Kentucky Home (6 page)

“If I come through this fence, are you going to jump on me? Or can we take this slow?” Peanut tilted his curious head again, then let his tongue loll out to the side. “I guess you probably don't speak English. OK, here I come.” She moved to the gate, just a few yards away. When she opened it, Peanut was there. He didn't jump on her; maybe he did speak English. He just shoved his big body against her legs, then dropped to the ground again, rolling his stomach up to her. Mal laughed, then squatted down next to him and rubbed his belly.

While she was making friends, one of the horses had come up to them. Peanut rolled up and sniffed the horse's snout. The horse put his nose in Mal's hair and snorted. She put her hand to the side of his face.

“I feel like Snow White,” she said, half expecting a bunny, and then maybe a bird to sit on her shoulder. Peanut licked her cheek. “But maybe with a few more germs.”

The horse lost interest in her pretty fast, and she let it go. She was too happy with Peanut, who rolled onto the ground and let her scratch and scratch and scratch. Then he got up, picked up a stick, and nudged her hand.

“OK! OK, I get it. Here you go.”

She was about to throw the stick when she saw Katie come charging out of the barn.

“Who left the damn gate open?” she shouted, sprinting past Mal and Peanut, who gave friendly chase. Mal turned to watch Katie go, an apology on her lips, when she saw the friendly horse. On the other side of the fence. Running toward the road.

Mal wasn't sure she had ever seen any person run as fast as Katie did, heading toward the main gate and the dirt road. She stood there dumbly, not quite taking in what was going on. Katie kept yelling, “Horse loose,” and, sure, there was a part in the back of Mal's mind that understood that she had left the gate open and that, because of her, a horse was running toward the road and freedom, but that part of her mind was not connected to the part that told her legs to go, to run after Katie and, when she eventually caught up (dang, that girl was fast!), help.

There was also the part of her mind that was distracted by the sight she caught out of the corner of her eye, of Keith racing out of the barn, swinging up on a saddle, and charging past her. He didn't pause exactly, but he turned and shouted at her to “Come on!” So she ran after him.

Miss Libby was standing closest to the front gate, waving a big white sheet. Chase had run up and closed the front gate, and Keith was dismounting, standing a few yards away. The horse charged up, and Mal thought for sure Libby was going to be trampled. But she waved and shouted and the horse turned, first to the right, where Keith was waving his arms, then to the left, where Katie was doing the same thing. Then toward Mal.

“Wave your arms and make a lot of noise!” Keith shouted at her. So she did. She felt like an idiot, but it seemed to be doing the trick, because the waving Carsons were coming up behind the horse, closing the circle and slowly moving toward the barn.

When the horse was back in her stall (Bob was her name. A girl horse named Bob.), Keith went in there with her, toweling off her shivering muscles with a blanket, speaking soothing words. Chase was putting Keith's horse back in his stall, putting up the saddle. Libby went back to the house to finish hanging the laundry out (which explained the sheet) and told them supper was in ten minutes. Katie just stood at the stall gate, fuming.

“Who the hell left the gate open?” she demanded.

“Cool off, Katie,” Chase said softly.

Katie stomped her foot, and Bob mimicked her. “It was Mal, wasn't it? What the hell was she doing with the horses anyway? I know she's from the suburbs, but how stupid do you have to be to miss the basic common sense to close the gate behind you so the damn horses don't run into the road!”

“Katie!” Keith had raised his voice to a grown-up authority voice. It wasn't much louder, but it still silenced Katie. “Knock it off. This isn't the first time Bob got out, and it won't be the last. So let it go, leave Mal out of this, and go help Libby with dinner.”

“Oh, I see, you just want to send the woman back to the kitchen!”

“No, I want to get you out of this damn barn so you stop spooking Bob.”

Katie paused at that. She gave Bob a scratch on the nose. She was still a little agitated, but she stomped appreciatively. So did Bob. Katie turned to Keith. “Fine. I'll go help Libby but only because I'm starving and I want to eat. From now on, you're in charge of babysitting Luke's little stray.”

“Watch it, Katie.”

Katie turned and jumped gracefully over a pile of tack before continuing her storming, petulant exit toward the house.

Mal was not so graceful. Trying to sneak out of the barn, she tripped over the tack in the stall she had been hiding in. She landed, gracefully, she hoped, on her face. Scrambling up, she looked over to see Keith and Bob, their heads poking out of the stall.

“I was just, uh, I was just going. I'm going to go,” she said, and ran toward the house.

 

 

Dinner that evening was a tense affair. Mal knew it was her fault, but nobody would even look at her. Libby had told Mal that usually when one of the Carson children did something wrong, they would be crushed under the weight of their father's disapproving gaze, then punished, then comforted by Miss Libby. But Mal was not one of the Carson children and leaving the gate open was not her fault, really. She didn't know.

In between saying grace and passing the chicken wings, Cal said, “Nobody let that girl go about on her own until she learns how it's done.”

It was not said unkindly, not entirely, but Mal thought she probably would have preferred if he went back to ignoring her. She bristled. Another bully.

“Yeah, next time I might burn down the barn or muck out the feed pile.” And then she laughed, a short, tense sound. Looking at the blank faces around the table, she thought maybe it was too soon for jokes. So she kept her head down, dug into her food, and waited for the meal to be over.

As soon as she could politely excuse herself from the table, which was about half an hour after she wanted to, she went up to her room—Luke's room—and dug around in her bag for her cell phone. She had bought it at a big box store around Morgantown. It was one of those really basic pay-as-you-go phones. She had put a hundred dollars worth of minutes on it, figuring it would be good for emergencies, but also feeling a little like a drug dealer since she could throw the phone out any time she wanted. Untraceable.

She had yet to use it, although she had given Luke the number. He hadn't used it either, hadn't called since he'd been gone, but she needed him now. She needed to talk to him, and she needed him to get her out of here.

The sun had set while they were eating dinner, and as Mal stepped out on the front porch, her breath stopped at the blue glow of twilight, the first stars dotting the sky. She hadn't been this far from the city in a long time, and she didn't realize how much she had been missing the stars. She took a deep breath of the crisp evening air, wrapped her scarf more firmly around her neck, and called Luke.

It rang and rang, and while it rang, she saw Libby pull back the curtain and, seeing it was Mal on the porch, give a friendly wave. Mal smiled and waved back, then stepped off the porch. She didn't need anyone in the family to hear this conversation. She started walking.

If there is a conversation,
she thought, hoping not to have to deal with voice mail. She hated voice mail.

Luke finally picked up, sounding a little breathless. “Mal? What's wrong?” There was a lot of noise behind him, as if he was in a crowd. Maybe a bar.

“Nothing! I'm fine, I just wanted to talk to you, that's all.”

“Mal.”

She heard one distinctive voice above the rest. “Luke, are you at an auction or something?”

“What? No! No, I'm at a party.”

“It sounds like an auctioneer in the background.”

“That's just, a party trick. Hold on, let me go outside.” She heard a few mumbled “excuse me's” and “hey, back in a minute,” and then the noise of the crowd faded. She could hear him perfectly. “What's going on, baby?”

“It's nothing, really, I just wanted to say hi. Hi.”

“Hi. Mal.”

There was no use. She burst out crying. “Your family hates me. I let a horse out. I threw up at the dog.” As if speaking of the devil, Peanut came off the kitchen steps and nuzzled his nose into her free hand. The dog, at least, forgave her. She kept walking, Peanut trotting beside her. “The only thing I'm doing right here is eating Miss Libby's cooking and mucking out stables.”

“Why are you mucking out the stables? That's a disgusting job.”

“Please, Luke, it's the only thing I've done right so far, unless Keith is too polite to tell me I've done it wrong. He's probably in the barn right now, re-mucking everything. Jerk.”

Luke laughed softly. “Baby, trust me. Keith is not too polite to tell you when you've done something wrong.”

She warmed at that. Maybe she wasn't entirely useless. Then she remembered how Keith had kept Peanut away without telling her, so maybe he
was
too polite. Then she remembered how he'd swung up on that horse to go chasing after Bob. She shook her head. That was not a very polite thought.

She focused back on the phone. She was supposed to be talking to her fiancé. Fake fiancé, but still.

“Tell me about the rest. How did you let a horse out? Did they get it back?”

“Yeah, it was Bob. I left the gate open.”

“Why would you leave the gate open at a farm?”

“I didn't think! This is exactly how your family is treating me, like this should be common sense. But it's not common sense if you've never been on a farm before!”

The more she thought about it, though, the more she came to realize it really was common sense. Horses were fenced in for a reason. She felt like an idiot.

“OK, OK, you're right. They should have explicitly told you not to leave the gates open.”

“Stop, don't patronize me. I know I did something really stupid. I'm just having trouble coming to terms with it. Give me a minute.”

“It was Bob that got out?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I wouldn't worry about it. When Bob was young and could actually run fast, she got out at least once a week. That horse has serious wanderlust.”

“Bob the Girl Horse.”

“Yeah, she's Katie's. When Dad brought her home as a filly, her name was Princess. Katie flipped—you should have seen her. It was amazing. She kicked this tin bucket clear across the yard and shouted, ‘I'm not riding a horse named Princess!' Cal was pissed.”

“She seems attached to the horse now.”

“Oh, she loves that horse. The next morning, we found Katie asleep in the stall. She announced that she loved the horse and that she was going to name her Bob. No matter how hard we tried to convince her that Bob was not a girl's name, she stuck to it.” He laughed again. “She really loves that horse.”

“That explains why she bit my head off when she saw her get out.” That wasn't entirely true. Katie had bitten Mal's head off behind her back, so to speak. To her face, she was very polite, and very cold.

“She'll get over it. Katie gets a little bit hot, but she'll calm down. If she doesn't apologize to you, I'll talk to her.”

“No! No, that's fine.” Katie did not seem like the kind of woman who appreciated being forced into anything. “You don't have to talk to Katie about me. In fact, you don't have to talk to anyone about me.” She took a deep breath. “Luke, this was a ridiculous idea.”

“Come on, Mal.”

“No, listen! It makes no sense that you would just show up with a fiancée.”

“I've never told my family everything I've done. This is nothing.”

“Thanks.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, even if that's true, I think the plausibility of the story has been compromised since, what did Cal say to Libby, you up and left me! How do you expect anyone to believe that we're madly in love if you don't stick around to act madly in love with me?”

“You're not mooning over me in my absence?”

“Luke, I'm serious.”

“I know, I know. Yes, this is a serious flaw in the plan here. But I had an opportunity I couldn't pass up. I'll be back in a week or so, and then we'll figure out what to do.”

“A week?”

Luke cleared his throat. “A week or so, yeah.”

“Luke, I can't stay here alone for another week! Katie will freeze me to death!”

“I told you that would blow over.”

“That's easy for you to say, you grew up with her. And you're on the other end of a phone line, so you didn't have to eat dinner with her.”

“I do miss Libby's suppers.”

“She'd be happy to cook you whatever you want. Please, Luke.” She heard him sigh. He was clearly not going to give in. “Please. I'm going out of my mind here. I'm walking on eggshells. Everything I do is wrong. I might as well go back to Michael.”

“Don't even joke about that, Mal. My family may be a little prickly.” Mal snorted in response to that. “But, baby, Michael is an asshole.”

Mal didn't say anything.

“Do you remember the state you were in when I met you? You were walking into things from looking over your shoulder. You couldn't take a dump without asking permission first.”

“Luke. It wasn't like that.”

“So he didn't call you a bunch of horrible names and expect you to make him dinner while he went upstairs and screwed his new girlfriend? And don't you dare tell me that he only hit you once. Once was enough.”

She closed her eyes. Once was more than enough. The idea of returning to DC turned her stomach—her body remembered even if her mind was a little slow on the uptake. “No, he did those things.”

“Listen, my family, they're tough. They work hard, and they don't meet a lot of people who are not like them. You have to give them time to get used to you.”

“How much time?”

“And you have to stand up for yourself. Katie especially will bully you into the ground before she even knows what she's doing. Keith and Cal will probably ignore you for a while, but you have to stand up to Katie.”

Keith wasn't ignoring her, she thought. She stood up to him. But the pity party felt too good to be over.

“Even Libby was giving me disappointed looks all through dinner.”

“You probably weren't eating enough. Baby, it will be fine. You just have to give it time. I'll be back soon—”

“A week or so is not soon.”

“It's soon enough. Then we'll sort it out. We'll go somewhere great, a tropical island.”

She laughed into the phone. “How are we going to get to a tropical island? I barely had enough money to get us here.”

“You think I can't take care of my woman?” He really played up the twang, so “can't” came out like “cain't.”