Suds rinsed away, he grabbed a body wash, squirted a glob into his hand and then smirked ruefully at the half-a-hard-on taunting him.
“Aw, come on,” he grumbled.
Determined to master his baser urges, Roman exercised the control he was known for and finished the shower in record time.
With a towel slung low on his hips he walked around his closet tossing things into a pile for his trip to rural Oklahoma. Preferring order to chaos and systems to mayhem, he focused on the section where he kept the clothes he’d consider outdoorsy and rugged. None of his expensive tailored suits would be needed this time.
His mind ticked off a thousand details. He was flying into Amarillo first where he’d pick up the truck Gardner arranged for him.
From there the plan was to head southeast to a remote corner of Oklahoma where a set of GPS coordinates and nothing else would be all he had to locate and then pin down Kelly James.
He’d researched the hole in the woods town called Providence that was closest to her family’s property. Far as he could tell it was a five street mish mosh of businesses and shitty houses that melted into the surrounding woods.
One of his Justice contacts led him to the only bar in town, a rundown saloon called Shorty’s. Because all things were separated by those famed six degrees, it turned out Shorty’s owner was an ex-Marine. And since Marines sticking together was the way shit worked, the owner, Jimmy gladly offered him a room above the saloon where Roman could set up camp.
If Jimmy turned out to be a long-time local, Roman hoped he’d have useful information or point him in the right direction so he could get this show on the road and move things along.
The sooner and easier the better as far as he was concerned. And then maybe when this matter was wrapped up and Rhi’s June wedding was over, he could step back and maybe take a real vacation. Sit in the sun and get his damn priorities straight. Decide what the fuck he wanted to do with his life now that he was a bona fide grown up.
Kelly glanced at Matty in his spot near the fireplace as he scooted around the rug building a rather impressive structure out of the oversized bin of second-hand Lincoln Logs she’d scored for ten bucks. When he saw the massive assortment tucked under the Christmas tree with a tag from Santa, his adorably cute face simply lit up with joy. Who said you needed expensive tech toys and batteries to have fun?
Kneading the ache in her lower back, she shifted in her seat to wake up muscles turned sluggish from her long sit at the kitchen table. The monthly paperwork for KA James and a stack of bills were spread out around her. She might be a shitty housekeeper with a bad habit for attracting clutter, but when it came to accounts and stuff like that? Well, she thought with a bit of pride. I’ve got that shit covered in spades.
Taking the number off the handheld solar calculator she got for free at the bank in Fairley, Kelly migrated the figure to an accounting sheet where she recorded every sale, expense and debt for her fledgling business venture.
The numbers weren’t all that bad. Her stained glass trinket boxes were a big hit before the holidays, and the silver snowflake earrings were selling fast enough to be a seasonal favorite. It wasn’t a lot, but her hard work and perseverance paid off. They’d turned the corner a few months ago, and she could now say with some assurance that their modest, thrifty household took in more than went out.
Balancing the books and making a nest egg for the future drove her hard. She was determined not to tap any more of the twenty-five grand her mother stashed in a duffle bag. They’d always lived hand-to-mouth, but she was smart and determined. Not everyone had the wherewithal to use what little he or she had to build a ladder out of despair. But she did, and that ladder was going to be strong because getting Matty out of the woods and into the real world was all that mattered and what she thought about twenty-four seven.
She had one year. One year to achieve the near impossible. He’d be four in February. Once he hit five, they needed to be settled someplace. She didn’t dream about bright lights and big cities. Fame, fortune, and acclaim were not on her to-do list.
Nope, for her, ordinary and normal was the goalposts she ran toward. Being isolated and forgotten may have served her mother’s purposes but all it meant to her was struggle. And she was sick and freakin’ tired of struggling.
“Kik, look!” Matty squealed with childish delight. “I made you a fortress. And it has a real garage.”
A fortress with a garage. Hmmm. The kid might be on to something.
Abandoning the monthly busywork, she hurried to his side and sank onto the rug. Playtime with Matty was as important as staying on budget. His refusal to speak around strangers was a real problem, but rather than focus on something she couldn’t change and didn’t understand, she devoted herself to verbalizing with him at every opportunity. Building his vocabulary and giving him confidence would serve him well eventually.
“This is the door,” he proudly proclaimed. As he flopped onto his belly, she watched him with a smile lighting up her heart. She might only be twenty-three and have no real world experience, but she’d been a damn fine parent so far.
Virgin parent, her brain tittered.
Her chin tilted defiantly upward. There wasn’t a single thing that she had to explain or apologize for. Not that anyone was asking her to, or paying attention to them in any way.
“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to a stack of logs situated next to the fortress door.
With his chin resting in one hand and his feet waving in the air behind them, he explained in great detail how he saw things.
“They’re for your garden, Kik. Right outside the door, so you don’t have to walk so far. These logs,” he explained while lining them up in a row, “will be the fence. No deer,” he murmured.
She chuckled. Even at such a young age he already knew what a pain in the ass the wildlife could be and the toll their grazing ways took on their food supply.
“I like the way you think,” she teased. “And what’s this over here?” Side-by-side short towers stood at the rear of the fortress. The placement didn’t seem haphazard, so she asked for clarification.
“Oh,” he mumbled. His feet lowered, and he leaned on his forearms as a pensive look appeared on his face. “Sam says he’ll come to wherever we are and build me a swing set.”
Her heart did that little two-step thump she was intimately acquainted with. It happened every time she heard that small, yearning quaver in his voice. Lately, those times were happening more and more frequently.
She knew what moved him. Knew what he yearned for even if he was too young to put it into words.
They were okay, the two of them. A great team. But the world was big and had much to offer. To an old soul like Matty, the longing to break free was part of his first breath. She might not be in a position to personally explore all of the planet’s seven wonders with him, but goddammit she was going to put him in a regular school where education would open the doors in his mind. After that, anything was possible.
“I think a real swing set with a sliding board would be nice. Much better than our old tire swing.”
His beautiful eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled.
Overcome with sudden emotion, she scooted closer and grabbed him up into a fierce hug. “Matty, I promise. When we leave here, you can have a swing set and a bike and enough books of your own to make a library.”
It almost killed her when he put his little hands on her face and gushed with love. “I’m man of the house, and I’ll look out for you Kiki. Nobody is ever gonna make you sad again.”
Her mind flashed on the memory of that butt-fuck from town, Burton Dulb. He and his old man had been after her to sell the land the moment Debbie died. To them. For an absolute pittance. Her old house, shed and half-barn might not be worth anything but twenty plus acres that included a stream and a pond was nothing to sneeze at. Maybe not this year or in the next five, but someday the James property would be worth something and she planned to hold o
nto it no matter what as something she could hand down to Matty.
Burton was an asshole of the highest order. Five years her senior he’d been giving her shit for years. When she was fourteen he tracked her in the woods, discovered her hidden tree stand and tried to bully her into sharing. She kicked him in the shins. He smacked her so hard she fell to the ground.
That moment marked her immediate growing up. Maybe her mother was okay with being treated like shit, but she was having none of Burt’s crap. Scrambling to her feet she spied a perfect tree switch on the ground, grabbed it, and proceeded to beat the holy shit out of him while chasing the smarmy fuck to the edges of the property.
He’d been out to get her ever since. Having a fourteen-year-old whip your ass with a branch while you ran for cover was Burt’s secret humiliation.
Believing she was at her most vulnerable following Debbie’s shocking death, he moved in for the kill. She’d been frightened at first. He threatened to contaminate their well if she wouldn’t sell the property, to cut the power lines, and anything else he could think of to make her life hell.
Those days were known as her funk time. She’d been sad and a whole lot more. But then she found the duffel bag of money. From despair came hope. Fighting back was her natural setting. The Dulbs were fucking insane if they thought she was going to be intimidated. So she got them back in her own way. Subtle ‘fuck you’s that almost dared them to come after her. Even if they threw the worst at her, she could shrug it off if she had to. She wasn’t a runner. Sticking to her guns and standing her ground was much more her style so that’s what she did. But it was still comforting to know if they had to bolt, they could.
“Oh Matty,” she cried, holding him tight. “You’re all I need little man. We’re a team, remember? As long as we have each other, we’ll always be all right.”
The vibration and thud as his booted feet struck the wood table made a stack of magazines slump to the side, and the two glasses of cheap whiskey next to them jiggle. An ear-splitting belch shot from his mouth, which in turn triggered a symphony of bellowing cackles from his drinking companion.
Waving his hand back and forth to clear the stench from the air, his host and temporary landlord, Jimmy Alton, lost no time piling on a mountain of shit. “Fuck man. Is that how they do at Oxford? Cam swore you’re a…what did he call it? Oh, yeah. A scholar. Ha! Nice to know y’all scholarly types do the burp and fart chorus like the rest of us.”
Roman smirked. “It’s what you deserve for feeding me that slop or whatever the hell you called it.”
“Ah, you big pussy. Fried catfish doesn’t qualify for slop.”
“Yeah? Well, fuck you because fried mashed potato and cheddar bacon bombs are on no sane person’s healthy foods list. That belch was nothing. Hope your plumbing can take a hit.”
He was enjoying himself. Jimmy turned out to be one fucking hilarious guy with a wry sense of humor wrapped in an appreciation of the absurd. Planting his butt in a room above the small town’s only watering hole was a brilliant tactical maneuver. So was being a veteran. Not a lot of folks around a place like Providence were going to question a war hero, and hooking up from the get go with Jimmy made his presence a non-event.
Reaching for his glass of whiskey, Jimmy sniggered and held it aloft in salute. “I hear what you’re saying but dude. A word of warning. My lady will kick your ass if she has to march up here with a plunger and unclog the john.”
Slapping his stomach, he rubbed back and forth to relieve the burning in his gut. “I’m grounded,” he chuckle-sneered with a wave at his glass. “Put that thing in my hand would you?”
“Lazy cockstucker.”
A nanosecond of frozen silence ensued, and then they cracked up.
“Oh my god,” Jimmy snorted with laughter. “Did I just brainfart a new word? Cockstucker?”
Laughing along with his new bud, he took a healthy swallow of whiskey and made a joke at the other guy’s expense. “Firewater makes you smart, my friend. Or so they say.”
Jimmy arched a brow and looked at him. “What?” he drawled. “You think some fancy degree that means exactly shit around here says you can spout bullshit and pretend to make sense?”
“Busted,” Roman cackled. “Dude, I had no idea what that meant either.”
Deciding to give up acting civilized, he deftly undid the buckle on his belt, unsnapped his jeans and let some of the over-stuffed feeling have space. “Ahh. That’s better. Maybe I can think clearer now.”
They relaxed and sipped in silence. From time to time he glanced around the surprisingly comfortable room tucked away on the second floor of Shorty’s where Jimmy had an office.
It didn’t have a king size bed with Egyptian cotton sheets or a flat screen TV. The pathetic thought made him wince. When had he gotten soft? Simple answer. About fifteen minutes after leaving the Middle East behind. That’s when. The occasional unease he felt about the luxuries in his life was entirely the result of the lingering feeling that being tired, thirsty, hot, stressed and hunkered down so your head didn’t get blasted off was the only shit that mattered. Filtered water, one hundred and seventy satellite channels and a concierge service seemed like overkill until he remembered he earned every bit of the remarkable life he’d made.
“Turns out,” Jimmy murmured after a long silence, “that my lady has all sorts of useful information on what you’ve been asking about. Or rather, who.”
Roman’s eyes shifted without his head moving. “What would that be?”
“She does most of her business clear across the county in Fairley. The butcher on Main Street? Name’s Sam. He hooked her up with a booth at the farmer’s market. Last time Kelly was in, she mentioned to Lil that she was selling crafts and not just eggs and stuff.”
Really? Hmm. The girl has ambition. He liked that. Until he got to town, all Jimmy knew from Justice was that he needed a place to stay while he worked. When he started asking questions about the James family, the energy shifted.
Jimmy wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t pry, and he’d keep his mouth shut. A mission was a mission was a mission, even in the civilian world.
“I’m curious about the mother. Debbie, right? What do you know about her?”
“Geez,” he drawled. “Didn’t you know? Deb James died, oh,” he shrugged and stared at his hands a minute, “I don’t know, almost two years ago. Right after I took over Shorty’s. The folks living in the hills don’t exactly put out newsletters, but I remember the talk at the time was that she just dropped one day. Aneurysm, heart attack, lightning strike, a zombie attack. Dunno. Dead is dead around here. Not much interest in the particulars.”
Nothing chased off a cheap whiskey buzz like a thunderbolt of relevant intelligence. Sitting up, he took his feet down and ditched the ends of his drink on a side table.
“So the girl lives by herself?”
Jimmy’s amused laughter cut through the air. “Seriously? She’s an Okie. Believe me. N-B-D.”
“Fuck yeah it’s a big deal,” he snarled. Unsure why this piece of information bothered him so much, Roman struggled to shake off the effects of heavy eating and drinking so he could think better.
Feeling an even greater urgency than before, he knew there wasn’t time to lay out a plan. Adam Ward was flirting with death, and now the girl’s mother turned out to already be gone. Liam wasn’t going to like this. Not at all. Too many loose ends.
“Okay,” he growled. “So the go-slow plan just got shot to hell. New focus.”
Jimmy sat up and gave him all his attention.
“I need to see this girl in person. Meet her. How do I make that happen?”
A slow, wily grin marched across Jimmy’s expression. “Dude,” he chuckled. “You open your wallet, and I can totally make that happen.”
“How?”
“Kelly James is a goddamn pool shark. Ain’t nobody in their right mind around here these days who’ll play against her, she’s that good. I’d say it’s a safe bet that the first ann
ual buck fifty winner takes all Shorty’s Eight Ball Tournament will draw her butt into town.”
“You’d do that?” Roman asked with a wry chuckle. “Fuck, man. Pool tournaments attract barroom brawls faster than flies to shit.”
“Yeah, well you just make sure my ass doesn’t get beat, and I’ll handle the rest.”
Well, hot damn. This might be easier than he thought. Fuck wandering around dirt roads with a GPS. The clearest directions Jimmy could find for the old James farm was down the back road to the split and then take the third dirt path up the mountain. He’d need a fucking experienced Sherpa to figure out where the hell this girl was hiding. And since wandering the hills and woods was a surefire way to get his ass shot for trespassing, he had a bit of a problem.
“Tell you what. I’ll pony up the buck fifty to the winner and tip the bar two hundred. And if there are any damages at the end of the night, I’ll take care of it.”
They shook hands and made a couple of lame jokes. As Jimmy made for the door, he turned at the last minute. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I wanna say one thing, okay?”
He nodded. “Go on.”
“Living in the woods, in the hills, well it’s a tough life. Nobody around here butts in but that don’t mean they forget about looking after their own. She keeps to herself and don’t cause trouble. People won’t take kindly to you fucking with her—not if she gets hurt.”
“I’m not here to fuck with her. Look, I can’t go into details, but Justice has my back on this. I hope that’s enough for you to trust me.”
“Point taken,” he replied firmly. “I owe a lot to those guys.”
And with that Jimmy left and Roman immediately got out his iPad and started to make notes. There was a lot to share with Liam, and he wanted to keep it all straight.
“Thanks, Ginny. I appreciate you keeping Matty overnight. These things can go late and I’d rather he wasn’t alone.”
“No problem, hon,” the smiling woman assured with a warm squeeze on Kelly’s arm. “You know how much we love having Matty over. My Sam loves the boy as if he’s a grandson. You too, Kelly.”
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