Page 108 of The Auction
“Sure, I would love some lemon cake,” April said, with a smile. Except Jackson came out of the barn then, shoving an envelope in his back pocket that I couldn’t help but wonderwhere it came from. Maybe he’d brought it with him and was just shoving it back into his pocket.
“Let’s go, April.”
“I was going to stay for cake,” she told her brother.
“Another time,” he said. “We’ve got more rounds to make.”
She nodded, then turned to me. “Sorry about that, but I can come by later in the week.”
“That would be nice,” I said. “I’ll see if I can salvage more beets for your mom to can.”
April rolled her eyes. “My mother likes to think she can fix all the world’s problems with some canned goods. So please don’t try on our account.”
“April!” Jackson shouted, as he got in his truck.
“Ugh! Coming!” Another roll of her eyes. “See you.”
I smiled and gave them another wave as they drove off.
Creed came out of the barn wiping oil off his hands. The closer he got, I could smell the diesel fuel on him.
Funny, it wasn’t that long ago I’d been trying to sabotage that tractor.
Now here I was rooting for his success.
“We’re going to be okay, right?”
He looked at me. His ugly face grew serious and I reached up to cup his cheek. Maybe he wasn’t so ugly after all.
“Yeah,” he said, slowly. “We’re going to be okay.”
“Good. Well, I’ll tell you what. You want to get busy tonight, you’re going to need more than one shower,” I told him. “You stink.”
He grabbed me then around my waist and purposefully rubbed his stinky shirt against me and my overalls.
“Staaahhhhhppp!”
“Now, we both stink. Come on, I’m hungry. Let’s go get some lunch.”
We were walking back to the house when it occurred to me. “What did Jackson want anyway?”
“Huh?”
“Jackson,” I repeated. “April didn’t come just to drop off some canned corn. What did Jackson need you for?”
“Just hoping I could help out with another ornery horse they’re trying to break. I’m going to wash up before we eat,” he said, moving in front of me.
Wow, I thought, as the breath left my body.
All this time, and that was the first time he’d ever lied to me.
In the end,it was my cat who let me know he was gone.
I woke up the next morning with AP howling in my face. Creed was always up before me, so he always saw that AP got fed first thing. As if Patch would let him go about his morning business without getting fed first.
Patch was what they called food motivated.
The cat howled in my face and when I looked over I could see the bed was empty, so Creed hadn’t overslept.
