"I don't have a look."
"You absolutely have a look."
"I ran into someone in town," I say.
She sets her pen down and swallows hard.
"Veronica Eden. She was in our year. She's back for a photography project."
Falon's expression doesn't shift much. "I thought I saw her at Ethel’s.”
"She asked me to dinner."
Falon tries to keep her smile, but it falls the moment I mention Veronica, then again when I mention dinner.
Chapter 22
The Veronica Problem
Falon
Ijump again as Frank lets out another crow to let me know he is still there, as if I’d forgotten. He’d been following me for twenty minutes.
I'd given him and the girls a special treat this morning. Worms, scratch, and scraps from the kitchen. Consisting of corn on the cob, strawberries, a head of cabbage I got just for them, some chicken stock with soft carrots and peas from dinner three nights ago. I spoiled them, and he was complaining. Frank was a rooster with a grudge, and his whole purpose for this morning was to make sure I couldn't take three steps without him underfoot.
"I don't have anything else," I tell him, gently shooing him with my foot.
He blinks at me.
"I'm serious. I gave you everything I had." Of course, that wasn’t entirely true. I brought out some good carrots for the horses and Muddy. They got shod yesterday and did so well. Not one nibble, and this time, Muddy didn’t even try to eat the gloves out of Rainbird’s back pocket. That was atotal win for me and deserved some carrots. It wasn’t my fault Frank disagreed with me.
He makes a clucking sound, and I wince. “Do you kiss your mother with that beak?” I ask, shooing him away again.
"Frank. I have horses to water. Go find a bug or something." I wave my hand at him. He takes one step sideways and resumes following me at exactly the same distance. He is like a very loud, very time-impaired shadow.
From the guest house porch, I hear Bo laugh.
"Not a word," I call out.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"I was thinking, good morning." He comes across the yard with his coffee, and I am pretty sure he is smiling behind the mug. He has that expression he gets when he finds something funny and is trying to hide it, which mostly meant he was failing.
"He does this every time," I say. "Every single time. I give him worms, and he acts as if I owe him more. It's extortion. He's extorting me."
“Can you blame him? You gave him worms." Bo bites his lip to keep from laughing.
"He's committed to making my life difficult. Which is apparently a full-time job." I turn back to the hose, and Frank immediately plants himself on the faucet post. "Go away, Frank."
Frank does not go away.
Bo, wisely, says nothing.
I get the horses watered, which involves pushing Mischief's nose out of the way three times because she has developed a habit of playing with the hose. Annabelle is fine. She is always fine. She is the horseequivalent of serenity. She is calm, and I appreciate that every day Mischief got into, well, mischief.
Bo and I had already split the chores this morning. Bo had the town run. His goal was to return Pearl and Mrs. Winslow’s dishes to them, pick up Dad's boot from the pharmacy, the sprinkler head from Carl's, the lemongrass pot from Gerald's, and the post office before Ed closed up to take Miss Olivia to lunch. I had the horses, the farrier for Matrix, and a rotation meeting with Rusty and Dane that I was already quietly dreading, not because I didn't like them but because I knew exactly how long it was going to take, and I had several orders to make afterward.
