A Feral Darkness Part 17

Well, it meant something to him. "Mickey's a fool," he muttered, anger shutting down his features.

"I don't suppose you'll tell me what that's all about."

"No." He looked right at her, captured her with the strength of it.

She felt like growling at him. She did growl at him. But she didn't pursue ita"not nowa"and she had enough on her mind that she didn't even linger over it, nursing resentment. Standing there in front of him, with the flush of emotion still on her cheeks, her thoughts went straight back to the front of the store, drawn with the same horror that makes people gape at accident scenes.

"Maybe I should ask again," Masera said, pulled out of his anger by her disquieted distraction. "What's wrong?"

Brenna wrinkled her nose. "Nothing, I hope. I meana"" and she stopped, not even knowing where to go. "I don't even know why I'm herea""

"Because I'll understand," he said. For the first time she noticed that he had a new bruise and scuffle mark on his cheek, and a cut on his chin. Things might have been quiet for her, but it looked like whoever'd roughed him up the first time had come back for a small second helping.

"I think I'm beinga"" she hesitated. "That maybe the past month or so has gotten into my head. But I can'ta"I don'ta""

"Brenna."

"I think," she said, squeezing the words out, "that Elizabeth has rabies."

But he didn't laugh, and he didn't say she was being ridiculous. He looked at her, his eyes hooding as he considered her words. "If she's showing signsa""

"Then it's too late," Brenna finished miserably. "I'm wrong. I have to be wrong."

"What you have to do," he said quietly, "is tell her."

"How can I? What can I say? It's a feeling, nothing more. Based on one day's observation by me, and I've never seen anyone with rabies."

"She's got a boyfriend. Unlike HIV, rabies is pa.s.sed in the saliva. If you're wrong, her doctor will say so."

Brenna closed her eyes. It's not happening it's not happening it's not happening. "She's my friend."

"That's the point," he said, and his hand brushed her shoulder, a brief rea.s.surance. "And it's why you came to talk to me. Because you knew what I'd say."

At that she opened her eyes and scowled. "You think you know everything," she said, and spun away from him, stalking down the aisle and startling customers with her expression all the way back to the grooming room. Being angry at something made it just a little bit easier to live with what faced her there.

"Brenna," Elizabeth said in surprise, holding Jeremy c.o.c.ker's leash and his customer card. She wiped surrept.i.tiously at a small gathering of thick saliva in the corner of her mouth. "What on earth's the matter?"

Brenna told her.

Chapter 14.

ISA.

Frustrations & Hindrances

Brenna pounded nails. Angry pounding, each impact banging out a word in her mind. It's! Not! Fair!

Not fair that she'd been right about Elizabeth. Not fair that her friend had gone downhill so quickly, and only a day later, was isolated in a hospital. Not fair that Brenna wasn't allowed to visit.

To say good-bye.

She slammed a final nail into placea"not-fair!a"and reached for the drill, aiming it at the holes she'd just marked for the replacement hinges of an interior barn gate. The barn itself was a hodgepodge of old and new, with huge main timbers and thick original boarding. One side served as a garage for small farm machines and equipment storage, while the middle contained a grain area, a closed tack room, and a work s.p.a.ce where horses could be fed, saddled, shod, and treated. The other side and along the back held run-ins for pastured horsesa"sections where horses from separate pastures could find shelter, and interior areas for isolation. There were no stalls; there had never been stalls. And try as she might, Brenna had never been able to conceive of a simple way to convert the barna"with its limited electricity and complete lack of plumbinga"to a dog facility.

In its prime it had been an active, low-key boarding barn. And if she fixed a few important thingsa"like this gate from one section of the horse runs to anothera"she might yet get a few co-op boarders in here. A few more dollars of income, though she'd likely eat it all with upkeep.

And in the meantime, worried about Elizabeth, she found it mightily satisfying to drill and hammer and bang things around with vigor, and then step back to find she had managed to construct something in the process.

The gate wasn't a thing of beauty. Weathered old boards, horse-nibbled and greyed, clashed with the stout new crosspieces. But it hung true enough to open and close easily, and the new latch snicked shut with a satisfying firmness. She'd add a chain; that would discourage horses who were clever with their tongues. She stood back, admired it, and looked around for something else into which she could pound nails.

And discovered that there, between the big double-sliding doors leading into the grain and tack area, stood her brother. Silhouetted against the early evening light, his shapea"a little taller than her, arms a little akimbo, left shoulder slightly lower than the right, receding temples in his bushy hair evident even in outline from this anglea"was too familiar to be obscured by such a thing as lack of three-dimensional detail.

"Russell," she said simply, a single word that encompa.s.sed both surprise and welcome, and hid the sigh she felt inside. Russell was not there to support her in her anger and sadness. He might think he was, but that's not the way it would turn out.

"Need some help?" he asked.

"I'm done, I guess." Fix-it puttering was a solitary ch.o.r.e, she'd always felt. She bent at the waist, limber enough to gather the tools without crouching downa"but not quite endowed with enough hands.

"Here," he said, and came to take the drill and drill bit case from her so she could deal with the rest. "Sorry you didn't hear me drive up. Some fierce little watchdog you've got out there." Not, he meant, with that lightly sarcastic tone. "Odd little fellow. One of your strays?"

"Yes," she said, no longer rising to a jibe she might have lunged for as a teen. "He's a good dog."

"I figured as much. The kids are playing with him. Last I saw they'd taken him out to the old paddock to toss sticks for him."

Brenna stashed the tools in the old tack room and latched the door. "They won't have much luck. He's pretty clueless. He's good for a tussle with kids, though. They amuse him. Is Marie here, too?" She hoped. At five and seven, the boys were just a little too young to be left alone off home turf, and a little too wild to trusta"they'd likely pull down one of the old fences and proudly present the results to her while Russell beamed.

"Nope," Russell said. "She's not feeling well tonight."

Wanted a well-deserved break from the boys, Brenna thought. Russell loved them dearly, but he counted his contribution to parenting as the sperm he'd donated and the hours he put into his flooring store to support the family. She took herself through the gate she'd just reinstalled, pausing to watch it click into placea"yesssa"and led Russell out the back way to discover that Druid had already learned an important lessona"Russell's boys did not equal Emily's girls. He was willing to romp, but he shadowed rather than interacted with them. That suited Brenna. She leaned against her stack of old, greyed hay and watched.

"Sorry about your friend," Russell said, s.h.i.+fting awkwardly and finally putting out an arm to lean against the hay.

"Thanks," Brenna said. "I guess it's made the news, then?" They'd wanted to stick a microphone in Brenna's face at the store, to ask questions like what's it like to know it could have been you? but Roger had forbidden it and for once she was just as glad for his Pets!-protective management.

They hadn't bothered her here. She guessed it wasn't the same without the store as background.

"Oh, yeah." Russell nodded, distracted, as he discovered her shooting targets jammed between the hay bales and pulled them out. "What's this?"

As if it weren't perfectly obvious, and as if he weren't really asking for an explanationa"justificationa"of why she was target shooting.

"Targets," she said simply, taking them from him and putting them back where they'd been. "They stay dry in there."

"You know, you can always stay with Marie and me if you get worried about being out here alone."

That startled her into giving him a surprised look. "Worried? Are you here because Mom told you I was worried?"

"I'm here," he said, "because Mom is worried. About the dog packs, and she told me you'd lost your hound in some weird way."

"No one ever saw that dog pack," Brenna said. "A lot of people a.s.sumed it. Could have been a particularly bad-acting coyote. You know they're in this area now." Words for Russell. She knew better than to believe either explanation.

"A coyote? Kill a dog the size of that red hound you had?" Russell gave her an annoyed big-brother look. "I haven't been living in town long enough for you to pull that one on me, Brenna."

She shrugged, rubbing her hands up and down her goose-b.u.mping arms. Working, she'd been warm enough. Standing in the shadow of the barn, she wasn't.

"The point is, she's beginning to wonder if it was a mistake to let you have this place."

A p.r.i.c.kle of alarm made the goose b.u.mps bigger. "I've kept it up just fine. It's what I was doing when you got here, in case you didn't notice."

"That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you out here alone all the time."

"I was alone when we decided I'd stay in the house," Brenna said, keeping her tone even only with the greatest of determination. I don't need this. I don't need this now. Sensitive brother Russell, coming to stomp all over her when she just needed someone to accept her and feel with her. Masera wouldn't stand for this s.h.i.+t.

That last thought startled her enough that she almost didn't hear Russell say, "We didn't think you'd stay alone." But nothing could have blocked out the implications of that one, as belatedly as they came to her.

"What? You thought I'd find myself a man? Settle down like you did and start a family? Give up work and stay at home to raise kids? That's bulls.h.i.+t, Russell."

"Shhh," he said, giving the boys a hasty look and evidently deciding they were out of earshot. Still, he kept his voice lowered. "It's not bulls.h.i.+t, Brenna. It's my life. It's a good life."

"That's not your life, it's Marie's life. And you don't know anything about it!"

The boys stopped running at that, looked back at them with questioning faces. Redheads, both of them, with profuse freckles and Marie's fair skin, and no more understanding of their Aunt Brenna than their father had. Russell gestured them out and they ran to the hand pump by the water trough, where they discovered the well in perfect working order. Brenna doubted that Marie would share their delight when they slopped into the house.

Then again, she'd resigned herself to kids will be kids long ago and truly seemed happy with it. Brenna could understand that, even envy it a little. She only wished Marie and Russell were capable of doing the same for her. "Listen, Russell," she said. "I don't live my life to suit you. I don't even live it to suit Mom. I'm sorry if that's some big disappointment to you both, but you might try being glad that there's someone who is willing to live here and keep the place upa"keep it in the family."

"Quit thinking only of yourself," Russell said, once again managing to startle her. "It's Mom who has to worry about you. And me."

"But I'm finea""

"And I'm telling you, we've been talking. The deed was never transferred to your name, you know. Mom might decide to sell the place."

Fury booted aside any common sense she might have had. "And whose idea was this, Russell? Hers, or yours? Has someone made you an offer on this place, is that it?"

Parker, ohmyG.o.d, Rob Parker.

He'd said he had ways. He'd apparently meant it. She knew her brother too well to think this was coming from nowhere, or from any sudden concern about her life. And at that she did lower her voice, though she couldn't stop it from shaking, and she couldn't keep from closing on him, forcing him to back up as she pointed him through the run-in opening. "Get out, Russell. Get out now. No one's selling anything, you can count on that. This is my home."

He looked like he wanted to protest, his mouth open, his head primed to shake at her.

He didn't. He called the boys, and though they gave her innocent and heartbreakingly cheerful farewells, she could only bring herself to return a brief wave. Druid stood by her side, his happy tail slowly lowering as he looked up at her and divined her mood.

"Hwoo?" he said, in one of his weird little whining questions. Brenna knelt to rub his ears and kiss the neat white forehead splot that ended his broad blaze.

"I wish you really could understand," she said. "You'd probably have the answers."

She'd call her mother. Russell was slick, was the consummate salesman with years of experience in deals and dealing, but he probably hadn't told Rhona about the buyer. Probably didn't know it was the same person who'd trashed the land while Brenna's father lay dying, probably hadn't bothered to find out that Parker, behind his good old farmboy talk and his charming smile and his disarming conservative-looking mustache, was police-blotter material.

Beyond police-blotter material.

Her mother would listen to that, would hear it over Russell's talk of money and his patronizing for Brenna's own good words.

She had to.

Druid sighed, a mighty sigh of the sort that only a world-weary dog can make, and Brenna kissed his head again, a loud exaggerated smack of a kiss. "There," she said. "All better."

As if.

"Brenna?"

Emily? Inside the barn? Brenna called back to her and jogged inside, finding herself surprised and thrown off guard once more. As much as Brenna tromped a path through the modest fallow field and the small stand of trees between her place and the upscale housing development that held Emily's home, Emily never came the opposite way. Sometimes she showed up in the family van, the girls in tow and begging to explore Brenna's crammed attic while Emily and Brenna shared a soda and news, but never on foot. Rarely alone.

"Everything all right?" Brenna asked, her eyes adjusting to the dim interior and not able to see much besides the blob of Emily and the particularly pink appliqued vest she wore. Brenna suspected Emily would consider herself undressed if she left the house without at least one homemade item of apparel on her body.

"I should be asking you," Emily said. "I saw Russell leaving. As if you needed him on top of what's happened to Elizabeth."

"Yes," Brenna said, leaning on the repaired gate. "He was a treasure, as usual."

Emily looked away; Brenna could see her well enough, now, to note the strained look around her eyes, the tension at the corners of her mouth. She said, "What?"

"What do you mean, what?"

"Oh, don't even try. Here you are in the middle of my barn, come over on foot without the girls. And with that look on your face. As if you could hide that look from me."

Emily gave her a small smile. A very small smile. She offered a sheaf of rolled-up papers she'd been holding quietly at her side. "I brought these," she said. "More information on rabies, for one. Thought you might like to have it, though from what I hear . . . I'm not sure it'll apply to what's going on now. And there's some stuff on Mars Nodens. I didn't look at it; I'm not sure how carefully the girls screened it, to tell you the truth."

"It's probably not quite in their interest range," Brenna said, blowing her bangs out of her eyes and reaching for the roll of paper, squas.h.i.+ng it flat and stuffing it in her back pocket beside her braid. "I'm not sure it'll be in my interest range."

"They did ask why you wanted it," Emily admitted. "I told them you were a unique and strange individual, and we should treasure you as such."

Brenna laughed out loud. "Thank you so much." She dropped one hand to the latch, clicking it open, easing the gate back, and snicking it closed again, waiting for what Emily really had to say.

"There," Emily added, looking meaningfully at the gate. "You prove my point entirely."

"I heed my inner child," Brenna said with a theatrical haughtiness. "And you still haven't answered my question."

Emily sighed. Now they'd get to it, Brenna knew, and she was right. "Well, three things," Emily said. "One is, can you come over for a cookout this weekend, and two is . . . we'd rather you didn't bring Druid around just now." She smiled apologetically, but it looked a little sad, as if the request were really an odd, sad focal point to everything that had happened in Brenna's life . . . and that now seemed to be spreading to encompa.s.s the rest of the community.

"That's what you're worried about?" Brenna said, shocked; inside she felt it, a rejection that didn't make a whit of practical sense but existed all the same. "I suppose I can't blame you for that. I hope you've told them" a"for they both knew this was for the girlsa" "to keep their hands off stray dogs, too."

Emily scoffed affectionately. "You're a fine one to be saying that, Brenna Lynn Fallon." And Druid whined, as if he agreed, and they both laughed, though Emily's was strained.

"Don't worry about it," Brenna said. "I'll crate him up. I won't be able to stay as long, but you can bet I'll stay long enough to eat plenty of your food."