After their shower escapade, Deb didn’t make it out of Simon’s house until quarter to eight, and she caught rush-hour traffic on her way to the interstate, so it was nearly nine by the time she pulled up to the end of the driveway at home. They ate lunch at eleven, so she barely had time to get anything done before she’d need to start preparing their meal.
Even facing a mountain of work and an uncomfortable conversation with her dad, Deb couldn’t feel sorry. She barely felt stressed. Following the impulse to confront Simon last night felt today like one of the best decisions she’d ever made. Yes, the Bulls were in trouble, and yes, Simon seemed particularly in trouble, but rather than dissuade her, it convinced her. The very fact that she wasn’t scared off told her that what she felt for him was real—more than that, it was important.
She worried about him more than anything else. Max would hurt him. That was simply a fact. Her brother didn’t perceive nuance, didn’t acknowledge complexity. For him, she was his sister, and therefore if he didn’t want her with a Bull, then the Bulls should stay away from her. If he thought Leah was safer at the farm, then she was safer at the farm. He didn’t think he was always right, but he did think there was always one right way, and everything else was wrong.
And when he thought things were wrong, he went crazy. People he loved could get hurt, even if he didn’t intend it. If he did intend it…
He’d mean to hurt Simon. She didn’t know what to think, what to imagine, about how the day was going at the clubhouse, but she knew it wouldn’t be good. If she hadn’t heard from Simon by mid-afternoon, she’d call him.
In the meantime, she’d focus on her own business and try not to obsess.
As she’d neared the farm, she’d passed her father and the Branson boys in the north field. The fields were sown, but her father had always babied his crops, so she knew they were doing soil samples and studying the new shoots with a jeweler’s precision.
They planted in a rotation that her father had settled on after long study of the stressors on the soil. This year it was sunflowers. Deb loved sunflower years, when the house was surrounded by their cheerful yellow blooms. They were Leah’s favorite flower, too, so there was some serendipity to her being with them this summer.
Deb parked out and got out of her Buick. Leah came around from the side of the garage. She was dressed in capri-length jeans and a pink t-shirt, and her floppy straw hat made dappled shade over her face. She’d bought that silly thing in town a couple of weeks earlier, after lamenting that the sun was giving her too many new freckles.
She carried the egg basket. It was late to be gathering eggs, Deb did that first thing after she turned the chickens loose for the day, but she wasn’t about to complain about the way someone else had done a job she hadn’t been around to do.
“Hi!” Leah greeted her with a smile. “Did you have a good time?”
“Hey. Yeah, I did.” She’d have to talk to Leah, too—but that would be a much easier conversation, and for later. For now, she nodded at the basket in Leah’s hands. “Thank you.”
Leah looked down at the basket. “No problem. It’s fun. The hens are funny. Like little old ladies, in everybody’s business. Matilda won’t get off the roost. That means she’s got an egg, right?”
Matilda was one of her Orpington hens. “Yeah, probably. Tilly’s super broody. There’ll be more than one under her.”
Deb didn’t set out to breed chickens, but she had a rooster, and a flock of hens, so chicks occasionally happened. With her five Orpie girls, a broody breed, and an Orpie rooster, chicks happened a couple of times a year. Once, Tilly had brooded in December. That had been an interesting few weeks, but all her chicks had survived.
Leah grinned. “We’ll have baby chicks?”
“Maybe so. We won’t know for sure for a few days. Let’s go see.”
With a wide-open smile like a little girl on Christmas morning, Leah set the egg basket on the hood of Deb’s station wagon, and they walked back to the coop.
Matilda was alone in the coop, puffed up over her roost. She clucked softly as Deb came up on her. Her Orpingtons were affectionate girls, and Tilly was practically cuddly—less so when she was brooding, but still patient and calm. When Deb held out her hand, the hen cocked her head and gave it a gentle peck.
“Hi, girlie. You making babies under there?” She eased her hands under the hen and lifted her gently. Tilly lodged a verbal complaint but didn’t fight her. Six eggs. “You see?”
Leah leaned sideways and looked. “Six. Is that a lot?”
“For Tilly, that’s about right.” She set Tilly back, and the hen fluffed her feathers and settled in with another irritated cluck.
“So what happens now?”
“Now, we move her nest to the brooding pen, and Tilly pretty much sits until she has babies, or until we know that the eggs are a no-go.”
“How will we know that?”
Deb led Leah back out of the coop. The rest of the flock was scattered across the yard, scratching and clucking. Dandy, her rooster, had perched himself on a fence post and had his tawny head up, soaking in the sun. Hedonist.
“Next week, while she’s out stretching her legs and handling her business, we’ll candle the eggs and see what’s going on.”
“Candling—that’s when you shine a light on the egg so you can see through it?”
“Yep. In a week, we’ll know if any of the six are yolkers—with nothing going on inside. If we have chicks growing, and they keep growing, it’ll be about three weeks, and then we’ll have babies.”
“That is so entirely cool!”
Deb agreed. She loved when her hens brooded. She rarely kept the chicks once they matured, because she didn’t want to be overrun with either chickens or eggs. Her flock of twenty-seven made plenty of eggs for their own use and to offer at the stand. Generally, she sold the chicks, or gave them to the high school for their agricultural education program. Occasionally, when it was time to cull the older hens, she kept a clutch of chicks to keep her flock healthy.
In fact, a couple of her hens hadn’t laid in a while. It might be time to keep a clutch. And have a sad chicken dinner or two.
“You want to help me keep an eye on Tilly and learn about this stuff?”
Leah nodded. “Yes. I want to learn about everything. I lived in Grant my whole life, surrounded my farms and farmers, but I hardly know anything about it. This…it’s a great way to live.”
Deb agreed. It was hard work almost every day, and a poor yield could cripple them more than a strong yield could cushion them, but it was a good life. A pure life.
She hoped she wouldn’t have to give it up for Simon. But if she had to make a choice, would she give this up? Maybe—and that was an entirely new way of thinking for her. This kind of love was an entirely new way of feeling.
She turned and watched the figure that was her father, leaning against the small tractor, talking with Jock. God, she hoped she wouldn’t have to choose between him and Simon.
And God, she hoped her father would understand if she did.
~oOo~
Lunch was always ‘dinner’ at the Wesson house, and today, Deb and Leah put together a good meal of ham steak, au gratin potatoes, a fresh salad made of her first pulls from her garden, and buttermilk biscuits. As always, weather permitting, they set the picnic table in the back yard, and Jock and Ben Branson ate with them.
After dinner, the men cleared the table and the Branson boys went back to work. For the past few years, since shortly after he turned sixty, her father had taken to lying down for half an hour or so before he returned to his afternoon work.
Deciding that she’d talk to him after his nap, Deb joined Leah in the kitchen. They’d developed a good partnership over these weeks, cooperating on the household chores without much fuss. Leah was a lot like her, and not just because she’d spent a lot of years taking care of her father. They cooked alike, cleaned alike, even had similar taste. She was almost young enough to be Deb’s daughter, but she was becoming a sister.
“Can I ask you something?” Leah asked, setting a freshly-dried plate on the stack in the cupboard.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“It’s nosy. I’m not judgy, though. I promise. Just curious. I won’t mind if you tell me to mind my beeswax.”
Deb squeezed out the sponge into the soapy water and leaned against the sink, waiting. “What is it?”
“You…you weren’t with Aly last night, were you?”
“What?” Deb felt guilty—and ridiculous for it. She’d be thirty-five in a few months. Far too old to be caught sneaking out at night.
Then again, that was, in a way, something else they had in common. Leah had literally sneaked out of her father’s house routinely. For different, more painful reasons. For better reasons. Deb was just a coward.
Blushing, Leah reached out her hand and tugged gently on Deb’s t-shirt. “You have a hickey.” Deb slapped her hand over her neck, shocked, and Leah’s blush sank from of her cheeks, leaving her pale. “Oh—if you and Aly…I didn’t mean…I think that’s fine…if you and Aly…” she stopped, swallowed hard, and picked up another plate from the drainer, drying it as carefully as if it had been an archeological find instead of a piece of cheap Corelle.
Deb dropped the sponge into the sink and crossed to the side of the room, where the big six-slice silver toaster sat. She crouched down and checked her warped reflection. Yep. Big hickey at the crook of her neck, deepening in the recess behind her collarbone. Served her right—she’d left so many hickeys on him last night that he was practically polka-dotted today.
“Shit.” Wait. Leah thought she’d been with Aly? She turned back to Leah. “I’m not a lesbian, Leah. It wasn’t Aly.”
“Okay. I mean, it’s your business. I just…I don’t think your dad noticed. But Ben did. Pretty sure.”
She’d though Ben had been giving her a weird look during lunch, but he was such a dork that she’d just thought he was being Ben. “Dammit.”
Leah blushed again. “I’m sorry. I only brought it up because…can I ask…why did you lie?”
Well, she’d planned to tell Leah, anyway. The conversation had begun differently in her imagination, but oh well. She sat down at the table. In a move every woman Deb had ever known had learned, Leah hung the dishtowel over her shoulder, then came to sit beside her.
“It’s Simon. I was with Simon.”
“Simon Spellman? Our Simon?”
“Yeah. We’ve been…it’s been a while. Last night, we got serious. I’m telling Dad today, in fact. When he wakes up.”
“But why hide it?”
“What do you think Max is going to do when he finds out one of his brothers has been banging his sister?”
Leah’s pretty blue eyes went wide. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. It’s more than that, but that’s the most pressing. Simon’s telling him today.”
“Oh. Gosh, Deb. Gun’s…he’s not in a good place right now. He’s not going to deal with it. Not on his own.”
Her brother was with his whole club; he wasn’t alone. But Deb understood what Leah meant. She was an anchor for Max. Without her, he’d get lost in the storm of his head. “I know. But it was come out or break up. We tried to break up. It didn’t work. So we’re coming out.”
A smiled bloomed across Leah’s face, and she reached out and squeezed Deb’s arm. “That’s so sweet. Simon is a really great guy.”
“Yeah, he is. Hey—why’d you think I might be with Aly?”
Leah shrugged. “I didn’t. Not really. You don’t come off as gay or anything. I just…well, I can’t think when I’ve known you to be with anyone. When I saw the hickey, I figured it was a guy. But when I asked and said it out loud, it occurred to me all of a sudden that I had no idea if you’d ever liked anyone.”
“Not many, no. And not in a long time.” And never like what she felt now. Just with Simon. Just in the last couple of times they’d been together. Just since she’d allowed herself to see it. “I’ve been focused elsewhere. There wasn’t room in my life for that kind of relationship.”
“And there is now?”
“Now I think I want to make room.”
~oOo~
“Hey, Dad?” Deb leaned against the frame of his open bedroom door. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Her father was sitting on the straight-back chair next to his bureau, tying the lace on his scuffed work boot. “Sure, Debra. Come on in, have a seat.”
She came in and sat on the side of his bed.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I need to come clean about something. I lied last night. I guess I’ve been lying for a while. Or at least hiding something.”
He’d lifted his other foot to tie that lace; now he set his boot on the floor and gave her a sharp look. “Why would you do that?”
The answer to that question was far too complex to attempt, at least straight out of the gate. “I’m seeing someone.”
Sun-faded eyes, the color of old denim, stared steadily back at her. When it was clear that he waited for her to go on, she did.
“I’m with Simon. For a while now.”
“Max’s Simon? The Bull?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Simon the Bull.”
He took a long, slow breath and leaned against the back of the chair. “Does Max know?”
“Simon’s telling him today.”
“He won’t like it.”
“I know. We’ll work it out.”
“How long, Debra?”
“A while.” Feeling guilty for the vagueness after so much subterfuge, she clarified. “Since the night of the tornado.”
Another long breath. Those inhales were decidedly rhetorical. “Lots of trouble with the Bulls these days. So much that we’ve had Leah here for weeks without catching sight of Max.”
“I know. We didn’t plan it, Dad. It just happened.”
“A yeah and a half ago.”
“Yeah. And last night, and all the time between. We didn’t look for it. We didn’t even want it at first.”
“And you’re coming clean about it now because…”
“We want it now.”
He nodded. “Okay, then.”
“That’s it? You’re okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re a grown woman, Debra. Been a long time since I had a say in your choices. If you want this, then I’m glad you have it. Heck, I’m glad you finally want it. You deserve a love like that.”
Hearing her father’s steady, unconditional support, she knew that one choice was made. “I’m not leaving the farm. I won’t leave you on your own.”
He leaned forward and reached to take her hands. “Debra Louise, you know good and well I don’t want that promise from you. If your life is elsewhere, then you go elsewhere. I’ve been glad to have you with me, but if you need to go, then I will manage on my own. What I had with your mother, what Max and Leah have, if you find that, you grab it.” He released her hands and sat back, resuming his boot-tying efforts. “And if you don’t grab it, I will put you out on your ear. How d’you like them apples?”
She didn’t know why she’d been worried about telling her father. A surprised burst of emotion washed over her and drowned her laugh on its way out. “I love you, Dad.”
“Mm-hmm. I love you, too.” He caught her eyes again. “Max’ll need some handling.”
There was no doubt about that.
~oOo~
Max called in the afternoon, while Deb was watering the front flower beds. He talked to Leah for a long time, and then she came out to the porch. Deb was ready for that, and she released the trigger on the nozzle.
“He wants to talk to you.”
“Talk or shout?”
Leah smiled and walked toward her. “I think I calmed him down. He’s not happy, but he’s quieter.” She held out her hand. “I’ll finish watering.”
“Thanks.” She handed Leah the hose and went inside.
Picking the handset up, she pulled it into the bathroom and closed the door. “Hey, loser.”
“What the fuck, Deb? What the fuck?” His voice shook.
“Did you hurt him?”
Silence on the other end—a thrill of worry twisted up Deb’s spine.
“Dammit, Max. How bad?”
“Not bad enough. I didn’t kill the son of a bitch. I still might.”
“Max, you need to back off. I want this.”
“You’re just as bad! You’ve been lying to me for a year and a half! What the fuck?”
“This is exactly why! Because you’d lose your shit! And it’s none of your goddamn business! I’m not your responsibility, Maxwell.”
“It is my business! He’s my goddamn brother! I’m supposed to be able to trust him, and he’s running around behind my back PUTTING IT TO MY SISTER!”
Leah might have calmed him down, but Deb was clearly not. She modulated her voice and tried again. “Max…”
“You’re right. I’m losing my shit. People are shooting at us every other goddamn day. They hit Maddie’s place and roughed her up. They’re raping sweetbutts. It’s never been like this before. They’re going for the women, Deb! They’re after me and Simon specifically. I sent Leah away to keep her safe and I’m going fucking crazy on my own, and Simon is dragging my motherfucking sister around? I am going to KILL HIM.”
When Max said things like that, they weren’t empty words. She’d thought that she’d put enough pieces of the puzzle together to understand, but Max had never said so much before, and she’d had no idea. Did that change anything? The nature and intensity of the danger? She took a beat and considered.
No, it didn’t.
“Max. Max, I love you. I’m sorry this upsets you, and I’m sorry you’re having so much trouble. But I love Simon. He already told me I need to stay away, so I will. I’ll stay with Leah and be exactly as safe as she is.”
A strange sound came through the handset. Debra almost thought it was a sob. “Max?”
“Why a Bull, Deb?” He was drastically quieter now. Like he’d given up. “All this time, nobody. Why a Bull? Why now?”
She had only one answer to that. “He’s the one I fell in love with.”
“Fuck,” he sighed. “Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck, fuck. I gotta go.”
“Okay. Max—don’t hurt him any more. Please.”
The line went dead.
~oOo~
Simon called in the evening. Deb had left two messages on his home answering machine, but she’d been afraid to call the clubhouse to ask after him. When the phone rang, she’d been trying to weave and keep her mind occupied. She’d nearly jumped out of her skin when the strident bell of the old wall phone had gone off, and she’d nearly sprained her ankle getting to it first.
“Hello!”
“It’s Simon. It’s okay to call now, yeah?”
“Yeah! Yes! I wanted you to call. How are you? Max wouldn’t tell me what he did. Are you hurt?”
Simon’s chuckle filled her ear; he sounded a little odd. “Your brother is not my number-one fan today. But I’m okay. I look like a raccoon pirate just now, but I’ll heal.”
“What do you mean?”
“Broken nose made badass bruises, wearing a sexy eye patch, assorted other bumps and lumps.”
The broken nose accounted for the strange sound of his voice. “Eye patch? He put out your eye?!”
“No. It’ll heal. I’m okay, Deb. How’d it go on your end?”
“Well, nobody hit me, so much better.”
He laughed again. “Good. Your dad okay?”
“My dad is great. He totally understands. I talked to Max this afternoon. I hope I calmed him down.” She was really counting on that quiet defeat at the end of the call meaning that he would back off of Simon.
“We’ll see. We’re on lockdown here tonight. Got a lot of shit going on in the next couple of days. You stay away from Tulsa, for any reason. You and Leah both, okay? Until you hear from Gun or me, you stay put.”
“Okay. Will you be here this weekend?”
Another stuffy laugh. “Let’s see how the next couple days go. And right now, I wouldn’t count on Gun tolerating me being within fifty feet of him, anyway. I’ll call, hon. Okay?”
“Okay. Simon—no regrets.”
“No regrets. But worry.”
“Me too.”
“I’ll call, hon.”
“Okay, Good night.”
When she hung up, she saw her father standing at the end of the hall, silhouetted by the light from the living room. “Everything okay?”
Deb took a deep breath and settled her pounding heart. “I have no idea, Dad. I really don’t.”