by Cara McKenna
“Pretty much. Dude, I messed up, right?”
Duncan made a noncommittal face. “Not necessarily. It’s inappropriate, and ill-timed, and fairly irresponsible on your part, but it’s also not at all surprising.”
“No?”
Duncan smiled, as dry as unbuttered toast. “Have you forgotten the way you two used to circle each other?”
“No, but I mean, I didn’t know she was pregnant back then. Plus I’m her boss now.”
“And I don’t relish the day this implodes and we need to find a new bartender. But as I said, I’m not surprised.”
Casey felt his face turning pink. “In my defense, it wasn’t sex or anything.” Though Christ, it had felt like more than what it had been, hadn’t it? More memorable than the last time he’d gotten laid, for sure.
“I wouldn’t overthink it if I were you,” Duncan said. “Your very under-rested, very overstressed employee came on to you. The girl’s awash with hormones I don’t care to attempt to fathom, and scared, and probably somewhat imprinted on you. Unlikely though it may seem, you’re the most reliable male role model in her life at the moment. Don’t rake yourself over the coals for whatever’s happened, but for goodness’ sake, don’t encourage it if you don’t see it going anywhere.”
“It can’t go anywhere. That much I know for sure.” Though Christ, he wanted to feel that again, everything she’d brought out in him, last night. Everything that had burned between the two of them. Propriety could go fuck itself.
Duncan nodded. “Her life is complicated enough without all this.”
“Exactly. Plus she doesn’t know about my mental health shit, and I don’t feel like heaping that on top of all her other worries. Even if I wanted to make promises I’m not sure I’m actually ready for, there’s no guarantee I’ll be lucid enough to keep them in a few years’ time.”
“A fair point.” Duncan headed for the register, unlocked it, and took out the previous night’s deposit bag. “How’s the girl doing, otherwise?”
“Okay, I think. Scared, obviously, but the baby’s got a checkup, and it’s probably good that she’s had to get off the Church family compound for a few hours.”
“No doubt. Would you start on the floors while I take this to the bank?”
“Yeah, sure. Oh—tomorrow morning, Vince wants everybody out at Three C for a club meeting. Get our heads together over scheduling watches for the next week or so. Plus Miah has some unrelated business.”
Duncan looked uncomfortable, and not without reason. “Please tell me you’re only informing me so that I can pass this along to Raina.”
“You wish. You’re as tangled up in all this business as any of us are. Like it or not, you’re officially a Desert Dog. So your presence is required at meetings.”
“We ought to put it to a vote. I can tell you now, both Church and myself will vote nay.”
“Miah’s too fucking busy to care about that ancient history, man, and club business trumps hurt feelings. Anyhow, it’s got to be a breakfast meeting—six a.m. tomorrow.”
He sighed. “Fine. How long are you in, this afternoon?”
“I can probably hang ’til six.”
“In that case I might disappear into the office while you’re here. I could get on top of placing the help-wanted ads.” They’d need cooks soon, and at least two bar-slash-waitstaff, and there was no telling when Abilene would be back on the job. “And I’ve got to chase down a vendor about the counters that are going in this week.”
“Works for me.” Running around filling orders and making change Casey could handle, but he was glad Duncan was taking over the bulk of the tasks that required organization and a clear head. “Leave opening ’til five to me, if you want,” he told Duncan. “I’ll be fine solo ’til the postwork rush.”
“I may just do that. Can you handle Ware alone, if he turns up?”
“Guess I’ll fucking find out.” He paused, nagged by another thought. He’d been caught up in two impulsive decisions last night, and he wouldn’t mind Duncan’s opinion on this one, either. “Can I talk to you about one other thing, real quick?”
“Of course. What?”
“So I . . . I found this service,” Casey said.
“Service?”
“This mail-order thing that does DNA testing, with cheek swabs and shit, like you’d mentioned last fall.” He’d seen an ad for it in a magazine, and early this morning—to distract himself from the ache Abilene had left between his legs—he’d gone online to check it out. “You can get your medical markers analyzed, find out if you have a higher chance of getting diabetes or cancer or Alzheimer’s—whole load of shit.”
“Including dementia?” Duncan prompted gently.
“Yeah.” As far as Casey knew, that was what had left his mom a vacant, spacey husk by age forty. These days her world consisted of whatever was on the TV, and Vince, his girlfriend, Kim, their neighbor Nita, and Casey all split the duties of caring for her. Casey couldn’t lie—stressful or not, this past week had been an undeniable relief, with Abilene’s situation leaving him too busy to pitch in much on the family front. Every visit to his mom’s place was a reminder that her depressing fate might be his own, and not too far down the road. He shared those occasional seizurelike incidents of hers, after all. During his own episodes he went into another place, had weird vivid dreams, all while thrashing around on the ground. Duncan had witnessed one.
Weirder still, those dreams had a creepy way of coming true, though Duncan knew nothing about that fucked-up factoid. Vince knew, and now Miah did as well—if only because Casey’s last little spell had shown him a vision of Miah dying in a fire, on a starless night. He hoped that dream was a dud, though, or that they’d somehow managed to prevent it—starless nights only happened to Fortuity during the region’s minuscule rainy season, and that had come and gone with the holidays, tragedy-free.
Vince believed that the dreams were something to be taken seriously. He’d seen their mom’s crazy ramblings come true too many times to ignore them. Miah, on the other hand . . . well, skeptical was an understatement. He didn’t have a superstitious bone in his body, plus, to be fair, the guy hadn’t suffered so much as pizza burn since Casey had envisioned that fire.
He himself was starting to doubt if any of the stuff he’d ever dreamed up had been anything more than hallucinations.
But if I’m not seeing the future, what does that make me? The answer was, plain old fucking crazy. Just like his mom.
Either way, Casey wanted some answers—about his brain health, if not all this psychic nonsense. Needed answers. If he was going to keep telling himself he was finally manning up, there was no excuse to quit being such a goddamn pussy about it.
He told Duncan, “You can pay extra and get a thirty-minute consultation with a DNA expert over the phone, to go over the results.”
“And you’re going to do it?”
Much as hearing the truth terrified him . . . “Yeah, I think it’s fucking time.”
“Why now?”
The million-dollar question, right there. Maybe because having his feelings for Abilene violently reignited had got his subconscious wondering if his chances at a real long-term thing with a woman were well and truly fucked. Not that he wanted such a thing with Abilene, of course. She came with way too much built-in responsibility for his comfort. But somebody, maybe. Someday. If he had any somedays coming to him.
To Duncan, though, he fibbed. “All this shit here, with you and the business . . . I gotta know. You deserve to know if I’m gonna be fucking incompetent in five or ten years. Plus it’s only a couple hundred bucks. I got no excuse to keep putting it off.”
“Good man,” Duncan said, and clapped Casey on the shoulder.
“I’ll ask Vince to do the old swab too. Something to compare my results against, since he’s never had any problems.”
“Sounds wise. Always best to go into things with your eyes wide-open.”
“That’s what I figured.” If he w
as going to do more than just resolve to become a grown-ass man, and actually become one finally, he had to quit running from the truth. Until now, he’d told himself that not knowing was best. And operating under the assumption that the verdict was going to be bad had given him permission to live selfishly, day by day, chasing money and pleasure.
Plus, in a very real sense, finding out he was doomed to whatever it was his mom had was a death sentence, because Casey had no intention of carrying on long enough to become a burden to anybody.
Nope. If he had five, ten more lucid years left, he’d live the holy hell out of every single day, then go up in spectacular flames, on his own motherfucking terms.
“I ordered the kit,” he admitted. “Should be here within the week.”
Duncan turned back to the register, separated the bills and receipts into piles and began checking them against a tally sheet. “Will you even be able to get your mother’s sample analyzed? Is she competent enough to sign whatever consent form must come with the test?”
“Yeah, she has her moments. I’ll have to lie to her, though, tell her she’s signing my report card or something—she still thinks I’m in high school half the time.”
Duncan winced. “How awful.”
“You get used to it.”
“I suppose that’s one upside to having no parents at all—I’ll never have to watch them decline.”
“Amen.”
Duncan left for the bank shortly, and Casey got to work, sweeping and mopping, squaring up the tables, organizing the pool cues and chalks. The contractors tidied away the fresh dust they’d produced and headed out.
Man, there were moments when Casey missed his old life. Working ’til dawn, rolling out of bed at noon, living for weeks on a single payday. No responsibilities heavier than making the rent and fudging his taxes. No attachments.
And yet those moments were fleeting. Doing the right thing these past few months was exhausting, no doubt, and stressful, and anything but leisurely. But it was satisfying, too. He liked himself more, if he was honest. Probably in no small part because he was doing what his dad had failed at: stepping up.
After he unlocked the door and flicked on the lights, he wandered out into the empty front lot and looked up at the BENJI’S SALOON sign. Its neon glow was all but invisible in the bright afternoon sun.
I fucking own this place. The goddamn heart of the town; one of few things worth preserving when the casino and all its attendant change descended. Just as Abilene had said last night. Even in Casey’s old life, amazing as he’d been at his job, as indispensible a member of the team as he’d become . . . it wasn’t as though he could go telling anybody about it. For all the greater world to see, he’d been nobody back then. Just some thirtysomething guy living in Lubbock, in a decent apartment, driving a Corolla, occasionally getting laid. But here . . .
Abilene was right. In Fortuity, he was somebody. Somebody important, in a way. An employer, a partner to Duncan, an active son to his mom, finally. And whatever he was to Abilene and the baby—something kind of shapeless, but definitely something.
“Fucking Fortuity,” he muttered, staring down Station Street toward the tracks. His hometown, the one he couldn’t fucking wait to escape when he’d been twenty. The town he’d avoided coming back to for nearly a decade. The town he’d thought he left behind forever, and good riddance.
Last fucking place he’d ever expected to feel himself getting attached to.
• • •
Abilene woke early. For half a breath, she was lost in the memory of that kiss—just long enough for her body to go warm, her eyes to shut, long enough to feel his mouth on hers and his excitement in her hand . . .
But the heat was gone in a breath, as the larger, colder reality intruded. James was out. He was out, and he might be in Fortuity by now, for all she knew.
She’d slept poorly, and for once she couldn’t blame it on Mercy—Casey had set the crib up in the den, volunteering to be on baby duty. She’d taken him up on the offer, thinking her daughter could probably use his calm energy right about now, more than her mama’s jitters. It seemed she’d been right, too. The sound of crying had roused her only once, and faded as quickly as it had started. At least one of them would face the day well rested.
She took a quick shower, then went downstairs, finding Mercy dozing in the crib, but no Casey. Voices drifted from the kitchen, and she moved to the threshold.
“It’s good and it’s bad,” Casey was saying. He had his back to her, sitting at the table.
Christine was busy at the coffeemaker in her robe and sweatpants, long gray-streaked hair twirled up in a fat turquoise barrette. “How so?” she asked him.
“Good that he didn’t come around looking for her at the bar,” Casey said, and Abilene took a step back into the hallway, knowing they were talking about James. She was curious how they’d speak of him, not knowing she was listening. How they’d speak about her.
“But bad, too, since we’re no closer to knowing what mood he’s in.”
“I see what you mean,” Christine said. “You sleep okay?”
“Not too shabby.” It was a lie, and Abilene knew it. She’d heard him downstairs, picking out chords on Don’s old acoustic guitar well into the wee hours.
“You need any help?” he asked Christine.
“I could use loads, actually, with six of you about to descend. Would you fry up some bacon while I get the pancake batter mixed?”
“Sure.”
“What’s the meeting about, anyway? The Abilene situation?”
She heard the fridge door open and close. “Yeah. Mostly just hammering out a schedule, I think.” There was a pause; then he asked Christine, “What?” as though she’d shot him some kind of meaningful look.
“I really wish she’d contact the Sheriff’s Department.”
Abilene flushed.
“She couldn’t get a restraining order, though—it’s not like he’s outright threatened her,” Casey said. “I doubt there’s some box you can check for ‘He’s just a scary guy.’”
“I’d still feel better if they were aware of the situation. They could be on the lookout for him, alert us if he’s seen around.”
“I know, but she refused. I think she’s worried about pissing him off any worse than he might be already. Plus it’s hard enough for her, having all of us knowing her business, and you know Fortuity—if this shit makes it to the BCSD, the whole town’ll be discussing it by sundown.”
It was a lousy option for other reasons, too, ones she didn’t want Casey knowing about. Forms meant using your legal name, and Abilene using her legal name could make for some uncomfortable questions. She didn’t know what exactly counted as identity fraud, but she cashed checks issued to a fake name, using a fake ID.
“I don’t see how that’s a bad thing,” Christine said. “Pride never got anybody anywhere worth going.”
“Well, you try talking to her, then.”
“Believe me—I did. She was trapped in a car with me for four hours yesterday. We made it to Elko and back but the topic went absolutely nowhere. She trusts you and your brother, though. I’d hoped one of you might change her mind.”
Casey laughed. “Girl’s got more problems than we realize if she thinks us Grossiers are the pillars of wisdom and reason.”
With things taking a lighter turn, Abilene chose that moment to intrude. She stepped into the kitchen. “What’s so funny, so early in the morning?”
“Just ripping on the family name,” Casey said, opening a package of bacon. “Baby still asleep?”
“Out cold.”
“Good. Sit down. You want coffee? It’s almost ready.”
“Maybe in a bit. Anything I can help with, for the meeting?”
“Well, if we’ve got three on the job, we may as well cook some eggs,” Christine said. “Scrambled will do. Maybe fifteen?”
“Sure.” Abilene headed to the fridge.
“Sleep okay?” Casey asked her.
“She was pretty mellow.” He waited until she was right beside him, searching the cabinets for a mixing bowl, then murmured, “I need to talk to you.”
She eyed him, nervous. “Okay.” What about? About James, or about the other night? What Casey felt about what had happened, she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t even sure what she felt about it herself, yet. Only that she didn’t regret it. Not a single moment, not a single kiss.
“I’ve turned on the griddle to warm while I get dressed,” Christine said. “Don’t burn yourselves.”
“Thanks.” Casey waited until she’d disappeared to turn to Abilene. “It’s about your ex,” he said, pouring coffee into a mug.
“What about him?”
“About you considering sitting down and talking with him,” Casey went on, stirring sugar into the cup, “provided he approaches the situation like a civilized adult and not a psychopath.”
“Fat chance.”
His shoulders slumped and he shot her a look she’d never seen on that handsome face before—weary frustration. He slid the mug before her on the counter. “Honey, you’ve got to face him sometime. And the sooner the better, if you don’t want to give him any more reasons to be pissed with you. Tell me what exactly it is you’re scared of.”
“His anger.” There was more, of course. But she couldn’t say, I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me, once you hear his side of things. Neither could she say she was afraid that James might feel justified in trying to take the baby away from her—by law or by force—because there was no way she was telling Casey what kind of a person she’d been before they’d met.
She expanded on that lesser but still real fear. “He’s got a violent streak and a hot temper. We had a bumpy, volatile relationship. I never wanted him in the baby’s life. I’d have been happy to never have told him, except your brother thought that was a really dangerous idea.”
Casey nodded. “Leave the eggs a second. Sit down.”
She moved to the table with him.
“I’ve asked you before, but tell me one more time—has he ever hit you?”