Danger, Sweetheart (17 page)

“He's a douche. That's his dilemma.”

“He
was
unpleasant,” Blake agreed. “And that was before his unfortunate assumptions about you.”

She groaned. It was all still so vivid. She'd need a lot of booze to start repressing the afternoon. “Is there anything more annoying than a well-meaning racist?”

“A comic-book villain, perhaps? He was so over-the-top. It wasn't unlike watching a play. I kept waiting for him to twirl his moustache while tying a widow to train tracks because she wouldn't sell the family farm.”

Natalie felt her eyes widen and shouted before she could suck it back. “Hey!”

He flinched and looked around as if for an attacker. “What? What?”

She calmed herself; poor guy had no idea.

(poor guy? he was Vegas Douche not so long ago, ya big softie)

“Blake, I'm sorry to yell, but you can't go around saying stuff like that.”

“I've offended you?”

“No, but … look, just … don't talk about Garrett's great-grandfather like that. It's not just because he's still upset about it; it's just generally regarded as not cool to bring up. Guy's got enough problems without having to live down what his ancestor did.”

“Wait. What?” Blake sat back on the bales as if worried his legs would quit. “Are you— That
happened
?”

“Of course it happened. Where do you think villain stereotypes come from?”

“No, come on.” She could see him struggling with the concept. “His great-grandfather was Snidely Whiplash?”

“Shhh. And yes. That's why even when they were trendy, no one in his family would ever wear a cape or a top hat, or grow a moustache.”

“When were capes and top—”

She kept going; it was important that Blake internalized this. “That's like the Holocaust to his family. Which is ironic, because they're all Holocaust deniers. But it's the one aspect of his awfulness that's not to be made fun of.”

“I'm never going to understand this place, am I?”

She shrugged. “That's up to you.”

“I'm not sure it is.”

She shrugged again—
what to say to that, really?
—then handed him the small bottle she'd grabbed on her way out the door …
when? Ten minutes ago? Felt like longer.
Blake glanced down at it, puzzled, then looked up at her and smiled.
God, that smile. Nnfff.

“I know Margaret of Anjou likes cinnamon on her apples. Thought I'd save you a trip.”

“You're very kind,” was his careful reply, but that
smile.
Like she'd just done the smartest, coolest thing ever. Like she wasn't a lying, deceitful sneak.

“I'm not. I'm not kind, Blake.” And she dreaded the day he'd find out, and hated the dread.

 

Twenty-one

Over an hour after she'd called it a day (twenty-first century or not, there was only so much work you could do on a farm once the sun was down) she was spreading butter and brown sugar over a piece of
lefsa,
*
then rolling it into something resembling a delicious cigar and wolfing half of it in one bite.
Oh,
lefsa.
You take so little, and give so much.
It needed cinnamon, which was too bad because—

Oh. Blake.
As if reading her mind, Larry and Harry, who were sitting at the kitchen table playing poker (online, not with each other, fallout from the Deuces Wild Incident of 2013), were discussing him, unless Vegas Douche was the nickname of yet another wealthy, jaded stranger from Vegas who hung around Heartbreak for reasons known only to him and maybe two others.

“Vegas Douche hasn't quit.”

Larry scratched his chin. He hardly ever had stubble, only freckles that went with his pale skin and carrot-colored hair, but he never gave up trying. “Nope. He hasn't.”

“Might not.”

“Yep.”

“Might die.”

“Risk I'm willing to take.” Larry rose, then looked up to see Natalie's gaze on him. “What? I didn't say I wouldn't feel bad for the guy. I would. A little. Jeez, I've known him less than a month. I don't haveta give the eulogy.”

“He's not dead yet!” she almost shouted.
This.
This was what happened when she stopped going to the bank and went to Heartbreak instead. She ended up liking a city guy and snapping at someone she'd known since third grade.

“Yeah, but when he
does
die! Someone else will have to do the eulogy!”

Harry, still playing poker on his phone, called his opponent's bluff, then looked up and rejoined the conversation. “Any idea how long he's sticking around?”

“If he knew,” Natalie replied, absently wondering where Blake even was, “we'd know.”

“He knows the town's going belly-up, right? So why hang around?”

“To help it maybe not go belly-up?”

“How the hell's he gonna do that between mucking stalls?”

Natalie said nothing. Blake's wealth was a well-kept secret in town. She only knew because she'd seen the property paperwork in Shannah's name and the foreclosure paperwork with Blake's name. It was making Natalie nuts, knowing Blake could write a check at any time and … and—

Go on. Say it. Even if you know saying it out loud would taste like shit in your mouth.

—save them. But Vegas Douche saving them only solved the immediate problem. One or two checks couldn't fix two decades of an economic crapshoot. It was likely too late to stop Garrett's land deal, but even if they could somehow put the brakes on it, the original problem remained: What next?

So what?
What?

“They giving you shit down at the bank?” Harry asked. “Heard the boss is a real bitch.”

She snorted. She was the boss at Sweetheart Trust, which he well knew. Everyone but Blake knew. “Fun-
nee
.”

“All this because Shannah inherited those farms?” Larry asked. “She shows up; then a few weeks later Vegas Douche comes calling. And neither of them have left.”

“Weird,” Harry agreed. “Like the plot of a book or something, where at the end all the seemingly unrelated incidents end up being totally related.”

“A stupid book,” Natalie grumped. This wasn't fiction, dammit. It was her life. All their lives.

“It'd almost be interesting,” Larry allowed with a nod, “if interesting things happened in Sweetheart.”

Harry fiddled with his phone, indicating he needed two more cards from his online opponents. “This is all Jonathan Banaan's fault. He built Heartbreak, didn't quit, then had more Banaans. What a bastard!”

“He
was
a bastard, remember? His mom was the town librarian and she never got married after the Sam's Delicious Meats guy knocked her up.”

“Starting Heartbreak's long tradition of hot slutty librarians.”

It was true. Employees of the Heartbreak Public Library were absurdly hot. You practically had to clip a head shot to your résumé to get an interview over there.

“We're lucky we're not hip deep in Banaans,” Harry continued. “Raise. So there's that to be thankful for, I guess.”

Not being hip deep in them, it could be argued, is a huuuge part of the problem.
But no point in discussing it at this late date.

“Guess so,” Larry agreed while Natalie nodded. If only Shannah's family had died, none of this would be happening. But they hadn't died. It was a lot worse than that.

“Call,” Harry said.

“Ha!” Larry was squeezing his phone so hard his knuckles were white. “Got this guy on the run.” Natalie glanced at his hand, then walked around the table to check Gary's.

“Um…”

“What?” Harry snapped.

“Guys, I think—”

“Go away, Nat,” Larry ordered. “I'm about to sink this jagoff for trying to buy the pot.”

“I am not!” Gary snapped back. “I don't— Wait.”

Natalie started for the back door. She hadn't been present for the Deuces Wild Incident of 2013, but it had become legend within hours. She had no interest in witnessing the next iteration.

“Wait, what's your hand?”

“Three threes.”

“Goddammit! I'm playing you online, aren't I?”

“Are you CowboyBaby Number One? Because if you are, then yeah.”

“My sister is CowboyBaby Number One and you know damned well I'm playing for her while she gets over the C-section for the twins! She's had a really tough time since the sheriff got amnesia!”

“It's retrograde amnesia, not anterograde! He'll be fine! And I knew you were playing, but how the hell would I know
her
online poker handle? Sweetheart isn't
that
small.”

“Sweetheart is incredibly small and you know it, you fourth-generation son of a bitch!”

She let the screen door swing shut, relieved to be on the other side. Let Gary and Larry work out (or not) their weird online poker flirting thing that everyone knew meant they wanted to bang but needed to fight the urge for at least eighteen more months, because
Brokeback Mountain
. She could not would not get involved; she had a nonexistent love life to fret over and a city guy to find.

Why d'you even care, Nat? You're not his keeper. He's probably sleeping or went to town or done any one of half a dozen things that aren't your concern.

She told her inner self to get bent, and pretended she wasn't getting a little worried about Vegas Douche.

 

Twenty-two

She found him absentmindedly slapping mosquitoes while reading to Margaret of Anjou. Warm light spilled from Main One, lending dim light to the corral. It was cloudless and the moon was nearly full, and distracted as she was, Natalie once again thanked God for the sight. There were places where you couldn't see the stars for all the artificial light. Blake had spent every night his first week walking around and gaping up at the sky. Twice she'd found him snoring in the tall grass near the tree line. Was that when she'd started finding him almost adorable?

He was leaning on one of the posts, reading something from his tablet the bugs found mighty interesting (though it could have been just the light). Margaret of Anjou was a dim, puffy shape at the far end of the corral.

“‘We are unique individuals with unique experiences,'
*
that's what it says here. “God knows you're unique, I'm reasonably certain, though you are my first pony. According to Gary, who can be helpful when he isn't tripping me with a rake handle or washing my Supertruck with the windows open, you are one of the most unpleasant creatures he has ever encountered. And a rather unpleasant creature like Gary would know.”

Natalie wanted to say something while hating to intrude, so hovered just out of his sight line, waiting for her moment.

“Which makes you a unique individual, to be sure. I wonder what happened to you? Were you made evil, or born evil? It raises the inevitable question of nature or nurture.” He paused to bat bugs away from the small glowing screen. “And I have to say, as unscientific as my opinion is, it
must
be nature. Because I am who I am, and Rake is who he is. If it were nurture, we would both be terrible. But it's nature, because only Rake is terrible.”

“What are you doing?” She blurted it without thinking and, startled, he dropped his tablet.
Oh, boy.
It was so dark out, she really hoped he hadn't dropped it in a pile of—

“Son of a
bitch
.”

“Maybe it's just mud?”

Blake groaned and stooped to pick up his tablet. “It hasn't rained for a week.”

“I'm sorry; I didn't mean to startle you.”

“And I didn't mean to be startled.” He sighed and used part of his shirtsleeve to rub it-wasn't-mud off the screen, which had of course fallen screen-side down.

“We were wondering where you were.”

“No.” He had turned his back on Margaret of Anjou to give Natalie his full attention, which was startling and far too thrilling. “
You
wondered. Why?”

Because I think of you all the time. And not like how I used to think about running you down with the tractor. I mean, I still think that, but lately you've been naked in that fantasy.

She ignored the question. “Come into the house. Harry made that thing you like.”

“Haricots verts with poached eggs and tarragon vinaigrette?”

“The other thing you like.”

“Bacon and Swiss chard pasta?”

“No, the other—for God's sake,” she said, laughing a little. “Of course you're a foodie.”

“Harry,” he replied, putting a hand over his heart while looking reverent, which made her laugh harder, “is a phenomenal cook. He told me he wept when they quit publishing
Gourmet.
And I believed him.”

“Yep. He did. On and off for a week.” She smirked, remembering. “His wife was confused and pissed, which is why she's now his ex-wife.”

“And you have a wonderful laugh.”

Pleased, she thanked him.

“It comes perilously close to being shrill, but it's redeemed by how your eyes get crinkly when you giggle.”

“Dammit! You just can't let a compliment be a compliment, can you?”

“You and my mother,” he sighed, “are of like mind.”

“Yeah, yeah.”
Weird. The thought of having something in common with Shannah Banaan. Disturbing.
“Time to quit. Let's go in.”

He'd been squinting at Natalie in the low light but nodded and came with her willingly enough. Halfway back to the house he cleared his throat.

“I am aware that on short acquaintance you dislike me,” he began, then paused. “Ah. Thank you for not disagreeing.”