Sweet and Salty (Marshall My Heart #1)

2. Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

L aura

The left turn signal on my brother’s sheriff truck blinks before he drives down a long road that was well-paved maybe twenty-five years ago. Now it’s more a highway from hell carved of irregular pieces of concrete that threaten the suspension of my ten-year-old hatchback.

He parks his SUV just before the house, a single-story clapboard that looks held together with duct tape and sheer survivalist willpower. There are rust-colored bedsheets hung haphazardly across the windows, and a hand-painted sign with Beware of Dog written in faded black paint. Poor dog. Nothing about this place suggests a caring environment for animals.

I pull in beside Rory, the horse trailer hitched to my car skidding slightly on the slick pavement, and step out just as he does. “Morning,” I say casually, pulling my wool beanie further down over my ears and my thick mittens onto my hands. Winter in Wisconsin is all about embracing the weather and having appropriate clothing.

But animals can’t choose their clothing. Animals can’t choose their owners, whether they go to a good home or a place where they won’t have shelter or food or access to kindness.

Which is why Rory called me early this morning, waking my soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. Which earned me an argument and a migraine.

Human choice is overrated. Sometimes we pick wrong.

“How’s it going this morning, Laura?” Rory asks. He rests his gloved hands on his hips as he inspects the front of the house. “How’s what’s-his-name?”

Like he doesn’t run bi-weekly background checks on my partners. Maybe it would be better for me if I actually read the reports he slides across the table at Sunday dinner, but I can’t give him the satisfaction. “Chris is fine.”

“Has he found his own damn house yet?” Rory examines the front of the house before us as though picturing Chris here.

“No.” I speak through clenched back teeth. Chris lost his apartment last year, and moved in with me temporarily while he got back on his feet. If he’s doing anything to get back on his feet besides eating all the butter in my freezer, I’d love to hear it.

Rory shakes his head and clucks, sounding so much like Ma that it sends grief pangs through my heart. “You deserve better, Laura.”

An icy gust of wind slaps my cheek. Sure, I deserve better. Doesn’t everyone? But I have no illusions. I’m a single woman in my mid-thirties, living in a small town where the last new resident moved in three years ago.

“Is this why you called me out of bed on this frigid morning, to harass me about my romantic decisions? Like you’re one to talk. Your son may be the world’s cutest kid, but your track record isn’t full of winners either.” I cross my arms over my chest and give him my best scowl. “Are we going in? It’s my one day off from the bakery. I don’t want to spend it freezing my buns off in a place where hope goes to die.”

“So dramatic,” Rory huffs. He walks up the steps before knocking on the door, which showers him with a fine spray of dust. Hah. Serves him right.

The door creaks open on rusted hinges, and a thin, nearly translucent white man in an ancient pair of jeans held up with a length of frayed rope sticks his narrow, insect-like head out. If I cared about him, I might suggest he see his doctor to rule out anemia. I don’t think he’ll take that suggestion kindly. “I don’t need nothing. Get off my land.” He coughs, not bothering to cover his mouth. Gross.

My inner people-pleaser protests and tries to force me back toward my car, but I stand my ground. Rory doesn’t budge, but then again, he has none of my issues. Probably because Mom is his biological parent, and Ma was mine.

Ma would have hated this poohead.

“Joel,” Rory growls. “We got a report that you got your hands on some animals.”

The man stays inside his front door. He’s wearing a threadbare white T-shirt that sags around the shoulders, making him look like a cross between a marshmallow and a dilapidated ice-fishing hut. “It’s my property. I can do what I like.”

Rory still doesn’t move. “Not when you’ve already had four citations for negligence, Joel. Who sold it to you?”

Joel sniffs and tightens his arms around his thin body. “None of your business. She’s mine now.”

Rory gestures with a brisk tilt of his head. Despite the fact that he’s worked for the St. Olaf Police Department for over a decade now, his Sheriff Face never fails to amuse me. I still remember him as the eleven-year-old who was too afraid to go swimming in the lake because our younger sister, Frannie, told him a dragon was sleeping at the bottom. “Show me your paddock, Joel.”

Joel huffs and turns away. This entire exchange is far too much for me. I’m exhausted, clammy from the thick parka and mittens, and I have to pee. I shouldn’t have had that cinnamon mocha before I got in the car, but it was so delicious. “I don’t have a ton of time. We can go around back without you.”

I don’t wait for further invitation. I walk as quickly as I can away from Joel Hostetler and his sad wardrobe and toward the back yard where the paddock ought to be.

The sight there halts me, and I forget all about my aching bladder.

Standing all alone, too sore and malnourished to move, is a four-legged animal with a thick, matted coat, covered in muck.

It’s probably either a donkey or a mule, based on the shape of the neck. Poor thing. Another gust of wind slices through my winter clothing, and that loosens my feet. I walk toward the paddock, cooing softly, whispering soft words to make the animal feel more comfortable.

“Careful,” Joel Hostetler says behind me, his voice little more than a hiss. “She’s a right bitch. Only thing for an animal like that is to break her, and if that doesn’t work, it’s the glue factory.”

My fragile pretense of self-control frays. I whirl and stalk toward him. “What, you think because she’s old and frailer than you that you can just put her out to pasture to die? What kind of human being lacks so much compassion?”

A weak one, I think as he takes a step back, wide-eyed like he thinks I actually might hit him. He glances over at Rory, as if to see if he might get help from the sheriff, but my brother just shrugs, an amused smile playing over his lips.

This is the problem with men. They play all these foolish little games, leaving women to do all the heavy lifting.

To heck with both of them. I can’t believe he almost made me swear. I remove the rope halter from one of my voluminous coat pockets and walk slowly again toward the paddock.

The attention scares her. She tries to back up into one of the corners of the paddock, but the ground is that curious March icy mud-slush and the donkey’s feet don’t look like they’re in the best of health anyway. Another surge of anger rushes through me. This girl knows trauma. Why are people so awful?

“Get him back,” I say to Rory, my voice soft but edged. I don’t even want to say his name. “He’s scaring her.”

Behind me, I hear the sounds of Rory’s boots on the ground and the vain protests of the donkey’s former owner.

Her eyes are white, wide and bloodshot, as she watches me climb over the broken wood of the paddock fence. I pause just inside, giving her space to realize that I won’t crowd her. Even though my singing voice leaves a lot to be desired, Ma always taught me that animals respond to music. It worked the day I brought my Golden Retriever Einstein home, or the days when I took in Bella, Edward, and Jacob, my rescued potbellied pigs. Like them, this girl needs a little bit of love. And, despite Chris’s assertions to the contrary, I have a lot of love to give.

I start to sing, one of Ma’s favorite old songs that she sang to all of us when we were babies: “Down in the Valley.”

I stay there just inside the paddock, singing verse after verse in my terrible alto-soprano, freezing my bums off despite the layers of down and wool. Time stands still. It’s just me and her and the memory of Ma on this cold, windy, foggy morning. “It will be all right, hon, ” I whisper to her between verses. “I know it’s bad now, but things will always get better. I’ll be here for you. ”

The donkey snorts, the color slowly returning to her eyes. She tosses her head one way then the other, as if to see if Joel Hostetler was anywhere in sight. But Rory knows how I work. Joel will be long gone by now.

Halfway through, right when I’m beginning to forget the actual words Ma used and inserting my own half-sensible ones, the donkey moves toward me on halting hooves. She stops about two feet away, too far to reach with the halter.

So I meet her halfway.

“Maybe Rory is right.” I sing the words softly, keeping the tune since that’s what brought her over here. With intrepid slowness, I take one step toward her, then another. She never takes her gaze off me, but I’m not going to push. She lets me near her flank and allows me to stroke through the matted hair. Definitely a donkey. First order of business once she’s home will be food. Second will be a bath. “Maybe I should break up with Chris.”

The donkey tilts her head with an almost-forgotten imperiousness, like she had once been proud and still remembers that part of herself. We could bring it back. Trust might be as fragile as an icicle, but I’m good at playing the long game.

“I guess you’re with Rory.” I slowly stroke my hand from her flank to her neck, humming the entire time. “Want to come home with me? You can help me keep an eye on those darned pigs. Edward’s the troublemaker. You can keep him in line.”

She doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, but there’s a spark in her eye, like she hears and understands. This is a crafty lady deserving of respect.

“All right then.” Slowly, I pull the rope halter up and over her head and fix a lead line to the bottom O-ring. “I think I might call you Lucretia Borgia, smart girl. What do you say to that?”

She says nothing, for obvious reasons, but she follows me to my trailer anyway.