by Jenny Penn
They had to set up nature for success if they wanted the harvest to be bountiful, which was sort of like raising kids. While some were easily led down the path to future happiness and stability, others needed a little more help to grow.
Kevin fell into the second category, unfortunately. That kid was going to give Nick gray hairs. Of course, he’d just dye them. Nick may have been a reformed rake, but he still had his vanity and his sanity. GD, on the other hand, seemed to have lost his.
As amusing as that might have been, the real joke had come when GD insisted Nick meet his Venus. The big man wasn’t looking for approval. He was looking to hook Nick up. While most men would probably have been possessive and jealous of their so-called goddess, GD wanted to share his.
Finally reaching the first bay of the auto shop that Seth, Kevin’s older brother, was in charge of running, Nick paused to glance around. He dismissed GD along with the big man’s nutty ideas as he took everything in. Things were quiet at this time of the morning. The boys were still busy waking up and getting ready for the day.
Seth, though, was a real early riser. Normally, he used the time to work on his personal project, an old Studebaker that was all he’d inherited from his mother. Sure enough, the big tank of a car was hanging in the air on the lift, but Seth was another matter. Nick followed the heavy stench of smoke out the back door to find Seth dragging on a cigarette as he gazed up at the sky that wasn’t fully bright yet.
“You know how I feel about those things.” Nick spoke up loudly, startling Seth, who whipped around with wide eyes.
“Oh, Mr. Dickles, I didn’t see you there.” Seth explained the obvious as he stubbed the damn thing out with his boot and pocketed the butt, but that didn’t diffuse the smell.
“I hope you don’t let those boys catch you toking up.” Nick frowned, not bothering to remind Seth that this was a no-smoking campus. “The last thing any of these kids needs is to pick up a new bad habit.”
“I swear I’m quitting,” Seth vowed, but that was his normal rejoinder, so Nick couldn’t be blamed for doubting him.
“Yeah, right.” Nick snorted and let the subject drop. “So you want to tell me what happened last night? And while you’re at it, you want to clue me in as to how Kevin got the dirt bike?”
“He picked the lock to the garage and hotwired the bike.”
“Smart kid.” Kevin had an aptitude for mechanical things, just like his brother. “I assume you taught him those skills.”
“Sometimes Mom would lock us up.” Seth shrugged as if that hadn’t been anything, but Nick knew the truth.
Seth’s mom hadn’t been an addict or intentionally cruel, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d terrorized both the sons she also clearly loved. That was the case sometimes with mental illness.
“He needed to know how to get out. Otherwise…” Seth shrugged again, not finishing that thought, but Nick knew where it led.
“He doesn’t need to worry about ‘otherwise’ anymore,” Nick assured Seth before offering him a heartfelt warning. “But he might end up in jail if he doesn’t learn the limits to his well-honed skills.”
“I know, and I told him what happened last night was unacceptable,” Seth quickly assured Nick.
“It’s more than that,” Nick stated softly. “It’s dangerous. If the sheriff gets an inkling that Kevin’s going back out to the ranch, he’s going to arrest him.”
“I don’t know why,” Seth bristled defensively. “Kevin didn’t do anything.”
“We both know that’s not true. You know—”
“No!” Seth cut him off, not even giving Nick a chance to try and reason with him once again. “You said it yourself when I arrived here. Blood doesn’t matter. Family are those people you can rely on, and I can rely on you…can’t I?”
“To help you do what is best,” Nick clarified, not about to be taken out with his own words. “Not what is easiest.”
“You think this is easy?” Seth choked up a hollow laugh and shook his head. “I destroyed whatever chance Kevin might have had when I started that—”
“Don’t.”
This time it was Nick who cut Seth off, not interested in hearing him confess once again to starting the fire when they both knew he wasn’t guilty of that crime. They also both knew he wouldn’t let Kevin be guilty of it either.
“I’m just saying the reason Kevin needed to go buy that gas was because I siphoned all the gas out of his bike and went and set the fire.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
And so had the sheriff because Seth had told him the same thing the night Alex had shown up with Kevin in tow. It was obvious what had happened, who had really started the fire. Alex knew it. If he could prove it, then the shit really would hit the fan. If that happened, Nick would be there for both brothers.
“Come on.” Nick nodded back through the garage toward the main building, giving up the pointless argument. “Let’s go get ourselves some breakfast.”
Seth fell into step beside him as they headed up to the large dining hall already filling with kids. Many called out to Nick, and he stopped to chat and linger as Seth went on ahead to get into the hot food line where the boys who had joined the culinary food track had laid out yet another delicious spread of baked goods, along with more traditional breakfast fare.
Occasionally one of the kids would come up with a recipe that was considered the special of the day. That morning it was a pumpkin-spiced coffee cake, and there wasn’t a single crumb left by the time Nick managed to snatch a plate off the pile of clean ones and make his way down the line. Of course by then most things were gone, but not the coffee, and that was the most important aspect of his morning ritual.
No morning was complete without a full cup of caffeine and the unfortunate interruption of Saul Wrinkle.
“Mr. Dickles, I must have a word with you.” Saul stepped up to demand Nick’s attention with his normal uptight, nasal whine.
Saul was from the north, way north, and he sounded it. Nick had grown accustomed to the Yankee accents that dominated the New England states when he’d gone to college up that way, but most of the kids at the camp came from Alabama and the surrounding states. To them, Saul sounded like a foreigner from a strange land.
He acted like one, too, and that didn’t have anything to do with where Saul was from. That was just Saul. He was a weird little dude. Strangely enough he always looked as if he’d just smelled something bad, which he might have, given the nature of the boys they worked with, but one would think he would have grown accustomed to it by now.
Saul hadn’t. Not the smell or anything else. Apparently, that straw had finally broken.
“I must tell you that while I appreciate your giving me this opportunity,” Saul began without waiting for Nick to even get out a basic greeting, “it has been educational to say the least.”
He was talking in the past tense. That could mean only one thing. Nick was about to be dumped. He wasn’t surprised. It had been coming for a long time.
“But I’m afraid I don’t exactly fit in here.” Saul paused, giving Nick the opportunity to deny that obvious truth and to speak for the first time.
“Are you sure you don’t want to maybe give it a few more weeks?” Nick asked politely, the same question he had asked the last five times Saul had come to him with some kind of complaint.
He didn’t really mean it but felt almost obliged to say it, and it wasn’t like Saul was actually bad at his job. Not that he was appreciated, but English teachers rarely were and ones at reform schools were normally even less so.
Saul certainly didn’t help rally the boys’ enthusiasm. The truth was the man had been nothing but problems. He was always getting picked on or pranked, forcing Nick to have to discipline the boys. That wasn’t something he cared to do too often.
That didn’t mean Saul’s departure wouldn’t create a new headache. Nick would need a new teacher, somebody he could convince to come live at a camp with a bunch of boys ru
nning in all directions. It was a tall order.
* * * *
Kitty Anne walked out of the library feeling sick not ten minutes after she’d floated in feeling a glow of excitement that she hadn’t felt in a long time. She’d woken up with it, a sense of anticipation filling her morning and making every one of her daily rituals new again. For the first time in a long time, she’d arrived at work looking forward to her day.
It was tomorrow.
Somewhere in her future lurked the promise GD had made the night before. The fact that she hadn’t a clue to what he meant only added to the thrill tingling through every one of her nerves. That hadn’t changed, but her outlook on the day had, thanks to Mrs. Diggard calling her into her office to inform Kitty Anne that she’d violated the county’s employee code of conduct when she’d gotten herself arrested.
Kitty Anne should have seen that coming. She’d lived in Dothan long enough to know how fast news traveled. Considered a decent size city, Dothan was still small enough for gossip to move faster than the speed of light. Hell, it was a time-honored tradition to wake up and savor a delicious rumor to start their day, her mother included.
If Mrs. Diggard knew about her arrest, then so did Lynn Anne, which meant that Kitty Anne was in trouble. Fortunately for her, she enjoyed trouble along with a good confrontation. So she slipped on her white lace driving gloves and wrapped a decorative scarf around her head and lowered the top on her convertible to assure that everybody could see her driving past with her chin held high and no sunglasses on.
Kitty Anne even went slow as she cut through town and over the small bypass that looped around the city. Almost instantly she was embraced by the thick forests and golden fields that surrounded Dothan and made one feel a strange sense of peace. The roads that sprouted off the main highways running in and out of town were cozy, the homes tucked on large lots.
So was her mother’s perfectly maintained, mid-century mobile home. The metal exterior was painted a cheery yellow and framed with the lush blossoms overrunning her mother’s garden bed. The 1950s trailer was barely ten feet wide, making the gardens look even bigger and strangely more inviting, though Kitty Anne was glad not to live there anymore.
Now all she did was visit, which was bad enough, and worse was finding Candice sitting out on the back patio beneath the floral awning Lynn Anne had sewn herself. The two older women were drinking tea from leaves her mother had grown and lounging on seats she’d painted after salvaging them from the dump, not that anybody could tell.
Everything was perfect, including Candice and Kitty Anne’s mother. Both women were dressed in prim floral dresses and wearing matching hats to protect their fair skin from the sun, even though they were sitting in the shade. Lynn Anne insisted that the harmful rays cut right through fabric, so two layers plus sunscreen was needed.
Kitty Anne’s mom was always mindful of her skin. Her skin, her makeup, her hair, her clothes. Lynn Anne was meticulous about every detail. Strangely enough, though, she never seemed to be busy with fixing anything. A charmed life was the image Lynn Anne put forth and most people bought, but not Kitty Anne.
She knew the truth. Being perfect was hard work. Kitty Anne never really had succeeded at reaching her mother’s standard, so she’d created her own and then flaunted it in her mother’s face. Today was no different, and she smiled as her mother frowned up at her.
“Ah, there’s my pride and joy.” Lynn Anne settled her glass down as she gazed up at Kitty Anne, fooling nobody with her words. “The apple of my eye. The light of my life. The—”
“You shouldn’t frown, Mother.” Kitty Anne cut her off with that chastisement. It was a familiar one, though normally Lynn Anne was the one giving it to Kitty Anne, which only made the comment more obnoxious.
“You’ll wrinkle,” Kitty Anne reminded her as Lynn Anne’s expression tightened. “And you know nobody likes a scowler.”
“Neither do people like rude, little girls who sell their…favors—”
That had Kitty Anne laughing as she shook her head at her mother. “Trust me, Mom, I know the golden rule. Never be the one giving. Always be the one getting.”
Lynn Anne lifted one perfectly arched brow in mock confusion. That was another expression she’d practiced in the bathroom mirror way back when. So was the inquisitively innocent tone she turned on Candice.
“Do you know what she’s talking about?”
“I think she might be referring to the incident last night where she was parading around half-naked and cuffed,” Candice answered with her normal blunt and brutal honesty. The smile she shot at Kitty Anne was all teeth.
“It was a misunderstanding.” Kitty Anne shrugged. That earned her a snort from Candice and a huff from her mother.
“I really wish you would try at some point to stop embarrassing me, Kitty Anne. I have a reputation to maintain,” her mother insisted as Candice nodded dourly along with her. “Just think of how embarrassing it’s going to be to show my face when I go to church on Sunday. I’ll be shamed.”
“That’s not true, Mom,” Kitty Anne responded on cue as she slapped her purse down on the white, plastic tabletop and helped herself to the last glass waiting beside the pitcher of tea. “Nobody will look down on you.”
“Please.” Candice snorted. “It’s in the paper.”
“On the front page.” Lynn Anne fanned herself, as if that thought had her nearly ready to faint.
“Fine, then change churches—”
Lynn Anne’s gasp of shock cut Kitty Anne off. Her mother squeaked as she turned wide eyes on Kitty Anne, but Lynn Anne seemed unable to get a word out. Candice came to her aid.
“My dear child, one simply does not change churches,” Candice informed her, as if Kitty Anne was both clueless and tactless for even suggesting such a thing. “It took your hard-working, sweet-hearted mother years to get into Oakfield, and even more years to work her way up to the front row. How is she supposed to sit there now, much less attend Bible study or the ladies’ tea hour when her daughter has just been dragged out of the sleaziest motel, half-naked!”
“You sound like Mrs. Dillard.”
“Now there is a nice, proper lady,” Kitty Anne’s mom said on cue. “I like her. You should listen to her.”
“She fired me.”
“Well, like I said, she’s a proper lady. You can’t really blame her for not wanting to work with a prostitute.” Lynn Anne waved away Kitty Anne’s comment, seeming completely unconcerned about Kitty Anne’s sudden paycheck-less status, but Kitty Anne knew the truth. Behind that bland smile, her mother was plotting. Kitty Anne could hear it in her tone.
“And really, why would you want to keep that job when your other one has you up all night?”
“It’s probably for the benefits,” Candice answered for her. “I would think health insurance and retirement plans would hold quite a large appeal for a hooker.”
“I would think she’d be able to charge enough to afford to pay for all of those things in cash,” Lynn Anne retorted, sounding somewhat offended as she gestured toward Kitty Anne. “I mean look at her. If nothing else, my daughter does have very nice boobs.”
“That’s true.” Candice nodded. “Nice enough she should be able to charge a decent amount for her services. Really, if you are going to be the mother of a harlot, Lynn Anne, you might as well be the mother of a high-priced one.”
“So true.”
There was a smug quality to the silence that fell between the two ladies as they sipped their tea and clearly waited for her response. Kitty Anne knew, though, no matter what she said, she wasn’t winning. Not against these two. There was only one thing to do. Flee.
“Well, this has been fun.” Kitty Anne forced a smile and allowed her voice to boom out loudly enough to cause her mother to frown. “We should do it again, but if you’ll excuse me, I have got to go find a job.”
“There really is no need to shout, honey. I’m sitting right here, and if you must run along, then go ahead.”
Lynn Anne waved her away with a haughtiness that assured Kitty Anne she was enjoying herself. “Candice and I have our own errands to run.”
“We’re going to the beauty parlor,” Candice volunteered with an enthusiasm that didn’t fool Kitty Anne. They were going to gossip, and her boobs would be the main topic. That and how much she should charge.
“And we’re playing bridge with Amelia and Trisha this afternoon, which reminds me, did you remember to make the scones?” Lynn Anne asked, all but dismissing Kitty Anne as she strutted away.
It was hard not to turn back and inform the ladies that they weren’t scones. They were cookies. Chocolate-chocolate-chip cookies to be exact and that, along with the heavy doses of brandy lacing their coffee, was the only reason they gathered to play bridge at all. So, of course, Candice had made them.
Every Friday for the past twelve years, Candice had brought the scones and her mother brought the liquor, and the ladies had themselves a few laughs, not uncommonly at Kitty Anne’s expense. She let them have their fun and told herself that it didn’t matter what a bunch of old women thought about her, but it was a little bit of a lie.
Her mood, however, improved almost instantly when she stepped out her mother’s front door to find a familiar pickup idling by the curb. GD had found her.
Chapter Five
GD watched Kitty Anne strut through the grass on three-inch heels and never once lose her balance. Her hips kept perfect beat, swinging her ass with every step and making him drool. She really was a Venus. He didn’t care what Nick had to say.
Though his Venus was clearly nervous. GD could see past that smile and that walk to the glitter in her eyes and flush tinting her cheeks and knew her heart was pounding as bad as his. Hell, his palms were sweaty, and that hadn’t happened since he’d been a teenager practicing all his moves on Heather.
He’d had years of experience since then, but that didn’t seem to matter. His breath still caught as Kitty Anne stepped up onto the side step, grabbed on to the edge of the open window, and hefted herself up until she could smile at him through it.