Page 3 of Sweet and Salty
Like he doesn’t run bi-weekly background checks on my partners. Maybe it would be better for me if I actually read the reports he slides across the table at Sunday dinner, but I can’t give him the satisfaction. “Chris is fine.”
“Has he found his own damn house yet?” Rory examines the front of the house before us as though picturing Chris here.
“No.” I speak through clenched back teeth. Chris lost his apartment last year, and moved in with me temporarily while he got back on his feet. If he’s doing anything to get back on his feet besides eating all the butter in my freezer, I’d love to hear it.
Rory shakes his head and clucks, sounding so much like Ma that it sends grief pangs through my heart. “You deserve better, Laura.”
An icy gust of wind slaps my cheek. Sure, I deserve better. Doesn’t everyone? But I have no illusions. I’m a single woman in my mid-thirties, living in a small town where the last new resident moved in three years ago.
“Is this why you called me out of bed on this frigid morning, to harass me about my romantic decisions? Like you’re one to talk. Your son may be the world’s cutest kid, but your track record isn’t full of winners either.” I cross my arms over my chest and give him my best scowl. “Are we going in? It’s my one day offfrom the bakery. I don’t want to spend it freezing my buns off in a place where hope goes to die.”
“So dramatic,” Rory huffs. He walks up the steps before knocking on the door, which showers him with a fine spray of dust. Hah. Serves him right.
The door creaks open on rusted hinges, and a thin, nearly translucent white man in an ancient pair of jeans held up with a length of frayed rope sticks his narrow, insect-like head out. If I cared about him, I might suggest he see his doctor to rule out anemia. I don’t think he’ll take that suggestion kindly. “I don’t need nothing. Get off my land.” He coughs, not bothering to cover his mouth. Gross.
My inner people-pleaser protests and tries to force me back toward my car, but I stand my ground. Rory doesn’t budge, but then again, he has none of my issues. Probably because Mom is his biological parent, and Ma was mine.
Ma would have hated this poohead.
“Joel,” Rory growls. “We got a report that you got your hands on some animals.”
The man stays inside his front door. He’s wearing a threadbare white T-shirt that sags around the shoulders, making him look like a cross between a marshmallow and a dilapidated ice-fishing hut. “It’s my property. I can do what I like.”
Rory still doesn’t move. “Not when you’ve already had four citations for negligence, Joel. Who sold it to you?”
Joel sniffs and tightens his arms around his thin body. “None of your business. She’s mine now.”
Rory gestures with a brisk tilt of his head. Despite the fact that he’s worked for the St. Olaf Police Department for over a decade now, his Sheriff Face never fails to amuse me. I still remember him as the eleven-year-old who was too afraid to go swimming in the lake because our younger sister, Frannie,told him a dragon was sleeping at the bottom. “Show me your paddock, Joel.”
Joel huffs and turns away. This entire exchange is far too much for me. I’m exhausted, clammy from the thick parka and mittens, and I have to pee. I shouldn’t have had that cinnamon mocha before I got in the car, but it was so delicious. “I don’t have a ton of time. We can go around back without you.”
I don’t wait for further invitation. I walk as quickly as I can away from Joel Hostetler and his sad wardrobe and toward the back yard where the paddock ought to be.
The sight there halts me, and I forget all about my aching bladder.
Standing all alone, too sore and malnourished to move, is a four-legged animal with a thick, matted coat, covered in muck.
It’s probably either a donkey or a mule, based on the shape of the neck. Poor thing. Another gust of wind slices through my winter clothing, and that loosens my feet. I walk toward the paddock, cooing softly, whispering soft words to make the animal feel more comfortable.
“Careful,” Joel Hostetler says behind me, his voice little more than a hiss. “She’s a right bitch. Only thing for an animal like that is to break her, and if that doesn’t work, it’s the glue factory.”
My fragile pretense of self-control frays. I whirl and stalk toward him. “What, you think because she’s old and frailer than you that you can just put her out to pasture to die? What kind of human being lacks so much compassion?”
A weak one, I think as he takes a step back, wide-eyed like he thinks I actually might hit him. He glances over at Rory, as if to see if he might get help from the sheriff, but my brother just shrugs, an amused smile playing over his lips.
This is the problem with men. They play all these foolish little games, leaving women to do all the heavy lifting.
To heck with both of them. I can’t believe he almost made me swear. I remove the rope halter from one of my voluminous coat pockets and walk slowly again toward the paddock.
The attention scares her. She tries to back up into one of the corners of the paddock, but the ground is that curious March icy mud-slush and the donkey’s feet don’t look like they’re in the best of health anyway. Another surge of anger rushes through me. This girl knows trauma. Why are people so awful?
“Get him back,” I say to Rory, my voice soft but edged. I don’t even want to say his name. “He’s scaring her.”
Behind me, I hear the sounds of Rory’s boots on the ground and the vain protests of the donkey’s former owner.
Her eyes are white, wide and bloodshot, as she watches me climb over the broken wood of the paddock fence. I pause just inside, giving her space to realize that I won’t crowd her. Even though my singing voice leaves a lot to be desired, Ma always taught me that animals respond to music. It worked the day I brought my Golden Retriever Einstein home, or the days when I took in Bella, Edward, and Jacob, my rescued potbellied pigs. Like them, this girl needs a little bit of love. And, despite Chris’s assertions to the contrary, I have a lot of love to give.
I start to sing, one of Ma’s favorite old songs that she sang to all of us when we were babies: “Down in the Valley.”