3. Arabella

3

ARABELLA

“ W e could play cards. Take our minds off of things?” I suggested, even though my heart wasn’t in it. The urge to curl into a ball on the cot seemed much more appealing. “There’s a deck of cards in the trunk. Some puzzles, too.”

“Will it help you? Or would you rather just curl up on the cot and rest?”

His question surprised me. How had he predicted my thoughts? “Am I that obvious?”

“You’re worried about your dad. How could you not be? And you’re exhausted.”

I sank onto the cot, wishing I could lie down but sitting instead, resting my back against the wall. “He’s been so awful lately. There have been many times over the past few months that I wished he wasn’t…here.”

“I know it’s been hard on you. You’ve done really well with him.”

“Coming back here has been difficult. I had a lot of plans for my life, and none of them involved moving home to take care of a mean old man.”

Rafferty sat in one of the chairs by the table. “What did you want to do?”

“I had an offer to join the practice where I worked in LA. I would’ve loved to and would have if my dad hadn’t gotten so bad so fast.”

“I’m sorry your dreams have been put on hold.”

“Except for my dad, it hasn’t been bad. Turns out I missed Montana. Even though there’s a lot of bad memories here, it’s still home.” I curled onto my side, resting my head in the crook of my arm. “What about you? What made you come back here? I would’ve figured you for a city guy. You know, working for a big hospital or something.”

“Yeah, I thought I wanted to be a surgeon, but I changed my mind and decided a general practitioner of a small practice was better suited for me. I don’t like people telling me what to do.”

I smiled. “That tracks with what I know about you.”

“I figured out I only wanted to be a surgeon because it was the hardest path, not because I really wanted to. What I enjoy about being a doctor is interacting with patients. Then I found out the doctor here was retiring and selling his practice, and I thought maybe it was a sign.”

“You don’t seem like the type to follow a sign,” I said.

Rafferty lifted one shoulder. “I guess I am. Pop taught me that. Anyway, here I am.”

“No regrets?” I asked.

“No, not really.”

“What’s the not really part?”

“It’s great to be back with my family, but the social scene here isn’t exactly thriving.”

“You mean there are no single women?” I asked.

“Right. It’s time for me to meet the right person and get married.” He flushed and reached under his collar with his fingertips as if he were suddenly hot. “I’m feeling a little behind if you want to know the truth.”

“All your brothers marrying? Having kids. Except for you.”

He flashed a sheepish grin. “I know, it’s not a contest or anything. But I didn’t think I’d be the last one. Not a prospect in sight, either. It takes a special woman to want to move to the middle of nowhere. Not to mention my obnoxious family.”

“They’re not obnoxious.” I couldn’t keep the wistfulness out of my voice. The Moon family had long been a source of envy for me. When I was eleven, I was in town with my father when I saw them all enjoying breakfast at the diner. I’d stood outside the window, looking in on the happy clan sharing a meal, and had filled with aching jealousy. My father had come to town that morning to buy a part for his tractor, and he’d been angry all morning about one thing or another. Cursing about his run-down tractor, then giving me the silent treatment as we drove into town as if I’d been at fault for his troubles. I’d learned how to make myself as small as possible at home. Despite my father calling me a fat pig, he’d made me feel insignificant and small. At school, I’d kept to myself, focusing solely on my studies so I could get out of here. Funny how things turned out.

“My sisters-in-law seem to be holding up so far,” Rafferty said. “So, I guess we can’t be that bad.”

“Actually, I was surprised to hear you were still single.”

“Yeah?”

“I figured you’d have met someone during school,” I said.

“I had a few girlfriends, but medical school’s rough on relationships.”

“Same for veterinary school. No time for romance.”

Rafferty got up to put another couple of logs in the stove and then closed the vents. “Let me know if you start to feel cold, but since we don’t know how long we’ll be here, I figure it’s best to conserve wood as best we can.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything. Outside, the wind continued to howl.

“This place is pretty cool,” Rafferty said. “I never knew it was out here.”

“My great-grandparents built it the first summer they settled here.” When I was up here, I often thought of the two of them sharing this small space during a Montana winter. One room plus the tiny bathroom must have been tough. Had they gotten on each other’s nerves? I couldn’t imagine otherwise.

Rafferty went to the window, peering out. I got up to stand slightly behind him. Not much had changed. Snow continued to fall heavily. It looked as if about a foot had accumulated. If it kept on like this, it would be three feet before long. Still, we could walk through snow to get home if we had to. As long as it stopped at some point, we could get out of here. But what about my dad? Was he lying somewhere in the woods with a blanket of snow over him?

We left the window and returned to our spots. I curled into the fetal position, feeling suddenly more weary than I’d ever felt in my life. This was not how I’d expected to spend my day.

“You should take a nap,” Rafferty said as he examined the stack of books on the desk.

“Why do you say that?” I asked, irritated. He was so bossy.

“Because you look tired. You always do.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I don’t mean it that way,” Rafferty said. “You’re beautiful. But I know you burn the candle at both ends.”

Beautiful?

“My dad’s like having a toddler. Last night, he was up three times, thinking there was someone in the house, not remembering the time before.” I sighed and closed my dry, stinging eyes. “Maybe I’ll just sleep for a minute or two.”

“Get inside the sleeping bag and rest. There’s nothing we can do about anything at the moment.”

“What will you do?”

He wandered over to the stack of books that were now on the floor. “I’ll find something to read.”

“There’s nothing but romances,” I said, feeling sheepish.

He grinned and looked as if he was going to say something to tease me, but didn’t. “I love romance.”

“I didn’t see that coming.”

He sat at the table, opening a book.

I closed my eyes and did fall asleep. The next thing I knew, I was waking to the sound of a metal spoon scraping against a pan. Rafferty was at the stove, stirring what smelled like chili. He looked over at me. “Hey, sleepyhead. You hungry?”

“A little, yeah.”

Yawning, I sat up and swung my feet onto the floor. “I’m going to use the restroom.”

“Go for it,” Rafferty said, not looking up from his task.

The bathroom was essentially a toilet and a sink. I did my business and washed my hands before rejoining Rafferty. He had dished up two steaming bowls of the canned chili and set them on the table. We ate in silence for a few minutes. Although my stomach was tied in knots, I forced myself to eat. Who knew what kind of trouble we were facing? I would need my strength.

The storm still raged on, with the shrieking wind a constant. There was no way we were getting out of here before dark. It was already one in the afternoon. Complete darkness would come before five this time of year.

Under the table, I twisted a paper towel between my fingers, trying to keep the agitation at bay. I’d had panic attacks in school and a few in the months since I’d been home. I really didn’t want to have one in front of Rafferty.

“We’ve got plenty of food, thanks to you,” Rafferty said. “Try not to worry. We’ll get out of here eventually.”

“My dad, though. I wish I knew where he was.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

His eyes softened with sympathy, which strangely touched my heart. I’d not thought it possible to feel anything for the man other than hostility. Rafferty Moon had been my archnemesis for as long as I could remember. Thinking of him in any other capacity was a foreign concept.

I ducked my head and finished the rest of my chili. Rafferty had made short work of his as well. I gathered the bowls and plastic spoons and rinsed them in the bathroom sink. We would have to boil water if we wanted anything sanitized. For now, rinsing would be sufficient.

“Thanks for letting me nap,” I said. “I’m amazed I could fall asleep. What kind of daughter am I?”

“Getting caught in a storm can take it out of a person,” Rafferty said gently.

“How are you doing? I should have asked already.”

“I’m good. Don’t worry about me. I’m a Moon.”

“Which means what exactly?” I sounded snarkier than I meant to.

“I’m the middle in a family of five boys. I had to be tough.”

I smiled, conceding to this truth. “Can’t argue with that.”

“What should we do?” Rafferty asked. “You want to play cards now?”

“No, but there’s a puzzle or two in the trunk there. We could pull one out.”

“I love puzzles,” Rafferty said. “I’m really good at them, so be forewarned.”

I smirked. “Why am I not surprised?”

He ignored that and went over to the trunk, pulling out two puzzles. “These are both one thousand pieces.” He held up the boxes. “Which do you want? We can slam one of these out in an afternoon, don’t you think?”

“Implying we get out of here tonight?”

“Or the morning,” Rafferty said. “I think we’re here until the morning.”

“It gets dark early, so yeah.” I sighed, fighting tears.

“I know you’re worried, but you have to have faith.”

To hide my emotions, I focused on the puzzle boxes. “These are great. I forgot I had them in there.” They were both covers from The New Yorker magazine. One was an illustration of New Yorkers at the beach. The other was a depiction of a farmers’ market.

“Let’s do the beach,” I said. “Maybe it will help us to feel warmer.”

He brought the box over to the table and returned to the trunk, kneeling to peer inside. Seconds later, he chuckled as he hauled up my bottle of vodka.

“What?” I said, slightly embarrassed. “I told you I brought that up here last time.”

“No judgment from me,” Rafferty said. “I’m pleased to see it.”

I did a quick swipe of the table with a paper towel to make sure we didn’t have any crumbs on the surface before he dumped all thousand pieces onto the table. We turned them over and then began to put together the edges. Neither of us said much, commenting occasionally when we found success.

After we had the edges all together, I started to work on the section of the blue sea. After twenty minutes, I’d only connected four pieces. He was doing much better with his corner. Almost all of the snack shop was in place. Of course, he was as good as he’d said he was. What couldn’t this man do?

I surreptitiously studied him as his head was bent over his work. Occasionally, he bit his bottom lip, which I knew meant he was focused. I’d spent a lot of my childhood and teenage years sitting beside him in class. I knew all his “tells.” Maybe I should suggest poker? But what would we play for? When we were in high school, there had been a notorious party in which a heated game of strip poker had been played. From all accounts, Rafferty was the only one still dressed by the end of the night. I, of course, hadn’t been invited. I’d heard all the popular kids gossiping about it on the Monday morning afterward. As I always did, I sat apart, merely observing rather than being part of the conversation.

“Do you remember that party when we were in high school? The infamous poker playing party?” I asked.

Rafferty glanced up, his brow furrowed for a moment before the memory clearly took hold. “Oh yeah. I remember. Sherry Winters was not a good player.” His eyes danced with mirth. “Matching bra and panties—scattered with pink hearts.” He coughed. “If I recall correctly.”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you expect her to be? A good player, I mean?” Sherry had been our head cheerleader, and as unkind as it sounds, she fit the stereotype. Blonde and slim and not the brightest student ever. Her intellect had been of no consequence to the male population. She’d been drooled over by most of the guys in our class.

“Her poker skills were not necessarily on our minds,” Rafferty said, laughing.

“I wouldn’t know. I never got invited to stuff like that.”

He tugged on an ear, cocking his head to one side. “Why was that?”

I glared at him, annoyed. It was just like him to lead me to an answer that would make me feel bad. “You know why.”

“Was it because your dad was so strict? I remember people talking about how scary he was.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “That was it.”

“What do you mean?” He blinked and stared back at me with innocent blue eyes.

I knew better. Rafferty was too smart not to know that I was not invited because I’d been the fat girl. The nerdy fat girl. “You know it wasn’t because of my dad. I was fat and awkward. No one liked me.”

He grimaced and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t remember you being heavy.”

“Sure, you don’t.”

“No, really. Caspian and Soren were always talking about how pretty you were.”

“You’re a liar.” My tone was as frosty as the snow outside the cabin.

“I’m not.” He placed his hand over his heart. “Promise.”

My temper flared. Why must he be so difficult? Could he not just agree with me for once? Especially since the facts were the facts. “I was chubby. Trust me. My dad could tell you all about it.”

Rafferty pressed his fingers into one of his thick eyebrows. “You’re being serious.”

I stared at him, my certainty slipping. Could it be possible he and his brothers hadn’t seen me that way? Hadn’t Caspian said something about it to me recently? I’d dismissed it as him being kind, but Rafferty wouldn’t bother sugarcoating it for me. In fact, he’d probably do the opposite.

“I was heavy back then,” I said. “Thirty pounds heavier than I am now.”

“Okay, well, that’s not how I remember you. Granted, I was too busy trying to figure out how to beat you on every test we ever took. Which I did not do, by the way.”

“I remember.” I couldn’t help but smirk at the memory. How satisfying it had been when I won out by a point or two. That was all it ever was, though. We were neck and neck for every academic achievement possible and close competitors in every subject except for PE. Sports had never been my thing. Obviously.

“I’m sorry you felt that way,” Rafferty said. “I mean about the parties and stuff. I doubt it was intentional.”

“What? Not being invited? Or the sneers behind my back?”

He shook his head, seemingly bewildered. Could I trust that he was telling me the truth? He was a lot of things. Infuriating. Arrogant. Superior. But he wasn’t a liar. As far as I knew, anyway. “If there were sneers, they weren’t from me. I was just trying to keep up with you.”

“Yeah, fine. Doesn’t matter now. It was a long time ago.” I picked up another puzzle piece as if I were super focused on it, hoping he didn’t see the hurt that still lingered from those days. Not only had I been awkward and chubby, I’d never had the right clothes. While everyone else came to school in the same basic attire, Levi jeans, and T-shirts, my dad had forced me to wear dresses or skirts. He had had this thing about women and jeans as if it had been the 1940s or something.

“It still bothers you,” Rafferty said simply.

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Now who’s lying?”

I sighed and rubbed my left temple, wishing we could get off this subject. But Rafferty was not ready to let it go.

“Did people really talk about you behind your back?” Rafferty asked. “Because I don’t remember that at all.”

He had a point. Rafferty had always been one of those kids who didn’t care what other people thought of him; therefore, he might not notice what was right in front of him. He’d always been so confident and secure, as well as focused on making something of himself. We’d had that in common. The confidence part? Not so much. While I’d put my attention on proving to my father and myself that I was more than just the fat girl, Rafferty had seemed to enjoy the competition. He was made for the world. Good-looking and smart, with a family that celebrated his accomplishments. On the other hand, my father had seemed to take sport in making me feel inadequate. To make himself feel bigger? Maybe. But there was more to it. I’d not examined it carefully in the years I’d been away. I’d simply assumed I was never coming back thus I could just move along as if I hadn’t suffered greatly from my father’s abuse.

The word abuse still sounded like an exaggeration, even though I knew now that it wasn’t. Regardless, acting like a victim was the last thing I wanted. Being back here, though? I could not escape the memories or the truth. “Guys like you wouldn’t notice a thing like that,” I said finally.

“Guys like me?”

“Everyone loved you. You were great-looking. Smart. Charming. It would never occur to you that life wouldn’t just roll out the way you wanted.”

He set aside a piece of the puzzle and moved his hands to his lap, leaning forward slightly as people do when they’re cold. “You might think that’s true, but it wasn’t the whole story. My dad—my real dad—was a bad guy. He was running away with my mother’s best friend when he was murdered by said best friend.”

My stomach dropped. He was right. That had been horrific. In the years since I’d nearly forgotten about it. Naturally, it would have affected Rafferty and his brothers and, surely, did not fall under the category of easy. Rafferty had been young—seven if I remembered correctly. I think we’d been in second grade when his father was murdered by his girlfriend, who then took her own life. I hadn’t really understood any of it at the time, but it had been the talk of the town for years afterward. Nothing like that had ever happened in Bluefern, and it wasn’t soon forgotten. Thinking about it now, I remembered snippets of conversation between my father and his ranching buddies. They’d not thought well of Rafferty’s real father. Even before the scandal had ripped apart their family, my dad had been disdainful of the newcomer who had come to Bluefern and been “given” his wife’s family’s ranch, only to run it into the ground. Trash. Lazy. Con artist. Those were the words thrown out about Stella’s first husband.

Later, when I was old enough to understand that a murder/suicide had robbed two families of a parent, my dad told me the whole story. After Stella married Jasper Moon, my father railed against him, too. Jasper Moon had managed the bank and turned my dad down for a loan. That was never forgiven or forgotten. Any grudge my dad ever felt remained with him. To him, forgiveness was for sissies.

“I know what was in papers when your father was killed,” I said slowly, hoping it was all right to speak about. “I heard my father talking about it with his friends. I was smart, so I pieced it together in the way kids do. It was hard to understand, though. Since I became an adult, I’ve heard more about it from your brothers and their wives. To be honest, I’m surprised it doesn’t haunt all of you more. Do you think about him much?”

“I think about him, yeah. Not with fondness, I can tell you that. If things hadn’t gone down the way they did, I don’t know what would have happened to my mom or my brothers. I don’t remember that much about him, but I can remember the feelings he evoked whenever he was around.”

“Like what?”

“Fear mostly. He had a wicked temper.”

“Like my dad?”

“Yeah. Cruel like that, too. He loved to make my mother feel bad about herself. He was hard on Atticus and Caspian too. Especially Caspian. He had trouble in school, and he got raked over the coals for it.”

“You remember that?”

“Vaguely. But Caspian’s talked about it since then, too. We’ve all talked about those times, especially over the last few years. Pop seems to believe they didn’t encourage us enough to process it all, which is just like him. Taking the blame when it was our biological father who damaged us. It was Pop who loved all the trauma away.”

Rafferty looked at the wall over my shoulder, his eyes slightly glazed. “Before my father died, I remember my parents fighting a lot. He had a bad temper and was always exploding on us or Mama. The day he left, Mama sat us all down and said he was leaving and most likely not coming back.”

“Did you understand that he was running off with Mrs. Armstrong? Or that she’d killed him?”

“No, she didn’t tell us any of that until we were much older. The night he was killed, I was upstairs looking out my bedroom window. Maybe I was hoping he’d show up. I’m not sure. But I was at the window when I saw a figure stumbling toward the house. It was only when he got close enough I could see in the light of the porch that it was him. He was all crumpled over like he was in pain. Then he disappeared under the awning. I heard the doorbell ring, and Mama running to answer it. After that, the next thing I remember were the cops showing up. Red lights reflected in the snow. That image stayed with me.”

“Hard for a child to understand.”

“It was, yeah. The whole thing was. Mrs. Armstrong was my mother’s best friend. She and Annie were always at the house. And then she was gone, and my dad was gone—both of them dead. It was impossible for any of us to really comprehend except maybe Atticus. He was mature for his age and tried to shelter the rest of us. Which, looking back, was too much for his young shoulders. Mama told me she used to worry about Atticus taking on too much of the burden our dad left behind. But then Pop kept coming around, and pretty soon, it was obvious he and Mama were in love. They got married, and everything in our world changed for the better. Pop loved all of us. I don’t know how, but he did. Just took us all on without complaint. I never once felt like he wished he hadn’t had to take us on just because he fell in love with Mama.”

Rafferty got up to get us each a glass of water. Upon his return, I asked him if he wanted something stronger? “You want a real drink? There should be some cans of orange soda in there.”

He returned his attention to the trunk. “You have a lot of things stuffed in here.” He hauled out the six-pack of soda, two trashy magazines, and a box with individual bags of various potato and corn chips.

“It’s my secret stash of everything my dad disapproves of,” I said.

“Well, let’s say a cheer for a secret stash. Comes in handy during a snowstorm.” He held up two bags of chips. “Plain or salt and vinegar?”