A Churn for the Worse (15 page)

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” She smiled as she imagined the look on Jakob's face at that very moment. “I can bring it to you at the station tomorrow after we get back from Diane's first-ever field trip to the Weaver farm.”

“The Weaver farm?”

“Uh-huh. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, Diane frequents the Weaver farm to check out all the new horses
before they're sold to the various Amish farms. She likes to introduce herself to them.”

His laugh widened her smile still further. “I love your aunt.”

“How could you not?” she joked, transferring her attention from the sliver of light around the window to the sliver of light beneath her door. “Just about everyone, except Jim . . . and maybe Jeremy, if he's still sleeping, is going along to see the farm. It should be fun.”

“Jim?”

“The marketing consultant working with the mayor on ways to make Heavenly even more appealing to tourists . . .”

Jakob took what sounded like a sip of something and then released a tired sigh. “I hear he's talking about bars and things.”

“He might be talking, but I can guarantee Diane, Harold, and Al are talking a whole lot louder.”

This time his laughter was cut short by a yawn. “The chief, too. Heavenly doesn't need bars. That's not what this place is about.”

“I couldn't agree more.”

“Hasn't this Jim guy been at the inn a really long time?” Jakob asked around another, longer yawn.

“They've all been here for a while. I think Hayley and Jeremy are here for another two or three days, at least. Hank and Bill, too. Even Judy took advantage of a last-minute cancellation and extended her stay, although she wasn't around this evening. I think Diane said she was meeting up with friends in Breeze Point.”

“That's nice. Hey . . . I saw Ben this afternoon.”

“Oh?”

“He was out at Stutzman's again. Helping Emma with a few things.”

“That doesn't surprise me.”

“The fact that he was there doesn't surprise me, either. The lift to his step while he was there, however, did.”

She rolled onto her back once again and imagined herself sitting on a couch with Jakob, his arm draped across her shoulder . . . “A lift to his step? I don't understand.”

“It's the only way I can think to describe it. He seemed lighter. Happier.”

“Ben likes to help people,” she said.

“This was different.”

Something about his words, his tone, brought her focus back into her bedroom and onto their conversation. “Different, how?”

“Like maybe, in time, he can finally move on.”

“From?”

“From Elizabeth and on to someone else.”

At the mention of Ben's late wife, she tightened her grip on the phone. “Someone else? You mean like Emma Stutzman? C'mon, Jakob, the woman's husband hasn't even been dead a full week yet.”

“Oh, I'm not saying she sees Ben as anything other than a helpful friend . . . or that Ben has any ulterior motive. Because I'm not. I'm just saying I can almost picture them together. In the future.”

She stared up at the ceiling and tried his words on for size . . .

Ben sitting on a buggy seat next to Emma Stutzman . . .

Ben eating dinner surrounded by family . . .

Ben guiding Henry and his brothers into adulthood . . .

Ben holding a child of his own one day . . .

Each new image that played in her thoughts made her happier than the one before.

She wanted that for Ben. She wanted him to be happy and in love again one day. Whether that happened with Emma Stutzman or someone else; it didn't matter. She just wanted Ben to know the same happiness she'd found with Jakob.

Claire picked her way across the matching ruts that lined both sides of the Weavers' driveway, her last-minute decision to don sneakers rather than rain boots an unequivocal mistake.

“So much for the local forecast,” she mumbled as her left foot sank into the mud and halted her forward motion with its sticky grip.

Extending his hand to her, Hank tugged her free. “They blow the forecast in Wisconsin all the time, too. Except in winter.
That
they seem to get right.”

“It snows a lot in Wisconsin during the winter, doesn't it?”

“Yup.” His hold loosened and then released completely as they reached the front side of the barn and a waiting Diane. “And to think, I'd actually started to believe it was always sunny in Heavenly . . .”

Diane nibbled back her smile just long enough to
respond. “If it was sunny all the time, Hank, crops wouldn't grow. And if crops didn't grow, many of the businesses you've been studying this past week would fail.”

“True.” Hank pointed at Claire's mud-caked left sneaker and shook his head. “Next time we have a field trip to a horse farm? Wear boots.”

“I'll keep that in mind, Hank, thanks.” She did her best to shake the mud loose, but gave up and addressed the lanky blonde standing next to her aunt instead. “Hayley, aren't you worried about your camera getting wet?”

Hayley glanced down at the camera bag slung across her shoulder and shrugged. “No. Not really. I've got tricks I can use if necessary.”

“Do you know if this place is ever part of the countryside bus tours?” Bill surveyed the large white barn in front of them and then swung his gaze out toward the mud-soaked paddock beyond.

Diane tightened the strings of her hood, nodding as she did. “Sometimes. The tour bus operator likes to vary his stops often. He says it keeps the tour fresh and makes it so people want to come back again and again.”

“He's right.” Slipping his hand into his pocket, the travel agent extracted a notebook and pen and then hunched his shoulders forward just enough to protect it as he jotted down the information. When he was done, he returned both to his pocket and swept his hand toward the large door just off to their right. “Well? Shall we?”

“Yes.” Diane stepped over one last remaining mud puddle, turned and pointed at it for Claire's benefit, and then led the way into the large cavernous barn and its stall-flanked center aisle.

Instantly, a dozen or more noses peeked out at them from the left and the right, with a few soft, whinnied greetings peppering the air. Diane stopped mid-step, reached into the pocket of her simple raincoat, and extracted a handful of peppermint candy. Spinning around, she opened up her palm and held it and the candies out for Claire and their guests.

“Everybody take two. When you find a horse that strikes your fancy, stick the candy in the center of your palm and hold it out, steady. Let's try to make sure they all get one, okay?”

Claire stepped back, waited until Bill, Hayley, and Hank each had their candies, and then took two as well, her focus skipping ahead three stalls to a dark gray horse staring intently back at her. “Hey there, little fella.” She approached the horse with gentle, tentative steps, stopping just shy of the half wall that separated them from each other. “Are you looking at me because you know I have a treat in my hand? Or because I look like a drowned rat?”

“First of all, dear, he's a she. Second of all, she's as curious about you as you are about her.” Diane paused just behind Claire's left shoulder and released a contented sigh. “She's a beauty, isn't she? She must have come in on a trailer yesterday, because she wasn't here on Sunday.”

“You were here on Sunday?” she asked, pulling her gaze from the horse long enough to take in her aunt.

“I was.”

“How often do you actually come out here?”

Diane looked past her at the horse, a tiny smile playing at the corners of her lips. “Once or twice a week, most weeks. Though I've missed a few weeks as of late on account of how busy we've been at the inn.”

“And this is a recent thing? Your coming here once or twice a week?”

“If you call twenty years recent . . . then yes, it's a recent thing.” Diane stepped around Claire and ran her non-candy-holding hand down the horse's neck, murmuring softly to the animal as she did.

Claire tried to make sense of the woman's words, but she came up empty. “I don't understand how I didn't know this. You're
always
at the inn.”

“Around lunchtime, when the guests are off exploring Heavenly and you're either at the shop or working on something in your room, I head out. Sometimes I bring my lunch with me and sometimes I don't. I only stay for thirty minutes or so, but it's enough time to take a deep breath and recharge my batteries for the rest of the day.”

Taking a moment to marvel at the way the horse nuzzled her face against Diane's, Claire collected her thoughts and posed another question. “So what do you do out here during those thirty minutes?”

“I give and receive a little love, I find the horses in need of a treat, and, sometimes, I grab a brush and help Mervin out a little.” Diane parted company with the horse long enough to present it with a piece of peppermint candy. “It's the next best thing to having a horse-filled barn of my own.”

Claire watched the candy disappear and then looked from the peppermints in her own hand to her aunt. “Does it make you sad when you connect with one like this and then it's gone the next time you come?”

Diane ran her hand down the horse's neck one last time and then stepped back to assess the stalls yet to be visited.
“No. Not really. It just means they've gone on to their new homes.”

“Do you ever wish
you
could be one of those homes?” she asked.

“Sometimes, I suppose. But running the inn is a dream come true for me, dear. It truly is. The fact that I can do that in a community that relies so heavily on horses is simply a bonus.”

Diane took three steps toward the next stall and then doubled back to a spotted white horse. “This one really is sweet, isn't she? She reminds me of a picture my father gave me when I was little. Same basic color, except that one had a plain white chest, whereas this one has markings there.”

“Is that when you fell in love with horses? When grandpa gave you that picture?”

“It was. I used to study that picture every night before bed. Then, the next year, a new girl came into my class and she had a horse. Of her own. I'd listen to her stories at lunch and during recess and that was all I talked about when I got home from school each day.” Diane whispered something in the horse's ear and then turned her attention back to Claire. “Everything was Sophie's horse this, Sophie's horse that. I don't know how Mom and Dad put up with me.”

Claire wandered over to a wooden barrel, checked its stability, and then hiked herself up onto its lid, her legs dangling over the sides. “So why haven't you bought a horse of your own?”

“Because I'm an innkeeper, not a horse owner.”

“Why can't you be both?”

Diane plucked a brush from a hook beside the stall and stepped inside. With gentle, careful strokes, she brushed the side of the horse, humming softly as she did. After several passes, she shrugged. “Your being here has wiped away any loneliness I may have had on occasion.”

Claire pulled back, the sudden motion making the barrel rock. “Whoooaaa . . .”

“No worries, dear. It will hold you.”

“And you know this how?”

“When there are several horses in need of attention at one time, I often sit on that same barrel and sing a song.” Diane walked around the front of the horse and set to work on the other side. “For whatever reason, the horses don't seem to realize I'm tone deaf.”

Claire laughed. “I've always loved your singing, too.”

“That's because you grew up listening to my version of singing.”

“There is no better version.” And there wasn't. Visiting Diane as a little girl had been filled with perfect moments, singing included.

“You're biased, dear.”

“No, I'm lucky.” She scooted forward on the barrel and then jumped down onto her feet. “Well, I guess I better find some takers for my peppermints.”

Slowly, she made her way down the aisle, passing Bill, then Hank, and finally Hayley, Claire's peppermints the only ones that had yet to be dispensed. About three stalls shy of the aisle's end, she found her first recipient—a jet black mare with long eyelashes and soulful eyes.

“Hey there, pretty lady, would you like a treat?”

The animal's answer came via a quick flick of her
tongue, followed by a snort of air on Claire's now empty palm. “Hmmm . . . I guess that was a yes, huh?”

Hank moved in beside her, laughing. “Peppermint is definitely a hit with this crew. The second horse I found actually stuck her nose in my pocket looking for a second helping. And boy was she persistent.”

“Probably smelled the lingering scent from them having been in there in the first place.” Bill stepped back from the stall he'd been visiting and gestured toward Hayley. “I imagine we've provided a few good shots for you. Unless”—he looked down at his hand and then wiped it on the only pair of jeans Claire had seen him wear all week—“saliva isn't what you're after.”

Hayley disengaged the lens from the body of her camera and set both inside her bag. “It's not.”

“I imagine it would be best to capture the ideal horse
outside
 . . . on a sunny day, yes?” Hank asked.

“Outside, inside, makes no difference.” Hayley zipped up her bag and then hiked it up and onto her shoulder. “I just need to find the right one, you know?”

Claire crossed to the opposite side of the aisle and the chestnut brown horse eyeing them closely. “This one is cute. Real wide-eyed and alert. Like she wants to have a conversation.”

“I think it's more likely she's been watching all of her friends get treats and she knows it's her turn.” Hank followed Claire and then leaned his head into the stall to address the horse. “That's it, isn't it? You know Claire has a peppermint, don't you?”

With a playful nudge, Claire pushed Hank out of the way and addressed the curious horse herself.

“Don't pay any attention to him. You've been waiting very patiently for your turn, haven't you?” Opening her fist, she held the red-and-white candy atop her palm and invited the horse to partake. Once again, her answer came via a tongue and a snort. Only this time, instead of retreating a few steps, the horse lowered her head once again and gently nuzzled Claire's empty hand.

“You're most welcome, sweetie.”