Chapter Eleven

DAMN BOYS. DAMN DOGS. Damn Shar.

It was a continual mantra, one that went around and around in Kallie’s brain as she walked along the fence line, checking for down spots. Darrin was leaving. Hunting season was coming. Fall and Erik. Monetary safety and sadness of the heart, all tangled together.

She’d said no to Erik, that was the thing. Turned him down outright. Even if she couldn’t have Darrin – and that was something she wasn’t willing to think about, not yet, because she could feel the small tear happening in her heart, in her chest bones, in the place where she breathed and walked and lived and she knew it would kill her if she paid any attention to it at all – he’d shown her that she didn’t have to settle. That somewhere there was a man who turned on her heart and her mind and her lust, who met her in all the ways she needed and wanted to be met.

So she’d done the impossible thing. She’d turned Erik down, and then she’d gone out to the barn to realise that Shar and Darrin had left. Darrin’s motorcycle and camera were gone. They’d even taken Gauntlet. She didn’t know what that meant, but she couldn’t think about that right now either.

Finding a small hole, the wires bent by the heads of horses as they’d searched for good grass outside the fence, Kallie knelt to fix it, her hands working deftly at their task as her mind did the same with its own.

She’d figure out a way to save Safe Haven. Even if she had to sell off one of the back pastures, or a couple of acres of the woods. I hope you can forgive me for that, Nana, and she thought her nana would understand. ‘Your land and your love are the two things you must always take care of,’ Nana had always said. It seemed to Kallie that sometimes you had to choose one over the other. She could only hope she was choosing the right one.

She made her way along the pasture, stopping at places that didn’t really need her attention, but unwilling to go back to the empty barn, the empty house. Unwilling to see the places where Darrin had stood or slept or held her. Unable to smell his scent in her house, see whatever objects he’d invariably left behind.

A soft rustle made her turn, still on her knees. Gauntlet, coming through the grass at a wriggly puppy pace, followed closely by Darrin. He held something behind his back, his grin so wide it nearly took up his whole face.

‘Kallie,’ he said. And there was something new in his voice.

‘I quit my job.’

She didn’t know how to respond to that. Tried to push herself up from her crouch and found herself floundering. The puppy seemed to think it was all a game, and tried clambering onto her lap.

‘What?’ she said. Which was only a quarter of all that was happening in her brain.

‘Yeah,’ he said. He came to her and pulled her up with one hand, Gauntlet curling into the crook of her curved arm as she rose. ‘I quit. I feel amazing. I should have done that so long ago. But I just didn’t, well, you helped me see that I didn’t have to go back to it. That I could do what I loved and still–’

‘That’s great,’ she said, interrupting, trying to get him to stop talking. She knew she should have been excited for him – he was holding her by the arms, he was right in front of her, and still she could barely swallow around the heavy thrum of her heart. ‘I’m really glad for you.’ And she was, but he was still leaving and she was still broke and feeling broken and all she wanted was to crush herself against him and beg him not to go. Still, she stood straight, held herself up, even though she felt like the world was spinning.

‘I want to show you something,’ he said.

He brought his camera out from behind his back, and turned it toward her. It took a second for her to realise what she was seeing: An image of her and Toddy, the big horse taking a carrot from her hand, his velvet-soft lips carefully moving over her palm, his eyes half-closed, her own grin wider than she’d realised.

‘I didn’t know you were there for that,’ she said.

‘And more,’ he said. ‘Here.’

He handed her the camera and she flipped through the images. Her and Gauntlet playing in the grass. The horses running wild across the green. The sun coming slant over the barn in the morning. One of angoras, caught in motion, sniffing at Gauntlet through the wire cage. With each one her heart broke, but also levied. It was as though he’d captured everything she loved about the farm. As though he’d somehow captured her very heart in pictures.

‘They’re beautiful,’ she said.

‘I forgot what I loved,’ he said. ‘You reminded me.’

Kallie flipped to a new picture, one of her, lying in bed naked, the puppy curled against her. She looked at peace. She looked like she was home.

Tears came, unbidden, warm against the chill of her face.

‘Well, you’re not really supposed to cry about that.’

‘I know,’ she said, trying not to sniffle.

‘So,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

Think? About what? ‘They’re beautiful.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘About using them. For the farm. To save the farm.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t want you to sell or rent or give anything to the big truck man,’ he said. ‘I want you. I want to be here with you. I want to help you with the farm – even with that damn horse that bit me, because, yeah, that hurt, but if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t still be here.’

Kallie shook her head, confused. What was he talking about?

‘I already said no to Erik.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That’s even better. Say yes to me then.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The pictures. We can sell them, turn them into postcards, photos, T-shirts, hell, I don’t care. There’s so much beauty here. People want more beauty in their lives. They need it. They forget every day. We’ll remind them.’

Kallie stood, stone-faced. Her breath was stuck somewhere between her heart and her mouth. She could feel her heart beating in her wrists. The things he was saying, were they even an option? To have the farm, and him, and whatever this thing was with photos?

‘Shar gave me the idea,’ he said. ‘So if it sucks, you can blame her.’

‘She did?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The photo idea anyway. The other idea, I came up with all on my own.’

‘What other idea?’

‘To love you, of course,’ he said.

‘You love me?’ Was she ever going to say something smart? Where was her brain, her breath?

‘Duh,’ he said, which made her laugh and then breathe and then she could speak and move forward to wrap her arms around him. He hugged her back, the camera swinging behind her and hitting her in the ass.

‘Can we really do that? Support the farm with photos?’

‘Are you questioning my talent?’ he asked. ‘Besides, Shar said if that didn’t work we could do a nude charity calendar. You know, shave the rabbits and stuff.’

‘I’m going to have to thank her for that one too,’ Kallie said.

‘OK, fine, that may have been my idea.’

‘Jerk,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Now, do you suppose we can have wild, fantastic sex without one interruption or another? Because that would be really, really nice.’

‘Let’s see what we can do about that,’ she said. ‘But not out here.’

He pouted, in that sweet way she loved, and she leaned in and kissed his lower lip, a soft nibble that brought back all the desire she’d been carrying for him, let it sweep over her and into him. Would this thing work? She didn’t know. But she felt, for the first time in a long time, that she was not just exactly where she needed to be, but that her heart was too.

She knelt and scooped Gauntlet up in one arm.

‘Race you home,’ she said.

‘You’re already home,’ he said, laughing. But he ran after her anyway, ran after her and caught her and kissed her in the strong, warm circle of his arms.

‘So are you,’ she said.