Page 20 of Burke (The Haven #2)
He looked at her in surprise. “Oh, wow. Okay.” He stepped back. “I didn’t realize that was already worrying you.”
“Of course it is,” she replied. “I don’t have the slightest idea where I should go, but a part of me says I need to go to a completely different state.”
“Where would you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I prefer California, with the weather and the water and the palm trees, except I don’t really like people.”
He burst out laughing at that. “I’m not in favor of California for you, especially if you don’t like people,” he quipped. “New York might be a better choice, if you don’t like people, as I hear they never say hi to anybody.”
She giggled at that. “It’s such a well-known saying that you wonder if it’s even true,” she shared, with a laugh.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, “but I would just as soon have nobody talk to me. California is out for me,” he declared. “I don’t think I would want to live with that many people.”
“I was thinking about that too,” she replied, “but I want some space. I have some money set aside,” she confessed.
“At least I do right now,… thanks to you. I was just at the point of taking a chunk of my receptionist paycheck and putting it into investments again. Since I lost that job, I don’t have anything to invest right now.
Thank God Silvia didn’t get to that investment fund.
If I’d lost it, it would have been a blow. ”
“Of course, and let’s not even think about any of that right now,” he suggested. “We’ll deal with some of that later, and I’m sure there will be phone calls and God-only-knows what else.”
“Yeah, my sister isn’t one to give up easily,” Shirley noted, “even more so with her boyfriend egging her on.”
“After hearing his voice mail message to you, you definitely need to stay no contact with them.”
“Sure, I need to, but that doesn’t mean it will be all that easy.”
“As long as you’re here, and you don’t go to town, it should be fine,” he pointed out. “In town is where she would most likely find you.”
“I know, but now that my apartment and my job are out of the picture,” she mentioned, with a note of bitterness, “I don’t know where she would expect to find me or would even begin to look for me.”
“Maybe she wouldn’t expect to find you anywhere. Maybe she thought that you would turn to her.”
“Oh, God no,” she muttered. “No way anybody would ever turn to her. She can’t even begin to look after herself.”
“She’s doing just fine,” he pointed out, “not in a legally or morally ethical way, but—”
“That doesn’t matter to her one bit,” Shirley declared, with a headshake. “And you’re right. I can’t make any decisions or judgments about her at this point. She’s made enough bad decisions, and I just have to live with it.”
“We always have to live with it when dealing with someone like that,” he clarified. “You can try talking with them until you are blue in the face, but, if they choose to continue on that same path, there is nothing else to be done.”
She smiled. “Let’s get on with the day, and maybe, if I get lots of hard work in, I’ll completely forget about her.”
And that’s what they did. They had mucked out the stalls, and he checked up on the hooves of the couple horses he’d worked with.
Then they’d been given the vitamins and extra supplements mixed into the feed for the one mare.
Burke and Shirley were deep in the zone by this time.
He trimmed more hooves, then led those two horses outside to join the others.
A lot of welcoming neighs came from the horses on the other side of the fence, and then she saw the donkey was here as well.
She walked over to him, curry brush in hand, and he nickered softly, which was an interesting response because normally they would bray fairly loudly.
Just as she was about to step back, he started to bray, as if to stop her.
She laughed and got closer and began brushing him.
This went on for a bit, until she realized he literally was keeping her there.
Finally she had to step back. “Sorry, baby, but I can’t stay here with you all the time, as other animals need attention too.”
He nudged her several more times, then realizing that his turn was up, he walked away from her, heading toward the other horses.
Burke joined her soon afterward. “I see that Danny likes you.”
“He likes the attention, and he definitely likes being brushed,” she shared, with a smile for him. “At some point in time Danny must have been well loved.”
“Yes, he was. Then the lady of the house passed on, and her husband didn’t quite know what to do with Danny but kept him.
However, Danny got no attention. Then his grandson decided that the donkey should be the target for his frustrations with life.
” When she turned and glared at him, he shrugged.
“Remember that most of the animals here have horrible backstories, at least for a part of their lives.”
She winced and nodded. “That’s the nature of rescue work, but I don’t want to focus on that,” she muttered. “Yet we can never forget, can we?”
“No, we can’t,” he agreed, “nor should we.”
She grimaced. “You’re right.”
Just as they were about to break for lunch, or at least she hoped so because she was suddenly feeling incredibly hungry, her phone rang. She reached for it automatically, then froze.
He looked over at her and nodded. “Good response.”
She winced and when a message was left, she played it, and of course it was Silvia again—angry and sounding well beyond furious.
“Answer the damn phone, will you?”
Then she found several other voice mails she hadn’t listened to.
As she continued to play through them, her sister’s tone went from being angry to Starting to get worried to Come on, sis.
Don’t do this to At least let me know you’re alive .
Shirley was shaking when she shut off the messages and looked over at him.
He stared at her in concern.
“It’s just so hard,” she whispered.
“I understand. I know it’s hard, but in this case to protect yourself…”
She nodded. “ No contact ,” she repeated, “but wow.… That won’t be easy.” She took several slow, deep breaths.
“Do you think she’s actually worried about you?”
She shrugged. “She’s probably worried in the sense that the money just isn’t available to her anymore.” Then she winced. “Wow, do I sound bitter and angry at the whole world?”
“And that’s all right too,” he replied. “You’re seeing the other side of your family.”
“I’ve known about this side. It’s just… I guess I’ve always managed to look past it because it wasn’t directed at me.”
“But not now.”
“No, not now,” she confirmed, her tone determined. When the phone rang yet again a few minutes later, she winced.
“You can turn off the ringer, you know?” Burke suggested.
“I could,” she agreed, with a laugh, “but I guess I left it on thinking there might be phone calls from somebody else.” Then she gave a self-deprecating laugh.
“Which would mean that I have friends, and the truth of the matter is, I don’t know anybody else who would be calling me.
” Taking a deep breath, she shut off the ringer and muttered, “God, what a sad awakening.”
“But it is an awakening, and you can’t do anything about it, until you recognize what the problem is.”
She looked over at him and quipped, “What problem? I have no friends, and I have to start fresh, as in completely all over again. I thought I was doing that by taking the receptionist job and by living in that small apartment. I made a legitimate effort to settle in. I’d sold what was left in my prior apartment, after the supposed theft and after leaving the project management position. ”
“Do you want to go back to that?”
“No way,” she replied instantly. “If there was ever a job guaranteed to put you in a hospital and to score you a heart attack, that’s the one,” she muttered.
“Angry people all the time, job schedules that you can’t work with, timelines that aren’t reasonable.
So tight that you can’t even begin to function, and, no matter what you say or do, it never changes.
And, because you can’t ever maintain, I always felt like the weak link at every meeting,” she admitted.
“Nobody ever seemed to point it out, but it was always there, clearly obvious who had the lowest success at making the deadlines,” she shared.
“And yet I wasn’t making those deadlines.
I was trying to make other people make those deadlines.
It always seemed to be my team’s failure to cooperate, so management would say that it was up to me to make them comply, but…
” She gave a half laugh. “Either I am not miserable enough to force other people to do the ridiculous shit they didn’t want to do,” she explained, “or I just was too kind and not pounding on them hard enough. I don’t know.
The job definitely wasn’t what I thought it would be, and it wasn’t for me.
I really enjoyed the work I did in school, but I had no idea what the real world application would be like.
I just didn’t feel right passing along impossible deadlines, putting the poor planning label on the backs of my employees and their families, so I didn’t. ”
“So that job in particular was bad,” he pointed out, “but that doesn’t mean every job will be like that.”
“No, maybe not, but… it was definitely an eye-opener into my personality and into what I want out of life. Sometimes you have to see what you don’t like to help define what you do,” she noted, with a smile.
“Of course.”
As they walked back to the kitchen, she said, “I can see why Dwight took over the kitchen.”
He looked at her and asked, “And why is that?”
“Because you’re not dealing with other people.… He puts a meal on the table, and they either eat it or they don’t,” she explained. “I kind of like that.”