When You Fall... (6 page)

All the mail was addressed to him—three years’ worth of mail, according to the postage stamps, all saved and accumulating, lying in stacks on the floor, kitchen counter and on a few surrounding chairs.

There was one stack, sitting alone next to the door, from a bank in Lubbock. That was a long way from here. Jack had been employed for her family for almost four years, she thought. When had he moved in here?

The floor was also littered with paper and used take-out containers; apparently Jack didn’t cook much. Stuff was everywhere, except for the table. That spot he’d reserved for his newspapers; local ones as well as ones from other parts of the country. He must have spent the bulk of his time in this room. And why wouldn’t he. He didn’t have to worry about her family checking in on him.

She’d gotten up early, still rattled from last night’s intruder incident. She spent an hour cleaning up the area around the sink in order to make a pot of coffee. Thankfully, she’d brought some with her; coffee and a mini-version of an espresso machine. She’d found the source of that foul smell.
He
was now in the garbage can outside.

Her agenda for the day was set: first she’d clean the areas she’d be living in, which included this room, her room and its adjoining bathroom.

Just pile it on, why don’t you
, she thought. A week before she’d been preparing to disrupt Bentley’s wedding and now she was sitting in a home that looked like it would make a Hoarder’s episode. Throw in last night’s craziness, a scene from one of those slasher-type movies where she’d tried to kill her neighbor with his smoky eyes and good looks. Too bad she wasn’t in the market anymore.

It was cooler outside by several degrees, she noted, as she made her way to the back door, stepping onto the old wrap-around, screened in porch. There was less of Jack’s junk out here. She took a seat in one of the big chairs, listening to the birds as they welcomed in the new morning and breathed in the fresh air. She sighed. How to put into words what coming home felt like. How did one verbalize the impact of being separated from a core piece of oneself? Maybe it was like losing a foot; you still felt the itch, and then tried to bury that itch under layers and layers of lost. She wiped her eyes. She would not cry.

She still hadn’t talked to her dad. He’d called, but she deliberately kept the conversations short, nothing more than giving him assurances that she was still living and yes, she had been, in fact, fired. She stayed cleared of what had driven her to a place where it had seemed like a reasonable idea to break up a wedding. How to describe the feeling that her life was slipping away from her, that Bentley had been her best shot—last grasp of having the life he’d wanted for her. He’d wanted for her? How sad was that? Shouldn’t it have been what she’d wanted, too?

She had no idea what she wanted anymore. She couldn’t distinguish anymore, between her desires, or her father’s. She’d been at it too long to have any clarity of thought. She shifted away from those musings as she caught sight of her neighbor, standing on what must have been his front porch.

She had a good view of his home from here. She hadn’t been able to see much of his property last night. It was about one fourth the size of her folks, and it hadn’t been there the last time she visited.

What was now his property had been in the old Sandler family for years, and it hadn’t been anywhere near as nice or as prosperous looking as it was now. She wondered if he’d been related to the Sandlers, some kind of great grandkid like herself. No, that couldn’t be. The Sandlers had been Caucasian.

Her great-grandfather had tried to talk old man Sandler into selling the property to him once, but nope. No way was he selling his land to some Negro. Next thing you know, black folks would be wanting to take over the country, run for president even. She was surprised he’d sold his property to someone of Latin descent.

She could see the truck, the same one from last night. It was parked in the driveway. She took a sip from her coffee cup and watched as Rafael walked from his porch over to his truck. He was the same fine and lean man with cocoa-colored skin from last night. He had a coffee cup in his hand and wavy black hair covered his head. He was sexy in that rugged, hard-working-kind of way, dressed in jeans, t-shirt stuck again to his chest, plaid shirt open with its shirttails flapping in the breeze.

Where was he going this early in the morning, she wondered, glancing down at her watch. It was five after six. She watched the truck back out of the drive and she followed it as he made the short distance, a half-mile or so, to the main road. It turned left and headed into town.

She walked back inside, turning the volume up on the small TV in the kitchen. It was tuned to some news station. She stood trying to decide where to start with her cleaning efforts. She’d started to separate Jack’s mail into stacks, and about five minutes into it, the doorbell rang. She stood still, eyes moving around, searching for a weapon she could use. She grabbed the umbrella from last night. She didn’t think it could be trouble, but better safe than sorry.

“Who is it?” she said, when she reached the front door.

“Your next door neighbor,” she heard and peeked out the side window to confirm.

She opened the door, leaning on her umbrella. Cool black eyes—the red had turned to pink—met hers. She noticed the bruising around his head. He must have fallen forward on his face. Ouch.

“Ready for round two?” he said, following her arm to the hand leaning on the umbrella.

“Sorry. You should have said something,” she said.

“Didn’t get the chance.”

“What can I do for you?” she asked, not up for an argument. He’d been the intruder last night, not her.

“I’ve been filling in for your old property manager for the last week, in case you didn’t know. He took off. He wasn’t that good anyway, as I’m sure you’ve been able to detect, but he was better than nothing I guess,” he said, his smile half-hearted. “I stopped by to feed the horse you have out there in your stable.”

“Horse?”

“Yes, horse. He belonged to the same disappearing property manager your family hired.”

“Oh, I wasn’t aware of any horses being stabled here.”

“Well, there is one, and he has been alone for at least a week,” he said, his disapproval shimmering along his body now. The half-hearted smile had fallen away completely, like it was somehow her fault that the animal had been left alone.

“Okay,… well let’s go take a look then,” she said, closing the front door behind her and stepping out on the porch. He fell into step beside her. They walked toward the newer, smaller stables, located in the back, off to the right side of the house. It had been added about 15 years ago, and was smaller than the main one, but it could still hold up to eight horses, plus a tack room and storage. The original stable had been built to accommodate up to 40 horses, but it needed major repair and was located further away from the house.

She opened the door and turned on the light, walking through the front part of the building where equipment and a tack room resided, making their way back to the stables. This place needed a good cleaning, too. Trash had been piled in a corner and the floor was littered with numerous take-out containers. A horse, a little on the thin side, stood watching them.

“He’s thin,” she said, walking over to him. “Hey dude,” she said to the horse, running her hand along his withers.

“Your family’s caretaker was named Jack Shine,” Rafael said, glancing at her.

“I know.”

“Wasn’t sure how much you knew. I usually saw him at least once a week. He didn’t talk much. I’d see him outside with this horse. Your property abuts mine, as I’m sure you now know, so I can see him from here. He came out daily, as regular as clockwork, until about a week ago. I thought I should check.” He didn’t share with her that Jack Shine had a fondness for the one bar in town and that he’d heard talk of him leaving town for good, going home to Lubbock.

“This is how I found this guy on Monday. I’ve been coming by twice daily to feed him and clean out his stall,” Rafael said, walking over to stand next to the horse. I thought maybe he had taken a trip out of town, but he hasn’t returned. I don’t know what that means, but it’s good that you’re here. You can check it all out,” he said.

“You’ve been taking care of him?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know. Thank you,” she said.

“Can’t say that I’m surprised by that as I’ve never seen anyone from your family around here,” he said, walking around her, opening the horse’s stall door.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked, putting on the horse’s halter and lead rope.

“I’m going to move him into another stall while I clean and restock his. And you’re in the way,” he said. He and the horse were looking at her now expectantly. She stepped aside.

She noted the disapproval in his voice, and also noted that he hadn’t said you’re welcome to her thank you.

“We have jobs that don’t exactly allow us to come out here much,” she said.

“Then you shouldn’t own what you can’t take care of,” he said, moving the horse to the stall across from his. He walked away, toward the front of the barn, and then came back a few minutes later with a rake and a wheelbarrow.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“What does it look like?”

“I can do that,” she said, reaching to take the rake from his hand.

“Like you can break up weddings and spray intruders with pepper spray,” he said, his grin cocky and smug now, like he knew her. “Yeah, I know. Hard to miss. I can take care of it. I’ve been taking care of it long before you decided to show up,” he said, moving his hands out, holding the rake beyond her reach. “He doesn’t belong to you anyway,” he said.

“Screw you. He’s on my property, so that makes him more mine than he is yours, so you can leave him with me and it would be nice if you left, too.”

“You know what you’re doing?” he asked, that smug smile still on his face.

“Yep, just like with my mace,” she said, reaching for her rake.

“No problem,” he said, dropping the rake into the wheelbarrow before he pushed it toward her feet. “He takes two buckets of water each day, in case you’re wondering. The same at night. Give him some feed. Purina Senior. Jack kept that in the cabinet in the tack room. He eats about six pounds per day, so divide it into two feedings—one in the morning and the other at night,“ he said.

“I know how to take care of a horse,” she said.

He continued talking. “I’ve been giving him extra hay, to help him put on some weight. The hay is in the hay shed. You’ll need to buy more. You’re running out,” he said as he casually made his way to the door, looking back at her once more. “Good luck,” he said, before closing it behind him.

Rafael walked over to his truck. He wasn’t surprised by much anymore, but he hadn’t meant for his disapproval to show, his abhorrence for people who didn’t appreciate or take care of what they had. Not after he had to work so hard for his. Yes, he recognized her from the YouTube video, and despite her prettiness and nice body, she and her family were still terrible stewards of their land. Throw in her pepper spraying him the night before—yeah, he was still a little pissed about that—no good deed goes unpunished coming back to haunt him. All he was trying to do was check out the house. The knot on his head ached.

He hadn’t meant to be callous or mean to her. It wasn’t his normal behavior by any stretch. He was usually an agreeable, helpful guy. He just didn’t mince words or try to sugarcoat things. It took too much time and effort to lie. Honest and direct were his two favorite means of communication, and they had served him well. There was less room for things to get twisted.

Besides, what had he said that hadn’t been true? Her family
was
awful stewards of the land. Miss Big City—desperate enough for a man to break up a wedding—didn’t look up to the challenge of changing her family’s record of land ownership. And that was a shame, because they owned one of the most valuable pieces of property in the county. It was too bad it was wasted on people who apparently didn’t give a shit.

Five years ago, when he’d been searching for property to own, he and his young self had actually considered making her family an offer. He laughed now at his naïve and lunatic thinking. It had been so far out of his price range.

He’d found the place next door. Of course it was smaller, but he was working to make it into something to be proud of. He turned out onto the street heading home. So yes, he could, okay, should have been nicer—she might not have known. He could have given her the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, well.

#

Okay, so her neighbor Rafael was gorgeous on the outside, but the inside pretty much sucked. Good to know. What ever happened to pretty is as pretty does? It had been her great grandmother’s favorite expression, meted out daily to Carter, during a time when things like that made sense. She heard him leave, watched his truck pull away.

“Guess we better get you set for the day,” she said to the horse. She was tired already and she hadn’t even gotten started. There was still the hoarder’s house to clean, minus the cleaning crew that was always available on TV to help, and now she had a horse that also required cleaning and feeding.

She spent the next hour finding the feed to add to his feeder. Jack was one trifling dude, she’d decided. She needed to purchase more feed. She needed cleaning supplies, too. A trip to town was required. She’d spotted a feed and tractor supply on her way through town yesterday.

Everything around this place was in short supply; why should she be surprised at that. She reached for the wheelbarrow and rake, rolled them over closer to the stall door. She hadn’t cleaned out a stall in who knew when, looking down at her fancy tennis shoes and skinny jeans—cute for man hunting, but not so easy to work in.

It took her about an hour. After locating her supplies, she added water to the horse’s bucket, restocked his feed, added hay and put him back in his stall when she was done.

She sighed, looking around the stable. This must have been Jack’s other hangout, when he grew tired of being inside. It looked similar to the house; same trash everywhere—on the ground, same magazines of women stacked into a corner, same empty take-out food containers, same empty liquor bottles.