Page 48 of More Than Anything

Calm down. He just needed to calm down. A quick look in the fridge told him he should probably go the pizza route, so he bolted upstairs and straightened up his bedroom and the bathrooms, then came back down and loaded everything dirty from the sink into the dishwasher. He washed and rinsed Skipper’s bowls so they didn’t look quite so disgusting, then ran a wet mop over the kitchen floor.Not too bad, he thought. At a dead run, he went through the refrigerator and threw out anything that looked suspiciously fuzzy, then took out the garbage. The next task was straightening up the living room and, last but not least, gathering up all the dirty clothes to hide them in the laundry room. There. Mission accomplished.

The surprise was that Danette showed up first, and she got out of the car with an overnight bag.Oh, this is not good, he thought as he watched her climb the porch steps. As soon as she cleared the front door, she dropped the bag and ran straight to Avery.

Trying to be the best friend he could, Avery opened his arms and swept her right up into them, and she knotted up and sobbed into his chest. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry! It’ll get better, I promise.”

“Why can’t I just go back to being the town whore and not caring about anybody?” she wailed.

Avery smiled and kissed the crown of her head. “Because that’s not who you are. It never was who you really are. This is the real Danette, the one who really does need somebody to love her. And I promise, it’ll get better.”

“Oh, Avery! It hurts so bad!” she cried out, then wept even louder. All he could do was stand there and stroke her hair and her back, letting her cry out all her heartbreak onto his tee shirt. She was just beginning to quiet when the front door opened again.

There stood Lydia, and she had a pained, confused look on her face. In a split second, the look turned to rage, but when Avery shook his head and put a finger to his lips, she stopped, her face one huge question mark. He whispered down to the crying woman in his arms, “Look. Somebody’s here to see you.” When Danette turned, Lydia smiled as though she understood. “I thought maybe you could use a little girl time.”

“Lydia! Oh, Lydia, it’s awful, you know?” Danette sobbed and strode in Lydia’s direction. To his amazement, the small blond opened her arms too, and Danette grabbed her and hugged her. Lydia’s eyes locked with his, and he mouthedbreakup. She nodded in understanding, then patted Danette’s back.

“Let’s sit down, okay?” Lydia whispered to Danette, and the two of them stepped over to the sofa and took a seat. As Avery watched in amazement, Lydia and Danette sat and talked, with Lydia occasionally reaching over to pat Danette’s hair or touch the crying woman’s cheek. Thinking fast, he jetted into the kitchen and held up a bottle of wine. Lydia nodded, so he opened it and poured them each a glass, then thought better of it and poured himself a glass too.

He let them just sit and talk for a while and busied himself starting a load of jeans in the washer. It wasn’t long before he noticed it was quiet, and he stepped back into the living room to find Danette dozing sweetly on the sofa, only occasionally letting out a hiccupping sob in her sleep. Managing to extricate herself, Lydia tiptoed from the sofa to the kitchen, took Avery’s hand, and led him out through the laundry room and onto the back porch. “Whew. Bless her heart, she’s all torn up,” she whispered to Avery.

“Yeah. I called her right after we hung up. I realized I hadn’t talked to her in a couple of days, and I thought I’d better check on her. I’m sure glad I did.”

“I’m glad you did too. I feel horrible for her, but she told me about Greg, and I feel worse for him. You don’t think he’s making that up to break up with her, do you?” Lydia asked, and a wave of anger broke over Avery.

“He’d better not be, but you can bet I’ll be checking on that. I’ll beat him to a bloody pulp if he’s lying to her,” Avery growled.

“And I’ll help you. But that would be hard to lie about.”

“True.” He stood stock still, trying to get his feelings in check, and realized he was still holding Lydia’s hand. “So,” he said, working to shake the anger, “you ready to see something beautiful?”

“I sure am!” she said with a blindingly white smile that made Avery’s heart pound in double-time. “Can’t wait!”

“Good!” Leading her down the back steps and out into the afternoon sunshine, Avery headed to the barn, then took a hard left and opened a gate to a pasture he hadn’t used previously for the cattle. They wandered down a hill and through a line of trees, and when they stepped out into the clearing beyond, Lydia gasped.

Grazing a hundred or so feet away were a couple of American Quarter Horses, one a glittering palomino and the other a buckskin, their coats an identical color but manes and tails the opposite of each other. Both horses had stockings on all four feet, and the palomino had a white blaze up the center of his face. “Oh, lord, they’re beautiful!” Lydia whispered.

Avery’s grin was a dreamy crescent as he stood and took in that breathtaking sight. “Aren’t they?”

“What are their names?” Lydia asked, transfixed.

“The palomino’s name is Buttercup. The buckskin is Dixie.”

That got a nod of approval from her. “Mares.”

“Yep.” Avery gazed at the horses with pride. They were gorgeous. The owners at the farm had worked with him all week, and they’d told him he learned quickly. He knew how to use them to herd and to cut. Skipper had even tagged along the last two days, and the horses had worked well with him and he with them. As long as he had Skipper, those horses, and someone to help, he knew he could manage a much larger herd. “Want to ride one?”

“Yeah! Which one can I ride?”

Avery grinned. “You pick the one you like best and she’ll be your horse.”

Lydia wheeled and looked at him. “Are you serious?”

Something in Avery’s gut told him that moment was the right one. “Come sit down with me,” he told Lydia, pointing to a log near the edge of the pasture. Once they were seated, he looked out across the grassy land, the sunshine on the horses’ coats, and the trees at the edges of the clearing swaying in the gentle northeast Texas breeze. He finally turned to the woman sitting beside him. “We need to talk.”

Lydia’s face fell. “Well, hell. Okay, what have I done wrong?”

“You haven’t done a damn thing wrong,” he said, and she gave him a shy smile. “Matter of fact, you’re doing everything one hundred and fifty percent right.”

“First time anybody’s ever saidthatto me,” she play-groused with a grin.

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