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The air was cold, colder by the day. A heavier ski jacket had replaced my light jacket, and a stocking cap was always on my head. Theo loved to joke about how I looked like some criminal, ready to rob someone. He also supposed that I'd likely have to steal to live when I was fired from my current job. No one would ever hire me again.
If that was indeed the case, I’d be okay with that. I’d recently decided I didn’t want to continue being a bodyguard. The headaches, the rich assholes, and their arrogance and entitlement were old.
I had enough money to buy a place in that valley. When I’d stare out from the porch, the mountains surrounding rolling hills and pointed peaks all softened in wraps of fluffed white clouds. Looking at that alone calmed my nerves, my anger.
Suffice it to say, I stared off a lot those days, searching for peace only that view would bring.
I’d also walk to the pigs and chickens a lot. Dale taught me the art of gathering eggs and slopping, his word, the pigs. Tucker was in the pen one day with the newest set of piglets, playing with them, when Dale asked me about selling some.
“You’re about to get eaten out of house and home. It’s time for slaughter.”
“Slaughter, yeah…that’s not my thing.”
“We’ll do it,” he said, then looked at Tucker with the piglets. “I’ll do it. All you need to do is gather the orders.”
I was again at a loss. “How…do I do that?”
Dale grinned at me. “I don’t know nothin’ about paperwork, sir.”
I had a thought. “I may have some help. I’ll go make a call and get back to you.”
“Cool. I’ll be ready.”
I returned to the house, and on the way, I got out my phone and called Noah, the guru of ranching and all associated things. “Hud?”
“Yeah, Noah, I have a question, or five,” I added, laughing. “How do I collect orders for…slaughtered pigs?”
“You mean pork?”
“Yeah,” I said, shivering from thinking of the pigs I was used to seeing on someone’s dinner table.
He chuckled and finally answered, “I’ll come by in an hour. I found the rest of Flynn’s books. Meant to bring ‘em by sooner.”
“Thank you, Noah. You’re a huge help.”
“It’s what we do, son.”
Theo was on the porch, his arms wrapped tightly around himself while he quaked from the cold. “Where were you?”
“I was talking to Dale about the pigs.”
“Of course.Thoseyou care about.”
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, not that you care. It’s freezing.”
I thought of the fireplace in the living room, which we hadn’t tested yet. “Noah’s coming by soon to give me some help. I’ll ask him about the fireplace.”
“Ask him? Don’t you know anything?”
I wasn’t in the mood. “I know how to use gas ones. I’ve never used a real wood-burning fireplace before, and I don’t know when it was used. If the chimney isn’t clean, it could burn down the house.”
“Oh. Oh, fine,” Theo said, then retreated into the house.
I went in after him, got a blanket from my room I’d found in the closet, and washed it. It was small, so it fit him perfectly while he pouted on the sofa. “Keep that wrapped around you until I figure out the furnace.”
“It’s a mess, this whole place. We’ll die of exposure or worse!”
