Kiss Me Hard Before You Go (2 page)

Evie ignored his last comment and asked, “What was all that shouting I heard?”

He sighed in annoyance. “I was yelling at them to get off our land.”

“Dumb kids would’ve left the minute you came out with a rifle. From what I heard upstairs, they didn’t leave until you pulled on the trigger and tripped over that pebble.”

“It was a rock, a really big rock, Smarty Pants,” he said.

Evie didn’t respond and tried to force a serious expression, but the more she fought it, her lips curled up into a wide grin. Gray was a notorious exaggerator. She knew that if she found the rock he tripped over, it would probably fit in the palm of her hand.

He changed the subject, “We’re gonna have a busy day today. That’s why I thought I’d cook for us.”

“We know how that always works out.” She smiled. She knew he was done discussing the matter so there was no need to bring it up again. “Busier than usual?” she asked.

Every single morning of her current adult life was filled with things to do. Since she graduated from high school just a couple of weeks before, her days were set: get up at the crack of dawn, make breakfast, work the farm, fix dinner, and then go to bed. Every day was routine, and she had a sinking feeling that her life would be like that for a very long time, possibly forever. This was the thought that kept her awake at night; it was also the thought that woke her in the mornings.

He shook his head while chewing on the bacon. He swallowed and then said, “The carnival is coming today.”

Evie sat back against the chair and let out a sigh. The carnival. Ugh. She knew it was coming, but just hearing him say it made her groan. She hated it when the carnival came— filling their farm with loads of tourists and out-of-towners, cigarette butts littering the grass for her to clean up, and the disgusting aroma of funnel cake and cotton candy. How could someone loathe such a sweet smell? Well, Evie could, because after smelling it summer after summer for ten straight years, she couldn’t stand the sight of it, much less the scent. To her it was a putrid mix of all the things she hated about the carnival. Why couldn’t her dad stick to farming like everyone else in town? That was a question she had asked herself most of her life, but Gray Barnes had the spirit of an entrepreneur.

He was raised to be a dairy farmer, just like his daddy was, and his daddy before him. And that’s what he was for a while. The Barnes Dairy Farm was a thriving business, but when the economy took a hit and big competitors dropped their prices to a point that Gray couldn’t compete, he settled on raising cattle, fattening them up before they could produce milk. It was a task he enjoyed doing – working with the heifers – and it was the one way he could continue to do what he knew best without losing his shirt. Gray had a strong head for business and dabbled in ventures any time he saw an opportunity. The carnival was one example of Gray’s flair for creativity when it came to using what was his biggest asset – his property.

In a town as small as Haines, South Carolina, Gray owned a majority of the land. Last count was five hundred acres of sprawling, fertile, precious land – the most picturesque and scenic in the entire area. Nestled near the interstate with views of the peaks and valleys of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Gray’s land was prime for development – for a shopping center or one of those neighborhoods with identical, cookie cutter style homes complete with a community pool. He had been solicited more than once by Nate McDaniels, the only other person in Haines who owned as much property as Gray, if not more. Some speculated that his records were flubbed with the county, and Gray in fact owned two acres more than the greedy tycoon, but according to public record, McDaniels owned five hundred and two acres of land. His wasn’t in an ideal location like Gray’s, and the views weren’t as majestic. Rumor had it that more than half of Nate’s land couldn’t even grow grass good enough to graze cattle on.

No way was Gray Barnes ever going to sell his land. It had been in the family for generations, and he wanted his only child, Evie, to inherit it. He just wasn’t so sure she was too keen on working with cattle; this was evident to him that at this point in her life, she wasn’t.

At the age of eighteen, the last thought on Evie Barnes’ mind was running her dad’s farm. She couldn’t think about her future – it was too mind boggling trying to decide what she wanted to do with her life. Not that she had very many choices in 1978. She could become a teacher, but only if she could scrounge enough money to go to college. She knew that was an impossible feat in their household. Gray earned enough to take care of them but not so much that he could afford an extravagance such as a college education. That left her with the choice of working as a secretary or running the farm with her dad until she got married and had kids. Having her fate sealed at such a young age scared the bejesus out of her.

This conversation had never been brought up with her father. He just assumed, everyone assumed, that she’d take over the family business once she settled down. Any man within the four adjoining counties would be so lucky – at least that’s what the people of Haines thought. For one, Evie wasn’t a sad sack of potatoes. She had golden sun-kissed hair, the kind seen in suntan lotion ads or hair commercials. California blond – the same color her mother had. And her eyes. She had her daddy’s sky blue eyes. When the light hit them just right, it was like looking into a clear mountain lake—a place anyone wouldn’t mind spending the rest of their life. Blond hair and blue eyes already made her seem more attractive than she really was. But Evie wasn’t ugly. She was a pretty girl – attractive enough for an Army guy to show all his pals a photo of her boasting that she was his girl. “Ain’t she a beauty?” he’d say, and they’d all agree because any doofus who wasn’t blind would in fact agree, Evie was easy on the eyes.

She knew it. A girl couldn’t go through life unaware that she was good looking if she was indeed good looking. But being pretty didn’t stop people from teasing her and treating her like she was a social outcast.

It didn’t help that she had a father who claimed to be a dairy farmer and opened his land up to carnival folk year after year. Whispers and shushes became more apparent each year. She noticed that when she’d walk into a room, voices would grow low, hushed tones were more evident. She knew what they were saying. Being pretty wasn’t going to stop them from talking about her or her dad. She’d just have to deal. She was the expert at dealing. She’d been dealt a bad hand in life and learned to handle that, so all the nasty gossip spread about her and her dad was easy in comparison to what she went through when she was a child.

She poured their coffee and proceeded to add cream and sugar to their mugs. They sipped and sat quietly while they ate their breakfast. The smell from the burnt toast still permeated the room. Evie got up to turn on the ceiling fan, hoping it’d help kill the odor.

“So, the carnival...” she started, trying not to sound like an angst-ridden teen while saying it. This was his deal – his baby, and it had been a part of their summer since she was eight years of age. Gray swore up and down that the carnival made them money. Evie knew there had to be some truth to that, otherwise, a smart business man like him wouldn’t allow it to continue. It brought in extra income, but never enough, not so much that they could take it easy and relax a little. That was simply out of the question.

Evie had never gone on a vacation. Sure she had traveled to North Carolina to visit Gray’s aunt, an older taciturn woman who wasn’t much for company, but that was the extent of her travels – one neighboring state and that was that. It was always a thought in the back of her mind – would she ever get to go anywhere in her life or was North Carolina the extent of her adventures?

“They’re coming later on this morning and setting up,” he said, taking a big gulp of his coffee. He patted his belly and smiled. “Good breakfast.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“It’s gonna be a good summer,” he said. He always said that – promising the moon and more without an inkling of how things were really going to go. The glass was always full in his eyes.

“Sure,” she agreed halfheartedly. How did she know if it was going to be good? Last time she checked, she’d be working the entire summer from dawn to dusk without a break.

They finished their breakfast, and Evie cleaned up. Gray was outside and had already begun to wrangle the cattle to the barn for feeding. It was time to get to work. She slipped into her muddy boots and shot out the door, ready for another day of hard labor.

Chapter 3

The window was rolled all the way down. A soft billowy breeze blew through the truck, and Finch took a whiff, smelling a fine-tuned bouquet of manure and flowers—a strange mix— but one common to the area. Cattle farms were prominent in this part of the country, and the scent of manure was just a part of everyday life in Haines. The truck meandered up and down the hills, taking them out of the valley and up into the mountains. He liked the crispness in the air – the lack of humidity and cleanness of it. The air did have a freshness about it – different from the thick, sweltering heat he was so accustomed to in Gibsonton, Florida.

Gibsonton. There wasn’t much to the odd town, and Florida was only known for Miami, and more recently, Orlando, due to the recent development of Walt Disney World. Every time he told someone he lived in Gibsonton, they’d give him a strange look as if he’d just told them he lived on the Moon. It was the quintessential town of oddities, of carnies and circus folk, of former circus freaks who had decided to retire in a place with their own kind. It was what he called home and was all he ever knew.

Finch Mills was a lifer. A carny since he was born. His mother had given birth to him while the carnival was in a small town outside of Des Moines, Iowa, and Finch was named for the state’s bird. It seemed like a practical idea at the time, but in the years following, having that name and working the carnival made him an instant weirdo in many peoples eyes. He didn’t care. Winning the adoration of strangers and others who he thought were vacuous asshats with the IQ of a beetle didn’t concern him. He had nothing to prove to anyone.

The radio was on, and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” played. Finch stopped staring out the window and peered over at his friend, Stoney. A cigarette hung from Stoney’s mouth as he drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other on his thermos. He let out a puff of cigarette smoke and took a swig of his black coffee. It was all Stoney ever drank, that and beer. He wasn’t known for having pleasant breath.

“Sun’s out early,” he said to Finch. He took a drag off his cigarette.

“Yup,” Finch answered.

“Gonna be hotter than a two dollar pistol today,” Stoney said. “That’ll be a pisser when we’re setting up. Hate the heat.”

“And you chose to live in the pit of hell,” Finch said, referring to Gibsonton.

“Where else could an old carny like me fit in? I’ve learned a lot of things in my life, but one of the most important is you don’t belong where you don’t fit.”

“True,” Finch said and looked back out the window. They were almost there. He could see the big white house on top of the hill. It was his favorite place on the circuit. He liked the old farm house and thought if he had been given a different life to live, he’d call a place like that home.

“Look at all them cattle.” Stoney pointed to the long line of cattle walking into the barn. Finch could see Evie riding on her ATV, yelling at the stubborn creatures who were either too dumb or too obstinate to move. Finch never paid much attention to her, but he could see that she had definitely grown up since he last saw her. Well, at least since he last noticed her. He shook the thought away, and turned his gaze in the opposite direction.

“Don’t know how they get ‘em in there,” Stoney remarked.

“If someone was shouting at you to move and promised you food, you’d bust ass too,” Finch said.

“I bet they eat better than we do.”

“Aww come one, funnel cakes are good for you. They’ll put hair on your chest.”

“Don’t need more of that.” Stoney laughed and hacked a horrific sounding cough. He cleared his throat and took a sip of his hot coffee.

The truck came to a stand still behind several other trucks. “Gonna sit here till someone opens the gate,” he said and lit another cigarette.

Finch got out to stretch. He bent over and jolted up, cracking his back while he did so. He raked his fingers through his shaggy, long dark hair and shook it. It was damp from the heat, and he could feel the sweat trickle down his forehead. The sun beat down on him. His dark clothes were like magnets for the sun’s rays.

He got a whiff of cow manure and brought his hand up to his nose, trying to quell the stench. The smell was overpowering on this hot summer’s day. His friends in the carnival said he had the sense of smell of a comic book hero. That he could smell things no one else could. He argued that it was because they all smoked for so long their sense of smell was gone.

Finch hopped on the bottom rail of the fence and leaned forward, propping his arms on the top rail. He watched the massive beasts trickle into the barn. A few loner heifers grazed on a bale of hay, ignoring the commotion around them.

“Sug! Sug!” Gray shouted. Finch thought it was an odd thing to say, but the cows seemed to respond and moved in a hurry.

Finch noticed that the barn needed repairs and that the grass was overgrown in certain areas, that the wood on the fence was wearing thin and in need of a good overhaul. He thought if things were different, he’d stay put for a while and offer to fix everything that was broken at the farm. That’s what he was good at, or at least what he was always told. “If it’s broke, Finch is your guy.”

Wildflowers added pops of color throughout the land. The cattle mooed, and he could still hear Gray yelling at the them. Evie drove next to him, shouting along with him. Finch could see her golden locks flying up like wildfire. She didn’t seem skittish or too afraid to get her ATV close to a heifer. The last of the heifers made their way into the barn, and she sped off in the opposite direction.

“Better get back in,” Stoney called from the truck. “Looks like we’re moving.”

Finch opened the truck door and plopped down against the vinyl seat. “We’ll be drenched within an hour.” He could feel the sweat pouring down his body. His denim jeans stuck to his legs, and his shirt clung to his wet back.

“Told ya,” Stoney said and put the truck in first gear. “‘Course you were the idiot that stood out in it. Ain’t nothing interesting about a bunch of dumb cows. All they do is poop and eat.”

“Sounds like you,” Finch retorted. Stoney smacked his gums and took a sip of his coffee.

They moved slowly, at a turtle’s pace, but thankfully they were toward the front of the line. Their truck harbored a cotton candy machine, as well as other various odds and ends, and the semis that carried the rides were in the back of the long caravan.

They veered right and turned onto the dirt path that led to Gray’s farm. This was just one of three entrances to his property. Evie stood near the gate; her ATV was turned off and parked adjacent to the drive in the grass. She looked annoyed, and Finch couldn’t tell if she was glaring at him purposely or just mad at the world. He smirked, which seemed to tick her off even more.