Piece by piece, Mona unloads the chicken onto the hot grill and a smokey aroma wafts over us. It makes my stomach growl and reminds me I haven’t had a full meal since six this morning.
“If you lose any more weight, I’m going to be able to see through you.” Her periwinkle blue eyes skate up my bare legs to my jean shorts. Smile fading, she shakes her head.
Hardly. I have my father’s athletic build. Muscles grow on me as easily as mold on days-old bread.
Billy trots over to the edge of his paddock and calls to me.
“No, Billy Boy,” Mona calls back. “Your girlfriend hasn’t had a decent meal all day. Leave her be for ten minutes. My goodness that little one has gotten as clingy as velcro.”
She flips the chicken and flames shoot up off the grill.
“It’s my fault. I let him follow me on my chores. I can’t say no to him.”
“I know the feeling. Can’t say no to Darby either.” She winks. “Grab a plate and put some rice, beans, and veggies on it. I’m gonna sit here and watch you eat.”
As ordered, I grab a dish off the table and load up. The food barely hits the plate before I start shoveling it into my mouth.
“It’s not intentional,” I argue in my defense and gingerly pluck a drumstick off the grill, placing it on my soon-to-be-empty dish. “I forgot to eat.” Blowing on it, I attempt a bite. A third degree burn to the roof of my mouth is a risk I’m willing to take right now. I’m that hungry. “If it wasn’t for you, we both know I’d starve to death.”
No one has ever taken better care of me than Mona. That’s the gospel truth. She cooks like a five-star chef, does my laundry when I don’t have time, and cleans the guesthouse when it gets really bad, which it often does.
“Sometimes I think I should be paying you instead of the other way around. Speaking of eating––do we have to feed Shane Hughes? Because if that’s the case, he needs to chip in for the grocery bill.”
An image of his face drifts into my mind. Full mouth set in a grim line. Dark eyebrows smashed together in… disgust? Possibly. Displeasure? Definitely.
I sprinted after him so fast I nearly strained a quad. I did, however, make it back to the guesthouse just in time to stop him from charging full bore into my messy home. Only to face more humiliation.
The only way to stop him was to wedge my sweaty, goat-and-donkey-smelling body between his and my front door. My crisis of confidence all but disappeared when it was up against the utter embarrassment of having him see my personal shit lying around.
I had to physically force him to stay outside on the porch, no small task, while I cleaned up and hid personal pleasure items away from his judgmental leer. Even then, he barely gave me enough time to shove my relax-her under my pillow.
Less than ten minutes later, he stalked inside, glanced around with the same laser focus of a catastrophe claims adjuster, deemed it perfect for his needs (whatever the flip those are), and departed with nothing more than a jerk of his chin at me.
So instead of answering all the backlogged messages from my social media accounts and posting pictures of the animals’ progress, which my followers and patrons anxiously await each day, I spent the rest of it cleaning out my home for a stranger with a bad attitude.
“His brother donated fifty-thousand to the rescue,” Mona reminds me. “I think we can feed him a couple of meals.”
“Aidan made forty million on his last movie. It’s a tax write off for him. And he probably spends that much on hair products a year anyway.”
“They’re here for the next three months. Let’s make the best of it. You never know, they might surprise you.”
“Yeah, I’m scared of how they might surprise me. Do not trust them, Mon. Especially Aidan. He’s a felon and an actor, and a good one at that. He’s a wolf in a sheep suit.”
I used to be cavalier about these things, carefree and uninhibited. It never even occurred to me that I couldn’t deal with whatever life threw at me. Then Life with a capital L taught me a harsh lesson. The lesson being that for years, I’d been operating under the false assumption that I didn’t have physical and mental limitations. Boy, was I wrong.
Once you have an experience like mine, you can’t unsee or unfeel it. It never goes away. It’s always there, a subtle, steady reminder underpinning every action and every thought. I can’t pretend to be that carefree person anymore. I won’t risk it. It took all the strength I had left to stop myself from crawling into a hole and never coming out again. Yes, I’m especially guarded, but with good reason.
Mona inspects my face, and her expression softens to naked sympathy. “Sweetie, I got plenty of practice with sheep and wolves. Don’t you fret.”
It’s the only reason I agreed to this clown show. Because Mona is the shrewdest person I know. If anyone can handle the likes of Aidan Hughes, it’s her.
“Yeah, well, you just invited another wolf into our home, and this one doesn’t have an ankle monitor. Fingers crossed he’s less criminal.”
It’s already ten and way past my bedtime when I drag my tired ass out of the shower, only to find a peace offering. Mona left a fat slice of her homemade chocolate cake and a glass of water on my bedside table. The good news is I can easily be coerced into a better mood with sugar.
Grabbing the walkie talkie, something I’m quickly learning to love, I fiddle with the knobs. “Come in, Bandit,” I say, biting back the burst of laughter wanting to come out of me.
Smokey and the Bandit happens to be Mona’s favorite movie. I know this because she’s made me watch it at least a half dozen times already.
“Affirmative, Smokey,” comes through loud and clear. Of course I’m the mean cop, Smokey, who’s always trying to stop the fun-loving and charming Bandit from wreaking havoc. Yes, I can admit the nicknames are somewhat fitting here.
“Thank you for the cake. You’re the best. Over.”
“Roger that, Smokey.”
“Night, Bandit. Out.”
The smile has a heck of a time leaving my face.
Cake plate in hand, I wander to the window. My new bedroom is located in the back of the house, overlooking the paddocks. It’s the smallest in the house and barely fits my stuff, but it’s also the farthest from Mona’s master bedroom on the first floor. Strategically speaking, this is critical because God help me if I have to listen to her and Darby go at it all night.
As I’m laying waste to the cake, I take stock of the barn, the fencing, the surrounding foothills. It’s almost a compulsive behavior at this point––to check and double check that nothing needs fixing. That everyone and everything is safe and secure.
There’s a full moon tonight without a cloud in the sky. From here, I have a straight line of sight to Big Ben and Coco, the two draft horses we rescued from slaughter auction last year. They’re sleeping peacefully under the run-in shed. Ben was starved nearly to death when we got him. All skin and bones. How anyone could’ve mistreated our sweet giant, let alone allow him to suffer and starve, is beyond comprehension. I actually cried when I got in the cab of the pickup truck to drive him away from that awful place. On the bright side, Ben’s still one of the gentlest animals we have. He’s living his best life now, running free and hanging with his girlfriend.