She blinked and then let out a heavy breath. “No, I don’t think so.” She seemed conflicted and I didn’t want to press. I knew I would have to take my time if I wanted to get to know her. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Even when I wasn’t with her, I thought about her hair, the way she smelled, and her warm, smooth skin.
After dinner I went into my room and fiddled with my computer until I was able to dial up onto the Internet. Every second it took to get online felt like an hour. It was completely obvious to me why people on the ranch didn’t use the Internet. After hours of clicking in frustration and watching that little timer on the screen go in circles, I finally kicked my feet up and began reading. Just as I turned the second page of a book called The Montana Cowboy: Legends of the Big Sky Country, I heard the sounds of small pebbles hitting my window.
I bolted upright and went to the ledge. Sweeping the curtains aside, I looked out to see Ava peering up at me from the ground, just a few feet below.
I opened the window. “Hi, Ava.” I smiled. “I’m sure Redman and Bea wouldn’t mind you using the door.” She was so cute standing there, gazing up at me.
“Shhh.” She held her finger to her mouth. Her eyes were wide. “I have an idea.”
I could smell whiskey on her breath, even from four feet away. “Do you want me to lift you up here? You want to come in my room?” Suddenly I was seventeen again and it made me smile.
“Just put on a jacket and come on. I have something to show you.”
I reached for my jacket and shoes and then hopped through the window, landing hard and almost falling into a roll.
When I stood up, she put her hands on my shoulders and said, “I need your help.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“Yes.” She nodded dramatically, arching her eyebrows like she was proud of the fact. She pulled a flask from her pocket and handed it to me. “Want some?”
I can’t say that I honestly knew anyone who drank liquor out of a flask, certainly not a five-foot-four, small-boned woman, but I was intrigued. Following her toward the cabin, I unscrewed the flask and took a large gulp. Having not drank except for a few times in college and high school, the liquor made me gag a little but then it went down smooth, giving my throat a warm sensation. “We’ll need more. Let’s get more,” she said, pointing to the flask as she ran up the stairs to her cabin.
I stood outside on the porch until she came back out with a square Jack Daniels bottle.
“This will do,” she said.
“Where are we going?”
Following behind her, holding the bottle in one hand and flask in the other, I wondered for a second if there was actually a legitimate reason why people told me to stay away from her. We approached a second cabin on the other side of the main house. I could see Caleb through the bedroom window.
“Be quiet,” she said. “Don’t make a sound. Look.” She pointed toward a metal cage, one you might use as a dog crate. It was in shadow under the eaves of the cabin, but there was no mistaking what was inside. Even in the darkness I could see the white above the raccoon’s eyes and on his nose.
“Did you catch that?”
“Yes, it was easy.” She smiled so gleefully.
“I’m not sure raccoons make for very good pets.”
“He’s not a pet, silly.”
She stood on her tippy-toes and peeked into Caleb’s cabin. “Okay, it’s almost time.” We could hear the shower in the bathroom go on. “Here.” She handed me a pair of leather work gloves. “I need your help carrying the cage inside. We’re going to leave Caleb a little present.”
Finally, I understood. I found it hard to keep a straight face. “You’re a sneaky little girl, aren’t you?”
“I’ve never done anything like this but I take it Caleb wasn’t very nice to you, and well, you know, he wasn’t very nice to me either. I figured it was time to teach him a lesson.”
“Are you avenging my pride, sweetheart?” I winked and she smiled back.
“That’s what us country girls do.”
“God, I’ve been missing out on so much.”
We picked up the cage while the raccoon scratched and hissed at us.
“Oh shit,” I yelped.
“Don’t touch him, he’s a mean little bastard.”
“But he looks so cute.”
“He’s probably rabid. I hope he bites Caleb.”
“Ava, you’ve got a real mean streak,” I teased.
Caleb’s cabin door was open. Ava opened the cage and poked the animal from the other side, encouraging him to run out. We left him there to scurry around the front room and then we ran down the steps outside and hid in the shadows, spying through the cabin’s window.
We waited, watching until Caleb came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel from the waist down. He stood stock-still in the hallway. From our vantage point, we had a front-row seat to the show. Caleb screamed like a girl and threw his sizable arms in the air, inadvertently dropping his towel before running back into the bathroom. The giant man was scared of raccoons.
Ava and I both slid to the ground, holding our stomachs and laughing so hard but trying not to make a sound.
“Oh my god, did you see his face?” she said. “He was terrified.”
“That was classic—I’ll never forget it. I wonder what’s gonna happen to the raccoon?”