and I knew there was some kind of bromance check-in coming.
“There somethin’ you need help with, buddy? ”
“I don’t think so. I mean, besides, you know, cookin’, workin’, and child rearin’.”
“You’re doin’ just fine with all that stuff on your own. Maybe a little bit slower than usual.” He eyed me. “This is a weird conversation.”
“Agreed,” I said. “I’m changin’ the subject.
So I was lookin’ at the plans last night for the cabins and outbuildings.
What do you think about addin’ a boat house in the spring?
Guests will want lake activities. Fishin’ and maybe paddleboats?
The lake’s not huge. Not big enough for speedboats, but we can definitely do kayaks and canoes. Maybe a big party pontoon boat?”
“Great idea.”
“And Athena thinks we should have a little concession stand in the rec hall to sell, like, ice cream cones and chips and stuff in the summer, and trail mix and hot chocolate in the fall. She said, ‘Think summer camp but posh and less invasive.’”
He laughed. “Boy, your kid sure is smart.”
Yeah.” I nodded, looking past my house to where Lee Lake lay. I missed my early morning swims, but the water would be too cold now anyhow.
Fall was in full bloom. The Aspens stood up tall, like yellow crayons in a box. Against the backdrop of the blue morning sky, the tree line and mountains beyond looked more like a painting than they did real life.
“I like it,” I said. “We’re not gonna be all-inclusive, and the guests will probably make the majority of their food in their cabin kitchens or they’ll eat in town, but just to have somethin’ extra, especially during the peak seasons.
And remember we talked about offerin’ guided horseback tours and hikin’? ”
“Yeah. I talked to Presley about it,” Rye said, referring to his friend and his dad’s former cattle boss.
“Obviously, he won’t be doin’ the horseback tours.
We’d get sued if we unleashed him on guests, but he said he knows a guy who could handle that operation.
He’s a seasonal cowboy, travels around to different ranches, but Pres thinks he might settle down for the right job. ”
“Cool. You know, we’ve got the barn and the cow shed, but we’re gonna need another barn and a bunkhouse. My dad’s old barn is good for equipment storage, but not much else. If this little cattle endeavor of yours pans out, we’re gonna need a lot of things.”
“Yeah, and your inn idea wasn’t a bad one either. Maybe that’s somethin’ we can add later. We’ve got the land for it, for people who do want all-inclusive getaways.”
“I was thinkin’ about that too. I’ll ask Bea about it. She’ll have an idea about how long somethin’ like that would take to build.”
Rye tapped his chin. “And if she were the one in charge of that build…”
“What?”
“She’d have to be here to oversee it all.”
Hm. He had a point, and I kind of liked it. Endless days and nights spent with Bea, building shit when the sun was up and breaking each other down under the glow from the moon shining in my bedroom window every night?
I could get used to that.
“You stayin’ here again tonight?” I asked my best friend.
“Nope. Got a date with my girl.”
“You sure? I was thinkin’ I might cook out.”
“Am I sure if I wanna spend the night with the woman I love? Damn sure. You’re really gonna cook?”
I scoffed. “Yeah. I cook every night. What’s the big deal?”
“You used to. Now, how you gonna juggle steaks and potatoes with those crutches?”
“Oh.” I looked down at the annoying wooden sticks. “Good point. I’ll need help.”
He winked. “And I know just the contractor for the job. Bet she’ll be hungry after a hard day’s work.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, shut up.” But I couldn’t hide my smile.