Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [23]
After we’d eaten once and people were milling around contemplating seconds, I excused myself to find a bathroom. I found a guest bathroom right off the front hall and was coming out when I heard an argument on the porch. The front door was partially open so only a screen door separated me and the people arguing. Nosiness getting the better of me, I paused to listen.
“Don’t think I won’t,” a man’s voice said, low and mean.
An older female voice answered in a tone so low I couldn’t make out the words. I edged a little closer, telling myself it wasn’t being rude, that I was looking out for my stepson and that any conflict in this family would eventually concern him.
“. . . not by you,” the man answered, his voice louder. It was then I recognized it was Giles’s voice. “I’ll do it tonight if I have to.”
“You won’t,” the female voice answered. Cappy’s? Etta’s? Their voices sounded enough alike I couldn’t tell. Then there was silence.
I ducked back into the bathroom, afraid they would come through the partially open door and find me behaving so tacky. I combed my hair and inspected my makeup for a good five minutes before emerging. I glanced out to the porch. It was empty except for a fat calico cat licking one paw. One thing for sure, I didn’t envy Sam’s entry into this turbulent family.
When I got back, Chase offered to open the tasting room for a private tasting and Dove, Daddy, Gabe, Lydia, Susa, and Sam accepted. Willow, Arcadia, and Etta went upstairs, and I decided to take Cappy up on her offer to show me the horses. With Bliss riding in the backseat, Cappy drove down to the stables in her faded blue Jeep Wagoneer.
“I’ve had this baby since 1972, and she’s never broke down on me once,” Cappy bragged, dodging a pothole in the dirt road leading to the stables. She gave a cheerful honk to the group walking down the long driveway toward the winery and tasting room.
“Sam’s mother is quite a looker,” she said, glancing over at me, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “No doubt Sam got the best of both parents. I can see why my granddaughter would fall back on her heels for him. Just like you did for his father.”
“Grandma!” Bliss said in an aggrieved voice.
I stuck my tongue out at Cappy. Bliss gave an uncharacteristic giggle.
“Benni Harper, you haven’t changed a bit since you were sixteen,” Cappy said good-naturedly.
“That’s not true,” I said, turning to grin at Bliss. “I know way more cuss words now.”
She and Bliss laughed, and for the first time this evening, it seemed as if Bliss relaxed a little. About a half mile from the house, we reached the stables. Cappy had built a beautiful setup—a row of freshly painted double stalls, enough for forty horses, two hot walkers, an outside wash rack, three corrals, a separate tack room, a graded half-mile training track, and plenty of shade trees.
“Are you full up?” I asked as we walked through the first stall row. A black-and-white long-haired barn cat followed us, darting between our legs, mewing loudly.
“Almost,” she said. “We’ve got six free stalls, but they’ll be filled soon.” She bent down and picked up the complaining cat. “Figaro, you’re almost as big a nag as Giles. You don’t need one more saucer of cream.” The cat purred as she stroked his black head.
I reached over and scratched under his chin. “He looks like he’s wearing a hood.”
“He’s a criminal, all right,” Cappy said. “Stole our hearts a long time ago.” The cat purred a reply.
“Grandma’s been taking in boarders this year,” Bliss explained, stopping to fondle the nose of a strawberry roan filly with a pencil-thin blaze. She put her face close to the filly’s and blew softly in the horse’s nostrils.
“Quarter horse breeding isn’t what it was,” Cappy said. “Not since the early eighties when they took away the