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Chapter 3
“Thank you so much forcoming right away,” Lark said as Mabel walked in the house.
Lark had her laptop open on the counter, and she scrolled with one hand while she absently stirred something on the stove with her other.
Lark was the busiest person Mabel knew.
Beyond having a thriving veterinary practice, she had opened her home to any girl that needed some structure and stability in their life.
At any one time, Lark was liable to have up to five girls living with her.
Mabel had actually moved out, which gave Lark another bed, although it also made things a little bit more difficult for her, since Mabel was another adult in the home and able to handle things when Lark was out on call.
“All right, I have about ten minutes, if you have that much time to talk to me?” Lark said, closing her laptop, shutting the stove off, and moving the pan away from the hot burner. “Oh, my goodness! What happened to you?” Lark said as she got a good look at Mabel for the first time and saw the manure that clung to her everywhere.
“It’s a long story, but it has to do with Carol Smith and something she wanted me to get. The barnyard wasn’t quite as firm as what she thought it was, and Billy was there.”
“Billy?” Lark’s head jerked up, her body growing still.
“Yes, Billy, but you don’t have to worry about him matching me up with anyone. He did this to me.” She held her arms up, showing all of the manure that had started to dry on her person.
“Interesting,” Lark said, and a corner of her mouth twitched.
“I have as much time as you need,” Mabel said. “But if you don’t mind, I’m going to run upstairs and change my clothes first.” She had left an emergency stash of clothes there just in case Lark needed her to stay with the girls anytime. She should have changed before she left Carol’s house, but she hadn’t thought of it. It must have been because of falling. It certainly wasn’t because of seeing James.
“I don’t mind at all. And you...might want to throw those away.”
That was saying something coming from Lark. Normally she was very frugal.
Lark was on call this weekend, and Mabel wasn’t supposed to have to work until Monday. So as long as Lark didn’t get called out, they should have time to chat.
Although, if they had two calls at the same time, if she was available, even on her weekend off, she always went out.
Mabel ran upstairs and changed her clothes as quickly as she could, taking Lark’s advice and throwing the clothes she took off into a garbage bag.
She threw it to the side to throw away later and went running down the steps, curious as to what Lark would have to say.
She came into the kitchen as Lark put some tea towels away.
“The girls are out feeding the animals right now, so we have a little bit of privacy. I didn’t want them to hear this. I... I wanted to talk to you first.”
“All right,” Mabel said, grabbing glasses when she saw that Lark was getting a container of tea out of the refrigerator.
She put them on the table, filled them up, and put the container back in the refrigerator.
“You can go ahead and sit down.”
“You’re making me nervous,” Mabel said with a smile. Lark was one of the best people she knew. Always happy, always willing to do whatever it took to serve other people. And she served them with a smile.
Mabel knew there was some type of tragedy in Lark’s past, that she had had a great love of her life, but she had lost it. But to see Lark, one would never guess.
She was close with her family, the Strykers of Sweet Water, and her brothers often came around and helped when things needed to be fixed.
