“Knock-knock,” came Christine’s voice, and Abilene deflated like a pricked balloon.
“Come in.”
She poked her head and shoulders in and spoke quietly. “Is she asleep?”
Mercy had gone down for a nap more than an hour ago. “Not for long. She’ll be hungry soon. You don’t need to whisper.”
“It’s nearly one. I was going to see if you wanted to come out and watch the eclipse with me.”
“Oh yes. I would. Let me just get her bundled up and a bottle ready. Ten minutes?”
Christine nodded. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
She’d miss this family when she moved out, she realized as she roused Mercy and maneuvered her into her little fleece hooded getup. Abilene’s own family had looked picture-perfect growing up, but fractured and broken behind closed doors. The Churches came off as harried and a touch short sometimes, thanks to how hard they worked, but on the inside they were the nicest people you’d want to meet.
She found Christine in the kitchen, dropping sandwiches into a canvas lunch bag. “Couldn’t remember if you like mayo or mustard,” she said, grabbing a thermos, “so I made one of each.”
“More of a mayo girl. Texan, after all. We smother everything.”
Christine laughed. “Suits me fine. I can go either way.”
And as they locked up and strolled from the farmhouse out toward the bunks and stables and barns, they chatted about the various merits of condiments—such a simple, mundane topic that it felt quenching, comforting, on the heels of the recent drama.
“Where are all the ranch hands?” she asked. “Miah said they were throwing a picnic.”
“In the western eight,” Christine said, though Abilene didn’t know what this meant. The westernmost eight acres, maybe? Not far, she imagined, as Three C’s range stretched miles and miles and miles out to the east.
“We’ll find them, no doubt,” Christine added. “By the rabble, if nothing else.”
And they did. It looked as though just about everyone had taken their lunch break in accordance with nature—everyone except Don, that was—and at least two dozen workers and half as many horses were scattered around a greenish brown expanse just past the outbuildings, its scrub grass mowed short. Miah’s dog came trotting up to them as they neared, pausing for ear scratches and sniffing opportunities. She was slender, with pointed ears like a German shepherd, but far smaller, with a grayish, mottled coat, and a black patch over one eye.
“I’ve never seen her so friendly before,” Abilene said. “Usually she’s more robot than dog.”
“When she’s on duty, yeah,” came a voice behind them—Miah. He was lugging a huge plastic jug with a spigot at the bottom, like sports teams kept their Gatorade in. “But she gets an hour off today, like everybody else.”
“I’ve never met a dog so well-behaved. The ones I grew up with jumped on people and barked at the littlest things.” Her mom had had two yappy little terriers, and she’d never been real fond of either of them. She’d resented them, in fact. They were annoying and poorly behaved, yet somehow they’d been exempt from all of her father’s militaristic rules regarding manners. Her mom had shielded them from his perfectionism, somehow, in a way she’d never shielded her daughter.
“Takes a lot of work,” Christine said, patting the dog’s side. “And a good set of genes—heelers are bred to herd sheep and cattle. Miah trained this one, and his dad trained her father and grandfather. It’s in her blood.”
“Must be in yours, too,” she said to the both of them, and Miah nodded.
“I was always more of a horse girl,” Christine said. “But you fall in love with a rancher, you’d better fall in love with the ranch.”
They reached the edge of the gregarious crowd, and Miah wended his way through to heft the jug onto a folding table covered in bags of chips and six-packs of soda cans. Christine had brought a blanket, and she spread it out on the crisp, dry grass. Despite the winter chill, Abilene felt a wash of nostalgia as she lowered her butt to the ground, remembering a hundred family picnics in Lindsay Park in Bloomville. Those summer memories came with clouds attached, but she reminded herself that she’d forge new ones, this time as a mother, not a child. A different landscape, different faces, different smells on the breeze, but the same sun overhead, the same wide blue sky. She unstrapped Mercy and propped her between her crossed legs. She was still waking, gawking wide-eyed at all the activity.
A few of the female hands came by to gawk right back. Though they were Abilene’s age, they were probably years from motherhood themselves, and she registered a jab of jealousy. In another life—one she hadn’t screwed up so badly—she might’ve found herself a passion, a trade, a career. A purpose. The pang was brief, though, and shallow. She had her purpose now, she thought, bouncing Mercy by her armpits. Not glamorous, but important. And she was good at it. Far from perfect, but pretty damn good, considering. She sat up a little straighter, proud for a change.
“Quite the party,” someone called. She and Christine turned to find Casey striding down the slope.
“If I’d known you were coming I’d have packed another sandwich,” Christine said, and scooted over to make more room on the blanket. She had no clue that he and Abilene had just broken up, of course. For all Abilene knew, Miah’s hopelessly romantic mother was banking on the two of them getting together.
That ship’s already sailed. And sunk.
“I hadn’t planned to come back out,” Casey said, “but I stopped by the bar and figured I’d bring Abilene the week’s schedule. And your last paycheck,” he added, meeting her eyes. “I left both on your dresser.”
“Thanks.”
There was hesitance tensing his smile, like he wasn’t sure if he was welcome on this blanket, in her estimations.
For all the heartache, she didn’t mind him joining them. It wasn’t as though her feelings could be flipped on and off like a switch. Her feelings were messy and sticky, and she knew it. They clung like summer heat or winter’s chill, slow to fade.
Mercy held her arms out to Casey, and a piece of Abilene’s heart broke. Her body wanted that same thing still—to reach out to him, be close to him. Her body hadn’t forgotten what his could do to hers, when they came together.
Uncertainty passed across Casey’s face as he watched the squirming infant, blue eyes glancing to Abilene’s.
He’s not a monster, she reminded herself. He was a con man who’d made a lot of selfish decisions for the sake of money, but he wasn’t evil. Reckless and lacking in empathy, perhaps, but not cruel or sadistic. She lifted Mercy and got to her knees, passing her over. Casey’s smile was brief and vulnerable, and he spread his legs and propped the baby between them. He knew most of the ranch hands—many were regulars at the bar—and some came over to say hello, the guys razzing him about the baby, the girls looking more approving, intrigued by the scene.
The young woman who’d come by the house the other night wrapped in a blanket was among them. She was wearing the hands’ unofficial uniform, boots and jeans and plaid flannel, and she dropped to a crouch next to Casey. Denny, Abilene thought her name was.
“Good look for you, Grossier,” she said, and gave Mercy’s outstretched, chubby hand a little squeeze. She’d know Mercy wasn’t Casey’s, of course—all of the hands had been given the broad strokes, back when James coming around had still been a danger. “Gonna make a few of these yourself someday?” she teased. “Only in red?”
“Time’ll tell,” he said. “I’m in no rush.”
Casey wasn’t flirting back, but Abilene felt her insides curdle all the same. That handsome, charming, funny man had been hers for not even a week. But it would hurt like hell to one day see him flirting with another woman for real. To one day hear that he was seeing someone. To spot him kissing that someone, maybe. The thought alone burned.
Abilene panned the crowd and found Miah joking with his employees, and felt a deep vein of sympathy open up in her heart for him. Few wounds healed so slowly as love interrupted.