Barbed Wire Heart

by Tess Sharpe

  That’s where the Ruby and Mo come in.

  She shows up no matter what. She has the Rubies’ backs, no matter what.

  When I load the bread in the double cab of my truck, Busy sniffs interestedly at the bags, but I snap my fingers, and she settles down to pout.

  “Brat,” I tell her, pulling out of the bakery parking lot and taking a left.

  The Blackberry Diner’s on South Street, across the railroad tracks. There are chainsaw-cut bear statues at the entrance, jars of blackberry jam on every table, and a long counter where the regulars—old dudes with veteran’s caps and bifocals—hold court. They drink black coffee by the pot and like to pretend to forget the waitresses’ names. The Blackberrys—there are five spread across three counties—were diners my Granddaddy McKenna started up back in the 1950s. They were probably a way to launder money, since everything Granddaddy did was a little crooked. But these days, they manage to pull in decent business, especially the flagship diner.

  “Hi, honey!” a bright voice chirps at me as I push through the double doors. “Oh, let me help you with that.” Two of the bags of bread are lifted out of my hands, and Amanda, the manager, comes into view. She’s tall and pretty, with tan skin and long black hair she keeps in a bun. She’s always smiling—a plus in food service. Duke hired her almost ten years ago as a waitress, and she’d worked her way up. He’d given her free rein on the Salt Creek diner, and with a few changes, she’d drawn in the drivers making their way through the mountains toward Oregon. The tourists bought the homemade blackberry jam by the case just because she slapped a cute label and a square of gingham cloth on it.

  “I figured I’d save Mrs. Talbot a trip on the bread delivery,” I say, following Amanda behind the counter and through the kitchen doors. Heat blasts my face, and the clatter and noise of the kitchen fills my ears as the short-order cooks shout orders and sling biscuits at each other. The dishwasher hurries over to take the bread from us, disappearing into the back to put it into the warmer.

  “How are you?” Amanda asks as we get out of the kitchen to give the waitresses hurrying past us some elbow room. “You want coffee?”

  “Please,” I say, sidestepping a busboy with a full tub. “Been busy today?”

  “Got a whole load of tourists off the Five,” Amanda says, grabbing a fresh pot of coffee and a to-go cup. “Nothing like four twelve-tops first thing in the morning.”

  I grimace in sympathy, taking the coffee cup when she offers it to me.

  “Extra sugar, just how you like it.”

  “Thanks. So, how’s Jeremy?” I ask, taking a sip of the coffee. “Is he still on that whitewater rafting trip?”

  “He comes back Monday,” Amanda says. “I can’t believe he’s almost thirteen. It’s been so long since…” she trails off, her eyes growing troubled with memories.

  “He was so cute when he was little,” I say, trying to smooth out the moment. “Do you remember how he used to follow Busy around when we visited the Ruby? He kept trying to ride her like a horse.”

  She laughs. “I think I have video of that somewhere.”

  “Keep that for blackmail once he starts dating.”

  Her brown eyes soften. “Good idea.”

  I glance at the blackberry-shaped clock mounted on the wall. “I have to get going,” I say. “I’ve got Busy in the truck. Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Say hi to Mo and the rest of the Rubies for me,” Amanda says.

  “I will.”

  “Take care, honey,” I hear her call as the doors close behind me.

  I will.

  I have to.

  Five

  I’m twelve the day I pull a gun on someone for the first time.

  I’m in town with Uncle Jake, and we’re just about ready to head home when he gets a call.

  He frowns before he picks up the phone, staring at the screen and then at me for a second before raising it to his ear.

  “Hey, Mo. This isn’t a good—” He stops, his dark eyebrows knitting together as he listens. “Okay,” he says. “Duke’s not answering? Then text me the address. I’ll take care of it.”

  When he hangs up, he looks over at me, his blue eyes worried.

  “We need to go pick someone up,” he says, and the way he says it, makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. “Can you promise me you’ll do everything I say, no matter what happens?”

  I nod. “Are we going to get a Ruby?” I ask.

  Uncle Jake smiles, gentle, like he wants to reassure me that everything’s okay, even though I know what’s coming. “Yeah,” he says quietly.

  The house he parks in front of is nice—one of the better places in Salt Creek. The lawn is green and neat and tidy, and there’s a brand-new car in the driveway.

  There’s a kid screaming inside. It sounds like a full-on tantrum, and it sets my teeth on edge as I get out of the truck with Uncle Jake.

  “Stay close to me,” he says, holding on to my arm as we walk up the path onto the porch. He knocks, but when no one answers, he just walks right in. “Amanda,” he calls down the hall. “It’s Jake Hawes. Mo from the Ruby told me you needed some help.”

  The crying stops abruptly. A hiccupping sound follows, like the kid’s learned to stay quiet when a man speaks.

  We step into the kitchen. The dishwasher is wide open. My heart starts hammering as Jake walks down the hall.

  And there she is, in the master bedroom, throwing things into a suitcase. Her kid—a little boy with dark hair who looks about three—is sitting on the edge of the bed, a fresh bruise fanning across his forehead.

  She looks up, and I see a matching, older bruise on her cheek. “Jake,” she says, and her entire body relaxes with that one word. “You came.”

  “Of course,” he says, stepping into the room. “When did he leave?”

  “A half hour ago. He was so mad—I forgot his lunch and Jeremy was crying, and he…” She takes a deep breath, her fingers clenching around the shirt in her hands. “I called Mo,” she says.

  “You did the right thing calling her,” Jake says. “Let’s get your stuff together and I’ll take you to her.”

  Amanda looks around the room, tears in her eyes that don’t ever fall. “I got Jeremy’s stuff. I have money; I’ve been saving up.”

  “Take what you need now. You don’t have to come back,” Jake says gently.

  She nods. “I don’t have to come back,” she repeats.

  Then I hear a car door slamming, and my head jerks toward the sound, primed as I am by Daddy to identify anything new in my vicinity.

  “Uncle Jake,” I say.

  Before I can get out another word, the front door is opening and slamming so hard, the walls shake. Amanda’s eyes widen with terror and she steps toward her kid, an instinctive movement that’s all about protection.

  “He’s back,” she whispers.

  “Harley, take Jeremy,” Jake orders, grabbing the toddler and thrusting him into my arms. The kid clings to me, burying his wet face in my neck, and I grab him back, because I know what’s coming down the hallway.

  I know what men are capable of when it comes to women. The proof is right in front of me, all over Amanda’s face.

  “Go,” Jake says, pushing me down the hall toward the kitchen and the back door. I hear footsteps that aren’t Jake’s coming toward the bedroom from the living room, and a deep voice yelling Amanda’s name.

  Jeremy’s legs wrap around my waist, and I hurry down the hall, single-minded. I have to get him out. Keep him safe.

  The back door’s right there; my hand closes around the knob.

  “What the hell is going on?” the voice booms out, echoing down the hall.

  He’s reached the bedroom.

  I hesitate at the back door. I love Uncle Jake, but I’ve never seen him throw a punch in my life. What if…

  Jeremy’s face is still buried in my neck, and his little fingers wrap tight around my braid.

  I have to get him out of here.

&
nbsp; I jerk the back door open and run down the steps, through the yard, to Uncle Jake’s truck. I lift Jeremy into the cab, looking over my shoulder.

  The house is quiet.

  Too quiet.

  I flip open Uncle Jake’s glove box, take out the pistol, and check the rounds. “Hey,” I turn to Jeremy, smiling really wide. “I’ll be right back. You stay in the truck. Don’t move, no matter what you hear. If you stay, you get all the cookies you want. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he says softly, his eyes wide.

  I get out and make sure the windows are rolled down enough, but not too much; then I lock him inside. It’ll be safer for him that way.

  I force myself not to think about when I was locked in a truck while my momma faced down a bad man, and how that ended.

  It won’t end that way for Jeremy.

  I run back through the backyard toward the house, this time as quietly as I can. The gun is a familiar weight in my hand, but now, in this moment, suddenly it’s very different.

  Now it’s not just target shooting. It’s not just Daddy throwing discs in the air for me to shoot holes through. It’s not squirrels or deer or bears or even a mountain lion.

  It’s a man.

  Can I shoot a man?

  Am I about to find out?

  There are voices—now muffled and tense—coming from the hallway as I creep back into the kitchen, holding the pistol tight. My palms are sweating, but I can’t let go to wipe them off, so I tighten my grip.

  Breathe, Harley-girl.

  I flatten myself against the wall that turns into the hallway, peering around it.

  His back’s to me in the hallway. A big, burly guy with a massive neck and fists the size of forty-pound dumbbells. He’s facing Jake, who’s standing in front of Amanda, shielding her.

  Mr. Big and Burly has a gun. I can’t see it, but I know it. I can feel it in the air. I can see it in her face, the terror, the resignation in her face that says He really is going to kill me this time.

  “Where is my kid?” he growls.

  “This is a bad idea, Hunter,” Jake says. “You let us go, you won’t have any trouble. But you do something to Amanda? To me? You’ve got McKenna on your ass.”

  “Bullshit,” Hunter says. “McKenna’s not gonna care about this stupid slut.”

  “She’s a Ruby now,” Jake says. “You know what that means.”

  “You’ve got no right messing in my marriage. This is between us.”

  “It’s up to you, Hunter,” Amanda says, and her voice shakes, but she stands tall. Strength shimmers off her like the air above a bonfire. “You’ve got the gun. So do I leave this house in a body bag? An ambulance? Or do you let me go? Because one way or another, I’m leaving. I won’t live like this anymore. Not with Jeremy.”

  “Honey, I didn’t mean—” he started.

  “You hit him,” she cuts into his sentence viciously.

  “Your wife’s leaving you,” Jake says. “So either you put down the gun like a real man. Or you shoot. But you can’t hit both of us at once.”

  His arm shifts; he’s raising his gun hand. “I can try,” he says.

  I move, my steps smooth and silent, all the training that Daddy’s drilled into my head there in a flash as I close the space between us. Jake’s eyes widen when he sees me, but he stays still; he doesn’t give it away.

  I press the barrel into Hunter’s back. He stiffens, his head twists, and Jake takes advantage of the diversion I’ve created. He lashes out so fast his hands are a blur as he grabs the gun in Hunter’s hand, jerking it toward him, wrenching his fingers to the side.

  Hunter howls, stepping back, so the barrel of my pistol digs deeper into his back as Jake yanks the gun out of his hand and then points it at him.

  “Out of the way, Harley,” Jake orders, and I duck beneath his arm, coming to stand next to Amanda as Jake advances on Hunter. She puts her arm around me, smoothing the hair out of my face. “Where’s Jeremy? Are you okay, honey?” she asks.

  I nod. “Jeremy’s in the truck. He’s fine.”

  Jake tucks the gun in the back of his jeans and rounds on Hunter. His first blow lands on Hunter’s jaw, the next breaks his nose, and the third, to the solar plexus, puts him on the floor.

  Jake stands over him, his fist still clenched, the gun in his other hand, like he wants to do more.

  “Uncle Jake,” I say.

  He turns to me, like he’s just remembered where we are. The look on his face—the wildness in his eyes, the anger that’s so out of character it makes my stomach twist—fades in an instant. Hunter’s head thunks against the carpet as he sputters, blood from his nose dripping into his mouth.

  “You don’t touch her again,” Jake says, his voice low, the promise of hurt in every word. “You don’t come near either of them. If you do, I’ll send McKenna for you. There’ll be nothing left but your teeth, and I’ll grind those into dust personally.”

  He grabs Amanda’s suitcase from the bedroom, stepping around Hunter to get it.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  Amanda starts running the second she gets to the porch, running to Jeremy, who’s still sitting quietly in the truck. Jake unlocks the door, and she jumps in, gathering the boy in her arms, hugging him tight.

  It’s a squeeze to fit in the cab, but we make do as Jake drives us all to the Ruby. A skinny woman’s waiting at the entrance for us, cigarette in her hand, glasses looped around her neck on a chunky beaded chain. When Amanda gets out of the car, Mo envelops her in a smoky hug.

  “You’re safe now,” Mo tells her in a gravelly voice, smiling down at Jeremy. “C’mon, I’ve got a cottage all ready for you two.”

  I start to follow them, but Jake holds me back. “Not today,” he tells me.

  He doesn’t drive me home, though. Instead, we go to a spot by the river, where he parks the truck and just sits still in the driver’s seat for a long time, looking out at the water.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  I shrug. “Is she?”

  “She will be. With time,” Jake says.

  “And him?”

  “He’ll stay away,” Jake says. But the way his fingers clench around the steering wheel makes me wonder if he believes it.

  “They don’t always stay away,” I say. I know this, for a fact, because there have been nights when Daddy disappears after getting a call from Mo, and when he comes back, he’s got that light in his eyes that tells me he’s shed some blood.

  “They follow the rules if they know what’s good for them,” Jake says.

  “And if they break the rules?”

  He pauses. “Well, there are consequences.”

  “Would you have killed him?” I persist.

  Jake looks away and doesn’t say anything.

  “Have you…” I don’t finish the question. I can’t, not when he looks at me with those eyes that are so much like Momma’s, begging me not to go there.

  “Your momma loved the Ruby,” Jake says. “When she inherited the motel, I was worried. I didn’t think she could pull it off. And then she told me what she intended to do with it, offering it up as a safe haven for women. I thought she was crazy. Thought it was too dangerous. But there was no stopping your momma when she got something in her head.” He smiles at the memory.

  “Like me,” I say.

  “Like you,” he agrees. And he smiles again.

  He rubs a hand over his face. Even after all these years, he won’t grow a beard. It’s the one thing that sets him apart, these days. “What your momma and Mo did for all those women, what the Ruby means to the women of this county? Apart from you, the Ruby was how she made her mark on the world. It was her way to give back. And someday, it’ll be yours to run with Mo.”

  “I know,” I say.

  I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, though. If I’ll ever be able to harden my heart enough for it not to break when I see bruises around throats, around wrists, on tiny rib cages that haven’t finished growing.

  Som
etimes, when I’m with Uncle Jake or Mo, I start to question things. I start to wonder if maybe hardness isn’t the answer. Maybe the horror, fresh and present with each woman, with each bruise and tear, is what I should feel.

  Maybe hardening a heart is the problem. Not the solution.

  Six

  June 6, 9:30 a.m.

  After I leave the diner, I make two more collections at the top of the hill before beginning my descent into the guts of town. Along the pass near the bottom of the hill, there’s a line of motels that Duke owns. Five of them, side by side. They’re pay-by-the-month or hourly types, breeding grounds for drugs and trouble.

  You want to control your customer base, you keep them in one place.

  But the Ruby, the last motel at the very bottom of the hill, is different. The Ruby had belonged to Momma, and it’s the one safe place in North County where a woman can go if she’s in trouble.

  Momma had a soft heart for strays. That’s the way people always put it, with this rueful smile. Like she was silly for caring. Like what she and Mo did wasn’t fierce, protective, womanly instinct.

  Momma’s parents owned the Ruby, forty A-frame cottages near the river, all painted bright red. She took charge of it after she married Duke, but instead of renting out rooms, she opened the Ruby free to the women who need it the most. Women on the run from their husbands, their boyfriends, their fathers. Women who want to get clean or sober or just plain out. Pregnant girls with nowhere else to go. Momma sheltered all of them at the Ruby, and no man dared defy a woman who carried a twelve gauge just as surely as she carried the McKenna name.

  Mo came down from Montgomery Creek, a tiny town on the way to Burney. She belonged to the Pit River Tribe up there and she’d come to work the second year after Momma took it over.

  I’d asked her once, what had drawn her to work at the Ruby, and she’d raised her eyebrow and asked me if she needed a tragic backstory to do the right thing. I’d turned red at being called out and apologized, because it was where my mind had gone.