“Sure ...”
“You shot this boar in the head. Twice. It was facing you. Was it charging you?”
“Yeah. Not the first shot, but after that, yeah.”
“Jesus, Phoebe.”
She shrugged and pulled her hand free. As she turned again to Amos, she said, “Not the worst thing I’ve had coming at me.”
“No, I guess not,” he said, barely louder than a mutter.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
On Amos, Phoebe rode ahead, leading Titan and the boar. Duncan and Maple took up the rear. He hadn’t been on a horse in years, but he’d liked riding on the Wesson ranch as a kid, and most of the muscle memory had stuck around.
In some ways, it was a little bit like riding his bike. He’d be enjoying it if they’d gone out just for fun. He was enjoying it a little bit anyway.
But mostly he was focused on Phoebe up ahead. This visit had not at all gone the way he’d imagined it during the long ride from California. He hadn’t called or texted much, because cell service was spotty half the time he might have called, and also because he’d started to build up a little fantasy about surprising her—showing up unannounced, her meeting him outside the house, him saying something like Hey baby, and her jumping into his arms. Then he’d thought to call her SweeTart and had spent some time enjoying the imagined banter as she swatted away another attempt at a nickname.
Vin called her ‘Bumblebee,’ or just ‘Bee,’ and she seemed great with that. Duncan was a little jealous—it was a cute nickname, and he wished he’d both thought of it and had the chance for it to be his.
He'd had the chance to try out SweeTart, and there had been a little bit of banter, but by then the surprise had already gone off plan.
First, when he’d arrived, Phoebe hadn’t been around. She’d been riding the fence line, checking for downed portions. Margot and Vin were around, and they’d yanked him into the house and laid a whole lot of baggage on him over coffee and cookies.
They were in danger of losing the ranch—specifically, Phoebe was in danger of losing the only home she’d ever had, because some rich oil wife had it out for her, and she was using government connections to cause trouble. They had more than a hundred grand in county-mandated repairs to make basically immediately. Margot and Vin had wanted to know if Duncan or the Bulls could help.
Margot had laid out an elaborate proposal having to do with the Bulls becoming a sponsor-slash-partner with Ragamuffin Ranch, essentially buying a share of the property, writing it off as a charitable endowment or something like that. She’d spewed a lot of legal jargon at him, but the end result of her hard sell was she thought the Bulls should buy in.
If he hadn’t been so stunned at the magnitude of the problem, he might have laughed at the notion he could go to the club and suggest they drop six figures on a farm-animal rescue ranch.
He had, however, ultimately promised to do exactly that—or almost exactly that. He could talk to his dad. That was as good or better than bringing it to Eight, and Dad would try to offer other solutions when the answer to the first question was no. Which it obviously would be.
Being a patch, Duncan had a decent sense of the club’s financial situation. He was sure they could technically afford to do it, but it wasn’t like they were sitting on a warehouse full of cash, Breaking Bad style. Most of the actual cash in the club’s coffers was earmarked for something. And who knew how much liquidity any individual patch had. Dad seemed always able to produce the funds to buy a new vehicle, big repairs on the house, family vacations when the kids were young and nice getaways for him and Mom now, but Duncan wasn’t sure where he kept it all or how much trouble he took to get to it.
Dad had advised Duncan about how to handle his cash, so he figured it was something similar: only Duncan’s service-station wages or money he got from a bike sale or something went into his actual bank accounts. Everything else was kept cash, in quantities no greater than twenty thousand dollars in any one place. He had a safe in his room at home, safe deposit boxes at two different banks, and anything else he triple-wrapped in plastic and buried in various places.
It had occurred to him that, if the club itself couldn’t or wouldn’t help Phoebe, maybe he could convince the patches individually to help her out. If he could figure out enough upside to make it worth their while.
He wanted to help. Seeing her again had galvanized that impulse into a call to action.
Another thing Margot had told him, while they were outside giving the animals treats: Stress changed Phoebe’s personality, and the trouble about the property was causing her deep and continuous stress. The issues around stress had to do with her brain injury, and she understood that but often didn’t realize it was happening.
Duncan remembered Phoebe explaining, their very first night together, that when she was stressed she had trouble processing information and didn’t handle challenges very well. He’d seen a little of that earlier today, when she’d been trying to figure out how to deal with the boar. She’d gotten frustrated and agitated, and Margot had grabbed her and forced her to focus and walk step by step through the problem with her.
He'd also noted that her speech was less clear—not slurred, exactly, but a little muddy. And she was deep in her head, barely making eye contact and slow to reply in conversation.
Another thing he’d noticed, probably the first thing: she seemed a lot less interested in him than before. More than a week apart, and a conversation during that time that he thought had put them on a ‘couple’ track; he’d shown up unannounced for a romantic surprise. Yet they hadn’t kissed yet. She’d barely touched him yet.
Margot had said that she ‘disengaged’ at times like this, so maybe—hopefully—it was only that. It would seriously suck if he’d decided to go out on a limb and try to be in a relationship and she’d changed her mind about wanting it.
Now was not the right time to worry about that, though. Phoebe was struggling, in real trouble, and he wanted to find a way to help her.
~oOo~
When they arrived back at the main part of the ranch, Margot and Vin were ready to help. Duncan pulled the carcass off of Titan’s back and followed Vin to a small shed near the house, which might have actually been an old smokehouse from way back in the day. It smelled smoky and earthy inside, which he figured a smokehouse would smell like. Whatever it was, a wide, darkly stained wood table took up the center of the space, and Duncan laid the boar on it.
“Thanks, man,” Vin said. “You’ve been a real help around here, from day one.”
Duncan gave the man a nod. “Happy to do it.”
Vin tilted his head. “I know you are. Phoebe, she doesn’t like needing help, especially when she needs it most. You gotta come in sidelong. You get me?”
“I think so,” Duncan answered. He preferred to be straightforward, and Phoebe seemed to as well, but he thought he understood Vin’s point. Sometimes you had to pry the lid up a little before you could get a good enough hold to open it all the way.
When Vin pulled a heavy leather apron from a hook and opened a chest full of sharp things, Duncan took his leave. He’d seen enough gore in California to last him a while.
Outside, the horses and women were gone. He headed to the stable, hoping to find them there.