Releasing October 24, 2016
Chapter One
August
Ethaniel Shockley waited
until the top of the extension ladder was flush to the side of the house and
the base secure on the ground before putting his foot on the bottom rung. He
double-checked his tool belt, as was his habit before going up, because coming
down for a forgotten tool was a pain in the ass. Better to be thorough than
waste time.
“You drop your balls
somewhere or what, E?” Andy Tolley asked. The skinny Pole from Chicago never
missed a chance to give Ethan shit about his insistence on preparedness. Even
though Andy had served in the 82nd Infantry, he acted like an unbroken
pony—spirited, high-strung and galloping toward disaster.
“At least I brought my
balls back with me,” Ethan snapped.
Behind Andy, Butch
Pelligrino guffawed loudly at the familiar line. The three of them had been
roofing houses together for almost two years, and they got along like bread and
butter—despite the fact that Butch was former Navy, while Ethan and Andy were
both Army. They all three wanted to do their jobs, earn a paycheck, and sleep
without having nightmares. Since his return from Afghanistan eight years ago,
Ethan had found that a long day’s labor in the hot summer sun meant a deep,
dreamless sleep.
Winters were more difficult.
“Supervisor said the
north end of the roof is rotted, right?” Ethan asked. “The rest is safe to walk
on?”
“For the sixth time, yes,”
Andy said. “They surveyed these roofs yesterday, and this one’s mostly fine.
The roofs on the two end units are rotted through all around.”
“Okay.”
Ethan ascended the ladder,
carefully placing his feet each time. He had no problem with heights, but
sometimes ladders gave him fits. He’d fallen off the barn ladder twice as a kid,
and he hated that free-falling feeling. Probably why he’d never bothered with
the airborne division. He preferred his feet on a firm, flat surface.
Their company was
replacing the roofs on a two-story converted apartment unit. Three bottom units,
three top units, and they’d been leaking all winter. The landlord had finally
ponied up for an assessment, and the company they worked for got the bid. Ethan,
Andy, and Butch were going up to start ripping out the old tar paper so they
could look at the structure underneath.
At the top of the ladder,
Ethan paused and studied the roof. Big, square patch with little to visibly divide
the three units, except some duct tape their boss had placed yesterday. Ethan
squinted at the lines. This was where he’d been told to place the ladder so
they’d come up on a firm portion of roof, but the whole thing looked warped and
sad.
“You gonna make love to
it with your eyeballs, or what?” Butch yelled from farther down the ladder.
“At least the monk would
be makin’ love to somethin’,” Andy said.
Ethan removed his hand from
the ladder rung long enough to flip them both off, then hoisted one leg over
the ledge. The ceiling felt firm enough beneath his right foot, so he climbed
off.
So far, so good.
He moved to his right so
Andy could get up and over.
“Oh, hey, so’s I don’t
forget,” Andy said while Butch climbed up. “Susan is throwing an anniversary
party for us next weekend, and she told me to invite anyone I wanted. Since
this is mostly going to be her girlfriends, I’m inviting all the men I know.”
“Then why are you inviting
Butch?” Ethan asked.
Butch took a lighthearted
swing at him that Ethan ducked. “Says the guy who couldn’t get a piece of
snatch if he paid her. You gonna bring a girlfriend around once in a while?”
Ethan ignored the gentle
pang of apprehension that always plagued him when his lack of a love life came
up in conversations at work. He never brought a girlfriend around, or even
talked about one, because he had no interest. And the men he used to scratch
the occasional itch were rarely worth a second look.
“I would if I was the
girlfriend type,” Ethan said, playing up his role as a love-them-and-leave-them
ladies’ man.
Butch snorted. “You are
so full of shit. Just wait, one of these days you’ll fall for a pair of big
brown eyes and long legs.”
He hoped so, as long as
they came attached to a dick.
“Whatever, you two,” Andy
said, “just show up.”
“Definitely,” Ethan said.
He wasn’t much of a social butterfly, especially with the guys he worked with. They
were all former military, he took great pains to stay firmly in the closet
around them. His family, as well. But Andy and Susan had been married for three
years and Susan was six months pregnant with their first child. Ethan could
suffer a few hours of social niceties in order to wish his work buddy well.
“Let’s do this,” Butch
said.
Ethan walked farther out onto
the roof, using his crowbar to test the tar paper with each step. Despite the
supervisor’s report, something felt off in this section. Too soft. He stopped
halfway to the spot where the roof was supposed to be rotted. Instincts that he
trusted without question screamed at him to wait. Something wasn’t right.
“Guys, hold up a minute,”
he said.
“What?” Andy kept walking,
putting two feet between them before turning around.
Ethan pressed with his
left foot. Something snapped. Groaned. His stomach dropped. He glanced back at
Butch, whose eyes went wide with alarm. “Back up slow,” he said to Butch. “Andy?
Really, really slow.”
“They told us this was
solid,” Andy said.
“I know, but it’s not.”
Ethan shuffled back a few
inches, towards Butch. The structure beneath him shuddered and rumbled. Someone’s
voice squawked over his radio.
The ceiling beneath Andy
caved in first, and he was gone in a crash of wood and plaster. Ethan yelled
his name.
Butch screamed.
Ethan’s world gave out,
and he plummeted into darkness.
Chapter Two
October
“Are you sure you don’t
want to come to church with us, honey?” Mom asked, with expected precision, at
nine-thirty on Sunday morning. She was already in her blue floral dress and
matching flats, and flanked on either side by his sister-in-law Jillian and
niece Sarah.
Ethan looked up from the
scrambled eggs he was still choking down at the kitchen table, fork poised to
spear some more of the fluffy yellow mess. In the month-plus that he’d been
back home to recuperate from his accident, his mother asked the same question
every single Sunday on her way out the door.
His answer never changed.
“No, thank you, ma’am.”
“You know it’s an open
offer. You might meet some young people your age.”
“I know.”
“Bye, Uncle Ethan,” Sarah
said as she followed her mother and Gram out the kitchen door. Sarah was eight
and the spitting image of her mother, which Ethan thanked God for every day the
thought occurred to him, and he didn’t thank God very often. Other than some
DNA, Sarah shared little in common with her father, Ethan’s brother Daniel.
Sarah wasn’t his daughter,
but she was the closest thing Ethan would ever have to one, and he adored her.
The only good thing his busted leg had done for him was force him to move home
from Pennsylvania to Delaware, where Jillian and Sarah lived with the rest of
Ethan’s expansive family on two hundred acres of land. Most of the land was for
the horse farm they’d been running for three generations. Smaller sections had
been handed off to his siblings as they married and settled down, keeping the
eldest three Shockley kids tethered to home.
Ethan had been so eager
to get away from the stifling horse farm as a teen that he’d enlisted in the
Army as soon as he graduated high school—he’d never expected getting away from
home to cost him so much of himself.
He shoveled down the last
of the cold eggs, along with a glass of orange juice, because he’d promised Mom
he would. Eating had become more of a chore than a pleasure since the accident.
He never knew what would nauseate him. Sometimes foods he used to love tasted
awful for no good reason.
One more side effect of
the concussion that had laid him up in the hospital for most of September.
The cast on his right leg,
from ankle to above his knee, was the other reason for his long hospital stay.
Losing both his mobility and his independence had been the most humiliating
time of his life. The decision to move home had also made him a hermit on the
farm. The last thing he wanted was (a) sympathetic looks and platitudes, (b)
well-meaning questions, or (c) something going wrong in public.
Something like getting
dizzy while stepping out of the tub and face-planting on the bathroom floor.
The bruise on his cheek
from that incident had almost completely faded.
He leaned on one crutch
while he hobbled first his plate and fork, and then his juice glass over to the
dishwasher. Putting them in was easy enough. Getting a detergent pod from under
the sink required a little extra finesse. Leaning down was like courting a
dizzy spell. He stuck his cast-covered leg out to the side, then squatted on
his left leg to retrieve the pod. His leg screamed from the stress of standing
back up, and he was panting by the time the dishwasher was locked and on.
Sunday mornings were
generally quiet around the stables. They didn’t open for riders until one o’clock,
which gave the family free time to do whatever they wanted. Some of them—Mom, Jillian,
Sarah, his brother Caleb and Caleb’s fiancée Polly, his sister Abigail’s
family—attended the Methodist church in town. Dad, Benny, and Benny’s two sons
went fishing at the pond on the southern edge of the property. Benny’s wife
Lesley…well, he didn’t know what she did on Sundays. Laundry?
Ethan did the same thing
he did pretty much every single day: he collected his iPod from its charger on
the back kitchen counter, crutched his way out to the front porch, and settled
onto the wicker swing with his leg up on a waterproof cushion.
Audiobooks had saved his
sanity. He’d always been an avid reader, and he had sixteen boxes of books
stored in his parents’ attic. Thanks to his concussion, reading printed words
for longer than fifteen minutes produced mind-numbing headaches. Even if they’d
had high speed internet—which they didn’t, because they were in the middle of
nowhere—he couldn’t have spent more than fifteen or twenty minutes online
before getting off, even to play games. More than an hour of television usually
ended with a migraine. Coupled with his inability to do anything more physical
than hobble a hundred yards from the house to the practice arena, audiobooks were
all he had as entertainment.
Earbuds in place, he
started his audiobook from the last chapter and lost himself in the narration.
A formation of snow geese
flew overhead, migrating elsewhere. This late in October, most of the geese
were either gone or had settled into their winter homes. The leaves in the
forest surrounding the edges of the horse pasture were a stunning mix of
yellows, golds, and reds, and they weren’t finished turning yet. It had been an
unusually warm autumn so far, but the weather could snap cold anytime.
The family car appeared
at the far end of the paved driveway, coming back toward the house. The
driveway curved past the main public barn, as well as the smaller private barn—where
they housed other people’s horses—and the practice arena, before ending in the
private family lot. Mom parked her red station wagon in its usual spot.
His three favorite women
climbed out of the car, along with a fourth, unexpected face. He didn’t know
Angel Garrett very well. The young stable hand showed up at the house for dinner
most nights because his apartment only had a hot plate, but he always ate in
the kitchen instead of the family dining room. He lived on the property, had
worked for his parents for three years, and mostly kept to himself. For some
reason, seeing Angel get out of his mother’s car wearing pressed slacks and a
button-up dress shirt surprised him. He wouldn’t have pegged the kid as the
church-going type.
Then again, what did he
actually know about Angel?
Angel said something to
Mom, then strolled off toward the garage where his apartment was. Caleb had
lived in that tiny apartment before meeting Polly. The two had moved into their
own new house on the northwest side of the property last month—an engagement
gift from Mom and Dad. Abby had lived in the apartment before that, giving it up
for marriage and four kids. Ethan had joined the Army before he could be
offered the apartment’s moderate amount of privacy. And even if Angel wasn’t
living there, Ethan could never have managed that long flight of stairs in his
present condition.
Mom and Jillian went
inside through the kitchen door on the side of the house, but Sarah bounced
around to the front porch.
Ethan saw her coming and
paused his book. “Hey, chicklet, how was
church?”
“It was okay. We didn’t
have kids’ church because the choir sang today. They sang a lot of songs, and
then Pastor Jameson talked for a while. He talks to the grownups, though, so I
didn’t like it much.”
“I don’t like it much,
either. That’s why I don’t go.”
“Mommy says I have to go
until I’m fourteen. Then I can choose if I want to go, and I probably won’t.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t go. I’d rather
stay here with you.”
Ethan wanted to tell her that
in six years he might not be here anymore, so she shouldn’t use him as an excuse.
Instead, he said, “Well, I think it’s good that you go. I know your mommy likes
it, and church is good for kids.”
Sarah scowled. “Then how
come none of my cousins have to go?”
“You know what? You
should ask Aunt Abby and Uncle Benny the next time you see them.”
“Okay.”
His siblings were going
to love him for that. Abigail was the eldest of the five Shockley kids, and she
had four children of her own, ages fourteen to five, with her husband Mark.
They lived in a big house on the north side of the property. A path through the
woods connected their home to the main farmhouse, as well as the house where
his eldest brother Benny and his family lived. Benny and Lesley’s two sons,
Doug and Zack, were eight and ten, and they were hell beasts on a good day.
Ethan tended to gravitate to the porch when they were inside, because their
voices grated on his nerves like sandpaper.
He was a little scared of
the offspring that Caleb and Polly were likely to produce.
What had once been a
constant barrage of “When are you going to settle down and have kids, Ethan?”
had dried up to a mere trickle this past year, and Ethan was glad of it. Mom
and Jillian were the only two people in the family who knew he was gay, and
they’d subtly gotten the rest to back off.
“What book are you
hearing?” Sarah asked.
“The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about a young man
who wants to be a special guard for the king of France, and he ends up having a
lot of adventures.”
“Adventures like you had?”
Ethan’s pulse jumped.
Sarah only had a vague idea of what it meant to be in the Army, and he’d
explained it as far as “we went overseas to protect innocent people.” She didn’t
need to know anything else until she was older. “Something like that, yeah.”
“Neat.”
“Sarah!” Jillian’s call
from inside the house startled them both. “Please come inside and change into
your play clothes!”
Sarah giggled, then
scampered in through the front door. Ethan un-paused his book.
When his bladder and butt
demanded he get up and move around, he left his iPod on the swing and crutched
into the downstairs bathroom. He avoided the kitchen, where the sweet scent of
cooking hamburgers made his stomach roll unpleasantly. He retreated to the
fresh air of the porch, determined to take a short walk. The five steps down from
the porch to the front yard took some careful maneuvering, but he managed it
without breaking a sweat or having a dizzy spell, so he counted that as a win.
Dad had offered several times to build a ramp, but Ethan didn’t want him to go
to all that trouble. His leg would heal eventually.
His head was another
story.
Dad’s pickup truck rumbled
up the driveway with Dad and Benny in the cab and Ethan’s nephews standing up
in the back. He waited for the truck to park next to Mom’s car, then hobbled
over.
“We caught fish,” Zack
announced. He leapt out of the back with a white pickle bucket in both hands.
Water sloshed out, and something inside thrashed. “We caught four fish to eat
for lunch.”
Ethan checked out the
four black crappies. “Nice haul. Who caught them?”
“I did,” Zack and Doug
said at the same time.
Doug bounced over to join
his big brother. “I caught one. That one right there.”
Ethan had no idea which
fish Doug was pointing at. “That’s a nice one, pal. Great job.”
“I caught the other three,”
Zack said, puffing up his chest.
“So that means Dad and
Paps were slacking, huh?”
Benny flipped him the
bird over his kids’ heads. Paps chuckled while he gathered up the poles from
the truck bed. William Shockley’s four sons looked exactly like him: light
brown hair with shades of blond, dark green eyes, long noses, sharp cheekbones.
Zack, Doug, and his niece Dana had inherited those looks to a T. Only Abigail
and her other three kids had Ruth Shockley’s dark brown hair and brown eyes.
“You better get those
fish to Gram fast, because she’s already cooking hamburgers for lunch,” Ethan
said.
Doug and Zack raced off
with their catch, and moments later the kitchen door slammed.
“How’s the leg today,
son?” Dad asked. A familiar, repeated question.
“Hurts less than
yesterday,” was Ethan’s canned response. It wasn’t always true, but today he
could say it honestly.
“Sleep last night?”
“Some.”
“Good. Sleep helps bones
heal faster.”
Ethan didn’t know if that
was true, but it helped his dad to say it, so he accepted it. Dad never seemed
to know what to do with his two youngest sons. Growing up, Ethan had never
shown the same interest in horses as his two eldest brothers. Daniel, who was barely
a year older, had even less use for the horses, and he’d gotten into a lot of
trouble in high school, going so far as to get suspended twice during Ethan’s
junior year. Daniel had nearly been held back his senior year, but some last minute
power-studying with help from Ethan and Jillian—who’d dated Daniel since they
were fifteen—had helped him graduate.
Sometimes Ethan missed
how close he and Daniel used to be, before high school complicated things. And
then Ethan enlisted, Daniel started drinking, and they each ended up in very
different kinds of prisons. Daniel’s was physical, while Ethan’s was emotional.
Benny and Dad carried the
fishing equipment into the garage behind the house. Doug and Zack raced back
out of the kitchen with their bucket, yelling about cleaning them so Gram could
cook them.
Ethan hobbled in the
opposite direction. If hamburgers made him queasy, he was pretty sure frying
fish would give him dry heaves.
He ended up outside the
roofed arena most often used for dressage competitions. Angel was near the
middle of the arena, raking out the sand. Even on Sunday, when everyone else
took the morning off, the kid was working. Although maybe “kid” was unfair.
From a distance he looked eighteen, but Mom said that Angel was twenty-four. Up
close—on the few occasions he’d seen Angel up close—Ethan saw the faded scars
and worry lines of someone who’d lived hard over a short number of years.
Angel’s lean shape
blurred out of focus briefly. Ethan blinked a few times, then moved to sit on
the first row of built-in bleachers. He’d been standing for too long. His
vision cleared after a few minutes off his feet, only to be filled by a
sweating bottle of water.
He looked past the bottle
at Angel’s concerned frown.
“I d-d-didn’t open it.”
Strange thing to say, but
okay. Ethan took the bottle. “Thanks.”
“You okay, s-s-sir?”
“Just a little tired.” He
twisted off the cap. “And you don’t have to call me sir. Makes me feel like I’m
still in the Army.”
“S-s-sorry.”
Ethan drank the water in
small sips, waiting for each to settle before adding more, until he’d managed
about half of the sixteen ounces. His audience hadn’t left. “You must be more
bored than I am if you’re standing there watching me drink water.”
Angel’s cheeks darkened. “Apologies.
Ruth asked me to keep an eye on you when you’re about. S-s-says you get
d-d-dizzy s-s-spells.”
“Oh.” Everyone in the
family knew about his post-concussive syndrome, so why not the hired help? “Thanks,
I guess.”
“You’re n-n-not mad?”
“Why would I be mad?”
Angel shrugged, clearly
out of his element and unsure how to extricate himself from the conversation.
He had a bashful cuteness about him, if only he’d smile. His curly brown hair
had streaks of gold, likely from time spent in the sun, and his dark brown eyes
were haunted with more things than Ethan dared ask about. Another ten pounds on
him wouldn’t hurt, either.
Twenty-four going on
sixty.
“What?” Angel asked. He
touched his cheeks like he expected to find something clinging to his tanned
skin.
“Nothing. Sorry.” He
should probably excuse himself, but he was in the unique position of having a
conversation with the reticent stable hand. Perfect time to ask a few
questions. “Is Angel your real name?”
“N-n-no. It’s Matthew.”
“Where did Angel come
from?”
“My grandmother. She
d-d-died when I was ten.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Angel shrugged. “It was a
long time ago. Cancer.”
“Mom had cancer. Breast
cancer. She’s been in remission for almost five years.” After months of chemo,
a double mastectomy, and a lot of prayers from a son who rarely saw a reason to
speak to God.
“She told me. She’s very
brave.”
“Yeah, she is.”
“You took care of her
while she was s-s-sick.”
Ethan tilted his head up
to study Angel more closely. Mom didn’t talk about her illness very often, and
it surprised him that Angel knew so much about an event that occurred two years
before he came to the stables. She obviously liked him. She’d always had a
special place in her heart for down-on-their-luck strays. Dad had once said
that she insisted they hire Angel, even though he had no experience with
horses. Mom used to say you could see someone’s heart in their eyes.
He tried to study Angel’s
eyes more closely, but Angel was looking at the ground.
“Mom needed someone here,
and I could take the time off,” Ethan said.
“You have s-s-siblings.”
Angel sounded oddly frustrated.
“They have their own
families, and they had to keep the stables running.”
“You gave up your life to
help her.”
“It wasn’t much of a life,
trust me.”
Angel’s gaze flickered
briefly toward him. “It was very s-s-selfless.”
“Family comes first,
right?” He glared at his cast. “Maybe if I’d stayed, I wouldn’t be such a mess
right now.”
“You think you’re a mess?”
“You don’t? My tibia has
a spiral fracture that’s taking forever to heal. The Post Concussive Syndrome
makes getting dressed in the morning an Olympic event and eating a trip to the
fifth level of hell. I’ve not slept a solid night since the accident, and now I’m
unloading all my bullshit onto a near stranger. Sorry.”
“D-d-don’t apologize. I’m
a good listener.”
“Well, if you’re going to
listen, can you sit down? You’re straining my neck.”
Angel perched on the edge
of the bleacher next to him, keeping a very deliberate three feet between them.
His gaze stayed on the sand, as if looking Ethan in the eye was grounds for termination.
Something had happened to this kid to put so much fear into him, and the idea
of anyone hurting Angel lit a strange, unexpected burn in Ethan’s chest.
“Did you grow up around
here?” Ethan asked.
“Hereabouts.”
Not much of an answer.
The Shockley property was in southern Delaware, which made “hereabouts” pretty
much the entire Delmarva peninsula. “You have any family in the area?”
Angel shook his head. “N-n-not
alive.” He squinted at Ethan, almost making eye contact. “They d-d-didn’t tell
you about me?”
“Apparently not.
Something I should know?”
“Hey, there you are.” Benny
ambled into the arena, hands deep in the pockets of his cargo pants. “Mom sent
me to tell you lunch is almost ready.”
Lunch. Another exercise
in gag reflex control. “Thanks.” To Angel, he asked, “You coming up? They
caught some crappies at the pond.”
“N-n-no, thank you,”
Angel said. He retreated from the bleacher and picked up his abandoned rake. “I
have work to d-d—finish.”
“Thanks for the water.”
“You’re welcome.”
Angel wandered to a
different part of the arena and continued to rake out the sand. Ethan stood and
tucked the half-empty water bottle into the waist of his sweatpants, and then
followed Benny toward the house.
“Making friends with the
stray dog?” Benny asked. The comment was unusually cruel, and almost made Ethan
stumble. Benny didn’t like Angel, that much was clear, but why not? The kid
seemed harmless enough.
“Some new stable rule
about the owners not being allowed to talk to the hired hands?”
“Mom didn’t tell you?”
“Obviously not.”
Benny spared a disgusted
glance behind him, directed at the arena. “Our so-called Angel? Watch your back
around him, bro. He went to prison for killing a guy.”
Chapter Three
Angel worked the tines of
the rake through the loose sand in a careful forward/back rhythm that helped
focus his thoughts. Nothing mattered except preparing the arena for the next
round of dressage practice, which was on the schedule for three p.m. He’d meant
to finish it last night before bed, but he’d gotten lost in his latest book and
forgotten until morning.
The mistake had been both
fortuitous and torturous. Fortuitous in that he’d managed an entire
conversation with Ethaniel Shockley. Torturous for the exact same reason.
He’d first seen Ethaniel
three years ago in the family photos lining the walls of the Shockleys’ den.
Angel had walked into Pine Creek Methodist Church that Sunday on a whim,
needing something more in his life than filling out job applications and
avoiding fights at the halfway house. He’d prayed for peace, and in response
God sent him Ruth Shockley.
Ruth had struck up a
conversation with him after that Sunday’s service, claiming she’d heard him
singing the hymns in the row ahead of her and had been struck by the beauty of
his voice. Angel had never considered his voice anything special, but the
compliment endeared the older woman to him. And he’d opened up, surprising both
of them with his bluntness. He was on parole, living in a horrible group home,
and he needed a job so he could get out of there.
She’d driven him to
Shockley Stables for lunch, introduced him to her husband William, and they’d
hired him to muck stalls and feed the horses. All in five hours’ time.
For three long years in
prison, Angel thought God had abandoned him. That Sunday afternoon, over a
lunch of pot roast sandwiches, he’d thought maybe God gave a damn again.
Within a week, he’d met
all of the Shockley children, the children’s respective spouses, and the
grandchildren—everyone except Ethaniel, who lived in Pennsylvania and only
visited on holidays. Ethaniel, who was handsome and fit and carried a familiar,
haunted shadow everywhere he went. Angel was smitten from the moment he saw
Ethaniel that first Christmas, admiring him from a distance, and he’d made it his
mission to stay far, far away from the youngest Shockley son.
Someone like Ethaniel
would never want anyone as damaged and dirty as Angel Garrett, so he took the
conversation they’d had and locked it up tight inside of his heart. He’d bring
it out later and replay it, maybe pretend Ethaniel was actually his friend, and
they were jawing as friends did over silly things like the weather and a couple
of crappies.
He’d protect their
conversation from spoilage, because sooner or later, Ethaniel would know what
he’d done. He’d know and he would look at Angel the way the rest of the
Shockley kids looked at him—with disdain and distrust. No one trusted an ex-con,
especially one who’d served time for killing a man.
Bless Ruth, William, and
the stable manager Russ Hanlon for keeping his other secret.
Angel lost himself in
raking the arena, spending far too much time perfecting the smoothness of the
ground that would be trodden down and kicked up in only a few hours. This sort
of busy work relaxed him. It gave him something to focus on besides the
constant soundtrack of regret and pain that screeched through his mind. He
finished his task with pleasantly weary arms and a slightly sore back.
Perfect.
He returned the rake to
the work shed near the arena. They had a few lessons on the books for today,
and he needed to make sure he wasn’t needed on-hand for any of them—which meant
walking down to the public barn where the office was. He circled behind the
private barn in order to keep out of sight of the riders who’d shown up to
check on their prize horses. He didn’t like speaking to the people who boarded
their horses. Not because he disliked them or was afraid of them. He gave very
little thought to who they were outside of these acres of land and pasture, so
long as they treated their horses good. Mostly he avoided contact in order to
avoid The Look.
The Look: He’s the one who killed his momma’s
boyfriend.
The Look: He went away for three years for beating
that man to death.
The Look: You know someone made that kid their bitch.
He probably liked it, too.
Angel had had enough of
The Look.
“Hey! Hey, with the blue
shirt!”
The feminine voice
startled him into stopping. He’d reached the corner of the private barn and had
twenty feet of walking to get to the safety of the other barn, but the voice
was speaking to him. He was wearing his blue Shockley Stables polo like he
always did when performing official stables tasks, even if he was technically
off the clock. A clean white tee was waiting for him on his bed for when he was
no longer at work.
Angel turned and blinked at
a pair of big brown eyes. He stumbled backward several steps, heart tripping,
amazed the girl had gotten so close without him noticing. She was slim, blonde
hair pulled back into a thick bun at the nape of her neck, dressed in expensive
riding clothes, a hat clutched in one hand. Maybe seventeen, with a cocked hip
full of attitude.
With his pulse racing and
his personal space invaded, he choked getting the words out. “Can I help you,
M-m-miss?”
She couldn’t hide The
Look: Oh great, I’m asking questions of a
moron.
“You work here, right?”
she asked.
Angel glanced down at his
shirt. Maybe he wasn’t the moron in the conversation. “Yes.”
“Awesome. Do you know
where I can find Caleb Shockley? I’m supposed to have a riding lesson, like,
five minutes ago, and I can’t find anyone.”
“D-d-did you check the
office?”
“Duh.”
“He may s-s-still be at
the house. I c-c-can check.”
“Great, thanks. I’ll be
with my horse.”
“Your n-n-name?”
“Jennifer Rosen.”
Angel walked past
Jennifer, adjusting his course to head back to the main house via the driveway.
He would have preferred sticking to his less visible routes, but he didn’t want
to miss Caleb if he passed him. A familiar shape was lounging on the porch
swing, eyes closed, earbuds in. Angel’s palms went instantly sweaty.
Ethaniel.
He paused at the bottom
of the stairs and waited, hating the idea of disturbing the sleeping man. If Angel
stood there long enough, maybe Caleb would come outside and save him the task
of knocking. Ethaniel looked so peaceful, so relaxed. On the few occasions
Angel saw him around the farm, he always seemed agitated. Exhausted.
True peace was a rare
thing.
Angel counted to sixty,
giving Ethaniel another minute of fleeting peace, but he had a job to do.
He ascended the five wood
steps to the porch as quietly as possible. Shuffled across the time-worn boards
to the front door and raised his hand to knock.
Pain exploded in his left
calf, and then he was on the ground. The back of his head cracked off the wood.
He raised both hands over his face, knees curling in tight to protect his
midsection, anticipating the next blow, needing to guard his head. Fear and
adrenaline surged through him, making his hands shake, but he didn’t put them
down.
“Jesus Christ. Angel? Shit,
I’m sorry. Angel?”
A soft, repentant voice.
Not the growl of an enemy or the snarl of a predator. Angel peeked through
splayed fingers, still not completely certain who he’d see or what had hit him.
A crutch lay on the porch
between him and Ethaniel, who was sitting on the ground near the swing, an arm outstretched
in his direction. Ethaniel’s face was red, his breath coming in short
pants—surprise, pain, he wasn’t sure. Angel couldn’t make the scene come
together.
“Ethan?” Ruth’s voice,
from inside. “What happened? Did you—oh my.”
The screen door squealed
open. Angel lowered his hands and blinked up at Ruth, who was looking back and
forth between them like she didn’t know who to help first. A bit of flour was
smeared on the front of her green dress—a faded, casual thing she kept for
Sunday only. Every other day of the week she was out in the stables in jeans
and a polo, like the rest of her employees.
“My fault, Mom,” Ethaniel
said.
“What happened?”
Angel hauled himself into
a sitting position, then poked at the back of his head. No skin breaks. Thank
fuck. “N-n-no, my fault.”
“No, it was me.” Ethaniel
flinched. “I overreacted. I knew someone was close by, but they weren’t making
much noise. I just…I reacted. I’m sorry I hit you, Angel.”
“You hit him?” Ruth
glared at her son, then crouched in front of Angel. “Are you bleeding?”
“N-n-no, ma’am,” Angel
said. “Hit my ankle, is all.”
“With the crutch,” Ethaniel
said.
Lashing out with the
crutch had made Ethaniel fall off the swing. “Are you okay, s-s-sir?”
“Well, I definitely
embarrassed myself.”
“Your leg?”
Ethaniel’s eyebrows
jumped, like he was surprised by the concern. “Gave it a good jolt, but I think
my ass hurts more.”
“Well, why don’t you both
get up off the floor and sit properly,” Ruth said. “I’ll get you boys some iced
tea.”
Angel scrambled up. His
ankle smarted a bit from the blow, but he’d survived far worse. Ruth had
already gone inside, and Ethaniel was staring helplessly at the swing behind
him. “Help you?” Angel asked.
“Why not? I’m only the jerk
who knocked you onto your ass.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Ethaniel’s dark green
eyes flickered toward him, then away. Angel ignored the odd way that made him
feel inside—like Ethaniel was scared of him, but curious at the same time.
Angel saw that particular Look less frequently than the others.
He hitched his forearms under
Ethaniel’s pits. Once Ethaniel got his left leg beneath him, Angel lifted.
Ethaniel levered with his good leg, and they got him into the swing. Angel
grabbed the chain to steady it while Ethaniel settled his cast on the cushion.
“Thanks,” Ethaniel said. “And
I am sorry about hitting you like that.”
“You were s-s-startled.
My fault.”
“No, it really was mine.
If I’d opened my eyes and looked, instead of reacting like I was back in—”
Something darkened his eyes, and he stopped talking.
Afghanistan. War.
Hell.
Angel knew a thing or two
about jumping at ghosts.
“I’m not hurt,” Angel
said.
“Good.”
Ruth bustled back onto
the porch with two tall glasses of iced tea. “Angel, why don’t you sit and rest
a minute?”
“Can’t, ma’am.” He’d had
a reason for coming to the house. “Caleb has a lesson. Jennifer Rosen is
looking for him.”
“Oh that boy.” Ruth
handed off the teas, then stormed back into the house, hollering for her son.
Ethaniel grunted. “Caleb
will be lucky to be on time to his own wedding.”
Angel had no response,
other than to agree, which might be seen as rude. He wasn’t a member of the
Shockley family, and he had no reason to think Ethaniel would appreciate jokes
at his brother’s expense. So he remained silent, cold tea in one hand, his back
straight, shoulders tense. He wanted to leave now that his task was finished,
but Ruth had given him tea and leaving it untouched definitely was rude, and he’d never purposely do
something to upset her. She’d only ever been kind to him.
The screen door burst
open and Caleb jogged out, down the steps, toward the driveway. Angel watched
him go, amused at his fumbling haste, then sipped his tea. Too sweet for him,
but this was Ruth’s house and her pitcher of iced tea, so he wouldn’t complain.
Considering his life before coming to Shockley Stables, he had very little to
complain about.
“You can sit, you know.”
He blinked at Ethaniel,
confused by the statement. Of course he could sit. He was fully capable—oh.
Ethaniel was pointing at the wicker chair near the swing. “I can’t s-s-stay.”
“Why not? You aren’t
working this afternoon, are you?”
“N-n-no.”
“You got someplace to be?”
“No.”
“Good, then you can keep
me company a while. All I do is sit around and listen to audiobooks, so you’ll
shake up my day a little bit.”
“You don’t mind?”
Ethaniel smiled, showing
off a dimple in his left cheek. “I invited you, didn’t I?”
“Your brothers d-d-don’t
like me n-n-near the house.”
“You eat here almost every
day.”
“And then I go.”
His smile dimmed. “Caleb
and Benny give you shit?”
“It’s their land.” Angel
could take dirty looks and the occasional insult. Child’s play, really. He’d
survived worse than two privileged horse breeders and their rude comments. And
he might as well make sure Ethaniel had no illusions about Angel’s past. “And I’m
a convicted killer their mother hired and let live in her garage.”
Ethaniel’s eyes narrowed
over his tea glass. “You in any danger of killing again?”
An angry burn settled in
Angel’s chest, and he gripped his glass tight enough to make his knuckles ache.
“No, sir. N-n-not unless I’m pushed again.”
“Pushed.” Ethaniel said
the word like he was trying it out, unsure what it sounded like on his own
tongue. The thoughtfulness confused Angel. “Benny told me you were in jail for
killing someone, but not why.”
“Prison.”
“Sorry?”
“I was in prison. Jail is
d-d-different.” Most people didn’t know that, and a deep shudder tore down his
spine. The few weeks he’d spent in jail between his arrest, arraignment and
eventual sentencing—the court system moved much faster when you pled
guilty—were a holiday at the beach compared to the harsh realities of life in a
state prison.
“Okay, prison then,”
Ethaniel said. “What happened?”
His heart sped up and his
brain fumbled. “My mother’s boyfriend was beating her. N-n-not for the first
time, but this time with a bottle. She was s-s-screaming. Bleeding. I grabbed a
bat and hit him. Twice.”
The entire experience had
lasted only a few minutes, but the build-up had taken months. At first, Angel
had kind of liked Shawn. Shawn hadn’t been an addict of any kind, unlike Angel’s
mother, who was on and off heroin, and then meth for years. Shawn had kept her
straight for a while. And then Angel turned eighteen, Shawn kicked him out, and
his mother started showing up with bruises. A lot of bruises.
Angel had always been
thin and underfed—par for his existence as extra baggage when his mother was
using, and as another mouth in crowded group homes when she tried rehab again.
And again. And again. He possessed no real feelings of love for his mother
anymore, but he’d loved her once. Loved her enough to protect her from the man
who was beating her on a daily basis.
He’d stopped loving her
when she refused to testify in his defense. She was too angry that her lover
was dead and she had nowhere to live.
“Even if you go to prison, you’ll have a bed and three meals a day.
What the fuck do I have now, huh? What? What about me?”
Always, always, it was
what about her? Her lack of support was why he’d pled guilty. He’d done it,
after all, and he would do it again to protect her even though she’d never
lifted a finger for him. In Delaware, manslaughter was a Class B felony that
carried a sentence anywhere from two to twenty-five years. The judge in his
case had been sympathetic enough to Angel’s past to give him a fairly light
sentence, considering a man was dead.
A worthless piece of
abusive garbage, but still a man.
“You got manslaughter?”
Ethaniel asked.
“Yes. S-s-served three
years. Finished my parole this s-s-pring.”
“Free man.”
“No.” Angel shook his
head. “N-n-never free.”
“I hear you.” Ethaniel’s
voice softened, hinting at the demons he probably carried from his days in
Afghanistan.
Angel could never pretend
to understand that sort of pain.
They didn’t talk for a
while. Angel sipped his tea, hoping to stomach about half before making his
excuses. But the longer he stood there, the more he wanted to stay. Ethaniel
was kind to him, like Ruth and William and Russ. And Jillian, to some degree,
even though she told him to stay away from Sarah. The others looked at him like
the hired hand he was, and they didn’t let him forget his place.
He didn’t want to stay
long enough for one of them to shoo him off.
“I should go.” Angel put
his glass on the porch railing.
“Sure.” Ethaniel put the
earbuds back in. “Stop by whenever. I’m here most days.”
Angel didn’t respond.
Ethaniel probably didn’t mean it. He was saying it to be polite. He’d already
been extraordinarily polite, given their circumstances. Ethaniel owed Angel
nothing, not even a conversation.
So why did Angel walk
away feeling like he’d done Ethaniel some kind of favor?
(c) 2016
