When You Fall... (28 page)

“How can you change subjects that quickly?” she asked, watching as he reached for his boxers and then his jeans. He put them on, and then he reached for her hand. He moved them to sit in the corner of the stall. Thankfully, she was diligent in keeping her stables clean. He pulled her onto his lap, leaned in and kissed her again.

“What now?”

She laughed. “Make yourself comfortable, why don’t you?” she said and he kissed her again, short and sweet. She shook her head, not sure what to make of him, but not anywhere near as sad as she’d been before he’d showed up.

“My father has hired a property manager, a woman, due to start working next week. She will be working to get the ranch ready for sale.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, running his hand through her hair.

“It makes sense now, his need to sell. To get rid of any and all reminders of his old family,” Carter said.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know.” They were quiet. She seemed miles away from him for a few minutes. Then she leaned in and kissed him.

“Are you trying out Stacy for a wife?” she asked, looking into this eyes.

He smiled and kissed her again. “I’m not interested in trying out Stacy for a wife. We’re just friends, have only been friends. What are you going to do now that your father has said no?” he asked softly. The way he was looking at her was a little unnerving.

“I don’t know. I went by my apartment and gave my notice. I’m not going back there. But where, who knows?”

“You could marry me,” he said.

“Ha ha! Very funny, Rafael. You’re kidding me, right? Me and your list don’t fit!”

“Yes, you do. You are a hard worker, and you fill out your jeans nicely,” he said, running his hands along her ass to highlight his point. “You’re not too high maintenance. You do tend to chatter a lot, but I could work around that.”

“Quit kidding and sex aside, I’d want more than that from the man I marry. Although I’ve given men up, remember? I understand your list on some level, but not at my heart’s level. I want the man who wants me to want all of me, not because I’ve met the most basics of a bucket list. Thanks for asking, not that I even think you’re serious,” she said, looking at him. “I was thinking I could take my share of the proceeds from the sale and buy some land like you did. Maybe find a deal, some other family in distress, looking to sell,” she said.

“No more accounting?”

“Nope. No more accounting for sure. I’m going to do what I want to do for a while. Maybe I’ll end up poor and alone. We’ll see. But then I’ll always have your marriage proposal in my back pocket.”

“There is that,” he said, laughing, as he leaned in to kiss her.

“Do you know of any places that are up for sale?” she asked.

“A few. Do you want to live close?”

“I don’t know, probably not. Don’t think it would be healthy for my sanity to live too close to this place. Too many memories, it would hurt too much I think.”

“I could give you the name of the real estate firm I used.”

“That would be helpful,” she said. Her eyes were serious now. “Thanks Rafe. I like calling you Rafe,” she said, smiling, and placed a quick kiss on his lips. “Thanks for pushing me to try. You were right, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I hadn’t. I was moving in that direction anyway. Thanks for this,” she said.

“No problem.”

“Something about you, doing this with you, makes me forget my troubles, unless you make me angry again, although I’ve heard angry sex is good, too.”

He chuckled. It contradicted the serious look in his eyes.

“What?” she asked.

“It’s nothing. You’re beautiful,” he said, looking at her.

“Thanks,” she said, touching her lips to his, giving him a different kind of thank you.

#

Saturday night

“I asked Carter to marry me,” he said.

It was silent. He was seated at the bar in town between Garrett and Frank the following night. More stunned silence.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I felt bad for her. She seemed loss. She’d returned from talking to her father about not selling. She asked him to give her a chance to make the property profitable. She was crying when I went over and this desire to take care of her, to protect her, came from out of nowhere.”

“Where were you?” Garrett asked.

“In her barn.”

“Were you…? Of course you were,” he said, taking in Rafe’s expression, rolling his eyes. “We are talking about you and your magnetism. I forgot for a second,” shaking his head. “Sometimes you know that happens. It’s happened to me before; okay, maybe not that often,” he said. His brother’s look of derision forced him to be more truthful.

“Things get to feeling good and you lose your mind for a second. Did you tell her you loved her?”

“Nope.”

“You should be good, then. Does she know about that crazy list of yours?” Garratt asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re fine then. She’ll think you were just kidding around. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Frank was silent. Rafe looked at him.

“No comment?” he asked.

“No comment,” he said. Rafe looked away and then down at the beer set before him. “Carter does make most of my list. I should consider her, right? Why haven’t I?”

Frank shrugged. “I think you have. I think you were serious when you asked her to marry you. I think our friend Rafe here has gone and fallen in love.”

“No, I don’t believe that. I agree with Frank that she could be more than your list. But I think you don’t really want to have a relationship. You’re afraid of being hurt by, of turning into your father, so you have this list that keeps everyone at a distance,” Garrett said.

“So you’re playing the amateur psychiatrist now?”

He shrugged.

“You plan on seeing her again, or whatever it is you’re doing with her?” Frank asked.

“Yes.”

“Be careful you don’t get serious,” Garrett said.

Too late, he could have told them. Frank was right. Her, he could love. Her, he did love. He’d meant it when he’d asked her to marry him.

#

Sunday

Carter headed over to the twins’ home in search of a change of pace from Rafael and that marriage proposal. What a surprise Rafael-the-Listener had turned out to be. And why couldn’t she get it out of her head? Fake proposal or not, it was a first for her. Her dad/uncle lived in her head, too. All that wasted time. Water under the bridge, she tried to tell herself. Did her stepsisters know? Gloria knew; her dad had told her that.

She’d spoken to her girlfriends individually off and on since she’d been living out here and she thought to call them now, especially Frankie. But she hadn’t, didn’t feel up to talking. Too much to explain, too much hurt to verbalize just yet. They would of course offer her advice and opinions as they’d always done, and which she’d dutifully listened to and mostly heeded.

The decision to talk to her dad had been a major turning point for her. No going back to asking others for advice. Her voice was the only one she wanted to hear from now on. Had she listened to herself before her great-grandfather had died, things might have turned out differently. She might have persuaded him to do something different with their ranch besides leaving it to her stepsisters.

“The darkies are taking over the world,” she heard, interrupting her thoughts. She turned her head to find the neighbor of the middle-finger-salute standing on the other side of the fence from her. Hate-filled eyes, mouth twisted in some hate-filled smirk as he shouted at her again, in case she missed hearing him the first time. She stopped in her tracks, completely taken aback by his words.

She looked around for signs that he might have been talking to someone other than her.

“I’m talking to you! You’re the only darkie standing around here. You and that president of yours, leading the country off a cliff,” he said.

The door opened and the twins came rushing out, interrupting anything she might have thought to say in response. She’d been rendered speechless.

The duo marched down the steps one behind the other. Al was banging a spoon against… was that a tray? Carter wondered. They were singing at the top of their lungs. “We are in the Lord’s army. We’re in the Lord’s army. We may never ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery. We may never fly over the enemy, but we’re in the Lord’s army.”

Carter stood there, watching as the twins marched around her, circling her, their eyes glued on the elderly neighbor, who was as surprised as she by this impromptu concert. His mouth hung open, before his face twisted into a grimace again, and he turned away. He and his walker made their way back to his door.

The twins moved the song into its rap version. Carter didn’t know it even had a rap version.

“We… we… we. Yeah, we be in the Lord’s army. Yeah. We… we… we are in the Lord, Lord Lord, the Lord’s, the main man’s army. We… we… we. Yeah. We be in the Lord’s army. Yeah. We… we… we are in the Lord, Lord, Lord, the Lord’s, the main man’s army. Peace,” they said and ended their number standing next to her side, one on each side, arms crossed at their chests staring at the spot that had held their neighbor. By now he had reached his door, giving them his middle finger as the screen door hit his backside. Carter started laughing and couldn’t stop. All that had transpired in the past ten minutes, mixed in with a little of her father’s recent words, the potential farm loss, hit her again, and her laughter turned to tears.

The twins had joined in with her laughter as they watched their neighbor’s door close. Then they caught Carter’s tears.

“Girl, what ‘cha doing out here? Come on in the house. I just made some tea. You like yours sweet, I hope,” Ernie said, putting her arm around Carter as they made their way to the porch steps. Ernie took the steps first, Carter sandwiched between them with Al bringing up the rear. Al was humming the Lord’s army song softly as they made their way into the house.

“What the hell was that?” Carter asked, taking a seat on the couch. She had gotten her tears under control.

“Our neighbor.”

“Is he always like that?”

“Ever since we moved in four years ago. Would you believe he used to be worse? He had two boys; they aren’t living with him anymore. They left home, but not before he loaded them up with their own suitcases full of hate to take with them. He’s alone now.”

“Has he ever tried to harm you physically?”

“One time. It was about a month after we’d moved in. He came out with this shotgun, pointed it as us with the two boys by his side. Oh, child, it scared me to death! Al had the presence of mind to call the police and they came. That nice sheriff Frank. Have you met him?” Ernie asked.

“Handsome, that one. If I were younger,” Ernie said and laughed again. “Anywho, they up and arrested his old self. He hasn’t done that again. He mostly just calls us names now, but that’s just sticks and stones,” she said, taking a sip of her tea.

“You two are crazy,” Carter said, smiling now.

They smiled. “You got to fight hate with love,” Ernie said and handed her a cup and saucer.

“What a lovely tea set,” Carter said, taking in the gleaming sterling silver tea service. A hodgepodge of china cups and saucers spilled over on a tray, along with a plate loaded with small finger sandwiches and cookies. “Are we ever going to get past this? This hate for others?”

“I doubt it. If it’s not black versus white, it’ll be brown versus white or some other color versus white, or brown versus brown. Who knows, it might even be aliens versus humans. It will always be something I think, though. Hate will always have a home here amongst us humans, just like love. It’s up to us to pick a side.”

“These sandwiches are really good,” Carter said, chewing, smiling, taking a sip of her tea, feeling better. And she hadn’t even discussed Rafael or her dad/uncle yet. Her faith lifted by these two odd and kind old women. Light to offset the dark.

#

Tuesday

Carter sat on the back porch with her feet up, taking a break. Her mind wandered to where it always was lately—on her dad, his words and her emotional fallout.

She looked up at the sound of a car approaching. Actually, it was multiple vehicles, her sisters and Gloria. She hoped this wasn’t another intervention. She couldn’t take anymore advice from anybody.

She stood up and watched as they all parked and made their way over to the back door. She opened the door for them.

Gloria led the way, reached in and hugged her, wrapping her up in her arms. Carter fought back tears.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Gloria said, “I knew, but your father never thought it was the right time to tell you.”

“He’s not my father,” she said.

“In the ways that matter he is,” she said, stepping back, wiping Carter’s tears with her thumbs. The same look of understanding on Gloria’s face resided in varying degrees on the faces of her sisters.

“We didn’t know,” each of them said, hugging her before moving inside to the kitchen.

“We are alike, you and I, more than you know,” Madison said as she hugged Carter close. Carter allowed herself to be hugged by the remaining sisters before joining them inside the house.

Gloria stood near the sink making coffee.

“Sit,” she said to Carter, pointing to an empty chair at the table where all of her sisters now sat, Savannah the exception. She was playing waitress now, doling out water and soft drinks to those that wanted something other than coffee. Gloria handed a mug to Carter before settling beside her.

“Your father called us to come by the house after he’d spoken to you,” Madison said, glancing quickly at her sisters, before returning her gaze to Carter. Sympathy was present in her eyes.

“He told us that you were his brother’s child,” Madison said, and glanced at her sisters for what looked like support.

“We didn’t know. We drove out here to offer you our support. We weren’t always the best behaved toward you. After Mom and Carl were married, we wanted them to ourselves, didn’t want you to live with us, as I’m sure you know. We felt like we finally had a father that loved our mom, worked hard and took care of us. So what if he was strict and demanding. It was better than our sperm donor. We resented you,” Madison added, “You had what we thought we wanted, by blood. Even after he’d adopted us, we still kept you at arms length.”