by Jessa James
Back in the kitchen, Walker was loading the dishwasher. Before Sawyer could interrogate him, the landline phone rang. Sawyer shot Walker a look, then went over to the kitchen island to pick it up.
“Hello?” he asked.
“Sawyer,” his father barked.
“Yeah, hey,” Sawyer said, unable to hide his complete lack of enthusiasm.
“I’m calling because Marilee wants y’all to be at the church social on Sunday, rain or shine.”
“Oh… okay,” Sawyer said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Marilee is having our wedding date announced, so all three of y’all better be there and be in suits. Don’t embarrass the Roman name, you hear?”
Sawyer counted to three, trying not to snap at his father.
“Fine,” he said.
“Fine,” his father said, hanging up without further ado.
Sawyer stared at the phone, then shook his head. A foul curse was on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it down. Hanging up, he turned around to talk to Walker.
Unfortunately, there were certain downsides to being in a family where all three siblings were SpecOps. Walker was gone, the dishwasher whirring quietly in his wake.
Blowing out a breath, Sawyer shook his head. If Colt and Walker had a handful of brain cells between them, they’d start answering Sawyer’s questions… before he went investigating.
One way or another, he was going to get answers.
Soon.
9
Remy was just putting the finishing touches on her outfit for the Sunday post-church social when Shelby came in.
“Whoa! Hot mama,” Shelby said, wiggling her brows.
Remy blushed as she glanced down at her pale yellow cotton sundress.
“I’ve worn this to social before,” she said, feeling silly.
“Yeah, but not with your hair in a fancy updo like that,” Shelby said, stepping into Remy’s bedroom to circle around her and admire. “Is that a braid? Wait, are you wearing blush and mascara?”
“Well… yes,” Remy admitted. “I want to look nice, is that a crime?”
“Nooooo,” Shelby said, shaking her head. “It’s just, I figure you’re getting all dressed up for a reason. Hmm? Like a certain hunky soldier who’s just come back to town?”
“Shelby, don’t be ridiculous,” Remy said.
“Who is being ridiculous?” Shelby asked. “I’m just saying, you are dressed up awfully fancy just to go to the church social.”
Remy gave her sister a measured glance.
“We should get going. Don’t want to be late for the social, Mama will have a fit.”
Shelby gave Remy a knowing look, but Remy ignored her. Leaving her bedroom, she headed into the kitchen to pick up Shiloh. Settling her son on her hip, she walked into the living room. The rest of the family was outside in the driveway, or heading that way at least.
Except for her father, who was in the living room, clearly waiting to talk to Remy. He eyed her outfit and makeup with a rueful expression.
“That’s an awfully racy outfit you have on,” he said.
“Hardly. It’s knee length and covers everything but my arms. Besides, I can look nice if if the mood suits me,” Remy said, feeling testy. If she were being truthful, Shelby and her father were right. She was dressing up just in case a certain someone was at the social.
But only because she didn’t want Sawyer to see her looking downtrodden. Perhaps it was vain, a sin in its own right, but she only wanted her ex-boyfriend to see her at her best. And next to her gorgeous younger sister Shelby, it would be plenty easy for Remy to look dumpy and sleep deprived.
“Was there something you wanted to talk to me about? Other than my choice of outfit, I mean.”
“Yes, yes,” her father said, waving a hand. “Really quick, while your mother is loading all those pies into the truck. I was wondering if you got a chance to look at the budget, see if we can afford to replace the backhoe. It’s not working right, and it’s giving Micah a lot of trouble.”
Remy sighed.
“Daddy, we don’t have the money for that.” She paused. “We don’t have the money for anything.”
“I just thought…” He started, then trailed off. He glanced up at Remy, his eyes shining with earnest sincerity. “We just need one good year, you know that?”
“I know,” she said. She hated to be the bearer of bad news, but her father had put her in charge of trying to wrangle the poorly-kept financial records. As the oldest daughter, she wanted more than anything to be able to turn the whole situation around.
She wanted to be able to tell her father they could buy a new backhoe, or do any of the other hundred small things that needed to be done around the farm. Patch the roof of their house, for one thing. No more rain dripping into buckets every afternoon during hurricane season.
But that wasn’t reality. And if there was one thing that Remy was well-versed in, it was in dealing with the reality laid before her. After all, it wasn’t as if her life had run exactly according to plan so far.
Shifting Shiloh onto her other hip, Remy blew out a breath.
“I know that you keep waiting for the perfect year,” she told her father.
“Well, we have to get lucky eventually, right?” Braxton asked, his smile humorless. “We just need good rain, and good sun, and a good controlled burn this year. This could be our year, Remy.”
“It could also be our last year,” Remy said, making an apologetic face. “If we don’t straighten out the books, the farm can’t stay open for another year. We just can’t survive without turning a profit for so long.”
Her father glanced away while he worked to hide his disappointment.
“I understand,” he said. “Thank you for giving it a try.”
“Hey,” Remy said, putting her hand on her father’s arm. “Don’t give up yet. We just have to get inventive, come up with a solution. I’m pretty sure someone in the family is always saying that Rivers don’t give up, right?”
Her father gave her another humorless smile. “Right.”
“Remy! Brax!” Her mother called from the front door. “Y’all don’t want to find out what happens if you make me late to the social!”
Remy gave her father a knowing look and moved toward her mother’s voice, knowing that her mother’s tone might have been joking… but no one made Eulah River wait. It simply wasn’t done.
“Remy,” her father called. She turned back toward him.
“You know you can’t tell anyone else in the family about this, right? It would just kill your mother,” he asked.
Remy stared at him for second and then nodded. “I know.”
As she turned to leave again, her father gave a loud whistle, the same one he’d used to round up Remy and her siblings when they were kids. She turned back to him with a frown.
“Are you planning on taking Shiloh to the church social today?” he asked.
Her father settled into his favorite recliner, remote in his hand. Braxton River had never been much of a churchgoer, despite all of his wife’s pestering. It worked out for Remy now, seeing as how she didn’t like to take Shiloh to church.
Or anywhere, actually. Not that she was ashamed of her son; it was more that she didn’t want him exposed to any potential unpleasantness.
Basically, she didn’t want Arlo Roman coming within 1000 feet of Shiloh.
“Right,” she said, shaking her head. She walked over and handed Shiloh off to her father. Shiloh went willingly, because Shiloh adored his grandfather. He always seemed to enjoy the quality alone time they spent each Sunday morning and afternoon.
“Be back soon, honey,” Remy told Shiloh.
Shiloh flapped his hands at her, unconcerned.
With a last nod to her father, Remy headed out to get in the car. Micah and her mother were taking the truck together, with an army’s share of fresh fruit pies sitting between them.
Remy got into the back seat of Shelby’s car, content to listen
to Larkin and Shelby’s chatter as they drove into town. Her mind was elsewhere, mostly considering what her life would be like when Shiloh was older. In a couple of years, he wouldn’t be so content to stay home with grandpa every single week.
She couldn’t hide him forever. Given the choice, though, she absolutely would. If she could keep Shiloh in homeschool and raise him amongst his family… if that was something she could do without killing his social skills and ruining him as a person…
Then absolutely, she would. The people of Catahoula could be kind and forgiving, but some of them were small-minded and petty. Unfortunately, it was the latter that were often the most vocal.
The circumstances of Shiloh’s birth were by no means his fault, and Remy would do anything she could to shield him from the consequences of her actions.
Or inactions, as it may be.
Where would I be today if I’d been courageous enough to tell Sawyer about his son? she mused.
She rolled her eyes at herself. Her mind went instantly to white dresses and wedding rings, which was ridiculous. It was insane, thinking that she might have married Sawyer, that he’d make all her problems vanish.
She was like a wide-eyed little girl, caught up in daydreams and fairy tales. That simply wasn’t the way the world worked, period.
Remy had been fighting with her mother about just this thing since Shiloh was 3 months old. Eulah River was a good Christian woman who had raised a good Christian family. In her mother’s mind, Remy leaving Shiloh home during church was tantamount to treason. Tolerant though Eulah might be, there was no such thing as an uncivilized and unbaptized child in her household.
Purely for the sake of saving herself another argument with her mother, Remy had agreed to have Shiloh baptized – in the next town over. The compromise worked, so now Shiloh’s soul was safe, and Remy’s privacy was somewhat respected.
Before Remy realized it, they were pulling up in front of one of the biggest houses on Catahoula’s main strip. A big white plantation house, with brand new construction. Flashy as all get-out, with a vast acreage of glorious green grass.
When Remy climbed out of the car with her two sisters, her mother was waiting.
“Grab some pies,” her mother said. “Head around the back of the house, Mrs. Faraday has got a beautiful gazebo set up back there. That’s where everybody will be.”
Remy accepted three foil wrapped pies from Micah, then led her mother and her siblings around the side of the plantation house and into the backyard.
The layout was even more beautiful than her mother had described, tables spread out all around the pristine white gazebo, lights strung in the trees. With the gazebo at the center, the yard sprawled out into little copses of trees, paved walking paths winding everywhere and cute little statues of cherubs spitting water adorning the paths.
There were already about 50 people milling about the food tables, quite a few faces that Remy recognized – even people who hadn’t even been in church that morning. Church socials took place every Sunday afternoon, rain or shine. It was pretty common for the majority of the town to show up, religious or not… basically anybody who wasn’t currently in social disgrace was welcome.
Remy delivered her pies to the already-overburdened dessert table. She turned and looked around, scanning the crowd. To her relief, or maybe her disappointment, the Roman family had yet to make an appearance. If they were even going to show up at all, that was.
“You want to get some lemonade?” her sister Larkin asked, appearing at her elbow.
“Oh, sure.” Remy trailed after Larkin, realizing that Shelby and Micah were right behind them. Classic River siblings, forming a human shield around whoever was struggling socially.
Of course, over the last two years, that person had always been Remy. Since the first day that she went into town with her pregnancy beginning to show, she’d been the weakest link amongst the four of them.
“Are you bummed?” Shelby asked as they took turns ladling lemonade from an intricate crystal punch bowl into tiny punch glasses.
“Why would I be bummed?” Remy asked, sipping her lemonade.
Shelby just snorted and looked away, giving Remy time to look around the party. Maybe it was better that the Roman family didn’t show up at all. This morning, she’d been terribly shocked to find that the Roman brothers were not only in church this morning, but sitting only one pew ahead of the Rivers.
All three Roman brothers kept looking back at her, being about as sneaky as Shiloh when he was trying to hide something. For her part, Remy spent the entire service pointedly ignoring all of the Romans, but she’d be darned if she heard a single word of the sermons.
Just when she thought she’d dodged the same bullet at the social, Arlo Roman turned up.
Sawyer’s father stalked into the backyard about half an hour later with his new wife-to-be, but none of the Roman sons seemed poised to make an entrance anytime soon. Remy busied herself socializing with some of the older ladies, especially the ones who didn’t get out of the house much. Spinsterdom was very much alive and well in Catahoula, and since Remy figured she was headed that way eventually, spending time with her future kin seemed like the polite thing to do.
Well, that, and the fact that those ladies were some of her strongest supporters during the first year of Shiloh’s life. For a while, Remy had been a town outcast, despite the fact that hardly anyone had come right out and called her names to her face. This was the South, where social politics all happened by word-of-mouth, at socials and picnics just like this one.
So Remy settled herself in a circle of older women, feeling a strange kind of comfort as she listened to them rehash and pick apart the week’s goings-on in Catahoula. One she was ensconced in her little group, it freed up Shelby and Larkin and Micah to go do their own thing, which was a bonus. Remy was content fetching drink refills and holding her tongue, though the irony of being confined to such a group when she was only 28 years old was not lost on her.
At length, her mother came over. Though Eulah didn’t travel in the same circles as the other older ladies, preferring her own company, she was perfectly friendly with them. She settled in and sat next to Remy, fanning herself with the program from the morning’s church service.
“You need something, Mama?” Remy asked her.
“I think I got everything I need, sweet girl,” her mother said, patting Remy on the hand. “I just wanted to come spend some time with my firstborn daughter. I feel like I hardly see you these days, between working for your father, your job in town, and taking care of Shiloh.”
“Mama, we live in the same house.”
Remy’s mother favored her with a smile. “I know, baby. I just get to missing you, is all. I can’t say how excited I am to hear y’all sing this afternoon. It’s been too long.”
Remy nodded. Though her mother had never worked outside the home, Eulah River had once been the church’s choir director. Though her mother could barely sight-read music, and while Eulah didn’t have the best voice, she always said gospel music was in her blood. She’d raised her four children accordingly, filling them with the love of music and group performance.
To this day, Remy and her siblings performed as a quartet. Usually a cappella, though sometimes Micah would play along on his guitar, or sometimes Shelby would provide them with simple piano accompaniment.
“We’re only doing a few songs today, but I promise you I think you’re gonna like our selection,” Remy told her mother.
“I like anything with a melody that gives glory to God,” her mother said with a soft smile.
Remy smiled back, suddenly finding herself wishing that she had the same strength of faith that her mother had. She went to church regularly, of course. And she did believe in most of the church’s teachings, but not all of it. In Catahoula Baptist Church especially, Remy often felt a little out of place.
Maybe it was the fact that she herself was what some might consider a fallen woman. Maybe it was just her ag
e, the fact that she was still young and curious and accepting of new things. She just felt that oftentimes people at church could be harsh and cold, especially in situations where they maybe didn’t have the best understanding of the context.
Life was complex, and sometimes when you faced challenges, you just had to do the best you could with what you had. Knowing that everyone in town was judging and plotting against you didn’t help anyone a single bit, at least not in Remy’s recent experience.
“Are you all right, sugar?”
Remy turned to find her mother looking at her with concern.
“Oh, yes,” she said, shaking her head. “I was just thinking about our performance.”
“Well, as much as I imagine it’s nice to get away from your parental duties for an afternoon,” her mother said, “I must admit that I wish Shiloh were here.”
Remy glanced over to the gazebo, where more than two dozen kids of varying ages were playing a game of tag. Shiloh might yet be young, but soon he’d be of the age to play with other kids just like the ones here at the social.
Remy turned her gaze to the group of twentysomething mothers, the social group that she should fit into… Except that she’d had a child out of wedlock, and her peers weren’t exactly shy about sharing their opinions on the matter.
Heaven knew what they said in front of their kids about Remy and Shiloh; Remy flinched at the thought of sending Shiloh to school with those children, who would in all likelihood parrot back all those hateful things to Remy’s son.
“Remy, darlin’,” her mother said, tapping her on the arm with her paper fan. “Don’t you worry about them.”
Remy smiled at her mother, amazed always that she knew exactly what each of her children was thinking. Remy’s mother and father were complete extremes; her dad usually oblivious, and her mother empathetic almost to a fault.
“It’s like you read my mind, Mama,” she said.
“Well,” her mother said. “We’ll see how much you appreciate me when the time comes to talk about putting Shiloh in public school. I know you think you’re homeschooling the boy, but I’m willing to go to the mat with you on that one.”