AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Maybe this is my life now. Living with a new identity every few weeks. When the trail gets too hot, I’ll make a break for it, find some other do-gooder who wants to help a girl out. I don’t mean to use him. I wish I didn’t have to, but this is about survival. This week I’m Sunny from California, next week, who knows. I only know one thing—I have to look out for myself.
Chapter 2
Rhett
S
She follows on my he follows on my heel better than my dog ever has. Not to say she’s a dog, just that I get the sense she’s nervous, even scared. She’s a mystery waiting to be solved. One second, she’s perched on a hood of a car, not a care in the world, and the next she’s wide-eyed worried looking around the ranch house like she might break something if she sneezes too hard. I recognize the look. I had the same one when Mom and Dad brought me home the first time.
“Through here,” I whisper. It’s not that late, but my parents aren’t young anymore. Dad eats at five, has his drink, and reads the paper from six to seven. He must be almost through the obits by now, commenting on good ol’ what’s his name that ran that fishing shop and how he’s passed on, Clara. Mom picked up crochet a couple years ago, and she’ll be sitting in her chair, rocking and working on a sweater for one of the dogs, asking if the fisherman had grandchildren. If I were present, she’d send me a knowing stare.
I knock on the study door. It’s partially cracked but knocking is a habit Dad drilled into me when I came to live here. It’s funny, because Carl never knocks, and I’ve never heard anyone tell him otherwise.
“Sir?” I step through the doorway, leaving Sunny out in the hall. “I have a question for you.”
Dad folds the paper down halfway, staring over the top of it and his bifocals. “What’s that, Everett?”
I can tell his moods by how he addresses me. When he uses my full name, I know we’re not in a great place.
“I found someone to do the groom job.”
“Qualified? Not like when Getty tried, and the barn was a disaster for weeks?”
“No, sir. I learned my lesson.” Getty needed the hours. His daughter was going in for surgery, and I figured an old cowboy like him would know the ropes pretty well. Dad still reminds me at least once a week. “This groom has a ton of experience, really second nature for her.”
If I thought I could tack the gender issue on at the end and it would be forgotten, I was wrong.
Mom is the first one to speak up. “Her? You hired a female groom?”
I lick my suddenly dry lips. “Like I said, she’s got experience.”
“Where on earth did you find a female groom? I didn’t know you were running ads.” Mom sets her yarn aside. Never a good sign. I swear the woman can crochet through a monsoon while caught in an earthquake, so to set it down, it means she’s not happy.
“I kinda lucked into her.” I should probably call Sunny in, but I want them to say yes before they see her. “She was on the beach.”
“Washed up on the shore?” Dad’s volume is rising by the second. “Did you throw a lucky starfish into the water and make a wish, Everett?”
I steel my jaw, frustration pricked. “Nothing like that, but aren’t you the one always telling me God works in mysterious ways? Why not this way?”
It quells my mother for the time being, but Dad has never been that easy. “I imagine she’s rather pretty as well? Isn’t she?”
“Would that be so bad?” Mom asks him. “We’re old and gray. Neither one of our boys seems interested in starting a family. Maybe some pretty groom could catch his interest, Buddy.”
“Or swindle him out of everything he’s got and half of ours as well.”
I don’t need Sunny hearing their negativity. I duck back into the hall and motion for her to come. She shakes her head, blonde hair shifting forward to hide her face. Done with all of this, I grab her hand and pull her in the room.
“Mom, dad, I want you to meet our new groom, Sunny Clarkson.”
She smiles, but it’s weak. I think if I let go of her hand, she’d make a break for it in a heartbeat. If I thought she might make a speech, I’m sorely disappointed. Her dark blue eyes look like the sea caught in a storm.
“Ms. Clarkson,” Dad starts in, “what kind of experience do you have?”
“I’ve worked with horses since I was just a kid. My family has a ranch.” She averts her eyes, voice dropped to nothing more than a breathy whisper.
“What ranch?”
“I’d rather not say.”
