A Gentle Rain by Deborah F. Smith Page A

our money together and bought her! She was gonna be dog food, if we didn't."
    "That would have been terrible. She's a wonderful animal."
    "She didn't try to bite you, not even once?"
    "No, but the day is young."
    His eyes rose to Mr. Darcy, who was studying him from a fence post. "Is that your parrot?"
    "Something like that. He's a macaw. A blue hyacinth macaw. Mr. Darcy, come say hello to Joey."
    Mr. Darcy spread his blue wings and sailed downward. He luTlew how to make an entrance. He landed on Joey Thocco's right forearm. I quickly held out my hand. "It's all right, he won't claw-"
    Joey burst into laughter. "I like him!"
    Mr. Darcy leaned forward, tilting his head this way and that, peering at his new friend. "Boink."
    Joey hooted. "Boink."
    "Boink."
    "What's he trying to say?"
    "I'm not sure," I said. "But he likes you. I can tell."
    "BoiZk, Mr. Darcy!"
    "Boink."
    "Awright, awright," Ben said grimly. "That's enough boinkin' for awhile. We've wasted half the day looking for this mare. And now I'm gonna drive Karen, here, to her motel. Then I'll find out what the garage in Fountain Springs has to say about her car."
    "But she hasn't had any lunch, Ben," Lily said. "And we haven't heard her play the harp."
    "Yeah, Benji," Joey said. "And I want to talk to Mr. Darcy about boinkin' some more."
    Ben frowned. My heart sank. He didn't want to be bothered with me.
    "I'm very glad to meet you all," I said quickly, "but I'll let you all go on about your day now. I'll check on the fate of my car, get settled in town, and-"
    "She could spend the night in our guest room," Lily said.
    "And I could talk to Mr. Darcy some more," Joey added. "Please?"
    My heart stopped. Spend the night. I looked up at Ben hopefully.
    But he, instead, looked at his brother. "That's what you want, bro?"
    "Yes!"
    Ben lifted his dark eyes to me. "Does the bird know any words politer thanBoink?"'
    "He has an extensive, multi-lingual vocabulary, most of it quite tame but, indeed, some of it is off-color. He also performs sound effects, and he sings. Aside from lewd British comedy songs, his favorite tune is the opening bars from the Star Wars theme."
    "Star Wars!" Joey shouted. "That's my favorite movie in the whole world! Benji!"
    Ben Thocco tipped his head to me as if touching the brim of an invisible Stetson. Sometimes, partnerships are formed as simply as a song. "Welcome to the Thocco Ranch."

    That first night, when I reported to Sedge via cell phone, he said, gently, "My dear, you've accomplished your mission. You've learned more about your birth parents than you ever expected to learn immediately. Is there really a need for a lengthy stay?"
    "I want to know a lot more about them, Sedge. And about their lives, here. About this ranch, and Ben Thocco."
    "My dear, entire nations have been destroyed by such reckless curiosity."
    "Yes, but entire nations have been created by it, too. Let's hope I achieve the latter, not the former."
    I lay in the dark atop the covers of a frilly twin bed in a tiny guest room in Mac and Lily's house trailer. Their trailer sat in a small clearing in the woods, a five minute walls from the main ranch house, neighbored by cabins and well-kept trailers belonging to the other hands, except for Possum, who lived in a room at the horse barn.
    The bright decor Lily and Mac had chosen for their tiny, spare room seemed to glow in the dark. Daisies. Everywhere. The wallpaper. The bedspread. The pillow shams, the curtains, the rug. Pictures of daisies were framed on the walls. In the trailer's kitchen there were daisy coffee mugs, and in the living room there was a daisy afghan on the couch. Outside the trailer's front door was a happy cacophony of flower beds, bird feeders, and garden ornaments-cheap and colorful whirligigs, wind chimes, `Welcome To Our Home' signs.
    All sharing one common theme.
    Small, hopeful daisies.
    Lily's odd adoration for that simple flower perplexed me. How sweet and innocent and ... sad.
    Mr. Darcy, who had been