Roy stood there for a few seconds, waiting for Ava Dawn to say or do something. When she didn’t, he said, “Don’t you wanna know who I’m with?”
“Sure don’t.”
“She’s younger’n you. Prettier’n you, too.”
Finally, Ava Dawn looked up. “Roy, I wouldn’t care if you brought the damn Queen of England into this church. You ain’t my problem no more.”
Roy leaned over the metal table, palms squishing into two fresh pies when Haiden Crow stepped up next to him. His long, black beard gleamed in the fluorescent lighting of the fellowship hall.
“Howdy there,” Haiden said, placing a hand on Roy’s shoulder. “Do you need a number for the auction?”
“I got me a number.”
“What about the lovely blonde?” Haiden gestured to the woman standing uneasily beside Roy. “You want a number?”
“I want to get outta here,” she replied. “I didn’t know your ex-girlfriend was going to be here.”
Ava Dawn let out a snort. “Honey, I’m his wife, but as soon as them papers are signed, he’s all yours.”
“You’re married?” The woman stepped back from Roy, frantically glancing between him and Ava Dawn. “You said you’d never been married. Never!”
Roy ignored her. “Ain’t nobody signing papers.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bean.” Haiden Crow returned his hand to Roy’s shoulder, more forcefully than before. “But we’re getting ready to start the auction. If you’d please take your seat.”
“I ain’t going nowhere.”
Haiden Crow was shorter than Roy by a couple of inches and was roughly half his weight, but it didn’t matter. When Haiden Crow spoke, people listened. “Please have a seat, sir.”
Roy looked from Haiden over to Court, who nodded at him. Caroline could tell Roy was hedging his bet, but the odds were stacked against him, and he was at least smart enough to realize it. With a grunt, he took a step back, turning on his heel. “Let’s go,” he said, jerking the woman along with him. “Let’s get out of here.”
Ava Dawn put her head in her hands and muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
“Yes, he does need Jesus Christ,” Haiden said, just a hint of a smile crossing his face. He patted Ava Dawn on the hand. “I’ll pray for him tonight. You should do the same.”
“Thank you,” Ava Dawn said. “I’m beginning to think he’ll never leave me alone.”
“He’s angry right now,” Haiden said. “But with time, he will subdue.”
“Roy doesn’t know the meaning of that word,” Caroline said. She noticed Haiden Crow’s hand was still resting on her cousin’s. Where was his wife?
“We should all pray for him,” Haiden replied.
Caroline rolled her eyes up to the church’s ceiling. She wondered how much Brother Crow really knew about Roy. She wondered how much Ava Dawn told him. All he had to do was look at the police reports and hospital records to know that it was going to take a whole lot more than praying to make Roy stay away from Ava Dawn. She was scared for Ava Dawn, because she knew that if Roy set his mind to it, he could make sure the only thing Ava Dawn ever saw again was the inside of a pine box.
“I’ll try prayin’ for Roy,” Ava Dawn said at last. “But I won’t like it none.” She was looking up at Brother Crow, adoration in her blue eyes.
“Good,” he replied, finally letting go of her hand. “If you’ll excuse me, I better get up to the front of the room and get this shindig started.”
“Well, that was intense,” Kasey said once Haiden Crow was gone. She sat down next to Ava Dawn. “I didn’t know you and Roy were getting divorced.”
“Didn’t know it myself until a couple of weeks ago,” Ava Dawn replied.
“I think I speak for everyone when I say that it’s about time,” Court said.
“I’m sorry about Roy showin’ up here. I swear I didn’t tell him.” Ava Dawn twirled a piece of curly hair around her finger.
“I know you didn’t.” Court grinned at her. “I begged my dad not to do this, anyway. I mean I reckon it’ll help, but I’ve had my fill.”
“He’s just such an asshole,” Caroline muttered.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Court said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“What do you mean?” Caroline asked. “Leave the pie auction?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“But the church is doing all of this for you,” Kasey reminded him.
“I’d never stepped foot inside this church before Pam’s funeral,” Court said. “They’re doing this for her. And my dad.”
Tyler’s eyes lit up. “We could go out to my dad’s new fishin’ cabin. It’s down by your shop, Caroline.”
“As long as we’re drinkin’, I’m in,” Ava Dawn replied.
Caroline shifted from one foot to the other. She wanted to go with them. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone out and done anything fun. “I hate to leave my dad at home alone for that long with my mom.”
“Come on, Carolina.” Ava Dawn rolled her eyes. “Uncle Max is a doctor. Surely he can do without you for a few more hours.”
“If I know any of you, it’ll be longer than a few hours.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Court agreed. “You can call him on the way.”
“Fine,” Caroline relented. “But when I say it’s time to go, it’s time to go. You got it?” She pointed at Ava Dawn.
“I got it.”
“Great,” Tyler replied, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “I’m gonna call a few people.”
“You sure you can handle all of us, Officer?” Caroline asked Court. “It might get wild and crazy.”
“Since when is anything not wild and crazy with you, Carolina?” Court asked. “Besides,” he pointed to his hip, where his gun usually rested, “you’re on your own tonight, because I’m off duty.”
CHAPTER 11
THEIR FIRST STOP WAS GARY’S. DESPITE being a gas station, he had one of the best selections of alcohol in town, and it was on the way. He eyed them warily when they entered, laughing and too full of energy for his liking. “What are you kids up to tonight?”
“Not much,” Court said. He pulled a case of Bud Light from the cooler in the back. “Just headed out to have a few drinks.”
“Oh yeah?”
Caroline and Ava Dawn exchanged glances from the front of the store. “He wants us to invite him,” Ava Dawn whispered.
“No way,” Caroline said, turning her back so Gary couldn’t see her talking. “He’ll invite the whole damn town.”
“I bet we can make it worth our while,” Ava Dawn replied. “I ain’t had a snuff of his granny’s moonshine in ages.”
“Don’t you think you’ve made enough moonshine memories for one lifetime?” Caroline wanted to know, but she was smiling. Just the thought of that moonshine made her feel warm and happy on the inside. Sure, it didn’t taste great those first couple of swigs, but then that Ozark Mountain Lightning did what the regular stuff just couldn’t do.
Ava Dawn gave her cousin a wink. “Come with me. I’ll bring my boobs, and you do the talking.”
“Fine.” Caroline sighed, pretending to be annoyed. “But if this doesn’t work, you’re payin’.”
The two women ambled up to Gary, who was standing behind the cash register. “How’s it goin’ tonight, Gary?” Ava Dawn asked. She leaned over the counter in front of him.
Gary didn’t even bother looking Ava Dawn in the eye. “Alright, I reckon.”
Caroline leaned in next to her cousin. “We’re mighty thirsty tonight, Gary.”
“I got a good selection there in the back.” Gary nodded towards where Court stood. “Just came in today.”
“We’re lookin’ for something stronger.”
“What do y’uns mean, exactly?”
“Come on, Gary,” Ava Dawn purred. “You know what we mean.”
Gary eyed Court at the back of the store, and then looked back down at Ava Dawn’s breasts. There was clearly
a debate going on in his head.
“Don’t worry,” Caroline said, sensing his hesitation. “Court’s off duty tonight.”
“Ain’t him I’m worried about, Carolina.” He gave Caroline a look and nodded towards the back of the store.
Caroline turned around to see what Gary was talking about. If Court was on duty, neither she nor her cousin would have tried to swindle Gary out of his shine. Although most deputies looked the other way, especially now that so few of the original moonshining families were still in business, Court might not have been so willing to ignore it had he not been engaged in conversation. In the back of the store, Court was chatting happily with someone.
It was Noah Cranwell.
Caroline swallowed when Noah looked up from Court and grinned at her. Even from where she was standing she could see how his eyes darkened when he looked at her. She couldn’t tell if that was good or bad, and it made her all the more desperate to get at what Gary was hiding. “He’s alright,” she assured the man behind the counter. “He’s my neighbor.” She leaned in closer. “He’s a Cranwell.”
“You give us a couple of jars of what you’ve got behind the counter, and we’ll give you directions to where we’re headed,” Ava Dawn said.
Gary reached down beneath the counter and pulled out two mason jars filled with a clear liquid. “One of the reg’lar and one of the apple.”
“Your granny fill these up today?”
“Night ’fore last.”
Ava Dawn grinned. “Give me a pen.”
Caroline was busy stuffing the moonshine into her purse when she noticed Court and Noah walking towards the front.
“I told Noah here he ought to come down to the cabin with us,” Court said. He eyed Caroline’s purse. “‘Course I didn’t know we were gonna be hittin’ the hard stuff.”
“Can’t handle it since you became a lawman?” Ava Dawn asked. Her eyes were dancing all over the two men. “Caroline and me always could drink ya under the table.”
“Not all of us were raised on the stump whiskey,” Court shot back.
“You comin’ with us, or what?” Ava Dawn asked Noah, turning her attention back to him.
“If that’s alright with everyone,” Noah replied.
He said everyone, but he was looking down at Caroline. She felt her face flush. “It’s alright with everyone.”
“Can I just follow you there?”
“You can follow Court.” Caroline grabbed Ava Dawn’s arm. “We’re gonna head on out.”
“I can’t believe Noah is coming with us,” Ava Dawn said excitedly, shoving her cousin towards the door. “He’s so freakin’ cute.”
“He’s trouble,” Caroline replied. But Ava Dawn was right, he was cute. Well, cute was an understatement. He was flat-out gorgeous, and she figured every single woman between the ages of eighteen and ninety-nine knew it. Her stomach did a little flip-flop. What if he knew it, too?
“Let’s be sure and show him a good time,” Ava Dawn said, as if she were reading Caroline’s mind. She slammed her door closed as Caroline took off down the dirt roads. “Slow down, would ya?”
“I bet he’s never been to a backwoods party before,” Caroline replied.
Ava Dawn reached over and into Caroline’s bag and pulled out a jar of the moonshine. “I think I’m gonna start early tonight.”
“We aren’t even on the back roads yet, Ava Dawn.”
“Honey, this whole town is the back roads.”
Ava Dawn had taken her first swig before they were out of the parking lot, while Caroline glared over at her from the driver’s seat. For a moment it was just like they were back in high school. Except, of course, they would have been headed to one of Reese’s famous get-togethers. Court joked about her and Ava Dawn being able to drink him under the table, but that was only because Court rarely drank. Nobody could outdrink Reese Graham. Nobody could outsmoke him or outparty him or outtalk him. They’d had some good times, she and Reese, but the truth was she was happy she hadn’t yet seen him. Reese had a way of always getting what he wanted, and for a long time, what he’d wanted had been her. She’d only ever been able to say no to him once, and she wasn’t damn sure she could do it again. Maybe she’d take a cue from her cousin tonight and let loose. Lord only knew when she’d have another opportunity. “You better not drink too much of that just yet,” Caroline said as they bounced along the now gravel road. “You ain’t had none of Granny Dye’s shine in a while, I reckon.”
“I’ll be fine.” Ava Dawn tipped back the jar and winced as the liquid burned all the way down her throat. “It’s stronger than I remember.”
“It ain’t any stronger,” Caroline replied. “You’ve just gotten older.” She pulled into the driveway beside Tyler and Kasey’s truck, throwing the truck into park seconds before pulling the jar away from her cousin and taking a swig of her own, letting the grain alcohol burn all the way down her throat and into her belly. Ava Dawn’s father, Caroline’s uncle, used to stay drunk on the stuff for days at a time, and he’d once told the girls that the reason the clear, strong liquid was called “moonshine” was because after drinking the stuff a man began to see the world as though he were seeing it through the light of the moon.
Caroline went home and asked her father, and after being angry at his brother for drinking in the middle of the day while Caroline and Ava Dawn watched, he told her that, no, that’s not actually why it was called moonshine.
“The reason is far less glamorous,” her father had said. “When the government imposed a high-distilled spirits tax on the sale of the whiskey that US citizens made, in part to fund the Civil War, moonshiners started making their alcohol illegally. They weren’t making whiskey as a fun hobby; they were making it to feed their families.”
“What do you mean?” Caroline had asked. “How did moonshine feed a family?”
“Well, the moonshine itself didn’t feed them,” her father laughed, “but I reckon it kept many a hungry man warm on a cold night. What I meant was that times were tough back then and any extra cash helped. If people agreed to pay those high taxes, they might not have enough money left over to put food on the table and take care of their families, and lots of farmers turned to moonshining to keep their kids fed, and so they kept producing their liquor in secret, by the light of the moon, so they wouldn’t have to pay those taxes.”
“So they just kept on breaking the law like that?” Caroline was in awe. “There wasn’t an honest way to make a living?”
“Some might argue that it was the federal government committing the crime by imposing such high taxes.”
Caroline had thought about this, and she was thinking about it still as she drank from the jar containing Gary’s granny’s shine. She stared at the fishing cabin in front of her, already beginning to swell with people. The “fishing cabin” wasn’t much more than an old trailer thrown on a piece of land facing the river. It was past the bait shop, but not quite as far down as Cranwell Corner. Everybody in town knew that Tyler’s daddy used the cabin to escape from Tyler’s mama with one of his lady friends. It was actually the second cabin to sit on the lot. The first one burned down mysteriously a few years back, and nobody was quite sure if Tyler’s daddy did it for the insurance money or if Tyler’s mama did it to get back at Tyler’s daddy.
But there was a private dock, and that was enough for most anybody in Cold River.
Caroline replaced the lid on the moonshine. Tyler and Kasey were already sitting on the front porch. “Look what I brought!” She held up the mason jars from out of the driver’s side window.
“We had some saved back!” Kasey hollered, holding up her own jar. “Tyler called damn near everybody in town. It’s a good thing y’uns brought extra.”
Caroline and Ava Dawn were already up on the porch by the time the two men started towards the trailer. “So you traded Gary an invite for that shine?” Court wanted to know. “That’s kinda ornery, even for you, Ava Dawn.”
“It was her idea.” Ava D
awn jammed her thumb towards Caroline. “You’ve been to parties with Gary. I shoulda charged him more.”
Court took the jar from Ava Dawn and gave it a sniff. “I think I’ll pass on this tonight. Work comes mighty early tomorrow.” He handed it off to Noah.
Noah held the jar back at arm’s length.
“What’s the matter?” Court asked playfully. “You ain’t never had a snout full of Ozarks Mountain Lightning?”
“Oh, I’ve had some,” Noah replied. “But it’s been a long time.”
“How long?”
“Let’s see,” Noah said. “I guess it’s been about twenty-six years.”
“How old were you?” Court replied, scratching the back of his head. “Five?”
“I was four,” Noah corrected him. “I stole a mason jar out from under my grandfather’s sink. All the adults were drinking it. I wanted to give it a go.”
“And how did that turn out?” Caroline asked. She felt warm from the moonshine, despite the fact that it had cooled off outside. There was a thunderstorm headed their way according to the news, and everything at that moment felt just right.
“I was sick for a week.” Court laughed. “Then of course I couldn’t sit down for a week once my grandfather got ahold of me.”
“Your granddad is Jep Cranwell, right?” Kasey asked.
“He is.” Court nodded.
“You look just like him.”
“I’ve heard that once or twice.” Noah took a swig from the jar and winced.
“Don’t hog it all,” Ava Dawn said. “Hand it over, big boy.”
“Oh, guess what?” Kasey said, her eyes lighting up.
“This isn’t really a fishing cabin?” Court replied, a lopsided grin beginning to form on his face. “We already knew that.”
“Hush.” Kasey smacked Court on the arm. “Tyler bought himself a stock car! Gonna be racing it at the Cold River track in a couple weeks.” She turned to Tyler. “Tell ’em about it, Ty!”
“It ain’t much to look at,” Tyler said. “But Kasey’s mom and dad are gonna sponsor me.” He held up his hands. “We just got ‘Burgess Bail Bonds’ painted on the side.”
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