I held my hand out for her bag.
She handed it to me without a word, and I threw it into the floorboard between the two seats.
“I won’t hurt your friend,” I promised as I turned back to her.
“Hold on,” she muttered as she went back inside.
“It’s cold, Brawny,” I heard Mable say. “I think we need to curl up by the fire and rot.”
That actually sounded like a pretty damn good idea.
Mable’s house door slammed, and I looked up to see Cody coming toward us with a box in her hands.
She held it out to me once she got close and said, “Perishable stuff in her fridge. She was going to have chicken fingers tomorrow. Maybe you can make them for her.”
I didn’t bother telling her I couldn’t cook worth a damn.
Instead I said, “I’ll see what I can accomplish.”
“If you keep her fed and watered, she tends to do a little better.” She looked in the car. “Don’t freak out if she tells you crazy things. She doesn’t mean most of them.”
I had a feeling she meant a whole lot more than Cody knew.
“I’ll text you when I get her settled. And get her to update you when she’s feeling up to it.”
“Thanks,” Cody said, her eyes narrowing on me for a few seconds before she turned and walked away.
The trip to my house took twice as long as it usually did, but I didn’t think the snow had much to do with it.
It all had to do with the continuation of Mable’s childhood trauma.
“When I was thirteen, I wanted to go to the homecoming dance,” Mable murmured, holding on to Brawny’s big head. “Some boy asked me. I got all dressed up and ready to go—by myself, might I add. My stepmother was too busy helping Birdee get ready. So when I get down the stairs because my date arrived with his parents, it’s to find my date putting a corsage on Birdee’s wrist. When I asked what was going on, my stepmother told me to stop talking until they left.”
Anger surged through me at her words.
“They left, and I got a lecture about how I need to ‘learn my place’ and realize that ‘Birdee is better than me in every way.’”
I had to take the turn into my driveway much slower than I needed to, mostly because I was so angry I wanted to fucking gun it.
“When I was sixteen, my dad bought us both a car. Birdee got a Range Rover. I got a Range Rover, too. But the only difference was that Dad paid for Birdee’s Range Rover. They put mine on credit. My credit. I had to pay monthly for a car that was impractical. I would’ve never purchased a Range Rover with a car payment that high. It ate up my monthly allowance from my trust fund.”
I pulled up to my house and shut the truck off once I nosed under the carport.
Brawny woofed in happiness, which made me happy.
It was good to have him back here.
Shadow hadn’t looked at me the same since Brawny had left.
If horses could get depression, Shadow definitely had it.
I opened my door and Brawny launched himself over me, his leash handle catching me on the left nut as he went.
I grunted and placed my hand over my balls. “Fuck me.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
I looked over to the woman in my passenger seat with a pained expression on my face as I said, “His leash handle clipped my nut.”
