Chapter 7

I’ve been watching so much porn lately that I spit on my hot dog before I put it in my bun during lunch.

-Things not to tell your parents

Kennedy

The call to the market in town where I sold my eggs was enough to rip my heart out.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Swallow,” the owner of the mercantile, Kevin Yates, apologized. “I can’t hold the spot for you, but when you get back up and running, I’ll definitely consider buying from you again. It’s been a pleasure. I’m sorry, but I just don’t have a choice.”

I just don’t have a choice.

Those words played over and over in my brain, and I wondered what I should do.

I’d never set out to allow my chickens to become my full-time business, but it’d turned out that way.

I’d been making upwards of a hundred dollars a week from them, and now, I didn’t have any income at all.

Luckily, I had money in the bank and I could, technically, start over. I had a nest egg thanks to my mother’s life insurance policy, but I didn’t want to touch that unless I had to.

And when I did get up and running again, there was still no guarantee that I’d have a chance to sell eggs to the same supplier again.

Not to mention it took at least five months before a chick was old enough to start laying eggs. And even then, it’d be several weeks more before they were laying them consistently enough to give me eggs every day.

I was lost.

So lost, in fact, that I was practically staring into the eyes of the big man that was somehow on my property before I even realized he was there.

“Ummm,” I said, startled. “Hello.”

He grunted something at me.

“What?”

“I’m here to help you build a fence.”

I looked at my watch.

“It’s seven in the morning…on a Saturday.”

He shrugged. “Used to be up at six on the dot. Been that way for four years now. Can’t just turn it off because I want to.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“Okay,” I said. “But I don’t need a fence anymore.”

I looked around at my empty yard.

I’d gotten up this morning out of pure habit, slipped on my yellow rain boots with the flying chickens all over them and had gotten all the way out into the yard before I realized there was literally nothing for me to do anymore.

Normally, I would’ve walked out, opened the coop door, and then fed and watered my chickens.

However, since none of them were alive any longer, I didn’t have to do that.

My other Saturday morning ritual was to go into town, buy some feed and then grab a donut.

Now, there wasn’t a reason for feed.

I had my six baby chicks, sure, but they didn’t eat anywhere near as much as my older ones had.

I took a step from one foot to the other, and then happened to look down at what I was wearing, and nearly groaned.

Shit!

I brought my eyes up almost painfully, and looked at him, despite the embarrassment that was running through my veins.

“There is a reason,” he said, drawing my attention away from my ‘Mother Clucker’ tank top, and my hot pink shorty shorts that were clearly way too small for me, yet I continued to wear because I liked them and they were comfortable. I would be changing this outfit as soon as I got a chance.

“There’s a reason for what?” I wondered.

What was he talking about?

“To build the fence. You got more chicks the other day…didn’t you?”

I nodded.

I didn’t want to think about chickens anymore.

They were depressing.

“Well, I know a lady that’s looking to get rid of her entire flock. She’s moving into an apartment, and they don’t let them have them at her complex.”

I blinked.

“Why is she moving?”

Why was that my question? Surely, I could’ve come up with a more appropriate answer, like ‘Hell yes! I love chickens!’

But I didn’t.

Thank God.

My mouth could run away from me every once in a while.

Well, if I were being honest, I would admit that it was more than ‘every once in a while’ and more like ‘all the fucking time.’ But who was I to give a number to something? I wasn’t God!

“She—the woman that used to own the corner property up there—is moving into a retirement home. She’s got about ninety chickens…”

“Whoa!”

He grinned. “Don’t worry. Most of them are meat birds. She’s going to be processing those before she goes, but she has twenty-three egg chickens—if that’s even what they’re called—and was going to process them, too, but I told her you might be interested in them.”

My heart started to pound.

“That’s the sweetest thing I think I’ve ever heard.”

He shrugged. “They’re not your birds, but it’s something. And she said she has about eight dozen eggs she has nothing to do with if you’re interested in those, too.”

My eyes were filling with tears.

“Can’t get them if you don’t have a fence, though,” he grumbled, his eyes going down the driveway where it snaked through the trees. “I visited the neighbor whose dog you said attacked your chickens. She wasn’t willing to pen it up.”

I looked away, suddenly overrun with the need to throw myself in this man’s arms and hug the shit out of him.

I was able to refrain, though.

Barely.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said softly. “Her father was a vet, and used to be a whole lot more neighborly than her. I used to trade him a dozen eggs once a week for antibiotics for my chickens every six months or so. When I suggested that to her, she laughed in my face.”

His mouth—that beautiful freakin’ mouth—curled in annoyance. “I got one better than that.”

My brows rose. “You do?”

He grunted something in reply and walked to his truck. “You mind if I let Gertie out?”

I shook my head in the negative. “No, that’s perfectly fine.”

He opened the truck door and the large German Shepherd I’d seen a few days ago hopped out.

He was limping slightly, and I crouched down.

“He’s beautiful.”

And that was when I saw that Gertie only had three legs.

How had I not seen that when I’d been sitting next to him in the truck on the way back to his place? Was my head that far in the clouds?

“He’s something,” Evander agreed. “You ever seen him before?”

Confusion swept over me. “You mean other than when I was with you the other day?”

He nodded.

“No.”

His eyes softened.

“The woman vet has been taking care of him since the old vet died. Seeing as she lives right across the street, I was hoping that he wasn’t one of the ones that came over here and terrorized your chickens.”

I shook my head immediately. “No, he wasn’t one of them. Only hers, which started showing up about a month after Doc Civil died. This yard’s been hell ever since.”

He nodded.

“You know I was in jail?”

I froze, wondering if I should tell him that I knew everything there was to know about the man.

Even though I didn’t gossip myself, that didn’t mean that others in the area didn’t talk about him.

Hell, I sat two hours a night on Tuesdays and Thursdays listening to the other mothers discussing the man’s best and worst features.

I knew that he’d slept with four of the moms on my nephew’s team, and every last one of them was willing to go for more if the man gave them the time of day.

I knew that he was in jail. I knew that his family hadn’t taken care of his place while he was gone. I knew that his brother was a police officer and that he’d been the arresting officer in Evander’s case. I knew that Evander liked pineapple and mushrooms on his pizza. I knew that he was a size fourteen shoe and that he was six-foot-six-and-a-half and wore a size thirty-six by forty-two in pants. I also knew that he went on a jog every single day and that jog took him past my house, down the road all the way to the high school and through the main part of town and back.

I knew everything about him that one could know…except his secret, inner thoughts.

“Yes,” I finally admitted.

He didn’t seem to act surprised by this knowledge.

In fact, he was pretty relaxed…he seemed almost relieved that I wasn’t hearing it for the first time from him.

Which, I guess, was a good thing.

In my eyes, it meant that I was purposefully spending time with him despite knowing that he’d been to jail.

Which, I still wanted to know the full story.

I’d heard the gossip of the why, but gossip and the truth were sometimes two very different things.

I wanted to hear the story straight out of the horse’s mouth.

“I had the vet, the old one that used to be there before the woman, watch over Gertie.”

I nodded.

“We signed a contract. I paid him every cent of his money for the four years that he’d be watching Gertie and then I went to jail.”

I started to get an inkling of what he was about to say.

“And she wouldn’t give Gertie back?” I guessed.

He shrugged.

“Gertie and me share a bond that nobody, not even you with your dog, would understand.”

“Why not?” I accused.

I looked over at my dog, my livestock protector who I’d had to lock up in the yard because the vet’s dog kept attacking him anytime he was out, and sighed.

“Gertie and I were in Iraq and then Afghanistan together for over four tours,” he said. “We went through some crazy shit and came out standing on the other side … Well, mostly. He was retired after he was caught in a roadside bomb and lost his leg. We were separated for six months while he healed, and then while I got out. But the moment we reunited in the states, it was as if not even a day had passed.”

I smiled at his story.

“That’s the most I’ve ever heard you speak,” I told him bluntly.

He shrugged.

“She tried to keep Gertie on account of the fact that I’d been gone for four years and hadn’t taken care of him while she had.”

“How did you get her to give him to you?”

He grinned.

“Gert managed that on his own,” he explained, patting the dog that was at his side on the head. “Kicked up a fuss, and the attendants let him out because they thought something was wrong in the lobby. There wasn’t anything wrong, he just heard me.”

I was amazed. “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings here, but how the hell did he even remember you?”

Evander grinned. “Told you. We have a bond that transcends time and shit. I could’ve been gone for the rest of his life, coming back when he was on his deathbed, and he’d still remember me.”

I couldn’t stop the smile from forming on my face.

“That’s great news,” I whispered, excited to see his face so animated.

That smile, however, died.

“All in all, that bitch ain’t gonna do anything about her dog. What I would suggest for now is the fence. What I would suggest for later is thinking about suing the bitch for damages and loss of income.”

My eyes widened.

“I can do that?” I asked in surprise.

He nodded. “You sure the fuck can.”