Mulberry Moon Read online

  Finnegan leaped into action. While the dog expertly steered three terrified hens toward home, Ben dumped his captives inside the run, caught two more, and opened the makeshift gate to facilitate his dog’s efforts. After Finnegan had done his part, Ben entered the enclosure, pulling the gate closed behind him. He caught all the buggers and stuffed them into the coop to prevent more escapes. The run was useless. The wire sagged so low, even chickens with clipped wings could probably hop over it.

  After securing the door, he exited the run. He looked at Sissy. “How many chickens do you have? I saw at least fifty on the street.”

  In a small voice, she said, “Eighty.”

  “Eighty?” Ben studied the structure. “That coop isn’t big enough for eighty grown birds. Twenty, maybe.”

  She pushed tendrils of dark hair from her brow. “It seemed a lot bigger when they were small. I want to increase my breakfast business, and since a lot of my customers are farmers, I thought . . .” She flapped a limp hand. “Well, you know. They dislike commercially grown eggs. So I took courses online and passed a test so I’d be legal to raise layers and sell eggs. I even know how to grade them for size.”

  In other words, she knew a lot of useless stuff about chickens and nothing practical. “And you think your breakfast crowd will go through eighty eggs a day?”

  “There’s a mortality rate with chicks.” She pushed her fingers through her hair, making it spike in all directions. “I can’t remember the percentage, but I ordered plenty of chicks just in case some of them didn’t make it.”

  She looked exhausted. Even worse, an expression of utter defeat played over her face.

  “But then nobody died!” Her tone was laced with frustration. A horrified expression flashed in her eyes. “Not that I wanted anybody to die.” She dropped her hand from her hair to press it over her heart. “I love them. They were such cute babies. I kept them in troughs in my bedroom under heat lights like they tell you to do. And then they got pasty butt, and I had to wash all their bums every night.” She gave him an imploring look. “They became my pets.”

  He tried to imagine washing the encrusted butts of eighty chicks every night after a hard day’s work. As for loving chickens, they were just livestock, filthy creatures and so dumb they took dumps in their drinking water.

  Ben went after another hen. Before he closed in, a rooster just old enough to be feeling randy grabbed the chicken by her neck feathers and threw her to the ground.

  Sissy, hurrying along beside him, cried, “Some of them are getting vicious with the others. Just look at her, being so mean! It started a couple of days ago. I don’t know what’s gotten into her. Margie! You quit that!”

  Ben realized that Sissy didn’t know how to tell the difference between male and female birds when they were still so young. The ground had grown slick with a layer of ice, and his boots provided little traction. He barely managed to slide to a stop before he knocked the birds over with his shins. Startled, the two chickens parted company, the hen going one way while Margie the rooster went the other. He chased the hen, letting Margie escape. A male bird was less likely to skedaddle. No guy in his right mind abandoned a place where he could score countless times a day.

  Finn had herded several chickens into the run and was standing guard at the open gate to make sure none of them tried to dart back out. It would be a race against time before they took flight over the short wire walls of the enclosure. Ben needed to stuff this hen and all the others into the coop.

  Sissy ran in to help as Ben deposited birds inside the shelter. Her black work shoes, soled for grip on smooth floors, didn’t perform well on ice. Just as she neared the coop, her feet shot out from under her and she landed hard on her backside, losing the captured bird in the process. With so many hens squawking, Ben didn’t hear her teeth snap together, but he felt certain they had.

  She scrambled erect and began helping him get hens into the coop. The first two she caught squawked, twisted in her arms, and flapped their wings. From then on, she grabbed them by the legs and flipped them upside down. Quick learner, he noted.

  When Ben exited the run, he saw Finnegan disappear around the corner of the building. Ben guessed the dog was going out to the street where hens were running helter-skelter along West Main. Finn was accustomed to cars. On the ranch, Ben had started training him early to respect them. If the pup saw an automobile coming, he’d dart out of harm’s way.

  Within seconds Ben heard hens approaching, and an instant later, they came around the corner of the building, legs scissoring and wings flapping to take them airborne in fits and starts. Finn ran back and forth in a broad fan pattern behind them, blocking the way of any bird that tried to retreat.

  “Wow!” Sissy exclaimed, her face even dirtier now than it had been earlier. At her side dangled a hen, its wings spread and motionless. “He’s really good at this.”

  Ben’s chest swelled with pride. “He’s a great herder.”

  Soon at least ten chickens were racing around inside the run. Ben and Sissy wasted no time in capturing them. Once it grew dark, it would be difficult to find them.

  After securing all the captives inside the coop, Ben turned to see Sissy kneeling outside the gate with her arms around Finnegan. “Thank you so much,” he heard her say above the raucous cries of the birds behind him. “You’re a wonderful—no, fabulous—dog!” She ruffled Finn’s fur and planted a kiss on his forehead before releasing him. “Good boy! Bring ’em in!”

  After scrambling to her feet, Sissy began chasing other escapees. Ben joined her. Finn had left to bring in more strays from the street, so they were temporarily on their own. Ben regretted telling Sissy that catching chickens was easy. Without his dog, he pretty much sucked.

  Ben lunged after a black rooster that was determined to avoid capture. The male darted behind a pine and used the large trunk as a barricade. The yard was dotted with smaller trees near the back boundary. Ben wished the gump had chosen to hide behind one of them. He feinted to the right, one hand on the bark of the ponderosa to help steady his balance. The rooster shrieked and circled the other way. This is my chance, Ben thought. Pushing for speed, he switched direction to meet the bird head-on. His boots slipped on the ice. His legs shot sideways. All that saved him from doing the splits was his momentum, which, as he waved his arms to keep his balance, flipped him onto his back.

  Ben’s head hit the frozen earth with such force it stunned him, and in the second it took for him to regain his wits, he felt his sprawled body sliding at a fast clip over the ground. He thought he heard Sissy scream. The next second he plowed into something, groin first. Pain exploded between his legs. He saw stars. His stomach clenched on a wave of nausea. Blinking to clear his vision, he heard someone groaning. It took him a moment to realize it was him.

  Through a reddish haze, he stared up the slender trunk of a new-growth pine. The canopy of green branches at its top seemed to swirl above him in an eerie pattern against the darkening sky. He couldn’t move, couldn’t cuss. All he wanted was to roll on his side and curl up into the fetal position, but he couldn’t manage that, either. He’d taken a few hard blows down there over the years, but nothing had ever hurt like this.

  “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Sissy’s voice trilled above him. “Are you all right?” He felt her drop to her knees beside him. Ben blinked, swallowed back another wave of nausea, and finally got her face in focus. “There was nothing I could do!” she cried. “You sped toward that tree like a race car. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. You wouldn’t be out here if not for my stupid chickens.”

  She rested a hand on his shoulder and kept talking. Nothing she said made much sense to him until the pain subsided a bit. Even then, he was so captivated by the raw emotion in her voice that her words didn’t register in his brain.

  For the first time, Ben was seeing her without the mask of indifference, allowing him to glimpse the young
woman she really was under the facade, a person with feelings that ran deep, not only for chickens, but also people. She wasn’t as cold as she pretended to be.

  “I can run inside and make an ice pack,” she offered. “Maybe that’ll help.”

  The suggestion startled Ben back to reality. Considering the location of his injury, he almost groaned again. Finn had returned. Opposite Sissy, the dog stood over Ben, licked his face, and whined. Ben realized that the throbs of pain under his cupped hands were growing less intense, and he was starting to see a glimmer of humor in the situation.

  In a high-pitched soprano voice, he said, “I think I’m going to be fine.”

  Caught off guard by his joke, Sissy giggled and sat back on her heels. Ben gazed up at her pixie face, taking in her large, expressive eyes, her delicate bone structure, and the softness of her lips. The thought flitted through his mind that he wanted nothing more in that moment than to kiss her senseless. If a woman could turn him on now, when his nuts still ached, he guessed he really was going to be fine.

  He dug his elbows into the ice-encrusted dirt to lever himself up into a sitting position, which prompted Sissy to scramble back to her feet. She leaned forward with her arm outstretched.

  “Here, I’ll help you,” she said.

  Ben accepted the offer, noting that his hand nearly swallowed hers. She inched closer to the tree and braced her body against the trunk to pull him up. Her shoes slipped on the ice, but she caught her balance.

  Tightening her grip, she said, “Ready? On the count of three. One. Two. Thr—”

  The next instant, Ben lay flat on his back again, only this time with her weight angled across him. “Well, if this isn’t a hell of a situation.”

  Finn gave a happy bark and bounced forward to slather the side of Sissy’s face with kisses. Two humans were down and at his mercy. She sputtered and then started to giggle again. As dazed as Ben still was, he appreciated the melodious sound of her laughter. It reminded him of his mom’s dainty wind chimes.

  She held up her hand to shield her mouth, not seeming to mind when Finnegan licked her cheeks. “I think he’s lost interest in chickens. Two people tumbling around in the dirt are a lot more fun.”

  “He’s still a pup.”

  After Sissy rolled off him, Ben sat up. “I’ll try standing by myself this time.” He shifted onto his knees, curled his arm around the tree, and finally gained his feet. The pain had ebbed to a dull ache. Still using the pine for stability, he grasped Sissy’s hand and helped her stand. The rooster, watching from a distance, cackled in dismay because his pursuer might soon be back in the game.

  “Well, that slowed us down.” With a glance at the sky, Ben added, “We’re losing daylight. If the cold doesn’t kill those hens, predators might. We have to get them inside the coop.”

  Just then, hungry café customers spilled out the rear door of the building. Leading the crowd was Crystal Malloy, a striking redhead about Ben’s age who owned Silver Beach, an upscale salon and spa. Her coppery hair, which fell nearly to her waist, sported brilliant stripes of pink and green. She wore a fitted black jacket over a green knit top and a gathered black skirt that ended well above the knee. Spike-heeled black boots that clung to her shapely calves finished off her outfit.

  “We decided to come help!” she called. “I turned off the stove so nothing will burn.”

  Ben wondered how she hoped to walk on ice wearing footwear more suited to a dominatrix.

  In a deep voice, someone behind Crystal yelled, “It’s our only hope if we want to eat before midnight!”

  The speaker, Tim VeArd, co-owner of the VeArd Boat Dock on Creek Crossing Lane, threaded his way through the people on the porch. Around sixty with a thick thatch of white hair, a tall, robust build, and blue eyes that always twinkled with humor, he was still a fine figure of a man. Ben had heard that Tim had been in the navy, acquired a love of boats, and turned his passion into a thriving business. His wife, Lynda, more often called Lighthouse Lady because she loved lighthouses, was a spirited redhead with a kind heart who worked tirelessly at her husband’s side. The majority of their profit came from buying old vessels and restoring them for resale.

  “You know how to catch chickens?” Ben asked.

  “Do horses know how to buck?” Tim’s boat shoes didn’t appear to slip on the ice. “I was raised on a farm, son.”

  Crystal stepped off the porch behind VeArd, and she, too, seemed able to keep her footing. Ben guessed the spikes on her boots acted as picks. Before Ben knew it, everyone else descended the steps, some slipping and sliding, others wearing shoes with soles made for slick surfaces. Ben saw Chuck Berkeley, a lofty young guy with black hair who’d just purchased Beer, Wine, and Smokes, a business near the town center on Huckleberry Road.

  Tim pointed a finger at Sissy. “You, back to the kitchen to fix our dinners. The cavalry has arrived.”

  Sissy glanced at the chickens darting around the yard. Ben noted her worried expression. “I’ll show everyone how to catch them. Your hens won’t be hurt.”

  As she walked toward her building, brushing at the grime on her apron, she called over her shoulder, “I’ll have to clean up before I cook. Otherwise you’ll have feathers and wood chips in your food.”

  A rumble of approval followed her into the building.

  After Sissy disappeared, Ben taught the volunteers how to catch chickens. He wondered if these people had offered to help only because they were hungry, or if they considered the café owner to be a friend. He decided it had to be the latter. Apparently Sissy wasn’t an ice queen with all individuals, only with him.

  After everyone knew how to catch a chicken, Ben allowed them to spread out. There followed a comical roundup. At one point, Crystal Malloy bent over to grab a hen, lost her footing, and sprawled on the ground with her skirt flipped above her waist. She flashed a red thong at every man still in the backyard. Even Ben froze in midmotion, and he’d never found Crystal to be that attractive. Her brand of beauty, as flashy and stunning as it was, did nothing for him. Even so, the sight made him momentarily forget that his mission was to rescue pullets.

  When people spilled out onto West Main in pursuit of Sissy’s flock, Fred Black, aka Blackie, the local pawnshop owner, slipped on the ice and wrapped himself around a parking meter like the stripe on a barber pole. Tim VeArd, while attempting to save Lynda from a spill, lost his footing and fell spread-eagled over the hood of someone’s car. Chuck Berkeley nearly rammed his head through the display window of Needles in a Haystack.

  When every last bird had been caught and put away in the coop, Finnegan received many congratulatory pats for being such a fine helper. After all the volunteers had reentered the building for dinner, Ben, still a bit achy between his legs, cast the pup an accusing look.

  “I wanted to be hero of the day,” he told the dog. “How can I catch Sissy’s eye if you steal all my thunder?”

  Finn barked and wagged his stubbed tail as if to say, “I’m sorry, bro. It’s not my fault you can’t measure up.”

  Ben crouched to hug his dog. “Thanks, buddy. Sissy’s flock is safe for the night.” He settled a thoughtful gaze on the tiny coop. “At least it soon will be,” he amended. “Unless I miss my guess, it’ll be really cold tonight. Without some heat, those chickens could freeze to death.”

  Chapter Two

  Sissy gave the stainless steel counters a final swipe, then tossed the rag at the laundry hamper. It landed on the floor. Stifling a groan, she bent to pick it up. After the wild-chicken chase and hours of hard work, she was too tired to grumble. Her butt hurt from falling on the ice. Her feet ached from being on them for so many hours. All she wanted was to sip a glass of wine while she soaked in a hot bath.

  That lovely thought was rudely interrupted by a persistent hammering sound from out back. What now? Curious about the noise, she removed her coverall, then groped with her fi
ngers along the shelf where she always put her wristwatch and ring while she worked. Her ring was there, but her watch had vanished, and in its place lay a crinkled piece of foil. A tingly sensation spread over her nape. Not again. She had either been misplacing things with alarming frequency, or someone or something was trying to drive her crazy. She had no idea where the foil had come from. It looked like something she might have dropped on the floor while cooking.

  Feeling eyes on her, Sissy whirled to look behind her. Darkness crowded against the window, and shadows hovered in the recesses of the room. She saw nothing unusual, but she couldn’t shake the sensation that she was being watched. Over the last few weeks, she’d begun to wonder if the building was haunted. Her aunt Mabel, the original owner, had died of a heart attack in the upstairs flat. Sissy didn’t believe in ghosts, but there was no denying that peculiar things had been happening. She’d heard weird noises. Things clattering over the floor. Stuff being dropped. And nearly every day something went missing. Now my wristwatch, she thought. She was surviving on a shoestring budget to save enough money to build a new coop and run, and after that, she would reinvest her profits in the business. She couldn’t comfortably afford a new timepiece.

  The banging sound snagged her attention again. She hurried to the storeroom, grabbed her winter jacket, and exited the building onto the back porch as she yanked the garment on. A shudder marched up her spine. It was so cold that ice crystals had formed in the air. Standing under light coming from an outdoor fixture, she tensed as her eyes picked out a large dark-colored pickup parked near her chicken run.

  Finn, barely visible in the darkness, rocketed up the steps. He danced around Sissy’s feet and whined in greeting. Now Sissy knew for certain to whom the truck belonged. At least it wasn’t a burglar.

  As disgruntled as she felt about Ben Sterling being on her property again, she couldn’t be cross with the dog. He was cute and such a friendly fellow. She loved his fur. He looked as if he’d been sponged with dabs of paint, the colors blending together to give his body a bluish hue. His lower legs were the color of curry powder. A white blaze marked his forehead. When he wagged his stub tail, his whole body wiggled.