Danger, Sweetheart Read online

  Ah, sweet relief! If she wouldn’t blame Rake, who was awful, she would blame herself. Either way, he might make it out of this diner alive. Alas, relief fled as she finished her thought: “But you’re still going to help me fix it.”

  “How?”

  His mother showed her teeth in what most people would assume was a smile. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  Eight

  “No.”

  “Blake.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Blake!”

  “I refuse.” He was iron; he would not be moved. “I will love and honor you as my mother for my lifetime, but I draw the line here. No.”

  “Blake.” His mother was steel, an alloy of iron and carbon. “You have to do this.”

  “Untrue.” Iron, dammit!

  “You will do this.” Argh, steel. Superior tensile strength.

  Still, he hung in. “Inaccurate.”

  “Blake, I will activate the nuclear option.”

  His brain actually went off-line for a second as it contemplated the horror. “… you can’t mean that.”

  “Without hesitation. I’ll turn that key and you’ll have to live with the fallout.”

  Blake stared at the alloy of iron and carbon and knew defeat, which he indicated by muttering, “Shit,” into his perfectly brewed cup of tea.

  Minutes later, a thoroughly defeated Blake turned his phone back on

  (bring on the sex texts! bring on the awkward! I don’t care anymore and have nothing left to lose!)

  and began mentally composing the blistering text he would send to Rake, because Rake was terrible. The text would be a thing of hateful beauty, Blake’s triumph and vengeance at once.

  Face up to it: you’re screwed.

  Yes. He was screwed. But Rake was still terrible, and that was the straw he would grasp. Meanwhile, the bulldozer of his life was imparting more waitressing wisdom: “You can save yourself more trips if you learn to anticipate,” she was saying in her frightening (obey me or face the consequences!) yet soothing (I’m just looking out for you, honey) voice. “Most of the time a customer who wants a hamburger will want ketchup. And small children—”

  A sharp ka-clang!, followed by a tentative voice from the booth behind them: “Um, waitress? Can we get another fork over here?”

  “—frequently drop their silverware.”

  How did she accomplish that? The timing was perfect! I didn’t even know a child was sitting behind us. Once again I am in awe, and also terrified, of she who gave me life.

  Their waitress began to wander off in search of flatware just before his mother put down three twenties to cover a $32.46 bill. The manager loomed out of nowhere, startling them both, like a corn-fed chubby demon emerging from the shadows of the hostess station. “You folks have a nice evening,” he said, starting to scoop the twenties across the table and into his pocket. “Unlikely, but no fault of yours.”

  “That’s not for you,” his mother spoke up. “It’s for our waitress.”

  “Yeah, no. See, I keep them all and we divide at the end of the week.” The manager (black lettering on white background name tag read Bill! And what was with this town and unnecessary exclamation points?) was short and round, a little taller than Blake’s mother and wider, and balding, which he for some reason called attention to by combing strands from one side of his head up over the top of his (bald) head and securing them on the other side with … what? Gel? Superglue? Saliva? A bad business, regardless.

  (He recalled Rake explaining his position while they were in their teens. “If I start shedding like a husky in spring, I’m just getting rid of all of it. Fuck all that clinging to scraps garbage. It’s all going down. I will totally rock the Patrick Stewart look. And the Dwayne Johnson. And the LL Cool J. And the Taye Diggs.”

  “And the Pablo Picasso,” he suggested.

  “Dammit, Blake, do you have to suck the cool out of everything?”)

  “You can’t do that, Bill,” Blake’s mother was saying, sliding out of the booth and getting to her feet.

  “Sure can, Shannah.” The manager was coolly polite, obviously known to Blake’s mother but not a friend. “We keep some in the pot for the holiday party at the end of the year and I divide up the rest so we all get a share. It’s called teamwork, like when people in this town stick together to stick it out? Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

  Warm delight curled through Blake’s midsection. Oh. Oh, this is going to be wonderful. His phone started buzzing (Caroline? Sharon? Barb? Vanessa?); he ignored it.

  “It’s called tip pooling!” she snapped. “And it’s illegal. Tips by definition belong to the employees, not the employer. Do you know why, Bill? It’s because you aren’t paid subminimum wage. So you don’t get a share of their tips. Nor can you share them out with nontipped employees like dishwashers.”

  “I know the law!” Bill! snapped back.

  “It seems,” Blake said in a low, soothing tone, “you don’t.”

  Like all bullies, Bill! ignored the larger threat and went back to trying to dominate the shorter, lighter threat. “This is none of your damned business, Shannah, again.”

  “You’re wrong, Bill, again. You can sue him, you know,” she said, turning to the waitress, who had frozen in place with a replacement fork clutched in one fist. “He’s not legally entitled to any of your tips.”

  “Sue?” she echoed, and then laughed. Looked around the almost-deserted restaurant, the dusty corners, the quiet kitchen, and laughed harder. “Sue! Right! Because I want a percentage of whatever all this is.”

  Sensible creature.

  “You, get back to work.” Bill! pointed in one direction, then the other. “You, get the fuck out of my restaurant.”

  Blake stepped up, forcing Bill! to stand his ground or take a step back. He stepped back with such speed he nearly fell into the booth with the forkless child. “Sir, I have terrible news for you. More terrible than the fact that a visit from the North Dakota Department of Labor seems to be in your future.”

  “You don’t—”

  “My terrible news is this: I don’t mind that you’re crowding my mother and using foul language, because I have endured a very odd day where almost everything has been out of my control. That’s bad for me, because I dislike change, and being out of control, but it’s worse for you. Because I am in a foul enough mood that I’m hoping you’ll be suicidal enough to raise a hand to my mother. Federal assault is against the law, of course, but sometimes unacceptable actions are met with unacceptable nosebleeds.”

  “Jesus. You people. All right.” With a snarl, Bill! threw the sixty dollars at the waitress, who watched with an amazed expression as the twenties fluttered to the floor, then stooped to pick them up. “Now get the fuck out. I’m serious, now.”

  “Did you know that over forty percent of facial injuries result in broken noses? Your nose is always in danger, as it protrudes from the middle of your face. Yours more than others. And it’s not just cartilage; it’s bone, too, which is why it often requires surgical correction.”

  “Blake.”

  “Sometimes if you’re hit hard enough, a broken nose can even damage the bones in your neck. Isn’t that fascinating?” Blake asked Bill’s! nose, as the man refused eye contact.

  “Blake,” his mother said in fond exasperation. “Please don’t. It’ll be inconvenient to bail you out.”

  “Worth it,” he told Bill’s! nose. “My brother and I are the only ones allowed to contemplate Shannah Tarbell’s grisly murder. Finding our mother intensely annoying is a privilege, not a right.”

  “If you get pinched, Rake would have a field day.”

  In an instant Blake abandoned Plan Deviated Septum, because she was right and he would never live it down, because Rake was terrible. “Very well, Mom. Shall we?” He stepped back to let his mother walk past and to let Bill! sidle around him to scuttle to the kitchen. Their waitress seized Shannah’s forearm and mouthed, Thank you, with a big smile, holding up t
he twenties for emphasis. Blake turned to follow, and felt a big smile of his own slide onto his face.

  She was there, the woman he had met outside the bed-and-breakfast, the one he had plunged from his Supertruck to assist. She was wearing the same suit she’d had on earlier, and the same brown wedges, and two older men were right behind her, also in suits (one with tan oxfords, one with brown loafers), waiting to be seated. All three were big eyed, but she was the only one grinning. It threw her gorgeous cheekbones into sharp relief, and he was absurdly happy she had caught him doing something clichéd and heroically masculine.

  “The North Dakota Department of Labor, eh?” she teased as his mother walked past, intent on the street. “God help us all. The last thing this town needs.”

  “Evil must be stomped from existence by any means possible,” he replied, wishing he could linger and talk. Alas, he had a mother to soothe and a venomous text to prepare, because Rake was terrible. And if things went the way Blake’s mother planned—and as she had the nuclear option, that seemed to be the case—he would have plenty of time to strike up new conversations. Perhaps his exile to Sweetheart wouldn’t be entirely wretched. He wondered if the lovely blue-eyed creature tasted as good as she looked. “A pleasure to see you again.”

  “Back atcha,” she replied, which pleased him so much you’d think she had said, Jeepers, you’re dreamy! or the twenty-first-century equivalent.

  At the time he had no inkling, but it would be their last pleasant interaction.

  Nine

  Thus did Blake find himself back in his room at the UR A B and B, trying not to gulp his whiskey. Normally he took it with a splash of soda; tonight he needed it neat. And he needed a lot of it.

  There was only one bright spot. He would not be tortured solo. His mother had sworn it to be so, and she never lied.

  He took another sip, collapsed on the overstuffed bed, which instantly deposited him in the middle of a growing quilt crater

  (like a sinkhole! with quilts!),

  and fumbled in the bedside drawer for his laptop. He withdrew the dull silver rectangle, opened it, and was pleased to find the battery at 89 percent. He hit the Messages icon and gave silent thanks for iChat; it was the only way he could rage-text with accuracy and speed.

  Loathsome brother,

  I am being held hostage in our mother’s hometown and cannot escape the observation that this is ALL YOUR FAULT. She controls the keys to the kingdom, the money, and the nuclear option. Take a moment and think about what that means.

  Send. Off it went, winging its way to wherever Rake was holing up having ungodly amounts of casual intimacy with women he would never see again. Blake knew he was just as bad with his flings, but at least he took the trouble to learn their names.

  Now. The rest. He thought of the look on their mother’s face

  (“This isn’t the movies, Son. You don’t get points for trying.”) and continued.

  You’ll recall we felt the best way

  (“No. The fastest way, and there’s a difference. You wanted a quick fix so you slapped a Band-Aid over a crack in the dike.”)

  to assist Mom would be to pay off the bank holding all the paper. This solved the immediate problem, but as a long-term tactic it was brought to my attention that it will prove to be a disaster. And so, though we are equally culpable in our mother’s perceived crimes against Sweetheart, I am the only one exiled. Because you are terrible.

  His glass didn’t have enough whiskey in it. Minutes later, fortified, he returned to his texting.

  The terms of my atonement are as follow: 1) No more selling people’s homes/farms to the bank. 2) The remaining farm, scheduled for closing next week, is off the market. 3) Said farm must be made profitable within six months. 4) By me. 5) Without my fortune, which she has pulled off the table. (You’ll recall that though she allowed access to our inheritance on our eighteenth birthday, we are not legally entitled to it until we are thirty, which is twenty-three months and seventeen days from today.) 6) I cannot terminate anyone or sell anything. 7) Resistance is futile. 8) If condition #7 is ignored, she’ll activate the nuclear option.

  Sound nigh impossible? I quite agree, but our mother

  (“You don’t get to be the hero with an attempt. So if you’re in it, for God’s sake be in it. If you’re in it, here’s what that means.”)

  does not.

  For this, in addition to many other crimes you have perpetuated upon me since our birth, you will be made to pay and pay. I warn you only as a courtesy as dictated by the bonds of family.

  Good night.

  Later, when Rake hadn’t responded to his text missive (to be expected, because Rake was terrible, but it was annoying all the same), Blake admitted the truth about why he agreed to remain in Sweetheart for a minimum of 181 days: his mother was a guilt ninja. Annoying how, even though you knew how and why you were being manipulated, it was still difficult to resist. And though he would never feign understanding of some people’s unreasonable attachment to particular plots of land over others, he wasn’t so clueless he could dismiss their feelings about such things.

  Meanwhile, he had to spend only one night in the bed-and-breakfast, after which he would move to (muffled groan) Heartbreak Farm. Only one night surrounded by chintz wallpaper, chintz overstuffed chairs, and chintz drapery.

  At once it was too much, and he needed to be away from the chintz. Or surrounded by different chintz. So with one thing and another, he found himself in some sort of porch/tearoom, which had only one inhabitant.

  To his astonishment, the lone inhabitant was an infant pig.

  She was standing in a small box stuffed with clean straw, looking up at him with bright eyes (he would discover later pigs had poor eyesight) and making small squeaks in greeting.

  “Hello,” he said as he set his empty glass down on a nearby table. “No more whiskey for me tonight.” Was this common in Sweetheart bed-and-breakfasts? Were guests expecting to bed down with infant pigs, or required to? Heartbreak Farm would likely not demand he bed down with livestock, right?

  These are the questions I should have asked before agreeing to this.

  “Er, hello. Have you eaten? Or nursed? Whatever it is you do at your age?” Why am I talking to her? Do I expect her to answer back? He recalled his mother blurting something about the White Rose of York hours ago … could she have been referring to the pig?

  She uunnffed at him in response; he had no interpretation but chose to see it as the porcine equivalent of “come forth, fascinating stranger.” After a quick peek over his shoulder to ensure they were alone, he scooped her up in the palm of one hand, then settled her against his shoulder, one hand under her tiny fuzzy rump, the other securely against her back. “You are quite personable,” he told the White Rose of York, if that was her real name. “It’s close to irresistible. Then again, I may be drunk.”

  If the uunnffs she squeaked at him from her box were cute, the uunnffs in his ear were enchanting. He would have to put her down soon. If she kept snuffling in his ear he might giggle.

  “You two having fun?”

  Blake whirled, clutching the piglet, who let out a small squeal, and beheld a short, stocky man wearing immaculate navy overalls and a short-sleeved shirt of lighter blue. He was older—about Blake’s mother’s age—with deeply tanned skin, a white monk’s fringe circling his head like a fuzzy equator, a heroic Roman nose, and small smiling eyes so dark it was hard to tell the irises from the pupils.

  “Is this your piglet? She escaped! But I recaptured her. That’s what this is.” Do not nuzzle. This is no time for nuzzling. “A … a recapture. That is the thing you are seeing now, sir.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Yeah, she’s a friendly critter, i’n’t she?” He spoke in a clear, calm voice and didn’t seem at all bothered to behold a stranger holding his piglet. “Poor thing just drinks up affection like lemonade. Gotta keep Rose in here for a couple more days.”

  Rose? “That seems sensible.” He, of course, had no idea. P
orcine husbandry was not in his skill set.

  “I’m Roger.” He held out a brown weathered hand the size of a bowling ball and Blake managed to shake hands without dislodging the piglet. “You must be Blake Tarbell. You see your mom?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lived to tell the tale, so that’s good.” Roger stepped close and tickled the White Rose of York under her fuzzy chin. “She’s the one named the pig.”

  On short acquaintance, I like this man. Why? Some people have enough unconscious charisma to make people like them; is Roger a man with such a gift? Is liking him an error? Need more data.

  “And you went along with it? With calling her the White Rose of York?”

  “I just call her Rose. Your mom settle your hash for ya, then?”

  Blake frowned. “How is that your concern, Roger?”

  The older man’s friendly smile dropped away. “Your mom’s a great lady. Real classy and she’s not afraid to work, neither.”

  “Either.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. You were explaining to me what a great lady unafraid of work the woman who raised me is.” Unspoken: a lady I know better than you do, sir.

  “I’ve known Shannah since we were kids, so you can just put that thought right out of your head.”

  Ye gods. A telepath! “How did you—”

  “Aw, it was all over your face; anyone could’ve seen.”

  “Untrue. I’m told I am … I am …

  a rock

  a machine

  a robot

  you don’t care

  you only love your books

  it’s not you; it’s me

  it’s not me; it’s you

  you don’t care

  can’t you even try to care

  do you care about anything

  “… difficult to read.”

  Roger shrugged. “Don’t think so.”

  “Continue your point, please, and don’t think I haven’t ruled out the dark arts,” he warned, cuddling the White Rose of York closer to his chest. If Roger turned out to be a powerful warlock/farmer hybrid, he would protect the White Rose of York as best he could.