Maybe he’s taking you deep into the woods to murder you now that he knows who you are.
I gasped. My foot slid off the gas and the car began to slide backward. I rushed to hit the gas and spun a little.
“Okay, calm down, Decker. He is not a killer,” I whispered to myself. “If he were, he would have murdered the ten reps who have been out to speak to him previously. All of them returned safe and sound. It’s fine. No murdering will take place.”
He could hit you on the head and toss you out in the woods for the bears.
“Ugh, stop it. The bears are sleeping. Handsome Mr. Melios said so.”
Are they? Are they really? Maybe he just said that to dick with you. Maybe he’s got a pen full of grizzly bears on the farm and he feeds them fracking reps.
“There are no grizzly bears in Pennsylvania.” I felt rather sure of that. Somewhat sure. I’d check on that factoid when I had internet again. “Oh look, there’s a barn. How quaint.”
We pulled up to a massive barn with wide doors and windows that had sparkly little Christmas lights on the upper level. The tractor rolled through the big open double doors. I paused outside, waiting to see what I was supposed to do. I didn’t see any animals milling about. No, that was a lie. A gray cat and a funny white duck appeared, the cat walking side-by-side with the duck. Okay, that was different. Didn’t cats eat ducks? I didn’t know. I’d never had a cat. Or a dog. Or a chinchilla. Only bugs. And only until the staff or Nanny Annie found them. Good old Nanny Annie. Fuck she was a miserable old battle horn.
Acosta dropped down to the ground, the smoke from the tractor easing off as he stood staring at me. I let go of the steering wheel and threw my hands into the air questioningly. He motioned me inside. I pointed at the duck and cat. He walked to them and then bent over to waddle behind them, hands out until they had made their way through another smaller door on the far side of the barn. I eased inside, taking care not to rub my car up against a Ford pickup that was new when Eisenhower was in office on the left and some big green rake thing parked on the right. Once I parked, he moved around the car. I cut the engine as the double wide doors were drawn shut. The interior grew dark and eerie until my eyes adjusted to the lone bulb hanging over a workbench along the far wall. We were sitting inside a stone-walled basement—if that was what you called the underbelly of a barn—that held all manner of farming utensils such as forks, shovels, a wheelbarrow, and…well, that was all I could name. There were tons more, but I had no clue what they used them for.
Taking a deep breath in, I exited my car and reached into the back to grab my little overnight bag. I’d assumed I’d be staying in the town of Miller’s Lake, about twenty or so miles from the farm for the night, on the off chance that Mr. Melios proved to be difficult. Usually, my winning personality won over my clients. That and the fact that almost everyone in this area—hell the whole country—needed money. Easy money that they had to do nothing to rake in aside from allowing Fitzgerald & Sons Well Services set up a natural gas well pad. They could sit back and watch those monthly checks roll in without lifting a hand. Pennies from heaven.
My nose wrinkled when the aroma of beast entered my nostrils.
“I can see you’re not a farmer,” Acosta spat just before he pushed through the door that the cat and duck couple had gone through.
Fuck. I un-crinkled my face, tucked my little leather carry-on bag under my arm, and trotted after the sexy but cranky farmer. The moment I stepped through the door and climbed about eight steps, I was inside the animal holding part of the barn. And the smell was much stronger here. I hit a dead stop, glancing down at the floor to find I was now standing on hay. Hay over cement by the looks as tiny circles had been cleared out for some odd…I looked to the left to see several red chickens and one enormous red rooster digging in the hay. Ah, so they were the hay disturbers. The rooster jumped on the back of a hen—without asking for consent—and diddled her right there in front of all the other animals.
When he was done, he jumped off the hen’s back as she shook to fluff her feathers and looked at me with one dark chicken eye as if daring me to judge him. I went the other direction, past pens filled with pigs, cows, goats, a horse, and a mule, ducks, one massive white turkey snoozing in the goat pen along with two geese, a grumpy as fuck looking llama, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Funny. Ho-ho-ho. Merry Christmas. This place reeks. Can we leave now?
I didn’t pay the animals or my snarky inner voice much mind. Trundling along after my unwilling host, I took care not to step in any piles of pooh that might be hidden among the hay. I followed him into a small cinderblock room that had stands in it. I assumed for milking the cows. See, I knew about farming. Sort of. Okay fine, I watchedThe Incredible Dr. Polonce. It was an enjoyable show until he pushed his arm into a cow’s lady parts. I flipped from that channel faster than my manicurist Marcel talked, and he talked a mile a minute, trust me. From the milking room, we made our way into another cinderblock area with well-worn wooden flooring. I had no clue what they could have used this room for as it was barren of any farming type things.
Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw the cat/duck duo following behind me. The gray cat slunk right past me, long whiskers skimming the rough wooden planks, uncaring about me in his way.
“Pardon me,” I muttered as they passed by. The duck gave me a dirty look. My throat was dry now. If good farmer Acosta Melios was going to murder me, this is when it would happen. He’d club me over the head with a spade as I stood here gawking. Then I’d be bear food, and he’d never have to sign with us. And he had to sign. His property held the mother lode according to our geological research teams. A huge pocket of gas—or play as some in the biz call them—had been detected underground that could rival that monster that had been discovered in West Texas several years ago. We’re talking possibly up to ten trillion cubic feet—if not more—of natural gas just sitting there waiting to be drilled and sold. We’d been drilling into the Marcellus, Utica, and other deep shales for years now and were earning record profits. And all we had to do was get Acosta to sign over the mineral and gas rights to his forty-two acres of land. Once we had him signed, we could get cracking with the fracking. That was one of my father’s favorite lines. Dad was not really all that witty, but we all laughed just the same.
Clearing my throat, I tentatively placed my overnight bag atop my head in case a shovel was streaking downward at my skull. No killing blow took place. I let out a long breath, then looked around. This, obviously, was where Acosta lived. A small area with a kitchen, living room, and bathroom. Or I assumed the skinny whitewashed door back in the corner was the bath. There was a woodstove over by the lone window. It was a triangular thing that looked as old as the building itself. Along one wall were several bookshelves of various colors, all filled to overflowing with books, papers, old board games, and several hand-crafted papier mache farm animals. There was a rough table in the food prep area with two chairs, a sofa that could have been straight off the set ofThat ’70s Show, a desk with an ancient desktop computer, a gooseneck lamp, and a photo of someone I couldn’t make out. In the far corner was a rather crooked Christmas tree.
The scraggly pine had a serious list to the left and was so heavy with handcrafted ornaments that the boughs dangled low like an old man’s ball sack. There were even strings of popcorn draped haphazardly on the overburdened boughs. Who stilldidthat? No one that I knew of, certainly. I’d made a popcorn string once in kindergarten class at the Rexington Boys Academy, then brought it home for our enormous Scotch pine in the main foyer. Mom had an apoplexy when she’d found it amid the Swarovski and Buccellati crystal ornaments. Her personal assistant, Maria, who had given me a pained look as I stood there crying, removed it immediately. Yep, the holidays were festive things for sure. Not.
Shaking off that sour memory, I went back to surveying the immediate area. Talk about minimalist. I closed the door behind me to cut down on the cold air blowing into his living area.
“You can sit down,” he called from the kitchen area. The duck and the cat were pattering around his legs, one mewing and the other making raspy noises. “Be careful of Rufus. He’s blind.”
I toed off my sodden loafers and carried them to the blackened woodstove to place them in front of it to dry. I really should have worn snow boots, but the only pair I owned clashed with my suit. Lesson learned. I stepped closer, the worn floorboards creaking with each step. The closer I got to the stove, the warmer it became. I waited by the stove, warming my backside, shoes lying in front of the squat, black potbellied beast as he fed the cat and the duck, then put some coffee grinds into a basket and got a pot of coffee brewing.
“Is Rufus the cat or the duck?” I asked as my butt cheeks toasted. Seemed the cat ate dry food and the duck…well he ate dry cat food as well. Was that okay for the duck? Would he mutate into a predatory waterfowl if he ate too much tuna and salmon flavored nibbles?
“The cat. He’s old. Someone dumped him here a few years ago. People do that a lot with unwanted cats. Pisses me right off.” He did look angry as he peeled off his coat and tossed it over the back of a captain’s chair that did not match the cherry wood table. Oh hell. He was wearing a flannel shirt. Red and blue. It looked so soft, kind of like the hair hanging out from under his knit cap. Fuck but I loved rangy men in flannel. I wasn’t crazy about madcap beards but a thick scruff like Mr. Melios’s was working and did me right in. Melios. That sounded Greek. I’d have to ask him. We had some Greek ancestors on my mother’s side. If he was also of Greek blood, that would give us something in common. And that would make dealing with him easier.
The Greek bloodlines were where Mom and I got our dark hair and eyes. Frank Jr. got Dad’s dirty blond hair and hazel eyes. Also his height. And the business, but hey who really cared about that? Not me. So right, Mom and I were petite. Acosta was taller than me by more than a couple of inches. That was also a plus. If I were looking to score. Which I wasnot. I was here to work. I silently reprimanded my dick as he talked about whatever he was talking about.
“Anyway, he showed up at the same time Ralph did. The duckling kind of took to the cat and they’ve been best buddies ever since. That’s where they sleep.” He pointed to a mound of blankets by the woodstove. “Be careful if you get up in the night to use the bathroom. Don’t step on them.”
“I’ll be incredibly careful,” I promised as the smell of fresh hot coffee filled the room, shifting from one wet sock to the other. “I hope it’s okay that I removed my shoes.”
He gave me the oddest look. “Sure. I might not like you or your company, but I’m not going to make you walk around in wet shoes.”
Well, ouch. He didn’t even know me. He might grow to adore me. Lots of people did. My friends were wild about me. They were in Rio right now wishing I were there. I was wishing I was there too at the moment.
