All I Want

“You can come watch if you’re curious.” She wasn’t sure where the offer came from. It would have made more sense to ask his name. But he hadn’t asked hers. So either he knew it and she was the sole uninformed participant, or he didn’t want to know hers. Which meant she didn’t need to know his. In fact, the less she knew about him, the better.

Fantastic idea inviting him to watch you milk the goats, then, yeah?

“Sure.”

She tried to smile at his agreement and not hate him for following her. Although hate was too strong a word. She didn’t hate him. Surprisingly she didn’t even hate herself. Sure, this was embarrassing and uncomfortable and stupid, but she’d done a lot worse. And in about fifteen minutes it would all be over.

Or so she hoped.

She went inside while he waited on the porch. She sped through changing into jeans and a sweatshirt and tried to ignore that that guy existed. But the sooner she got her goats milked and him out of here, the sooner that could be accomplished.

She went back outside, and there he was. She walked down the porch steps, realizing she hadn’t grabbed socks, but was too tired and nauseated to care. Besides, he was following her; there was no way she was turning around.

She collected the containers from her sanitation station outside the barn, then shoved her bare feet into the work boots she kept outside the doors.

Her stomach was still sloshing, her head still pounding, but the goats didn’t care. That was why she loved them. They needed her to be responsible. To do something the same way every day. It kept her on the right path. So, even with last night’s slipup, she hadn’t totally screwed herself and her life over.

She entered the barn with a shadow for the first time ever. What was she supposed to call him? Ugh, she didn’t want to call him anything. So she talked him through the process of milking: bringing the goat to the stand, offering it grain, cleaning, milking.

He watched, asked a few questions, and it was almost comfortable. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, talking about goat milking and the soap she made tabled some of the weirdness between them.

Just as she was loading up the containers to be refrigerated, a honk sounded from out front.

“If you go ahead and meet him, I’ll be there in a second.”

He nodded and she took the milk to storage, then hurried inside her house from the back to find some socks and shoes.

She walked to the cab, sliding her purse over her shoulder. A few more awkwardly silent moments and this would all be over. She would probably never see the guy again, and she could maybe even convince herself it had been a figment of her imagination.

Fall down seven times. Get up eight. How many times had Grandma said that to her? And yes, Meg was pretty sure she’d exceeded seven, but as long as she kept getting up, she’d be okay. Getting up was the only option.

Besides, she had some people to prove wrong. People who’d never have to know about this lapse in judgment.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_3e03d8eb-e242-59b2-9d04-e3e8cee1ded3)

AS DAN’S CAB idled at the stoplight, Charlie could feel the man’s stare. He knew what had happened, and he was going to say something. Oh, not to Charlie’s face, but probably within earshot of someone related to him.

It was amazing—truly—how life could turn you around in a complete one-eighty. No warning, no clues how to handle it, just here—your life isn’t what you thought.

Now what are you gonna do?

He’d always known the next step. Since he’d been a kid. He’d known the exact next step to take to get what he wanted, to do what was wanted of him. He’d always known.

Now he didn’t have a damn clue, sitting here in a cab, after some bizarre one-night stand with a goat farmer. With tattoos.

He couldn’t decide what next step to take. The only thing his mind seemed capable of doing was recognizing the smell of lemon, on her skin, in her hair.

“That’ll be twenty-eight fifty,” Dan said through a mouth of chew.

The woman dug through her purse, some fringy thing that looked completely out of place against the jeans, ratty sweatshirt and frayed tennis shoes she was wearing.

“Tell you what, Meg, you just put together a nice soap basket for wifey and we’ll call it even.”

Meg. So she had a name. Meg. A simple name for an incredibly complicated moment in his life. And now that name would probably haunt him for years to come. Lovely.

“That’ll be fourteen twenty-five.” Dan’s eyes met Charlie’s in the rearview mirror as Dan brought a bottle to his lips and spat some chew into it.

Charlie’s stomach turned and he had to close his eyes to keep from losing it completely. Still, he dug into his pants, pulled out his wallet and handed over a credit card without meeting Dan’s accusing glance.

Dan wasn’t known in New Benton for his kindness. Small-town cab work wasn’t for the faint of heart. He’d had more than one brawl with a man over cab fare, to the extent that most knew not to mess with him. He might’ve been getting on in years, but he’d as soon bash you over the head with the Louisville Slugger he kept in the passenger seat as he would offer you a smile.

But he’d called this woman Meg and offered her a barter and a smile. Charlie was beginning to think she was a fictional creature. Like some kind of siren or goddess.

It’d make this premidlife crisis a hell of a lot easier if she was. But he was too practical to even allow himself the fantasy. She had a name. She was real.

Dan returned the credit card. No receipt offered, but Charlie started to push the door open anyway.

“Oh, and, Charlie?”

Charlie raised his eyebrows at Dan’s pleasant tone. “Yeah?”

“Added tip for ya.”

Tip probably meant doubled the fare. Charlie couldn’t bring himself to care, so he nodded. He’d consider this penance. He closed the door of the taxi behind him, breathing through the dizziness and blinking against the bright sun. His car was parked in the corner lot, the Shack looking particularly worse for the wear in the daylight.

The only other car in the lot was an old truck. No, not just old. Antique. But it was more recently painted a bright blue, the words Hope Springs Farm painted in red, with an illustration of a goat.

Seriously. Alternative dimension he’d fallen into.

It wasn’t one he wanted to face. He didn’t want to look at Meg, or offer a lame goodbye or lamer apology. He wished he’d never heard her name. He only wanted to go back to his downtown apartment and find normal again.

But as mixed-up as his world was, if he had anything left in this new version of his life, it’d at least be that he was a decent person.

He was a decent person, right? Maybe he’d been a little ruthless at times, a little hard, a little unbending, but...

“Well, it was certainly an interesting turn of events,” she said.

When he looked up, she was already inching toward her truck, forcing her mouth into some approximation of an awkward smile.

“That it was,” he replied, following her lead and taking a few backward steps toward his car.

“And, um, good luck with the job thing. I’m sure you’ll land on your feet.”

“Thanks. And I’m sorry for your loss.” Odd to find it wasn’t just a rote thing to say; he meant it. She was nice enough, and loss was always hard.

“Thanks,” she replied, her voice tinged with surprise. But then she lifted her hand in a little wave and turned away from him.

He found himself watching her. The confident way she walked to her truck, the way the tasseled, beaded colorful purse shimmied and glinted in the sun. She was a conglomeration of things that didn’t make sense.