Marriage and Murder

by Penny Reid

  I picked up only the teacup, having no use for the saucer.

  “I think I’ll take some of that tea. My throat’s a little scratchy,” Jackson teased.

  Patti looked unimpressed. “We’re all out of tea, deputy. How about a beer?”

  Billy used their exchange and his hand on my shoulder to steer us away. “Roscoe can bring one of your jackets, he was just getting out of the shower when I left.”

  “For the last time, I am content with my present attire. Cease and desist, s'il vous plaît.” I didn’t have to lower my voice as the cacophony of chatter had mushroomed, the faux-barn filling with people and their inconsequential discussions.

  “Cletus—”

  “Jethro already harassed me about it. My mind is made up. I am not in the mood for more brotherly pestering.”

  I should’ve known this would be an ostentatious affair as soon as Diane and Jenn turned down my donation of homemade moonshine and superior boar sausage last month. But, again, I hadn’t been paying attention to anything much these days other than Jenn’s magnificence.

  Within my woman exists such a vast quantity of magnificence, I shouldn’t be chastising myself for being blinded by it.

  Billy sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets, looking me over as though assessing my state of mind. “Are you nervous?”

  That earned him another glare, but I was saved from answering by a ruckus followed by a whispering hush rippling over the crowd. Something by the faux-barn’s main entrance had seized everyone’s attention, even Billy’s.

  My brother’s concerned expression cleared almost at once and a soft, appreciative-looking smile took its place. “Well, look at her.”

  “Who?” I snuck another deep gulp of my whiskey.

  “Jenn.”

  “What?” I craned my neck to peer over those gathered, and I spotted her instantly, breath catching in my lungs, the sight similar to the effect of sunlight on snow.

  Jenn.

  She stood at the big doors next to her momma, smiling graciously at people as she greeted them, welcomed them, and the knot in my stomach eased, my troubles and muddles and irritation forgotten. She looked genuinely relaxed, happy. Seeing Jenn happy always improved my mood.

  But her being relaxed and happy was likely not the source of Billy’s soft appreciation nor the crowd’s gentle hush. Her exterior, her hair, the dress she wore and how it fit, the artful makeup were likely culprits.

  Jenn’s long brown hair had grown even longer this past year. She’d said she wanted to grow it long for the wedding and planned to cut it after. Presently, she wore it loose and wavy around her shoulders, which were bare. A single strap on each side held up the fire-engine red fabric that wrapped around her body like a second skin.

  The dress—which, as a point of note, I heartily approved of—was basically a cloth tube starting under her arms and ending at her mid-calf. She looked sophisticated and classy as hell. The neckline was a straight line mostly above her breasts, the top curve of them just visible. So add sexy to sophisticated and classy and you’d have it right.

  Also, her breasts looked fantastic, which I had no choice but to notice. A pleasant topic for my planned rumination.

  “I swear, she gets more beautiful every day,” Jackson said, suddenly next to me again and sounding a little winded. “You’re a lucky, lucky man, Cletus.”

  “Beautiful is not the correct word,” I mumbled on autopilot, but not because I disagreed with him per se.

  Objectively, Jennifer was stunning, and sexy, and beautiful. Absolutely.

  Now imagine if you will being in love with someone who is objectively stunning, and all the sorrow and joy that accompanies true, deep, abiding love. In her I saw flaws and strengths others would never see, secret parts of her known only to me, and my private knowledge of this stunning woman elevated her from the one-dimensional being implied by the pithy descriptor beautiful to someone quantum, cosmic in nature.

  To Jackson, she may have been merely beautiful. To me, she existed as a multi-dimensional angel and devil, owner of my heart, my joy and my pain, light-years beyond beautiful, or celestial, or exquisite. Because when I saw Jenn, I saw all of her, all versions of her, and all our history, and all the wonderous and frightening possibilities of our future.

  So, no.

  Beautiful was not the correct word.

  Especially not in that particular dress.

  “Yes! She wore it.” Sienna appeared out of thin air and inserted herself next to me. She then placed a big old kiss on my cheek and wrapped her arm around mine, squealing a little. “Doesn’t she look amazing? I told her it was perfect. And here you are, in your red shirt. Good on you, Cletus.”

  Tearing my eyes from Jenn, though it physically hurt, I inspected my sister-in-law. She wore a fancy dress too. Despite Jethro’s fretting, Sienna must’ve received the memo. “You’re responsible for that dress?”

  “I wouldn’t say responsible.” She seemed to debate how best to answer. “Unless you consider ‘responsible’ being the one who commissioned the designer to make it and being the one to pay for it? Then, yes. I am responsible.”

  Sienna, who I already adored, was now my second favorite person in the world. “I’ll be sending your thank-you gift post haste.”

  “As you should.” She winked. “Now shouldn’t you be over there? Go get her!”

  I returned my attention to where Jenn and her momma—who I realized was also in a red dress, just a tamer, more matronly one—stood greeting folks, making their way through the crowd like royalty at a coronation, and I rocked back on my heels. A renewed string of disquiet wrapped around my chest and squeezed.

  “Nah.”

  “Nah?”

  “They got it covered.”

  Sienna barked a laugh. “Cletus. You’re the groom. You have to.”

  Was she out of her mind? If I went over there, I’d have no choice but to do one of two things:

  A) Sweep Jenn off her feet. Leave. Maybe we’d go to my car—I’d brought one of the Buicks—or perhaps we’d abscond to one of the lodge’s swanky cottages overlooking the mountains. Then I’d make love to her. Then we’d make love to each other. Then, perhaps if she wasn’t too tired, I’d make love to her again. A solid plan, but perhaps not what she’d hoped for this evening.

  Or—

  B) Talk to people I barely knew about subjects other than cars, sausage, or my superior banjo playing and pretend to care about their inanity.

  Of the two scenarios, the latter was the most likely. Therefore—

  “Pass.” I’d rather sit through a lecture on climate change delivered by flat-earthers than be forced to chitchat with no ulterior gain.

  “Don’t look like that.” Sienna’s face fought a grin at something she saw on mine. “This is your night—yours and Jenn’s. People want to wish you well and tell you how excited they are for you.“ She looked to Billy as though to seek his help.

  He gave Sienna a stare which was likely inscrutable to her, but which I read as, Don’t look at me. Cletus does what he wants.

  About that, he was right. I didn’t want this, I didn’t sign up for it, I didn’t subscribe to it. I wasn’t angry at being caught unawares and unprepared, not anymore, not now that I’d seen Jenn and how happy this spectacle seemed to make her. But acceptance didn’t mean I felt moved to participate.

  I took another gulp of my whiskey, finishing it.

  “Is that—is that whiskey?” Sienna made a frustrated sound, pulling her purse up and digging around in it. “Ugh. You boys. You’re lucky you’re so cute. Here—” she held out two breath mints and took the empty teacup “—if you’re nervous, just say so.”

  I accepted her mints and wrinkled my nose at the bitter cooling effect on my tongue against the lingering heat of the liquor. “I’m not nervous.”

  I wasn’t nervous. I was avoidant. There’s a difference.

  And, honestly, I was still of half a mind to scoop Jenn up in my arms and just flat-out leave.
I appreciated the dress, I absolutely did. It was splendid, and Jenn was magnificent in it. But the dress being what it was, and Jenn being who she was to me, should I venture within its gravitational field, I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions. Best I didn’t venture too close, else the urge would become overwhelming.

  “Uh oh.” Jackson stood straighter, his eyes sharpening. “Farmer Miller is here.”

  I followed the deputy’s line of sight and, sure enough, Farmer Miller—or I guess just Mr. Miller given the current state of his non-farm—was threading through the crush of people, on a collision course with Jenn’s momma.

  “I’ll get Boone, and we’ll stop him without causing a scene. Maybe Evans is here?” Jackson said, sounding resigned to his fate, and set off through the crowd.

  “What’s going on? What’s wrong with Farmer Miller?” Sienna placed the empty teacup on a tray set up behind us to receive used dishes.

  It was Billy who explained, likely because I was too absorbed by the alluring picture sublime happiness painted on Jenn’s features. “Well, you know that trouble last year? Where Kip Sylvester—you know, Jenn’s daddy—bought all those farms and promised to lease them back to the former owners? Kip was going to open a farm stay business. He promised the farmers they could stay on their property and host guests. Experience minded tourists, like spend a week on a working farm sort of thing.”

  “Ah, yes. I met Jenn’s father once. He made a lasting impression, like those tuna eyeballs I ate in Japan that one time, or the smell of an LA dumpster on fire. And I’ve also heard of this farm stay tourism phenomena. Interesting idea,” she said, sounding like she didn’t actually find it interesting. Sienna loved living at the homestead with Jethro and their progeny, but I knew she had no interest in keeping animals other than as pets.

  They had a dog. He was cute. His name was Morty. We’d bonded. But I digress.

  “Except the farms are no longer actual working farms. The farmers sold off most of their livestock, keeping just a few animals to make the experience feel authentic.” Billy gestured to where Diane and Jenn stood talking to Scotia Simmons and her husband. I kept my attention trained on Jenn to ensure Scotia didn’t say anything untoward that might dampen my lady’s happiness.

  Billy continued, “Which is why Diane had the opportunity to buy all of Miller’s cows at auction last year. He sold off almost everything, keeping just a few goats for the tourist experience.”

  “Didn’t she buy the cows for a ridiculous amount of money? That was—when? Over a year ago, right?”

  “Yes. I believe she purchased them in the month of January last year. We’ve had those Guernseys for going on fifteen months.” Mention of the cows had me reluctantly looking away from Jenn so I could elucidate for my sister-in-law. “Once upon a time, they may have belonged to Farmer Miller, but now the lodge has the Donner Dairy.” I couldn’t help the pride in my voice. The Donner Dairy had been my brainchild and—like my brain—it was a beautiful thing.

  “I know all about the dairy, the milk is outstanding. But did the other thing ever happen?” Sienna plucked two glasses of red wine off a tray as a server walked by, handing one to Billy. “The farm stay business?”

  “Thank you.” Billy accepted the wine she offered. “No, Kip turned all the farmers out of their houses—Danvish, Miller, and a few others had already signed and sold—and hasn’t done a thing with the farm stay business.”

  “Kips has been a little busy,” I muttered.

  “The farmers are—excuse my language—pissed,” Billy said. “As are Kip Sylvester’s investors. He basically took their money and did nothing with it.”

  I didn’t volunteer that Kip had done quite a few somethings with the money. For one, he’d paid his legal bills. For another, he’d bought himself and his girlfriend a big house in Maryville.

  But I did say, “And Miller wants his cows back. He’s been trying to get Diane to sell them back since last spring, even offering the colossal two hundred thousand purchase price Diane paid. But she won’t budge and has sought a restraining order against Miller.”

  I’d counseled Diane at the time not to seek the restraining order and instead to try to forge a partnership of some sort with Miller.

  With regards to Jenn’s father, the court had granted a restraining order for both Diane and Jenn, which was good indeed. However, he and his lady friend—Elena— had been given just probation for their assault of Jenn last year. The prosecution had negotiated a guilty plea in return for a sweetheart deal of time served, no additional jail sentence. Much to my chagrin.

  Then again, the deal had saved Jenn from having to testify in court. His admission of guilt had also greatly favored Diane in the divorce settlement, with Kip getting exactly zero of the Donner Lodge or Diane’s substantial portfolio. Just half the value of their house, the small vacation house and big boat in Key West, and that’s it.

  He’d disappeared for a time after, only to reemerge in downtown Green Valley the day after Jenn and Diane’s restraining orders expired. The degenerate was planning something, and I felt certain it had to do with the farms he’d hoodwinked away from their rightful owners.

  Don’t get me wrong, Nancy Danvish in particular held a good measure of my ire due to her—albeit ignorant—part in what happened last year. Nevertheless, she and Miller, the other farmers who’d been duped, and Kip Sylvester’s ring of investors had all been sorely cheated by Jennifer’s father. They were still angry, incensed even. I didn’t care about their woes, but I did care about justice. If Diane had sought to use their collective wrath against Kip, the common enemy, she could’ve destroyed him once and for all.

  Sadly, Jenn’s momma was and would always be a reactionary, acting before thinking, where Kip Sylvester was concerned. Diane fundamentally lacked the foresight, patience, and sinister strategic acumen required to bring her ex down. At some point, I’d have to step in, organize folks, and just make it happen.

  After the wedding.

  “Oh! So Diane Donner has a restraining order against the farmer whose cows she bought? And that farmer is here tonight?” Sienna looked at me with wide eyes, engrossed.

  “No. The restraining order against Miller wasn’t granted,” I clarified, sneaking another peek at Jenn. She still looked happy. Good. “Miller hasn’t made any threats against Diane, so the court ruled against her. I think he just really wants those cows back. But Miller has made threats against Kip.”

  “Kip Sylvester.” Billy supplied the cretin’s full name once more.

  “Kip Sylvester, Jenn’s father,” Sienna said, like she was trying to untangle all the ways folks in our small town intersected. “Kip was also the principal of the high school, right? Before running off with the school secretary, Elena Wilkerson—”

  “Wilkinson,” Billy gently corrected. “And Elena’s sister is the one in jail for hitting Diane over the head and leaving her for dead last year by Old Man Blount’s bee boxes.” Billy sent me a quick glance, not voicing that Elena’s sister had also been the one who held Jenn and I up at gunpoint in Jenn’s house. The woman’s fifteen-year prison sentence included her attempt on our lives.

  “So Miller doesn’t like Kip Sylvester.” Sienna took a sip of her wine, looking around at the crowd thoughtfully.

  “No one likes Kip Sylvester,” I said. “Miller, Danvish, the Hills, Leffersbees, Badcock, Gangersworth, Lees, Lamont, Paytons—the list goes on and on.” It really did go on and on. I couldn’t think of a single person in Green Valley or the surrounding areas who didn’t wish ill on the man.

  “He’s got a lot of enemies in these parts. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay far away.” Billy glanced down at his glass, studying it, and I knew he had his own private thoughts on the matter.

  We stood in contemplative wordlessness for a brief moment, and I again took the opportunity to seek out the sight of Jenn. She was now engaged in discourse with my big dumb brother, Beau. For the record, I meant dumb in the best sense of the word, swee
t and loyal, like a dog. He and his lady friend, Shelly Sullivan, held her attention, and Shelly must’ve said something funny because Jenn—

  “Oh my God.” I heard Sienna suck in a surprised-sounding breath a split second before she gripped my arm, clearly startled.

  I covered her hand with mine. “Are you okay?”

  “Cletus!” She stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the rest of the room. “If Kip Sylvester has so many enemies”—her unmistakably alarmed gaze arrested mine, and then jumped to Billy’s—“then why is he here?”

  Chapter Two

  *Jenn*

  “Rejection steals the best of who I am by reinforcing the worst of what’s been said to me.”

  Lysa TerKeurst, Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely

  Gasps from behind me distracted me and my momma from the joke Shelly had just told. She and Beau also seemed to find the sound distracting as her smile faltered at the swell of exclamations fluttering around us.

  Laughter forgotten, both Shelly and Beau leaned to the side and peered around us. My friend’s reaction—flinching back, the way her smile immediately fell and her gaze hardened—was the second sign something was amiss.

  “Oh good Lord!” my mother—who’d already rubbernecked to assess the issue—hissed at my side and gripped my arm. I started to glance over my shoulder too, but my momma’s hand tightened. “Do not turn around. Don’t give him the satisfaction.” She straightened her back, lifting her chin, her lips pinched. “I will deal with this.”

  Despite my mother’s instruction, I turned and watched her walk toward the barn doors and to the couple who’d just entered. Now I gasped, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up painfully, and a shiver chased uncomfortable goose bumps over my skin as my stomach fell right to the floor.

  Oh no.

  “Diane.” The distinct disdain of my daddy’s voice rose above the remnants of conversation his presence hadn’t yet quieted. Just the sound of him . . . Oh no!