Danger, Sweetheart Part 12

"Give me a break, Great White Fathead! Your 'people' didn't even get to America until long after my 'people' had been shunted off to reservations. No one I'm related to was ever repressed by anyone you were related to."

"Okay!" The idiot blew out a relieved breath. His relieved breath smelled like chili. "So you admit you've got no reason to hate me or the land deal."

"I hate the land deal and it's got nothing to do with being part Native American!" The barn swallows, who hadn't minded Garrett's yelling, were taking flight at hers, probably because of the shrill factor. Her father, who'd been a flight scientist before retirement, had the theory that the madder Natalie got, the more supersonic her rant. "I hate it because there are too many golf courses already! I hate it because your plan to replace all this with that awful disaster putt-putt course is stupid! I'm allowed to be revolted by things that are revolting, get it? I don't have to show my Official Indian Reservation I.D. card to prove it's okay for me to be annoyed."

"Do you guys really have those?" Garrett nodded and managed to look grim and smug. "I knew it."

"Go. Away." Gah, she was so steamed she could feel her pulse in her temples. "Kill. You. If you don't. Argh."

"Fine, but just know your angry-squaw routine doesn't scare me."

"Did you know it's possible to scream so loudly the blood vessels in your throat rupture?" Blake had maneuvered around Natalie and was once again nose to nose with Garrett. "Imagine the kind of pain that would induce that. Throat-rupturing screaming. It's the kind of pain that is agonizing, but not quite enough to make you pa.s.s out. The worst kind of pain, I think."

"You don't scare me." This from the driver's side of his car, as he'd wasted no time getting fleeing distance from Blake. Natalie was impressed against her will; she'd had no idea Garrett Hobbes could move that fast. "Nothing about you is scary!"

"He's scaring the s.h.i.t out of me," Natalie admitted, then smirked as Garrett's reb.u.t.tal was swallowed by the shriek of his engine as he roared out of the driveway in reverse. There was a crunch- Blake winced. "Was that the stump?"

-and the sound of tearing metal- The wince turned into a grin. "My, he's certainly hung up on it, isn't he?"

-followed by the car stalling, only to start up almost immediately and keep going, the engine making a blat-blat-blatttt sound that grew steadily distant.

"Too bad he had to leave so soon." Blake sighed in mock regret. "I felt a certain kinship with the man."

"Never in a hundred years are you anything like that jacka.s.s. When we were fourteen, he grabbed my a.s.s when he was supposed to be spotting me in gym for the rope climb."

Blake's grin disappeared like he'd been punched. "His address, please. Work and home."

"No, no." She waved away his misplaced adorable unnecessary machismo. "Took care of it myself. Let's just say he never again neglected to wear a cup when we had cla.s.s together. Any cla.s.s: Phy Ed, Algebra, Home Ec, Spanish..."

"I found him to be somewhat loathsome," Blake admitted. "He struck me as one of those unfortunates who blame everything and everyone for their own dreadful decisions. From what I gathered, everything that has gone wrong in his life-"

"And so much has gone wrong," Natalie interrupted with a grin.

"-is somehow the fault of ... this town? And apparently fertilizer? Or at least his family's long, proud history selling it?" He shook his head and looked adorably befuddled. "Perhaps I'm not one to pa.s.s judgment. Our mother never spoke of Sweetheart, never discussed her roots-"

Don't say anything. He's opening up and he's being the opposite of a Vegas Douche. Of course, compared to Garrett, anyone would seem the opposite of a Vegas Douche. But this was no time to explain exactly why Shannah Banaan had not one d.a.m.ned thing to brag about, remember fondly, or look forward to. She couldn't imagine a family less excited about b.a.s.t.a.r.d grandchildren. She was just surprised their fate took almost three decades to catch up with them.

"We never had a sense of history to live up to-or to live down." Ah. Still babbling about the family history he knew nothing about. "When our father pa.s.sed, we were instantly wealthy. So I can't relate to Mr. Hobbes' dilemma."

"He's a douche. That's his dilemma."

"He was unpleasant," Blake agreed. "And that was before his unfortunate a.s.sumptions about you."

She groaned. It was all still so vivid. She'd need a lot of booze to start repressing the afternoon. "Is there anything more annoying than a well-meaning racist?"

"A comic-book villain, perhaps? He was so over-the-top. It wasn't unlike watching a play. I kept waiting for him to twirl his moustache while tying a widow to train tracks because she wouldn't sell the family farm."

Natalie felt her eyes widen and shouted before she could suck it back. "Hey!"

He flinched and looked around as if for an attacker. "What? What?"

She calmed herself; poor guy had no idea.

(poor guy? he was Vegas Douche not so long ago, ya big softie) "Blake, I'm sorry to yell, but you can't go around saying stuff like that."

"I've offended you?"

"No, but ... look, just ... don't talk about Garrett's great-grandfather like that. It's not just because he's still upset about it; it's just generally regarded as not cool to bring up. Guy's got enough problems without having to live down what his ancestor did."

"Wait. What?" Blake sat back on the bales as if worried his legs would quit. "Are you- That happened?"

"Of course it happened. Where do you think villain stereotypes come from?"

"No, come on." She could see him struggling with the concept. "His great-grandfather was Snidely Whiplash?"

"Shhh. And yes. That's why even when they were trendy, no one in his family would ever wear a cape or a top hat, or grow a moustache."

"When were capes and top-"

She kept going; it was important that Blake internalized this. "That's like the Holocaust to his family. Which is ironic, because they're all Holocaust deniers. But it's the one aspect of his awfulness that's not to be made fun of."

"I'm never going to understand this place, am I?"

She shrugged. "That's up to you."

"I'm not sure it is."

She shrugged again-what to say to that, really?-then handed him the small bottle she'd grabbed on her way out the door ... when? Ten minutes ago? Felt like longer. Blake glanced down at it, puzzled, then looked up at her and smiled. G.o.d, that smile. Nnfff.

"I know Margaret of Anjou likes cinnamon on her apples. Thought I'd save you a trip."

"You're very kind," was his careful reply, but that smile. Like she'd just done the smartest, coolest thing ever. Like she wasn't a lying, deceitful sneak.

"I'm not. I'm not kind, Blake." And she dreaded the day he'd find out, and hated the dread.

Twenty-one.

Over an hour after she'd called it a day (twenty-first century or not, there was only so much work you could do on a farm once the sun was down) she was spreading b.u.t.ter and brown sugar over a piece of lefsa,* then rolling it into something resembling a delicious cigar and wolfing half of it in one bite. Oh, lefsa. You take so little, and give so much. It needed cinnamon, which was too bad because- Oh. Blake. As if reading her mind, Larry and Harry, who were sitting at the kitchen table playing poker (online, not with each other, fallout from the Deuces Wild Incident of 2013), were discussing him, unless Vegas Douche was the nickname of yet another wealthy, jaded stranger from Vegas who hung around Heartbreak for reasons known only to him and maybe two others.

"Vegas Douche hasn't quit."

Larry scratched his chin. He hardly ever had stubble, only freckles that went with his pale skin and carrot-colored hair, but he never gave up trying. "Nope. He hasn't."

"Might not."

"Yep."

"Might die."

"Risk I'm willing to take." Larry rose, then looked up to see Natalie's gaze on him. "What? I didn't say I wouldn't feel bad for the guy. I would. A little. Jeez, I've known him less than a month. I don't haveta give the eulogy."

"He's not dead yet!" she almost shouted. This. This was what happened when she stopped going to the bank and went to Heartbreak instead. She ended up liking a city guy and snapping at someone she'd known since third grade.

"Yeah, but when he does die! Someone else will have to do the eulogy!"

Harry, still playing poker on his phone, called his opponent's bluff, then looked up and rejoined the conversation. "Any idea how long he's sticking around?"

"If he knew," Natalie replied, absently wondering where Blake even was, "we'd know."

"He knows the town's going belly-up, right? So why hang around?"

"To help it maybe not go belly-up?"

"How the h.e.l.l's he gonna do that between mucking stalls?"

Natalie said nothing. Blake's wealth was a well-kept secret in town. She only knew because she'd seen the property paperwork in Shannah's name and the foreclosure paperwork with Blake's name. It was making Natalie nuts, knowing Blake could write a check at any time and ... and- Go on. Say it. Even if you know saying it out loud would taste like s.h.i.t in your mouth.

-save them. But Vegas Douche saving them only solved the immediate problem. One or two checks couldn't fix two decades of an economic c.r.a.pshoot. It was likely too late to stop Garrett's land deal, but even if they could somehow put the brakes on it, the original problem remained: What next?

So what? What?

"They giving you s.h.i.t down at the bank?" Harry asked. "Heard the boss is a real b.i.t.c.h."

She snorted. She was the boss at Sweetheart Trust, which he well knew. Everyone but Blake knew. "Fun-nee."

"All this because Shannah inherited those farms?" Larry asked. "She shows up; then a few weeks later Vegas Douche comes calling. And neither of them have left."

"Weird," Harry agreed. "Like the plot of a book or something, where at the end all the seemingly unrelated incidents end up being totally related."

"A stupid book," Natalie grumped. This wasn't fiction, dammit. It was her life. All their lives.

"It'd almost be interesting," Larry allowed with a nod, "if interesting things happened in Sweetheart."

Harry fiddled with his phone, indicating he needed two more cards from his online opponents. "This is all Jonathan Banaan's fault. He built Heartbreak, didn't quit, then had more Banaans. What a b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"He was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, remember? His mom was the town librarian and she never got married after the Sam's Delicious Meats guy knocked her up."

"Starting Heartbreak's long tradition of hot s.l.u.tty librarians."

It was true. Employees of the Heartbreak Public Library were absurdly hot. You practically had to clip a head shot to your resume to get an interview over there.

"We're lucky we're not hip deep in Banaans," Harry continued. "Raise. So there's that to be thankful for, I guess."

Not being hip deep in them, it could be argued, is a huuuge part of the problem. But no point in discussing it at this late date.

"Guess so," Larry agreed while Natalie nodded. If only Shannah's family had died, none of this would be happening. But they hadn't died. It was a lot worse than that.

"Call," Harry said.

"Ha!" Larry was squeezing his phone so hard his knuckles were white. "Got this guy on the run." Natalie glanced at his hand, then walked around the table to check Gary's.

"Um..."

"What?" Harry snapped.

"Guys, I think-"

"Go away, Nat," Larry ordered. "I'm about to sink this jagoff for trying to buy the pot."

"I am not!" Gary snapped back. "I don't- Wait."

Natalie started for the back door. She hadn't been present for the Deuces Wild Incident of 2013, but it had become legend within hours. She had no interest in witnessing the next iteration.

"Wait, what's your hand?"

"Three threes."

"G.o.ddammit! I'm playing you online, aren't I?"

"Are you CowboyBaby Number One? Because if you are, then yeah."

"My sister is CowboyBaby Number One and you know d.a.m.ned well I'm playing for her while she gets over the C-section for the twins! She's had a really tough time since the sheriff got amnesia!"

"It's retrograde amnesia, not anterograde! He'll be fine! And I knew you were playing, but how the h.e.l.l would I know her online poker handle? Sweetheart isn't that small."

"Sweetheart is incredibly small and you know it, you fourth-generation son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

She let the screen door swing shut, relieved to be on the other side. Let Gary and Larry work out (or not) their weird online poker flirting thing that everyone knew meant they wanted to bang but needed to fight the urge for at least eighteen more months, because Brokeback Mountain. She could not would not get involved; she had a nonexistent love life to fret over and a city guy to find.

Why d'you even care, Nat? You're not his keeper. He's probably sleeping or went to town or done any one of half a dozen things that aren't your concern.

She told her inner self to get bent, and pretended she wasn't getting a little worried about Vegas Douche.

Twenty-two.

She found him absentmindedly slapping mosquitoes while reading to Margaret of Anjou. Warm light spilled from Main One, lending dim light to the corral. It was cloudless and the moon was nearly full, and distracted as she was, Natalie once again thanked G.o.d for the sight. There were places where you couldn't see the stars for all the artificial light. Blake had spent every night his first week walking around and gaping up at the sky. Twice she'd found him snoring in the tall gra.s.s near the tree line. Was that when she'd started finding him almost adorable?