shit slide, I’d let her slide right into her grave. There wasn’t a day that went by that didn’t weigh on my soul. This chick right here, though? She wasn’t my sister. I didn’t even know her.
“Thank you,” she murmured softly as my pops put a plate in front of her.
“Welcome,” he grunted and started cleaning up between forkfuls off his own plate. I slid my empty one to the side and picked up my cup of coffee, swilling down some of the bitter brew.
“So, what’s yer name?” he asked, drying off the cast-iron skillet he’d cooked up the scramble in a few minutes later. We’d all been silent for the most part – simply eating our food or drinking our coffee as the occasion called for it.
“Aspen,” she said.
“Your parents some kind of hippy peace freaks?” he asked, and Aspen snorted a delicate little laugh.
“Guilty – at least my mom was…” she paused and took a fortifying breath. “Dad wasn’t ever really in the picture.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that.” My dad sounded guilty to my ears, and I sat placidly. Didn’t comment. Didn’t have to. Our family dynamic was complicated on a good day. At least, it’d been a string of them lately. Good days, that is.
“Sorry, um, what’s your name?” she asked.
“Oh, they call me Vyking.”
“They?” she asked curiously.
“People. The club.” My dad shrugged. He took a deep breath and sighed and changed subjects. “I cooked breakfast, why don’t you go on out and feed the goats before you take Aspen home.”
Before I could say anything, Aspen perked up, “Goats?” she asked, and it was the cutest damn thing.
My dad grunted with a secret smile. “Yeah. You’re on a goat farm,” he said. “Don’t get too attached to any of ‘em, though.”
“Oh…” her excitement diminished some.
“Well, not exactly true,” I said with a sigh, wanting that sparkle to come back to her green eyes for some reason. “There are a few you can get attached to. I’ll show you which ones.”
She finished the last few bites on her plate and my dad reached out and took it away from in front of her.
“You two kids have fun,” he said.
“This way,” I said and jerked my head toward the mudroom off the kitchen.
She’d donned her nice riding boots from the night before and I took down my newer farm jacket, a rusty brown Carhartt I’d bought recently to replace the dingy gray one I took down for myself, the elbow of the sleeve ripped out spectacularly, the padded ticking leaking out of it.
I held it open for her and said, “It’s cold out there, better put this on.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, donning it. “How’d you do that?” she asked with wide eyes at the mangled sleeve of the coat I put on for myself.
“Barbed-wire fencing,” I said, pulling down the old leather American outback crusher hat I used to keep the rain out of my eyes. I donned it and held open the back door, motioning for her to go on ahead.
The chill damp of the fall air rushed in to greet us and she ducked out into the fine misty crap sifting down out of a leaden gray sky to keep the damp and the cold from getting into the house.
I slipped out after her with a sigh. It was gonna be muddy as fuck and I hadn’t bothered switching out my riding boots for my farm boots with the better tread. Too late now.
“Watch yourself,” I cautioned. “Bound to be muddy as hell. I don’t want you to slip.”
“I’ll be careful,” she promised, perking up at the bleating of the goats out in their pasture.
“They act like they never been fed a day in their life,” I groused.
“Poor creatures,” she said lightly with a smile, an edge of teasing to her sweet voice. “They look absolutely starved.”
I chuckled and looked across the yard to the split log fence of the first pasture and the small herd beyond the wire fencing lining we had just behind those logs. Sure enough, the goats were lined up begging at the fence line, waiting for my big ass to get in the barn and get their grain.
“They look it,” I agreed, deadpan. “Just look at those ribs poking out.”
Aspen smiled and I think it was the first genuine one I’d seen thus far, timid as it was.
She huddled in my oversized jacket and shirt and picked her way carefully in my wake through the muddy grass that squished beneath our feet