Here to Stay (7 page)

After his brothers left, Zach couldn’t wipe the grin off his face as he led Rosebud toward the house. He felt as if he’d just gone through a rite of passage. Until now, he couldn’t remember a single time when his brothers had ever looked at him with respect. Maybe, he decided, he should fire up and tell them to shove it more often.

But no. Clint had been nothing less than honest. Until Zach had decided to do this, he truly had acted like a jughead much of the time. Rosebud, or at least the thought of Rosebud, had turned him onto a different path, and over the last two years he’d grown up, setting aside his swinging-bachelor ways to concentrate on something that really mattered. The longer he was away from the whole bar scene, the less he missed it. He still dropped in for an occasional beer, but not often.

It felt good. He might not have a wife and kids, but he had a purpose, something to drive him. He rested his hand on Rosebud’s head as they approached the steps, twelve of them, which led up to the deck of his veranda. Zach drew Rosebud to a stop, wondering why in the hell he’d built a house with a daylight basement. Rosebud hadn’t gotten the hang of stairs yet, which was undoubtedly his fault. He was screwing up somehow in his teaching methods. Over and over, he’d watched a video of a trainer teaching a mini how to handle risers, but so far, Rosebud, who caught on to everything fast, wasn’t getting it. She’d start out fine, and then she developed four left feet.

As Zach began working with her to climb the steps, he asked himself for at least the hundredth time why he didn’t build a ramp. The answer was always the same. With a ramp, Rosebud wouldn’t master stairs as quickly, and it was an important skill for her to learn. Rosebud drove that point home by planting a hind foot squarely on his toe.

Luke proved to be difficult about dinner. He didn’t want hamburgers. He preferred fish. Mandy put the beef back in the fridge and fixed Luke’s favorite, an apple jelly and horseradish salmon recipe, which was surprisingly delicious. When she served the meal, Luke sniffed the air. “Is that salmon?” he asked, making a face. “We had salmon last week. How about some variety?”

Mandy slammed her fork down on the table with such force that Luke jumped. “Luke, you’re being impossible! What do you
want
from me?”

She regretted the question immediately. Luke’s mouth pulled into the thin line she knew from experience meant trouble for her. Her brother hung his head, as many blind people often did. “I want my eyes,” he said flatly. “Give me back my eyes.”

Mandy’s stomach contracted into a football-size knot of pain. As she removed the plate of food from in front of him, her hands shook so that she nearly dumped the contents in his lap. It was her fault her brother was blind, but must he remind her of it constantly for the rest of her life?

“If not the salmon, what do you want to eat?” she asked tautly.

He sighed and gestured limply with one hand. “I’ll just eat the stinking fish.”

For a moment, Mandy had the unholy urge to throw the food at him. But when she glanced at his scarred face, her temper flagged. Luke did make her life difficult on a daily basis, but when she looked at it objectively, how much more difficult had she made his?

She set the plate in front of him again. “I’m sorry it’s not what you wanted. Normally you love it.”

Her brother groped for his fork. “Yeah, well, same old, same old. I’d just like something different every once in a while.”

Here was something different: She was about ready to clobber him. Instead she sat across from him and tried to eat her meal. She couldn’t look at Luke, so she stared at the beautiful china plate. Her mother had had that pattern, which was still horrendously expensive if purchased brand-new, and had used it when she set a gorgeous table each evening for her perfectionist husband. Mandy had always loved the dishes and regretted that she’d been forced to leave them behind when she and her brother became wards of the court. She’d bought a few pieces of the china over time, at thrift stores and garage sales. Some of it was chipped, but it gave her a sense of family and tradition. She guessed everyone needed that, even if the family in question had been dysfunctional and her memories of childhood were mostly awful.

Though the salmon was moist, it caught in her throat. Luke cleaned his plate. Mandy felt so miserable she ate only a few bites and put the rest under plastic wrap.

“I want to go to bed,” Luke informed her as she started to clean up the kitchen.

“Right this instant?”

“Yes, right this instant. I’m tired.”

Mandy looked at the skillet and dishes, which would be difficult to scrub if left to sit.
No matter.
If Luke was tired, she had to settle him in for the night. She could deal with the kitchen later. Besides, she’d be able to call in a sitter and leave the house earlier.

It took nearly a half hour to get Luke into bed. He dawdled, dropped things, wasn’t satisfied with the first set of pajamas, and then wanted a drink, his way of getting back at her because she’d dared to argue with him. He said his pillowcase stank, so she changed it. She forgot to put his slippers out, and he complained that she never remembered all the things he needed during the night. He wanted ice in his water. His arm itched, so she rubbed cortisone on the spot. The horseradish in the salmon glaze had given him heartburn, and he asked for antacid tablets. Then, to top it off, he didn’t want to listen to a recorded book tonight. He wanted Mandy to read to him.

She opened a John Grisham novel to where she’d left off days before and began to read. Luke appeared to be staring at the ceiling. Mandy could only wish. He was completely, totally blind.

“Mands?” he said softly.

Mandy broke off in the middle of a sentence. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry.” He gulped. “I shouldn’t have pissed on the wall and said all that stuff. I wanted to tick you off and hurt you, and I probably did. I’m sorry.”

With quivering hands, Mandy marked her place and closed the book. When they quarreled, Luke never apologized. This was the first time. “I’m sorry, too. I don’t mean to harp; really I don’t. I just want so much more for you than this.”

“I know.” His voice went thick. “I want more, too, but a dog isn’t the solution.”

Mandy thought of Rosebud, but this wasn’t the appropriate moment to broach that subject. Luke needed a couple of days to recharge before she started in on him again.

“I know your fear of the dogs is real,” she settled for saying, “and maybe it
isn’t
practical of me to think you can simply get over it.”

A surprised expression settled on his face. “Has an alien taken my sister’s place?”

Mandy laughed softly. “It’s me, the harping sister. I’ve just been thinking, you know? Maybe a dog isn’t the only solution. It’s worth checking into. Don’t you think?”

Luke took a moment to answer, his surprised expression giving way to wariness. “Sure. Maybe you can get me a potbellied pig. I’ve heard they’re as smart as dogs.”

A tingling sensation crawled up the nape of Mandy’s neck. Had Luke been listening to the news spot about mini horses, and this was his way of poking fun?

“There’s a plan,” she settled for saying. “Will you be okay if I bring the sitter in for a while tonight after you’re asleep?”

“Why? Where are you going?”

Luke didn’t like it when Mandy went out to have fun, and she’d long since forgone the privilege, because something dreadful always happened while she was gone. “I’d like to do some research to see what might be available out there by way of an assistance animal for you.” That much was true; Mandy would be checking into another kind of assistance animal. To avoid telling an outright lie, she chose her next words carefully. “The library would be a great place to do that. They don’t close until nine.”

“Can’t you do research online?”

“I could, but I think a librarian might be able to steer me in the right direction, saving me time.”

Luke seemed to accept that. “No dog,” he reminded her, “even if it’s toothless and doesn’t have a tail.”

Mandy reopened the novel and began to read. When her brother drifted off to sleep, she set the book aside. After drawing the covers beneath Luke’s chin, she smoothed his hair and quietly left the room. When she reentered the kitchen, her shoulders sagged.
What a mess
. But it would have to wait until later. She stepped over to the small table where she kept the phone and punched in the number of the sitter, hoping against hope that the older woman was free to come over. Mandy breathed a sigh of relief when the lady said she could be there in less than ten minutes.

Mandy tried not to think about Zach Harrigan’s possible reaction when she paid him a surprise evening visit. On TV, he had seemed nice. Hopefully he wouldn’t get in a grump when he learned why she was knocking at his door. If he did, oh, well. If she settled for calling him, he might hang up on her. In her experience, it was a lot harder to get rid of someone face-to-face, and there was absolutely no way that she was going to let someone else stake a claim to that little horse if she could secure it for her brother.

It took Zach and Rosebud nearly an hour to get in the house, and by then, Zach was exhausted. He suspected the horse was, too. The first thing Zach did was call his brother-in-law, Tucker Coulter, a renowned vet who specialized in equines. He and Samantha lived on an adjoining parcel of land now known as the Sage Creek Ranch.

Tucker listened while Zach explained his concerns about Rosebud’s loose bowels. “Most likely, she ate something that disagreed with her,” he told Zach. “It happens. For now, just keep an eye on her. If you see blood or a lot of mucus in the stools, it may be something more serious, but until then, I wouldn’t worry.”

Zach released a breath. “She never has accidents, and she crapped inside the—”

“Inside the pharmacy, I know,” Tucker finished for him. “I caught the newscast. She’s definitely got something going on, but at this point, I wouldn’t fly into a panic.”

“I’m a novice with minis,” Zach confessed. “You know? Give me a large horse, and I’m on solid ground, but my experience with tiny horses is zilch.”

“She’s still an equine. Would you be this upset if a cutter got the squirts?”

Zach felt better after the call ended. Tucker knew his stuff. If he said there was nothing to worry about, there was probably nothing to worry about.

Rosebud stood by the table and hung her head, the stance of any horse at rest. Zach went to the fridge for a longneck.
Nothing like a cold beer to work out the kinks
. He settled on a kitchen chair, done in walnut and flat black to match the table, and took a long pull from the bottle. Then he went to rifle through his Sub-Zero freezer for a man-size dinner entrée. He settled on Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes and gravy. As he shoved the tray into his microwave, he thought of his brother Quincy, the health nut. He was probably having a green smoothie for dinner. The man could pontificate for hours about how Zach was systematically killing himself with all the crap he ate.

Zach liked crap, thank you very much. He’d never have a love affair with kale and spinach whizzed into green froth with nonfat yogurt, raw eggs, sesame seeds, and every other nauseating thing Quincy could think of. Zach wanted meat, and he wanted carbohydrates, and he wanted fat. He was a man, not a rabbit. One of these days Quincy was going to turn green and grow bunny ears.

Zach’s microwave had no sooner pinged than Rosebud started to do a tap dance, her signal that she needed to go outside. “Not
now
. Hello, my dinner is ready.”

But the horse continued to put Fred Astaire to shame, looking up at him expectantly. Zach kissed his hot dinner good-bye and haltered her up to go back outside. Just as they reached the door, Rosebud lost control of her bowels and deposited a huge dump on the indoor mat Zach used to wipe his boots. The stench almost took his breath. And Rosebud still tapped her feet, telling him there was more to come.

Zach hooked the mat with the heel of his Tony Lama and slid it away from the door so they could go outside without smearing horseshit everywhere. As they gained the porch, he wondered if he shouldn’t resort to putting a kiddie-pool litter box in the laundry room.
Frigging stairs
. He was coming to hate the damned things. It was extremely tempting to just pick Rosebud up and carry her, but if he did that, he would be defeating the whole purpose of not having a ramp.

They made it to the yard just in time. She deposited steaming feces to the left of the steps. Despite the looseness of the stool, Zach praised her and offered a treat, which she declined. Rosebud always loved her rewards, and she never had this many bowel movements in one day.
No worries
. She didn’t seem sick otherwise, only a little tired, but so was he.

It took Zach forty-five minutes to get her back into the house. For the first time, he considered putting a potty bag on her for the rest of the evening. But that was cheating. Zach didn’t want to insult her by using one. Horses were intelligent, and as a trainer, he knew they had a tendency to measure up to your expectations.

By the time Zach got the harness off the horse, he was too tired to reheat his dinner or even bother eating it. After scraping the manure off the mat into an outdoor trash can and doing a dance in the dark with a stiff garden hose, he hung the mat over a porch rail to dry, poured the now-warm beer down the kitchen drain, and tossed the bottle into the recycle bin. Then he opted to crash on the sofa downstairs in case Rosebud needed to make another emergency trip outdoors. He peeled off his shirt, boots, and socks, rested his head on a sofa pillow, and covered himself with the afghan his stepmother, Dee Dee, had made for him. The mini came to stand near the couch. Zach gave her nose a scratch, closed his eyes, and was promptly out like a light.

Mandy stared through an intimidating blackness at the sign beside Zach Harrigan’s front gate, illuminated by the headlights of her previously owned Honda Element. NO TRESPASSING. VIOLATORS wILL BE PROSECUTED. Knotting her hands over the steering wheel, she considered her options. She rolled down the driver’s window and tried pushing the intercom button, but no one answered.
Darn it
. If she gave up now and settled for calling Mr. Harrigan, he’d probably hang up on her. For Luke’s sake, she had to get inside that gate to talk to him, and she needed a prosecution-proof reason for doing so.