Hail No (Hail Raisers Book 1)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Today, though, her smile—the one thing that’d drawn me in despite not wanting to be immersed in anything that had to do with a woman ever again—was missing.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  She looked up, looking almost surprised to see me, and frowned.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered, swiping at her eyes.

  I continued to stare right at her.

  “I’m here because there was a call about an abandoned vehicle,” I gestured with my head to her truck. “Apparently, it was too close to the road for someone’s liking.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll move it.”

  I stopped her with a hand on her arm, or more like just my fingers.

  I knew I shouldn’t, but I did anyway.

  “So, why did you pull over and start crying?”

  She looked at me, and my breath hitched in my throat.

  “My sister,” she murmured after a while. “We found out that she has cancer.”

  My stomach sank.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” she admitted. “My mom and older sister both died of it. It was only a matter of time before either she or I got it.”

  She sounded so lost and upset that I wanted to pull her into my arms, but I didn’t.

  It wouldn’t do to let her be seen with the criminal—a man who was arrested for assault and then sentenced to four years in prison.

  Yeah, it’d sucked. Big time.

  Though, I wouldn’t stop myself from carrying out that assault again—even though the one I’d been charged with hadn’t been one that I’d committed.

  What I would’ve done, however, was make sure that the asshole who doctored up the footage would’ve had that camera shoved up his ass instead of assuming that the little shit had even the slightest amount of morals in his slimy little body.

  I stepped away from her. “See you around, Ma’am.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “See you around.”

  Then she got into her truck and drove away, leaving me staring after her with worry starting to fill the pit of my belly.

  ***

  An hour later, I’d just pulled the truck into the parking lot of the baseball fields, and pulled into a parking spot at the back, when the kid I was transporting grumbled something rude under his breath.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Can you park any further away?” Dalton snapped.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Probably,” I muttered darkly. “But this is good for me. It’s not for you?”

  Dalton didn’t say anything, lucky for him, and instead hopped out of the truck and yanked his bag with him.

  The bat hit the metal of the truck, and I had to grit my teeth to keep from snapping at the little asshole.

  “You know where you’re going?”

  Dalton didn’t bother to reply. Instead, he shrugged his bag high over his shoulder and started stomping across the lot to the field.

  I sighed, and started to close the door to the truck when I saw a familiar blue Ford pull into the parking lot, finding a much closer spot than I’d found, and park.

  The familiar woman—looking much more comfortable now in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, slipped down out of the truck and rounded the truck’s bed, stopping at the side to open the door for a boy that resembled her.

  Her son, maybe?

  I started forward, trying not to look like I was staring, and made my way to the bleachers where I would reside for the next two hours of the boys’ practice.

  Which afforded me a great view of the woman—the woman whose name I still didn’t know. At least not yet.

  She took a seat three rows in front of me and kept her head straight ahead while she watched the little boy who’d gotten out of her truck.

  She didn’t yell and scream, though, like some of the other mothers.

  She stayed facing straight ahead, she didn’t speak to anyone, and she didn’t even seem to notice when people spoke to her.

  Left to her own devices, she stayed there practically unmoving as the sorrow I felt for her grew in my chest, leaving me to wonder if maybe I should try to talk to her.

  “Evander!”

  I turned at the sound of that voice and spotted the coach, who was staring at me.

  “Would you mind throwing some balls to the boys?”

  I grunted in reply, then stood up and made my way down the bleachers.

  It wasn’t until I was halfway down that I realized that the woman was watching me.

  Her face was no longer filled with sorrow.

  It was filled with curiosity.

  “Hey,” I mumbled on my way past.

  She didn’t say anything, she only nodded in reply.

  And I sighed as I made my way to the dugout.

  What did I care if she said anything to me, anyhow?

  She was Trouble, with a capital T.

  Chapter 4

  To be honest, I’d rather be drinking coffee on my unicorn instead of whatever this work business is.

  -Kennedy’s secret thoughts

  Kennedy

  “Is that Evander Lennox?”

  I turned my head at one of the mother’s whispered words.

  “I think it is. When did he get out of prison?”

  “Apparently, not too long ago. My husband is his parole officer.”

  That made me curious.

  I’d been to enough of DJ’s practices that I knew some of these mothers, and the one who’d spoken about her husband being the man’s parole officer was none other than Maddison Jane, the biggest gossip among the entire group.

  At the last practice I’d taken DJ to, she’d been the one who said that her kids weren’t allowed to ride four wheelers because they were dangerous. But then she went on to say how her kids were taking horseback riding lessons to give them an ‘eclectic’ background.

  If there was a picture next to stupidity in the dictionary, it would be of her.

  “Wow, he’s really put on some muscle since the last time I saw him,” Edith, one of the other mothers, not-so-quietly whispered. “Do you think he has AIDS?”

  I stiffened.

  “I don’t see him allowing anybody, inmates or not, to do anything to his butthole,” Maddison said. “And I read his file while my husband wasn’t looking. He lives back at his house now.”

  “That place on the Old Highway?” Edith asked. “That place was trashed over the last four years. Everybody used it as a dumping ground for all their unwanted shit. Nobody took care of it at all.”

  My brows furrowed.

  I didn’t remember any houses on the Old Highway but one, and if that was Evander’s house, and this town didn’t treat it well, I would be so pissed.

  I’d been in Hostel, Texas for all of three and a half years. Though, my father had been here a lot longer than that. As had my sister.

  Me, I’d only gotten here after my mother decided to tell me about my father. They’d had a weird sort of relationship when we were younger.

  Mom and Dad had met and fallen in love. Then, four years into their marriage, it’d fallen apart. However, my mom had been pregnant with me and my sister at the time, and they’d stayed together long enough to split their kids up right down the middle.

  My mother got the oldest of the four children and the youngest—me. My father got the other two.

  Then they never spoke to each other, or of each other, ever again. If we tried, it was shut down. The consequences—IE my mother freaking the fuck out—were never worth it. We learned to let it go, and not ask questions, or we’d regret it.

  At least not until my mother was on her deathbed.

  Then she’d told me that not only had she known of my father’s whereabouts this entire time, but that I had a twin sister.

  My mom had moved as far away from Hostel, Texas as she could possibly get and had married anoth
er farmer up in Iowa. I’d grown up on a farm, just like my siblings had done with my biological father.

  However, the problem with my step-father was that he hated my guts. He’d hated me with such a passion, in fact, that he’d shown it every single day of my life.

  And without my mother there to be the buffer between us, I had nothing left holding me there.

  So I’d taken a risk and moved to Hostel, Texas.

  I’d bought my own land, although it was just a small amount—twenty acres—and made an attempt at meeting my family.

  The moment my sister saw me, she’d thrown her arms around me like we were long lost twins—though, technically, we were. Apparently, my father hadn’t kept my existence a secret like my mother had theirs.

  From the moment we met, it was like the twenty-six years separating us had never happened.

  And now, three and a half years later, we were making up for lost time.

  The place I bought when I’d arrived was actually touching the land that I assumed belonged to Evander.

  Though, if I had to guess, Evander actually owned quite a bit of it. There was property along the Old Highway with an old, run down house at the front of it. And surrounding it was a shit ton of trash, old abandoned furniture and more junk than I could name.

  I felt like shit.

  The people of this town had treated that property like a dump, and they didn’t give a shit that they’d done it, either.

  “He sure has filled that body out, though. Prison was good for him.”

  I felt sick at Edith’s words.

  Prison was good for him? What the actual fuck?

  Prison wasn’t good for anyone.

  And then I berated myself.

  I didn’t know that man. All I knew was what I’d observed of him now, and that was very little. I’d met him at the feed store, sat with him at dinner, and he’d said all of twelve words. Also, he’d carried some of my bags to my truck.

  That was it.

  There was literally nothing else that I knew about the man to know whether he was a good man or not.

  My instincts were always spot-on, though. I knew when a person was bad. I also knew when a person was good.

  I’d had this ability since I was young.

  It was just something about a man or woman that made me feel what kind of person they truly were, and Evander hadn’t struck me as bad.

  The women to my left, however, had all struck me as bitches from the moment that I’d met them with Trixie.

  I’d hated them on sight, and I hadn’t made any attempt to get to know them, even though I took my nephew to practice at least once a week.

  The coach, however, he’d always struck me as being an inherently good man.

  He was a mechanic at the one and only shop in town and had also been in the Marines for nearly a decade. Now, I’m not saying that all men that are in the military are good men, but the majority of them are. And Boone Trent was one of the good ones.

  And now that I thought about it, he was also part of the Hail crew that everyone in town was always talking about—the same towing/auto recovery company where Evander’s tow truck was from.

  Small world.

  “Where do you want me?”

  Evander’s voice brought not just mine, but every woman’s head in a thirty-foot radius of him, up.

  We all stared.

  “Just go over by the dugout and toss them the weighted balls,” came Boone’s distracted reply. “I’m going to throw each kid a bucket of balls, and you can have the ones on deck. When I’m done, I’ll call for the one you’re working with. Okay?”

  He grunted something in reply, and then started walking to the balls that were on the ground.

  The red ones that were the size of normal balls, but they were squishy and weighted so that when they were hit, they didn’t go very far.

  He picked them all up in his hand.

  All freakin’ five of them.

  Sweet baby Jesus.

  I could pick up two. Two!

  He picked up five!

  Those hands had to be the size of dinner plates they were so big, but the one and only time I’d felt him touch me, it’d been a soft touch. One that had been just a brush against the skin of my arm.

  Dear God.

  I needed to get a grip.

  But did I stop watching him? Hell no, and I wasn’t the only one, either.

  ***

  Two hours later, DJ, my nephew, and I were walking toward the truck.

  He was in high spirits due to hitting a ball over the fence—a home run. I, on the other hand, was still torn in two.

  My sister had cancer.

  Jesus, this had to be a nightmare.

  Maybe tomorrow when I woke up, it’d all be a dream.

  However, I knew it wouldn’t be. I wasn’t that lucky.

  “Thank you, Coach!”

  I was startled to look up and see not the actual coach, Boone, but Evander standing beside me, handing DJ a ball.

  “Went and picked it up after the last batter was up. Good hit.”

  Then he left, leaving me staring after him.

  “Jesus, that man is big.”

  I looked over at Edith and offered her my best smile.

  “Have a good night,” I called out with false cheer.

  Edith grimaced. “You, uhh, too.”

  Bitch.

  The drive to Trixie’s home was enough to nearly break me, and when I tried to come inside, she stopped me.

  “I need to talk to my family, Kennedy,” she whispered, looking away. “I haven’t told the kids yet. We’re going to tell them here in a minute once everyone’s cleaned up for the night.”

  I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around her.

  “Okay, Trix. Call me if you need me, okay?”

  When I pulled away, her face was wiped of all expression.

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

  Then she closed the door carefully in my face and locked it for good measure.

  A feeling of dread washed over me.

  This wasn’t right.

  Something else was going on here, but without forcing my way in, I couldn’t really do anything about the feeling without seriously pissing her off.

  I knew my sister. I knew that she had a short temper and was quick to jump to conclusions.

  I wouldn’t force her to allow me to stay if she didn’t want me to, but I would come back tomorrow.

  And then, I’d force her to talk.

  Chapter 5

  If you don’t like chickens, you can stay outside.

  -Welcome mat

  Kennedy

  Other than my sister being on my mind, there was one other person who was in my head and wouldn’t go away.

  If I wasn’t worrying about my sister, I was worrying about him.

  Why, I couldn’t tell you.

  I’d had all of four encounters with the man, but each time I did see him, even if from a distance, it was enough to send shock waves through my body.

  I wasn’t the only person that watched him, though.

  Yesterday, when I’d been at the grocery store, Evander had been there, also.

  He’d been two people ahead of me in line and everyone had stared. The checker that’d been ringing up his food. The security guard who was getting the money for the security place that deposited the money for them. The manager had his hand on his phone like he was ready and waiting for Evander to go off and start shooting people.

  Then there were the women.

  My God, even the elderly Mrs. Henry had stared.

  Me, I stared probably more than most.

  But he hadn’t turned around. He’d kept his head forward, had paid in cash, and didn’t look around as he made his way to his truck.

  The only animation on his face at all had been when he’d opened his truck door and a German Shepherd had licked his face.

  Now, I was stan
ding less than ten feet away from him again at the feed store, and he was haggling with an old man about pricing for hay.

  Hay which I needed, too.

  Bad.

  I’d been buying it from the feed store since my supplier had passed away, and I hadn’t found any since that I could get without using a trailer—a trailer in which I didn’t have.

  I was also over spending nine dollars and fifty cents a bale, which was bad since I went through it as fast as I did.

  I was listening unrepentantly to him talk with the old man and suddenly his eyes turned to me.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  There was no anger in his voice. In fact, there was nothing. No inflection. No, why are you staring like a weirdo. Nothing.

  “Yes, actually. I need some hay, too. Can you get us both some, me one round roll like you’re getting, and I’ll pay you for the use of your trailer?”

  He stared at me so long that I started to fidget.

  Why had I done this? Could I leave without him seeing?

  I glanced around and saw that I was in the middle of Tractor Supply, and the only thing around were the chicks that they kept in a large, six-foot cage to keep all the kids and people from reaching into the bins and petting the babies.

  There was a very large metal yard art chicken that was standing about four feet away from me. Although it would’ve hidden my upper body significantly, the spindly legs wouldn’t have done the job.

  Needless to say, there was nothing for me to hide behind to shield my embarrassment.

  When I finally looked back up to see if they were still looking, it was to find the old man staring at me like I’d grown a second head, and the big man, Evander, staring at the old man like I hadn’t just interrupted his conversation.

  I chose to run while I still had a chance.

  Except, as I did, the box of chickens that I had in my hand started to go wild at the movement of my body.

  I chose to keep going, knowing that at first, I’d be covered since the chicks in the bins behind me were making just as much noise as the ones in my hand.

  When I’d come in here, it sure as hell hadn’t been to buy more chickens.

  In fact, I’d been adamant with myself. I would not get any more.

  I had twenty-six at home and that was more than enough due to the size of the coop and the yard that I now had them in. If I got any more, I’d be pushing it.