Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle (22 page)

He tried to see past me into the tack room. “What are you doing?”
 

I moved to block his view. “Getting ready to exercise Anna.” I held the phone behind my back. I was poured into riding tights, so there was nowhere to hide the thing.

I looked over his shoulder in case Dex was ready, and also to see if Brooke was loitering nearby. She stood outside Barbie’s stall, staring at her horse. Dex led Miss Bong through the door and waved to me.
 

“You look guilty as hell,” Malcolm said.

“You don’t know me well enough to know that.”

He leaned close. “Yes I do,” he whispered. “You’re up to something, but I’ll let it go for now because you smell good enough to eat.”

My mid-morning snack had been half a can of chocolate whipped cream. I leaned away from him a little and cut my eyes into the tack room where Nicky watched us with great interest. “Hold that thought,” I said.
 

He followed my gaze, then smiled at me. “I will.”

I hurried to finish getting Anna ready. I wanted out of the barn and into the sunlight. I liked Malcolm—okay, I more than liked him—but the channel between my head and heart was jumpy with interference from Norman’s unsolved murder, Malcolm’s pending divorce, and JJ’s violence. I just plain didn’t want to be around Brooke. She radiated bad vibes.
 

After he was single again, Malcolm and I would discuss the partnership —and who knows what else—but for now, I needed air.

“What happened to my horse?” Brooke snapped in Malcolm’s direction.

I started to lead Anna past her.

“And who the hell is that?” She pointed at me.
 

I kept moving. Out under the sun’s warmth, I took a deep, deep breath. Dex smiled at me, but said nothing. I swung into the saddle.

“Get rid of her,” I heard from inside. “Just get rid of the ugly thing.”

I couldn’t help wondering if she meant Barbie, or me.

- 23 -

Dex Two and I rode to the river and let our mounts stand in the cool water.
 

A dark gray sheet began to hide the western horizon, embroidered occasionally with a delicate thread of lightning. The storm was hours away, but I expected it would hit by nightfall and anticipated a quiet evening cuddled with my dog and a good book, rain pelting the windows.

“It’s not too late to press charges, Miss Parker. You were assaulted.”

I’d been through this with the sheriff and Malcolm. I didn’t have the courage to press charges against JJ. He deserved it, if not for what he did to me, then what he’d probably done to others—particularly women—maybe even Sandy.
 

“No thanks.”

“I respect your choice in this, but as an attorney—”

Malcolm wanted me to press charges
and
get an order of protection.

“I appreciate your concern. Shall we ride?”

We rode in silence, but it took an effort on his part.

Before he left the farm, he pressed his card into my hand.
 

“Call me at any time for anything, Miss Parker. I mean it.”

I put his card upstairs near the phone along with Dex One’s.

~~~

Supper with Hank and Clara consisted of grilled sirloin steaks, au-gratin potatoes, green beans, and cheesecake. That was a pie I could sink my teeth into.
 

“I suppose this meat was walking around here not too long ago?” I asked.

“Not for a couple of months,” Hank said.

“Did you grow the beans and potatoes?”

“Of course,” Clara said, clearly miffed at the suggestion she might use store-bought.

“I suppose you made the cheese for the cheesecake?”

She put her hands on her wide hips. “Do I look like a milkmaid to you?”

I shook my head. “Far from it.” Not that I know what a milkmaid looks like. “Nice to know where you draw the line.”

Hank sawed his meat into little pieces and cut in the potatoes and beans to make a lumpy hash. “Heard you had a little run-in with our neighbor,” he said.

Clara took a seat. “JJ,” she clarified.

“You could say that.” I shoveled a large bite of the cheesy potatoes into my mouth. I hadn’t eaten so many fats and carbs all at once in a long time. I’d forgotten what I’d been missing. If I overloaded fast enough, I’d faint and avoid the coming conversation. I suppose I could say I didn’t want to talk about it, and they’d probably respect that. They’d be hurt, too, so I decided to go with the flow.

“He was a sweet boy,” Clara said.

“Yeah,” Hank said. “Then he growed up.”

“What would you be like if your pa just up and disappeared one day?” Clara asked.

“Pass the salt,” Hank said in answer.

I braced myself, but Clara didn’t go for her carving knife.
 

“Robert and John Jr. grew up together,” she said to me.

“You mean Malcolm and JJ?”

“After the Malcolms moved out here full time,” Hank said. “Me and John Sr. took care of the farm for ’em afore that. Best piece of land around.”

“Be a terrible shame to lose it,” Clara said. “But everbody’s got to do what they thinks best, I guess.”

“Ain’t best to build a hunderd houses on it. What’d we do? We’d have to sell most the herd.”

“We’d manage.”

“He ain’t asked me, anyway,” Hank groused. “Never did care what anybody else thought.”

“Malcolm’s father?” He gestured with his fork and grunted. I took this as a
yes
. “Did JJ’s family have a farm around here?”

“Their place is south of here, near the river,” Clara said.

So close. “That’s where he lives?”

“Ain’t nothin’ there no more ‘cept the old trailer,” Hank said. “Clara, I need some bread.”

She thunked down a plate of homemade bread in front of him.
 

“Just a little spit of timber, anyways,” Hank said as he buttered a thick slice. “His ma moved to town. He stays with her when he c’ain’t find some girl to put up with him.”

“His ma weren’t never the same after John Sr. went away,” Clara said. “But she was always fond of Robert. Used to bake him cookies.”

“That was a big help with JJ, wasn’t it?” Hank asked.
 

“You leave her alone, Hank Davis. She’s been through enough. John Sr. was no better than JJ. But there wasn’t nothin’ nobody could do with JJ.”

Hank muttered something that I swore sounded like
a bullet to the head would do it
, but I didn’t dare ask him to repeat it. He sopped up the mess on his plate with another piece of bread. “Somebody’ll do us all a favor and kill him afore long. C’ain’t believe the Laird ain’t done it already.”

“Doesn’t JJ have any job skills? What does he do for a living?”
 

“Odd jobs,” Clara said.

“He’s a fair mechanic,” Hank said, “but he don’t want to do nothin’.”

“He’s took or ruined everything of Robert’s he could. Ever since they was kids,” Clara said with a shake of her head. “They’s like night and day. Robert’s an angel and JJ’s the devil himself. I don’t know why Robert tries to help him.”

“I’m sure Malcolm isn’t perfect,” I said.

Hank snorted. “If JJ ain’t careful, he’ll be seein’ another side of the Laird. I ain’t never seen him really mad, and I ain’t in no hurry to, neither.”

“You think?” I asked. I was pretty sure I’d seen a hint of that other side of Malcolm, and I was damn sure I didn’t want to see the full force of it. At least, not directed at me.

Clara laid a reassuring hand on my arm. “Ain’t nobody’s perfect, that’s for sure. Everbody’s got their limit.”

~~~

Later, from the privacy of Hank and Clara’s tiny guest room, I called Penny. She’d left a message on my birthday, and I hadn’t returned her call. Malcolm and Nicky were at their house having pizza and a princess movie marathon. They’d invited me, but I’d already accepted Clara’s offer, and princesses, whether singing, swimming, or dancing, are not my cup of tea. I couldn’t help admiring Malcolm for being such a good daddy, though.

“You’re going to press charges against that SOB, right?” Penny said.

“No. How can you say that?”
 

She’d had to do it to an ex-boyfriend-stalker once. I knew exactly what she went through with the unending hearings and court dates because I’d been her only witness. In the end, the prick’d gotten off. He defied the restraining order and came after her with a stolen gun. By then she was with Frank, and Frank, being a plumber, whacked the guy over the head with a pipe wrench, and he’d bled to death all over their new carpet. That had pissed her off more than anything.

“It’s the right thing to do, Vi. At least a restraining order.”

“That’s a useless piece of paper, and you know it.”

“You should get a gun.”

“I hate guns.”
 

Penny kept a handgun in her bedside table. Frank kept the pipe wrench between the mattresses on his side of the bed.
 

My gaze fell on my sleeping dog “Anyway, I have Noire.”

“Forget the dog. You got Willy with you, right?”

“Willy’s right by my pillow where he always is.” Willy’s my baseball bat. Penny and I played softball all through high school. I was a lousy fielder, but hit a homer almost every time I connected with the ball. If I’d been able to get to Willy the night before, JJ wouldn’t have had a chance.

“You’ll keep Willy close if you need to go to the barn at night, right?”

“Yes, Penny.”

“You going to Mass in the morning?”

“Are you kidding?” Sundays, if I wasn’t gone by four a.m. for a horse show, or due to feed, I slept in. The couple of times I’d gone with her in the last few years, she’d had to elbow me awake during the homily.

“Would I kid about that? It’d be good for you. Light a candle for yourself. God listens.”

Not to me. “Gimme a break, Pen.”

“But don’t go to communion, Vi. Not without going to confession, first. You haven’t been in years.”

“How do you know?” I asked on a yawn. “Me and God talk all the time.”

The dubious minute of silence that followed was answer enough. She was a stickler for the rules. She broke them, too, if it suited her purposes.

“Listen Vi, I know you need to keep this job and all, but are you sure you want to stay? We’d make room for you here, you know what I mean?”

I knew what she meant. On the couch. With a screaming puking baby up all hours of the night. “Thanks Pen, but—”

“You already got something going on with him?”

“Who?” As if I didn’t know.

“You haven’t shut up about him for twenty minutes.”

“There’s nothing going on, Pen. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Not yet, you mean.”

“I don’t know what I mean. Except…he’s just so freaking nice.” And nice, I realized, was something I’d had precious little of in my life. That made him perilously alluring and seductive. His physical attributes added to his appeal, but pretty is as pretty does in my book.

Penny didn’t attempt to hide the sarcasm when she said, “You’re going to stay there for the whole year.”

“I’m flattered by your confidence.”

“It’s not that.” She hesitated. I could tell she was cupping her hand over the phone to make sure Frank couldn’t hear her end of the conversation. “He’s that good, huh?” she whispered.

God love her. “Let’s just say it’s the right thing to do.”

She let loose a snort of laughter. “Sis, you got it bad.”

After we hung up, I lay in bed thinking. If I’d been willing to consider what I didn’t know, I would have been up all night. And I wouldn’t be thinking at all if Wastrel weren’t invading my sleep. As it was, someone had killed Norman and disposed of the body in Malcolm’s manure pile.
 

Convenience or intention? Either way, it looked bad. The next day the horses had gotten loose. Sandy suggested someone did that on purpose, and Malcolm confirmed the fence looked like it had been cut. I couldn’t exactly connect that dot with Norman’s murder, but between the two, Winterlight was closed.
 

Dex One said to concentrate on
why
, not
who
.
 

Motive
.

Did someone benefit from things being messed up at Winterlight? Or was this only about Norman? How could I learn more about Norman? Sandy.

Of course, I wanted JJ to be guilty, the rat bastard. He was surely guilty of something, that was certain. And plenty capable of violence. He had a grudge against the Malcolms and a chip on his shoulder the size of a redwood. Everyone agreed he was bad news. And there was something going on between him and Sandy. He’d hit her, just like he’d hit me. I was sure of it. But did I want to try and find out more about him?