Sunny's Heart (The Great Outdoors Book 1) Read online

  Sunny’s Heart

  The Great Outdoors Series

  Shayne McClendon

  Sunny’s Heart by Shayne McClendon

  The Great Outdoors Series

  Original Copyright© 2013 Shayne McClendon

  Updated Edition: May 31, 2016

  Published by Always the Good Girl LLC

  www.alwaysthegoodgirl.com

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Shayne McClendon

  The Barter System – Book 1

  Hudson – Book 2

  Pushing the Envelope – Book 3

  Backstage – Book 4

  Liberation – Book 5

  Radiance – Book 6

  Yes to Everything

  Love of the Game – The Complete Collection

  Completely Wrecked

  The Hermit

  Break Down Here

  Roadside Assistance

  Dedication

  I love this series of stories. I hope you do, too. I think we’ve all known a Mack (or been one) at some point in our lives. Every once in a blue moon, when everything lines up just right, love can still win out.

  Enjoy Sunny and Mack’s story…I loved writing it.

  Much love,

  Shayne

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  About Shayne McClendon

  Some men insist on being fools.

  When Addison Hauser gives her heart to her best friend at sixteen, she never expects him to disappear with it. Working the ranch and caring for her father, she doesn’t have much time to dwell on the hole he left.

  Twelve years later, Mack returns to claim her and is quickly reminded why bullies ran from his best friend when she was seven. It isn’t going to be easy to get back in her good graces. He’s willing to do the work…if he can just keep her from shooting him.

  Chapter One

  Age Seven…

  Macklin Berger ran his stubby legs off.

  He felt the tightening of his chest and knew he wouldn’t be able to go much further without his puffer.

  The bigger boys were gaining on him.

  He ducked through a big gate. It wasn’t Nanny’s place but he’d never make it all the way to her farm. His pursuers started yelling, putting on a burst of speed as Mackie slipped and slid on the gravel drive.

  Then it happened…his chest locked up and he couldn’t get any air. He stumbled to a halt, dropped to his knees, and gripped his chest.

  “We got ‘im now, fellas. Let’s pound ‘im!”

  Three boys surrounded him, grabbing at his arms, and there was nothing he could do. Blaine Smith was the ringleader. Joe Thomas and Steve Johnson were his little stooges.

  He’d get back to Nanny’s with a lot of bruises by the time they were done. They yanked him around and Mackie didn’t fight back. He needed his puffer so bad, he felt like he might pass out.

  A large shadow moved over the ground and he looked up at the silhouette of a very little girl on a very big horse.

  “Y’all lay one hand, just one, on that boy and I’ll pop ever’ one of ya with this here twenty-two. So help me. I already called for Daddy. He’s bringin’ the tractor ‘round. Ya better tear on outta here.”

  The older boys burst out laughing and shook Mackie hard between them.

  The little girl fired the rifle and the bullet cracked into a fence post two feet right of the biggest boy. He dropped Mackie’s arm like it burned him.

  “That one’s a warnin’. Now git off my p’operty!”

  The three boys took off toward the road and Mackie hit the gravel hard on his knees, in a panic for air, his hand clutching his shirt.

  Sliding down the side of her horse, she stood a few feet from him. “Hey, kid, ya got the asthma?” He stared at the ground and managed to nod. “’Kay, where’s yer air thing? My cousin has a thing to breathe on.”

  Mackie tried to reach his back pocket but couldn’t do it. He had spots in front of his eyes. The girl got the message and reached for his puffer. She held it to his lips, her hand on the back of his head, puffing the medicine into his lungs. A few seconds later, she did it again.

  “Casey always got to do it twice when she gets bad.”

  A minute later, he felt his lungs begin to loosen. “There ya go! Lookin’ better already!”

  She sat down cross-legged in front of him, her face in clear view for the first time. “We’ll just sit here a little. Let ya catch yer breath. I’m Addison. Most ever’body calls me Sunny.”

  “You’re awful pretty,” he told her honestly and felt the heat crawl up his neck and over his face.

  Sunny had dark brown hair braided down her back and huge brown eyes. She had little freckles on her cheeks and nose. She was smaller than Mackie and he was small for a boy. She wore jeans, a buttoned shirt, cowboy boots, and a straw cowboy hat.

  “Thanks. My mama and daddy tell me that but it’s nice to hear from a boy who sure had other things on his mind a minute ago.” She tilted her head to look at him. “Ya doin’ better?” He nodded. “Ya new ‘round here?”

  He sat on his butt in the grass next to the drive. He took another puff to really get the medicine in him, then stuck his puffer in his pocket.

  “I’m staying with Nanny for the summer. I’m Mackie. Sorry I didn’t say thanks right away. That was rude of me. Thanks so much for helping me, Sunny. I don’t think they’d have given me my inhaler before my beating.”

  He gave her a little half smile and tried not to blush again.

  “Nah, those boys are awful. I’s kinda hopin’ they’d gimme a reason to shoot ‘em in the butt as they run off.”

  Her big grin showed she was missing her two front teeth and had dimples in her cheeks.

  “Come on, Mackie, lemme take ya on up to the house. Ya got some bad scratches on yer knee from the gravel and ya need somethin’ to drink.”

  She stood and put out her hand. He took it and she helped him up. They walked up her drive, holding hands while she led her horse.

  “This is Star. Daddy give me my very own horse,” she told him proudly. “I take good care of her.”

  “She’s pretty, Sunny.”

  “She don’t bite or nothin’. Once we get ya fixed up, we’ll get her some sugar cubes. Daddy don’t like me givin’ her too much but she loves it so I sneak ‘em to her sometimes.”

  At the front porch, she wrapped Star’s lead loosely around the rail as an older version of the little girl came out to greet them.

  “Hey there, honey. You found a friend. I’m Roxanne Hauser, Sunny’s mama. You can call me Miss Roxie. What happened to you, son?”

  Sunny didn’t give Mackie a chance to answer. She started rattling off the story, punctuating her fury with stomps of her booted foot. He’d never seen anyone so riled about the injustice of it all like Sunny Hauser.

  Miss Roxie had a little frown between her eyes. “Well, that isn’t a good impression of our pretty town. Come on in and let me take care of
that knee. Then we’ll get you something to drink and a little snack. How’s that sound?”

  Mackie nodded gratefully and Miss Roxie led them through the house to a bathroom. She gestured for him to sit on the edge of the tub while she got out medicine and bandages.

  Sunny hopped up on the counter by the sink.

  Kneeling on the rug, Miss Roxie asked him, “Who’s your Nanny?”

  “Mrs. Ella Belle Corbin, ma’am.” He was always proud to say her full name. “She’s my mom’s grandmother.”

  “My word! Miss Ella Belle is your great-grandmother? You can’t claim better relations than that, Mackie. She’s gonna tan the hides of those boys, I can guarantee.” Miss Roxie smiled.

  Mackie looked up suddenly. “I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t tell her, ma’am. I don’t want to be any trouble. If I don’t stay here over the summer, I’ll have to go with my mom. I don’t like the places she visits. I don’t want Nanny to feel like I’m too much to handle.”

  “You don’t like staying with your mama?” He hesitated before shaking his head. “What about your daddy?”

  “Berger was my mom’s last name when I was born. I don’t know my daddy. Can’t say what kind of man he was as I’ve never met him.”

  “You’re going to start staying here in the summers?” The woman’s voice was gentle while she cleaned his knee.

  “Mom needs a break from me and Nanny said she was glad for the company.” He shrugged. “I like it here.”

  Miss Roxie took his measure and he knew what she saw. For a boy of seven, he’d already seen a lot more of the world than he should have.

  He was short for his age and definitely on the chubby side. His blonde hair would lighten more with the sun and Nanny always said his green eyes were his best feature.

  To make up for the chaos in his home life, he made sure he watched his manners and spoke proper.

  “You’re a lot different than my Sunny. Almost calm.”

  “She reminds me of Annie Oakley, ma’am. From the movie.”

  The woman laughed warmly. “That she does. Maybe your good manners will rub off.”

  He glanced up and smiled at the girl who’d rescued him. “I think she’s just right like she is, ma’am.”

  Bandages went over the gouges in his skin and she patted his knee. “You’re all fixed up. While you’re here, come over and play with Sunny. There’s a gate between our farm and Miss Ella Belle’s so you don’t have to walk on the road.”

  “Thank you. Hopefully, Sunny won’t have to save me all the time. But…” He blushed. “She did a right fine job of it.”

  Chuckling, the woman stood and helped him to his feet. “Sunny’s always bored. I know she’d like someone to play with and she can show you around.”

  And be his bodyguard.

  She didn’t say the words but Mackie could tell she was thinking them. He didn’t take offense. She was nice and he would have been in some real hot water if his new friend hadn’t come along.

  Lifting her daughter to the floor, she stroked a stray hair behind her ear. “Let’s see if we can rustle up a snack.”

  Mackie and Sunny went outside to play a bit later holding bottles of pop and peanut butter sandwiches. They sat on her tire swing and told each other everything they could remember about themselves since birth.

  When it started to get dark, Sunny took him to a path that led from their property, through a big gate, over to Miss Ella Belle’s.

  “Ya gonna come back tomorrow?”

  “I’d sure like to.”

  “Good then.” She grinned her gap-toothed smile and headed home as the crickets started chirping.

  He watched until she reached her porch and then took off running to tell his Nanny all about his new friend.

  She asked him questions over dinner and smiled at his answers. “That girl is smart as a whip, Mackie. I like y’all being friends. You be a good one now, you hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t tell her that Sunny would be his first friend. His mother moved them a lot and he never had a chance to get to know other kids his age.

  Mackie went to Sunny’s every single day of that summer.

  She taught him to ride a horse and how to shoot her twenty-two rifle. They swam in the pond and ate lunches up in the hay loft.

  One hot day, he chased off a snake while she yelled at him from up in a tree. Snakes were the only thing on Earth his best friend was afraid of and it gave him a big dose of confidence that he could face it for her.

  The day his mama came for him, he didn’t let Sunny see him cry when he told her goodbye.

  As soon as they were driving away, Mackie gave in. Big snot-bubble, tears pouring down his cheeks, kind of crying in the backseat until his mother’s new boyfriend told him to dry it up and stop acting like a girl.

  Nothing would have surprised him more than to learn Sunny did the same. She was always so tough, he couldn’t imagine her crying.

  Chapter Two

  Age Ten…

  Mackie spent the first night of his tenth summer hugging his Nanny and giving her all the attention she deserved.

  The next morning, he was out the back door at the crack of dawn. He ran for Sunny’s place and saw her sitting on the fence with a book in her hands.

  “Sunny!” he yelled.

  She glanced up, gave a huge grin, and hopped to the ground to run to him. They linked arms and walked back to her place, talking a mile a minute as they headed for the barn.

  While they saddled her horses, she didn’t hide her pride that he remembered.

  Once they were on the horse’s backs, they caught up on everything that happened to them since the summer before.

  She guided them toward the west, keeping the sun at their backs. Sunny was an excellent rider. Mackie was alright but she always gave him the gentlest horse.

  “What were you reading?” he thought to ask.

  “The Color Purple. Daddy got it for me and I love it. Makes me see the world differently. Besides, you read so much. I gotta keep up.” He laughed. “How’s things been with your mama, Mackie? Any better?”

  He filled her in on his mom’s fourth husband. This time she’d married a biker without a job from Las Vegas. “He’s another bully. She seems to like the tough guys. Guess it’s why she doesn’t really like me much.”

  “Don’t say stuff like that. My daddy says you find your strength when you need it most. You’ll be strong when you have to be. I like the way you are.”

  They rode to the edge of the Hauser property, waving at Hank Hauser as they passed. He stood beside his work truck as his hands moved cattle to another pasture.

  When the sun got high, they stopped at the pond to water the horses and give them some oats. Mackie never got tired of talking to her.

  While they were standing on big boulders at the edge, Sunny suddenly went flying forward into the water. He turned to see what happened and got a fist in his face, pain exploding in his nose.

  Blaine grinned. “Big Mac in a McNugget frame. Good to see ya back, fat-ass. Get ‘im boys.”

  His friends grabbed him from behind, dragged him a few feet while he fought, and slammed his back into a heavy oak. The pain knocked the wind out of Mackie.

  Joe and Steve held him on each side, pinning him to the tree while Blaine punched him in the gut again and again.

  Mackie was going to puke.

  The loud gunshot made all three boys snap their heads around. A dripping wet Sunny stood with her Remington hunting rifle leveled at them. The girl never went anywhere on her land without it.

  She was madder than Mackie had ever seen.

  “How many times I got to pull a gun on you ‘fore you learn, you fuckin’ redneck?” Pumping the rifle, she smiled. “I have no problem shootin’ you, in case you’re wonderin’. Let ‘im go. Right damn now.”

  All three boys backed away as Hank’s old pickup crashed through the overgrowth around the pond. He was out of the cab in one smooth movement and took in th
e scene with a scowl.

  “Saw you sneak across the pasture, fellas. Blaine, I see you’re not growin’ up any better than your daddy. I suggest y’all hightail it. I catch you on my property again and it won’t be my little girl holdin’ a rifle. Get the hell off my land.”

  He made as if to step forward and the boys tore off running toward the access road that ran behind the ranch.

  Hank went to Mackie and crouched in front of him. “I got here as quick as I could.” In a low whisper, he asked, “You able to stand, son?”

  Mackie didn’t want to look worse in front of Sunny. Inhaling carefully, he said clearly, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good man.” Hank stood and held out his hand, hauling him to his feet. Mackie couldn’t hold back a low groan. “We’re gonna have to tell Miss Ella Belle this time. Your nose is broke and they’re gonna have to check your ribs.”

  He walked beside him to the truck. There in case he lost his footing. Mackie was grateful.

  Sunny turned when the three boys were out of sight. “Daddy, he shouldn’t be walkin’!” She raced to his side. “Mackie, let me help…”

  “Addison Hauser. This boy is capable of gettin’ in my truck. You ain’t his mama. We men have our pride.”

  Sunny tilted her head as if just realizing Mackie was a boy.

  Hank got him settled and buckled up. As he moved around the front to the driver’s side, he told his daughter, “Go in front of me with the horses. I don’t want you out here by yourself. I don’t like what’s happenin’ with those boys.”

  She mounted Star and wrapped the reins of the other horse around her pommel. Slipping her rifle in the case along her saddle, she led her father to the house.

  Mackie waited in the cab while Hank went inside to tell Roxie what happened and call Miss Ella Belle.

  They drove over to get the elderly woman and took him to the small hospital in town. From the backseat of the truck, she stroked her arthritic fingers through Mackie’s hair.

  “Once you’re seen to, I want to know exactly what happened.” Her tone didn’t brook any argument. “Let’s make sure you’re safe first.”