Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,22

lived close by, in a town called Stanwood, one I’d driven through several times on the hunt for a place to live that was anywhere but Port Townsend. Stanwood was a tiny farming community just south of Skagit County, where all of my family lived. It was close but not too close, and next to Camano Island, with countless, mostly untouched hidden beaches. This man not only had location going for him, but his emails read like John Steinbeck had written them when he talked about living on the property his great-grandfather had built a house on, and eventually shot himself in.

Travis spoke of the farm he lived on with a surprising amount of admiration, considering he’d moved from it once for a short period of time. He said he had pictures of himself as a baby, bathing in the sink he now stood next to at night to brush his teeth. His parents, who’d bought the farm from his grandfather, still lived and worked on the property, running the horse-boarding operation completely on their own. Travis’s mom did the bookkeeping between caring for her five grandchildren during the weekdays. That, more than the promise of riding horses whenever I wanted, drew me to him enough that I accepted his offer to buy me dinner.

He had to ask his dad to feed and water the horses for him that night and was more than willing to travel to Port Townsend. When I met him at the ferry terminal, he had a wide-eyed look to him.

“I’ve never been on that boat before,” he said, a little breathless. “I didn’t even know this town was here.” He laughed nervously, and I suggested that we walk down to Sirens. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon, so there wouldn’t be anyone in there. I knew if someone saw me eating out with a strange, unfamiliar-looking guy, it would get reported back to Jamie. A couple of months earlier, after a long day of landscaping, I’d gone downtown for a much-needed minute to sit alone with a beer. Someone there tipped Jamie off, and he accused me of being tipsy when I picked up Mia. I tried to stay out of bars completely after that.

We found a table inside and both ordered burgers and beers. I glanced at the table on the deck where I’d sat with Mom and William six months earlier, the last time I’d been inside that building. I didn’t get the impression that Travis went out to eat very often, either, judging from how he fumbled over ordering. I assumed he was nervous, too intrigued by him to care.

“So, what is it you do, exactly?” I asked, even though he’d told me through email and over the phone.

“I clean stalls in the morning, feed at night, and fix anything that needs it during the day.” Travis didn’t seem to mind my interest and constant questions, and he laughed easily when one of us tried to be funny. “But hay season, that’s when you work all the time.”

I nodded like I understood. “So you guys grow your own hay to feed the horses people board there? How many horses do you have?”

“My parents have a couple in their barn, plus a few others they keep in there for friends.” He took a large bite of his burger, and I waited for him to continue. He’d worn what seemed to be his work clothes—blue jeans with holes and grease stains on them, brown leather boots, and a hooded sweatshirt over a faded t-shirt. My outfit sort of matched his, only I’d worn the nice pair of Lucky brand jeans I’d bought over the summer at a consignment store. “Then Susan, the woman who rents out one of the arenas, has her barn where she gives lessons. The main barn holds about 120 horses, but we only have half that now. People who boarded with us lost all their money and can’t pay for horses anymore. Can’t even pay for someone to take them.”

I’d never thought of a horse being such a large expense, but I knew they were a lot of work. When I was really young and we lived close to my grandparents, I’d spent many summer days at the property down the long dirt road where my dad had grown up. My grandpa had been a logger before he retired and took lines of packhorses into the woods. He’d put me on a horse at Mia’s age. I could