Junie should’ve known him.
She would’ve loved him. And he would’ve loved her.
But instead, he was my crazy Uncle Tony. The black sheep of the family. The one with the utter nonsense ideas about the world. The one who got a wild hair to buy himself a hobby ranch in Wyoming when he hit the lottery thirty years ago.
Literally.
“I’m so glad Gingersnap lived a good life,” I say. “All cows should.”
“There was this other morning, she wouldn’t quit mooing.” Flint’s smiling at Junie again. I need to find out what subject he teaches at the high school and decide if I want to make sure she does or doesn’t have him.
If we even have a choice.
I was told the high school is pretty small when I called to ask how to enroll her the day after I decided we were moving here.
So I’ll take solace in the fact that him not liking me doesn’t automatically mean he’d be a bad teacher for her.
People are more complicated than that.
“Why was she mooing?” Junie asks.
“Only thing Tony could figure was that she didn’t like how Helen Heifer was looking at her wrong. She’d quit mooing as soon as Helen Heifer looked away.”
Junie cracks up.
I haven’t heard her laugh in weeks, and here she is, laughing at a man telling us stories about a cow.
“And then there was the drunken-oats debacle.” Flint shakes his head, eyes twinkling under the brim of his baseball cap. “Now, most of these cows get grass, but oats are good for them too. Until the oats get rained on and ferment, and Gingersnap gets into the feed truck and starts walking around like a tipsy old lady who’s been cheating at cards. You ever hear a cow laugh?”
Junie shakes her head.
“Thing to behold. You get out and help feed ’em enough in the mornings, stick around for the milking, you might get to hear it too.”
My cheek is twitching with the effort of keeping my appropriately moderated smile in place.
Junie finding something—anything—to like here is good. Connecting with someone who’ll be there at the high school, possibly even as one of her teachers when school starts again next week, is good.
But watching an adult win her over in ten minutes with stories about a dead cow when she’s so mad at me—she’ll barely talk to me some days—is absolute torture.
“Do you take care of the cows every morning?” Junie asks him.
“Kory has all of Tony’s old cows on his ranch next door. The Almosta Ranch. I peek in on them pretty regularly.”
“But you won’t now that we’re here.”
“Depends on if the cows need me.”
“We don’t know anything about cows, so they definitely need you.”
Flint’s lip curls just enough for me to know that he agrees, and he’s not happy about it.
And I straighten. I’ve been in touch with Kory. He told me not to worry about the cows, that he had space for them, and he’d let me know if I owed him anything for vet bills or food. But on top of that, I’ve done my research. “I know a lot more about—”
“Mom. Reading kid books doesn’t count. And that one episode you filmed at that farm in Ohio doesn’t count either.”
“I know the cows just go out in the pasture and graze all day, and Uncle Tony liked rescue cows, and he tended to treat them more like pets than like farm cattle, and it’s harder to care for them in the winter, but Kory has the resources and has been watching out for them.”
Junie looks pointedly at the tablecloth covering the dead cow.
I ignore it.
We weren’t here. I’m not going to get mad at the person who took in orphan cows. “We’ll make friends, and you can go help and learn from him until we decide if we’ll have the capacity to take the cows back ourselves.”
“I can take you up there,” Flint says to Junie. “Kory’s a good friend. You’ll like him.”
Junie perks up. “Does he have any teenagers?”
“Ah, no.”
“Oh.”
“He has a couple guard donkeys and chickens.”
“Guard donkeys?”
“They’re real asses.”
Junie cracks up again.
Flint smiles at her.
My vagina launches into the macarena, because I’m that kind of cool, while my heart twists at watching my daughter smile like that at anyone who’s not me.
She used to smile at me like that.
But that was before I foisted her off on grandparents and nannies while helping Dean chase his dream, thinking it was mine, too, because I was going to be better than my parents and I was going to support my spouse.
And it sounded fun at the time. Until about the fourth episode.
Of the first season.
I should’ve quit then. I truly should’ve quit then.
“Tell us more about Gingersnap,” I say to Flint.
He flicks another dark glance at me like he was trying to forget I was here, lifts his cap, and scratches his thick dark-copper hair, then turns his attention back to Junie. “The thing you really need to know about Gingersnap is that she lived an amazing, long life, and there’s not a person in this town who doesn’t have a story about her. That cow did what all of us humans can only hope to do. She left a lasting impression, and the world’s a better place because she was here.”
Oh hell.
My vagina is asking if shorty can get low, my eyes are stinging, my heart is bleeding, and my pride has been sideswiped by a man who knows what to do in any situation—annoying, that—who clearly adored my uncle, dislikes me, and is charming my uncharmable daughter.
But this is okay.
This will all be okay.
Soon.
Hopefully.
Maybe.
I sigh.
If not, at least the views are pretty.
Chapter 4
Flint
I’m feeling the effects of getting tossed off Parsnip this morning as I head into town for a meal at Iron Moose Tavern a few hours after we get the cow buried. Tonight’s a burger-and-a-beer night, then it’s home for a hot shower, painkillers, and bed before my crack of dawn alarm goes off.
But pulling me out of my bad mood is an email from one of my former students.
Kid graduated from college a couple of months back and has been working his dream job in New York City. Couldn’t be more excited for him. He was one of the first kids I took out to Tony’s ranch when he was having a rough patch with family shit and looked like he was on the way to dropping out of school.
Seeing him happy and in a good spot is a win.
I’m smiling as I walk into Iron Moose, glad to be feeling more like myself after a shitty day, but my mood doesn’t last long.
Why?
Because Maisey Spencer is holding court at my favorite table inside the converted log building.
If there’s anything Hell’s Bells loves more than fresh blood, it’s fresh blood that comes with a story. And we get it so rarely that this is clearly a treat for everyone gathered in here today.
But the worst part?
You’d think the worst part is knowing that all my fellow Hell’s Bells citizens have welcomed this woman like she didn’t miss Tony’s funeral when he was one of us. Like she’s not a disaster waiting to happen out here. Like they want a brush with fame so badly—even low-budget, barely hanging-on fame—that they’ll get excited over an inept home-improvement star.