How to Howl at the Moon (9 page)

Tim, however, was not. He realized he must really be lonely to have bonded with Chance so fast, to have been so excited about keeping him. There was just something about Chance. He was the kind of dog Tim had always wanted—a big dog, agile but not mean. He was super-smart and cooperative. Well, sometimes cooperative. His eyes were so expressive. It almost seemed like he understood Tim. It had been a lot of fun to give him a bath and hang out. Tim had already had visions of the dog running around in the yard while he worked in the greenhouse, and keeping him company at night, someone he could talk to, someone who loved him just the way he was. Weren’t dogs supposed to be like that? What did it say about Tim that even a dog rejected him?

Well, whatever it said, Chance was gone. So much for running to the store today to pick up dog food and a collar. Tim should be glad not to have to spend the money. He didn’t feel glad.

With a sigh, he got dressed and got to work.

*                          *                         *

Tim misted all the seed trays and checked to make sure they didn
’t look like they’d gotten too cold overnight. The weather report had said 55, so they should be fine. Then he set about
planting more trays of Orange Glow and Mixed Popper sweet peppers.

He’d researched all the farmer’s markets in the area and turned in online applications for the ones he’d found. Eventually, if he could make a go of it, he’d love to have a nursery business out here on the property. But that was way beyond his resources at the moment.

Could he really sell enough veggies and herbs to pay the rent Linda wanted, put food on the table, and keep himself stocked in seeds and supplies?

What kind of a sissy-ass skill is raising plants? Who’s gonna buy shit from you when they can pick greens off the side of the road or get them carrots on sale in bulk at Costco?
It was his father’s voice.

Marshall chimed in.
You couldn’t run a business if Donald Trump himself were sitting on your shoulder 24/7.

Tim felt sick with a wave of dread, but he pushed the voices away. His dad wouldn’t know good food if he choked to death on it, and Marshall—Marshall didn’t have a crystal ball. Just because Tim had chosen to spend all his time in the greenhouse when he’d worked for Roots of Life, didn’t mean he couldn’t work with customers. Marshall didn’t know what Tim was or wasn’t capable of.

He pictured himself running a little organic produce stand in Mad Creek and people passing him by with haughty glances at his prices.

No.
Don’t do that to yourself.

Right. Positive thinking. He pictured himself barely able to keep up as people cooed over his produce. He’d have lovely Golden Yellow celery and big bushy Pascal Giant. There’d be tiny yellow fingerling potatoes and white Ghost carrots. He’d bought those seeds from an heirloom seed company, and they were germinating even now. Exotic and pretty—that’s what the patrons at the Santa Barbara farmer’s markets liked. Surely the people in Mad Creek wouldn’t be all that different.

He thought with longing about his Purple Passion Pepper, with its bright grape hues and firm texture. That had always sold out at the markets. And they couldn’t grow enough of his Garnet Globe carrots—which looked like red radishes and tasted like sweet carrots—to keep up with demand. If he could grow those, he’d certainly be a success.

But Tim couldn’t grow any of those things. He couldn’t grow them because fucking Marshall had gone behind his back and copyrighted the varieties under the Roots of Life name, leaving Tim off the paperwork. Now Tim couldn’t grow them, even though he’d done every bit of the work of thinking them up and working the kinks out of the hybrids, generation after generation. It had taken him three years to get just the right color and texture for the Purple Passion Pepper and to get it to successfully repeat from seed. Roots of Life had made hundreds of thousands of dollars off Tim’s hybrids. And all that time, Marshall’s promises of equal share in the profits had been eaten away by
extraordinary expenses
here,
transportation damage
, and
reasonable reserves
there. And Tim had bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Ugh! He’d been such a fool! He was never trusting another person—never again.

Tim finished planting the last of the trays and checked for germination again. The top of the soil was loosening on the first tray of tomatoes he’d planted. Soon fresh green shoots would be poking up. By now it was sunny and warm and nearly noon, and there was no putting off the real work that needed to be done.

He walked out to the big scrubby area behind the greenhouse and looked at it in dismay. By the time the plants in the greenhouse were several inches tall and straining at their little allotments of soil in the tray, he had to have this field cleared and prepped for planting. It was a daunting task. At Roots of Life, Marshall would have just hired a guy to come in with a big tractor and turn it all up, then another guy to run over it and mix in the compost. But Tim didn’t have those kinds of resources. What he had was his own hands and back—that’s what he had.

At least Linda had some old tools in the greenhouse. There was a rusty old pick and a big shovel that wasn’t the newest
or
the sharpest, but
it
was better than nothing.

Tim paced off the field—he needed at least 30x30 feet, and that was just to start. He marked it with stakes and twine. He spent fifteen minutes pushing the shovel into the dirt with his foot and turning over clumps and
he
was ready to die. God, he was out of shape! By the time it was full-on noon, and the sun was blaring, Tim was hot, sweaty, dirty, and utterly discouraged.

Of course, that was when he heard a car come down the driveway and stop. Tim leaned on the shovel, breathing hard. He slowly pulled off his work gloves. There was a fat watery bubble on the pad of his palm just below his right middle finger. Great.

He was about to go see who’d driven up when Sheriff Beaufort came walking around the corner of the house. He was carrying a large fruit basket under one arm.

Tim watched him approach with a mix of dislike, lust, and confusion. Sheriff McHotty wasn’t wearing his mirrored shades today, and Tim could see the blue of his eyes when he was still quite a ways away. His black hair looked full and fluffy and his uniform was tight, as always. God, you could see the man’s distinctly sculpted quad muscles as he walked, not to mention a considerable package. That ought to be illegal. Seriously.

Excuse me, officer. I want to make a citizen’s arrest for indecent exposure and inciting a riot.

Tim was chuckling to himself as the sheriff walked up. The man couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Fruit basket.” Sheriff Beaufort shoved the basket toward Tim.

“I can see that. Really, that’s…” Tim looked over the cellophane-covered basket. There were apples, oranges, a grapefruit, some bananas, and various bags of nuts and dried fruit.
Oh thank you, God.
This would supplement Tim’s food budget nicely for a week or two. Maybe he’d been wrong about Sheriff McHotty. “Thank you,” Tim said. “This is, like, the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time.”

Blue eyes stared at him in surprise. “If that’s true, that’s unfortunate.”

“Yeah, well….” Tim shuffled his feet. He forgot he was holding the shovel and banged his ankle into the unyielding side of it. “Ow! Fuck. Fuck!”

It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. Tim hopped on one foot, waiting for the sharp pain to ease. The sheriff reached out a hand to steady Tim’s elbow and forestall the doom of the tottering fruit basket. Tim breathed through the pain. As it slowly faded, he realized the sheriff was only a foot or so away from him and still firmly holding his arm.

Beaufort was a muscular but compact man, and Tim was awkwardly tall. He found himself looking down into those blue eyes. The sheriff looked right back. The man was staring again, that champion stare. Boy howdy. Only this time, it didn’t feel like his stare was saying
go the fuck awa
y. This stare was looking down deep into Tim’s soul as if trying to puzzle him out, and it was maybe even a little sympathetic. Tim felt a tingle of excitement crawl down his spine like
an inch worm. It blossomed in his groin. One of Beaufort’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

Weird. Beaufort’s blue eyes really were the same deep sky blue color as Chance’s eyes. Or vice versa. The thought of Chance brought a wave of sorrow with it, killing the moment. Next came alarm.

Did the sheriff really drive out here to deliver a fruit basket? Or had he heard about the accident last night? Was he going to give Tim a ticket? Or worse?

“I didn’t hit him on purpose!” Tim blurted out, pulling back and tripping over the shovel.
Again
. “Ow! Fuck!” Then he realized what he’d just said. To a cop. “It was a dog! Not a person or anything. The ‘him’ I hit. I mean, I didn’t commit vehicular homicide yesterday. Or ever! Or even vehicular nudge. Except to the dog. Who wasn’t even badly hurt. You can ask Dr. McGurver. Are you here about the dog?”

Tim pinched his mouth shut, cutting off the flow of verbal
diarrhea
. Beaufort was probably thinking what an idiot Tim was. God, Marshall was right. He did have the social aptitude of a gnat. And for some reason, every stupid bone in Tim’s body stood to attention around Sheriff Beaufort.

“I am not. Here about the dog,” the sheriff said slowly and distinctly.

“Oh. Okay.”

Sheriff Beaufort took a deep, calming breath, probably calling on reserves of patience to deal with
the
nutso
. He looked over the field and sighed. “You’re clearing a field.”

“Uh… yeah.”

The sheriff nodded and pursed his lips, as if he expected as much. “What are you planning to grow here?”

Tim snorted. “Well, I’m not growing drugs.”

The sheriff looked at him sharply.

“I’m not! Just… you know. Vegetables. And herbs. And… stuff.”

“Vegetables.”

Tim barked a nervous laugh. “Heh heh. What else would I grow?”

What was the matter with him? Why was it that when he was telling the complete and factual truth—well mostly, if you forgot about the hybrid roses that didn’t legally belong to him—he sounded like the biggest liar that ever lived? Why did the sheriff make him so nervous?

Sheriff Beaufort stared at him. “I don’t know, Mr.
Traynor
. What else would you grow?”

Tim shrugged.

“It is Traynor, right? Timothy Traynor?”

Tim felt a blush start at his ears and flood into his face. Maybe he shouldn’t have lied about that. But it was too late to take it back now. “Y-yeah.”

Sheriff Beaufort rubbed his eyebrow with his thumb like he was getting a headache. “And you’re going to clear this entire field. By yourself. With that shovel.”

Tim looked over the vast distances of stubborn long brown grass and sighed. He didn’t say anything, but a lump came into his throat. Daunting didn’t begin to cover it. This was gardening by the Herculean labor method.

“Listen, Tim.” Beaufort took the shovel out of Tim’s hand and took it several yards away where he leaned it carefully up against a nearby tree, as if Tim might accidentally kill himself with it if it was left in his possession. Which, yeah, fair point. Then the sheriff walked back and put his hands on his narrow hips and looked into Tim’s eyes.

“I don’t dislike you,” he said firmly.

“O—kay. That’s good.”

“I’m not sure what you’re up to, but I don’t think you’re a terrible person.”

Tim felt a trickle of annoyance. “Wow. I’m flattered. Can I use you as a future reference?”

“So if you’re in trouble… if you think you need to do something to earn money or… or something. Something you shouldn’t be. Doing. You don’t, all right? You don’t need to.”

What?
“Um, I’m not….”

“And you can come to me. Here’s my card.” Beaufort pulled a card out of a pocket and handed it to Tim. Yup. It had his phone number on it and everything. “If you need help. If you’re running from something, or you need to talk to someone, or maybe you’ve gotten into something
you shouldn’t have, you can call me.”

Tim blinked. “Thanks?”

Sheriff Beaufort looked away and straightened his back into a semblance of an ironing board. “Enjoy the fruit basket. That’s all I have to say at this juncture.” Without another glance, he turned and marched away.

Tim was still blinking when he heard the sheriff’s car pull out and drive away.

At this juncture?

Huh. It was just possible Tim had finally met someone as bad with people as he was himself.