A Gentle Rain Page 9

  All sharing one common theme.

  Small, hopeful daisies.

  Lily's odd adoration for that simple flower perplexed me. How sweet and innocent and ... sad.

  Mr. Darcy, who had been dozing atop the bed's headboard, hopped down and snuggled his head to mine. He made soothing little noises and gnawed at my nose with his beak. His tongue, stubby and dry, like sunbaked rubber, dabbed my skin. I stroked his feathers and wished macaws enjoyed a good hugging.

  I had found my birth parents and their protective mentor. He seemed a fine man, albeit brusque and sardonic. Their lives with him appeared stable, productive and content. Thanks to quirky coincidence, I had won the opportunity to be part of their lives.

  I had already helped them capture a pair of horse rustlers.

  Damned, thievin' varmints.

  And I might have found El Diablo.

  My heart raced at the possibility. I was a senior at Yale when El Diablo Americano, a bad-guy young rudo in the classic villain-hero melodrama of Mexican wrestling, died in a show-stopping grudge match broadcast live on networks across Mexico, Central and South America.

  I cried my eyes out. He could have been redeemed. At least in my view.

  If Ben Thocco were El Diablo Americano, finding him here, a full decade after his untimely death, would be a coup of weird fate and destiny and girlish fantasy.

  Yes, I felt alone in the strange new land of my beginnings.

  And yet strangely at home.

  Chapter 6

  Ben

  Talk about your force of nature. The last time a hurricane crossed over north Florida, we saw it comin' from days away. Summer forest fires? You spot `em miles before they reach your woods. Hell, even a tornado gives folks some warning.

  But not Karen.

  She took over my kitchen the first morning. That dawn I walked out of Joey's room, where I slept on a recliner to be close by when he needed help with his pills, his oxygen or getting to the bathroom, and there was Karen, runnin' my army like Patton kicki i' ass in Europe. Miriam, Lula and Lily went scurrying in every direction, following Karen's orders.

  "We're `organizing a system,"' Lily quoted. "That's what Karen says."

  "Stay out of our way, Ben," Miriam warned. "It's dog-eat-dog in here."

  Rhubarb hid under the table.

  "Coming through," said Lula, hurrying in from the side porch. She carried an old, blue-enamel coffee pot I'd been meaning to throw away because the spout was rusted out and the lid was gone-well, notgone, but nailed over a squirrel hole in the living room door. Now the coffee pot was full of yellow jonquils and a branch off a swamp azalea, covered in bright orange blooms. Lula set it in the middle of the kitchen table.

  "Is this an episode of HGTV?" I demanded. "I didn't order no decorator makeover."

  "I thought I'd make myselfuseful," Karen said. She straightened from the oven of my ancient gas stove. She held out a muffin pan. The aroma of banana muffins hit me and I forgot about everything else for a second.

  "Homemade muffins, from scratch," Miriam informed me, arranging knives and forks around the aging stoneware plates Lily was setting everso-slow on the picnic table. "Karen took your rotten bananas and turned `em into gold."

  "I had a good use for those rotten bananas," I said. "I just hadn't thought of it, yet."

  "Oh?" Karen asked, arching a red brow. "Raising nematodes? Cultivating a bacterial plantation?"

  She looked like an irate human strawberry. But I mean that in a good way. She was pink from the heat and wore a pink towel tucked into her hiking shorts. The towel was only pink because of the time when rust from the water heater got into the washing machine, but never mind. Her t-shirt was some clay-red earth color, and had a Wildlife Federation logo on it. I liked the way the shirt fit. She had some good muffins. "In a wellplanned ecological system, nothing goes to waste," she told me, stacking the muffins on a platter. "Would you like coffee?"

  "Only if it don't come with a lecture."

  "Agreed." She handed me a steaming mug. "How about frittatas as the main protein dish? You have enough eggs-excellent, fresh, homegrown, free-range eggs-"

  "My hens are so happy they live up to your standards."

  "-also some serviceable cheddar cheese. Also, making frittatas will give me an opportunity to quickly dispose of a hunk of processed ham product in your main refrigerator. I found some slightly dehydrated tomatoes and peppers in the pantry. They're beginning to resemble one another, but they'll do. For your information, frittatas are a type of-"

  "I know what they are."

  "What are they?" Lily asked, clutching a crockery plate to the bib of her denim jumper, like she was scared of dropping it. We didn't often use real plates, just paper. I guess our evil, paper-wasting days were over.

  "Kind of a fried egg pizza," I explained.

  "Pizza for breakfast?"

  "Pizza for breakfast?" Joey echoed, wheeling himself through a door and peering at us with bright eyes. "Yea!"

  Karen scowled at me. "A more apt description would be-"

  I jumped, sloshing coffee. Pecan crumbles fell on my head. I looked up. Karen's macaw sat on top of the freezer, eating nuts. She'd put newspapers under him to catch his dung, I guess, but not his nuts. He saw Joey and gave an ear-piercing whistle. Joey laughed then said in his best Elvis voice, "Thankyaverymuch."

  "Thankyaverymuch," the bird said back.

  I flicked a pecan at the macaw then wiped coffee off my t-shirt. "Look here, you big peck ... feathered thing, how'd you like to be turned into a pair of feathery, blue suede shoes?"

  Joey chortled at my little joke, but nobody else did. I glanced at Karen and she was looking at Lily kind of sad. Lily was setting the last plate on the table with the kind of inch-by-inch care a little kid might use, trying not to screw up.

  That's when I noticed how puffy Karen's eyes were. Whatever her history might be-nomad artist, my ass-it must give her plenty to cry about at night. When she caught me looking at her she went back on guard. All crisp business. "Miriam says you supervise the ranch chores before breakfast."

  "Yeah, well, if by `supervise,' you mean, `work like a sweaty mule alongside everybody else."'

  "Very admirable. Good. You can go about your sweaty, mulish chores, now. Everything's under control, here. Come back with the other hands in approximately forty-five minutes."

  "Are you kicking me out of my own kitchen?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm not leavin' without a muffin."

  She handed me one.

  Never screw with Patton in pink.

  I left.

  Kara

  Perhaps it was Ben Thocco's mix of gallantry, acerbic humor and courage. Or the kindness and respect with which he treated my birth parents. And yes, maybe it was the primitive, spine-tingling thrill ofwatching him elbow a man in the forehead in defense of my honor. Or all of the above, combined with the fact that he resembled Keanu Reeves with a heavy drawl and cowboy boots. But slightly hunkier, to coin a cheap phrase. A bit rougher around the edges. But in a good way.

  I kept trying to study his eyes and mouth without being obvious. Very difficult. El Diablo Americano had had dark eyes and full, strong lips. So did Ben.

  But so did a lot of men.

  Whether a fantasy from my past or a fantasy of my present, Ben Thocco was so unexpected, so primal, such an old-fashioned hero in a world of metrosexual relativity, that he made me deeply uncomfortable and suspicious of my feminine vulnerabilities, a complication I didn't need. So I, of course, became defensive around him immediately.

  I decided not to mention my El Diablo fetish.

  There are no easy routes to friendship between men and women, according to Jane Austen, and no unfamiliar ones, either. All the emotional dances are instinctively regimented, and all the sexual reactions predictable. I didn't want to be a romantic lemming.

  So I kept my infatuation to myself.

  It wasn't easy.

  As we finished breakfast-there was not a sp
eck of frittata or a muffin left, and lots of happy smiles all around the makeshift dining table-a cell phone played the opening bars of Under The Sea, from Disney's Little Mermaid. Miriam grunted as she fetched the phone from a pocket of her mermaid-adorned blouse. She listened, then handed the phone to Ben. "It's Sheriff Arnold."

  He put the phone to his ear. "Hi ya. What's up?" He listened. I didn't like the way his frown deepened. "I'll find out," he said. "Call ya back."

  Ben Thocco looked at me in away that made my skin prickle. "Yes?" I asked politely.

  "How come you're driving a stolen car?" he said.

  Mortification was too mild a word. I produced the purchase papers for my hot hatchback and hoped the local authorities could confirm I hadn't boosted the ten-year-old fuel-efficient vehicle from some senior citizen.

  Luckily, the used-car salesman in Atlanta vouched for me, though it seemed likely he had some vouching to do for himself, first, but at least he resolved my criminal status. Regardless, my car was a lost cause. It was now impounded as stolen goods. The hatchback might as well have been totaled in the encounter with the gray mare. Indeed, if it had been, I could have filed an insurance claim, at least.

  Stranded. Stranded in the wilds of central Florida. I was hardly worried and far too distracted to care about the car. Plus, it quickly became apparent that fate, despite Ben Thocco, was working in my favor.

  Ben

  I stood in the ranch house kitchen, surrounded by the Karen Johnson fan club. Miriam and Lily.

  "Ben, she ain't no car thief," Miriam said.

  "I didn't say she is."

  "Then how come you don't like her?"

  "Don't like her? Who says?" Problem was, I lilted her too much, without kaiowiig a damned thing about her. "Who said I don't like her? I just don't want to take her to raise, that's all. Y'all are tallcin' like she's a kitten we gotta adopt."

  Miriam grunted. "Did you take a good look at that pitiful pile of belongings she's got? She's got nothing but the clothes on her back and that weird harp and that big, weird bird. She says she was headed to the motel in Fountain Springs, but how come she's got a set of camping gear? She's like a gypsy or something. It's clear as a bell she hasn't got a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. She's got no money. And now she's got no car."

  Lily looked up at me like a worried hen. "And she's got no leather."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "No leather. Her ... her bags."

  "Luggage," Miriam interpreted. "She can't even afford decent tote bags or a real pocketbook, Ben. Didn't you notice all those crappy old cotton and macrame things of hers?"

  Lily nodded urgently. "She doesn't even have any plastic!"

  "Now look, ladies-"

  "And Ben, Ben-" Lily put her hands to her heart. "All she has to eat are Stuckey's pecan logs. I saw them."

  I rubbed my face and leaned on a kitchen chair. Grub hopped up on the table with a little gray lizard in his smiling kitty mouth. He dropped the lizard, and it skittered under a pile of paper napkins weighted with a river rock.

  Snakes in the storeroom, lizards on the table, money troubles, and Joey's future on my mind. The last thing I needed was a woman who didn't fit in, who wasn't likely to hang around for long and who might have a lot of baggage I didn't want added to my own burden. Plus I doubted she'd be interested in a few friendly hours of fornication in an un-air-conditioned cabin every Saturday night. I didn't want to get attached to her any more than I already was.

  Lily tugged my arm. "Please, Ben. She's somebody's poor baby. You can give Karen half of my paycheck every week. How much is that?"

  I patted her hand. "You keep your money. She's a grown woman, not a poor little baby. I know you got a soft heart, but this girl looks like she can take care of herself, to me. For one thing, she could sell that harp. It's probably worth more than her car."

  "Joey likes her," Lily said, "and so do I. And so do Mac and Miriam. And the gray mare."

  "Now, Lily-"

  "She's got nobody, I just know it, I can feel it. Please, Ben. She can keep right on staying with Mac and me. I bet she doesn't eat much."

  "Well, I don't know," Miriam said wryly. "She sure likes to cook. But I bet we can find plenty else for her to do around here, to earn her keep." Miriam arched a brow at me. "She's not hard to look at, Ben."

  Lily held my arm tighter. "She's so sad. Something bad must've happened to her, Ben."

  Aw, damn. Damn. Miriam waved a fresh toothpick at me. "What's the harm in offering?"

  "Lemme think on it." I walked out on the porch. Karen Johnson sat under a tree in the yard with her big blue macaw on the weathered back of a big wooden lawn chair. Mr. Darcy, what a name.

  He wasn't a bird you buy at a pet store; those big macaws are protected, so where'd she get him? Just one of many questions. She was deep in conversation with Joey, with her harp posed between her bare knees and her hands idly stroking the strings.

  Mac and all the other hands stood near Joey, watching her like she might be from some other planet. Dale looked on the verge of praying. Maybe Dale thought we were entertaining angels unaware, like the Bible says to do.

  I eased over to the scene, staying out of our angel's line of sight. Just listening.

  "What kind of music does a harp play?" Joey asked her.

  "The selections are endless. If it can be played on a guitar or other stringed instrument, it can be played on a harp. Bach wrote amazing concertos, etudes and sonatas for harp; Beethoven and Chopin created77

  "Can you play something by Elvis?"

  Pause. He's got you there, Red, I thought. But then she nodded. "Of course." She bent her head and lifted her hands to the strings. A few seconds later Joey-and everybody else except me-started grinning to a fast-plunked harp solo of Don't Be Cruel. When she finished, everybody applauded, and Joey whooped. He noticed me standing to one side. "Ben, Elvis is singing to us from heaven!"

  "I expect Elvis's idea of heaven is a peanut butter sandwich with bananas and fried bacon." I paused. "Rotten bananas."

  "Oh, ye of little faith," Karen Johnson said. She frowned up at me with her solemn blue eyes.

  "We need to talk."

  "Indeed."

  I jerked a thumb toward the creek. "Come to my office."

  Lilce I've said, the Little Hatchawatchee has a bridge across it from the main house. That bridge leads to the cabins and trailers where the hands lived. But I'd built a smaller footbridge downstream a ways. It was just wide enough for one person, and it only hopped across twenty feet of creek to a grassy island shaded by a live oak.

  The oak was so old it hunched over like a grandma trying to hug the little hummock of land where it stood. Its exposed roots curled down to the dark water and disappeared like the dark hands of raccoons feeling for crawdads in the creek muck. The island was just big enough for the tree and a wooden bench.

  Every time I sat on the bench, looking through the oak's curtain of branches and moss, I opened up my mind to a wide world of marsh and forest. Not a house in sight, not a road, just the way it must've looked to Pa's people before the white settlers came, and how it might even have looked a thousand years before that.

  "My office," I said, and pointed to the bench. "Have a seat. You're `company,' as we say around here. I'll stand."

  Karen Johnson didn't follow orders real well. She kept on standing alongside me, her eyes on the view. "Beautiful. Simply beautiful," she said. "To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, 'Beauty is a form of genius, and it makes princes of those who have it."'

  She looked at me, her eyes haunted and misty. "Go ahead and laugh at my quaintness. But you clearly love this land of yours. This beautiful ranch. And therefore, you're a prince."

  Looking at her, I felt a lot of things, but I can't say they were princely. "I like to quote Oscar the Grouch, myself. My brother's a fan of his."

  "I know how I sound. A bit pretentious. Even where I'm from, I'm considered somewhat melodramatic."

  "Around here we call that `
puttin' on airs."'

  "A bad thing."

  "Well, depends. I'm not makin' fun of you. I'm just guessing you made it farther than eighth grade."

  She blinked. "Well, yes."

  "I didn't. But I like to read. Guess that counts for something."

  "A reader is always a student of the world."

  She sounded sincere. I wanted her to be sincere, but I wasn't used to women taking my mind seriously. I shrugged. "Ainazin', the stuff you can pick up in comic books."

  She studied my Pollo-strangled neck. "You're getting a nasty bruise there. Does it hurt?"

  "Naw."

  "And your elbow? Surely it's suffering a few twinges from slamming into Inny Polio's Neanderthal forehead."

  "Only hurts when I laugh."

  "I appreciate what you did on my behalf, yesterday."

  "I didn't do much. Mac came to the rescue. He gets kinda frantic when females are threatened. In a better world, he'd be a knight, like you called him. Me? I just tidy up behind the elephant parade."

  "Can't you accept a simple compliment?"

  I looked down at her. Sunlight dappled her through the oak leaves. "Awright, it's straight-talk time. I run my business and I take care of my people. Don't flatter me for doing the right thing."

  "I have no reason to flatter you. But perhaps you don't realize you represent a rare brand of chivalry."

  "Yeah, well, that and a buck'll buy a cup of coffee. Not even gourmet coffee, just convenience-store coffee. You got anything you need to confess? Just between you and me."

  "I'm not a criminal."

  "That leaves a lot ofleeway. Let's go through the list. You're a college girl?"

  "Some years ago."

  "You got family?"

  "Yes.1)

  "Up north, Miss Hepburn?"

  4 'Yes."

  "You out of money?"