Edge of Paradise

by Lainey Reese

  “I half expected you to introduce me as your friend.” More than half, if she were being truly honest. Sharon had known she liked girls since her second-grade crush on Ms. Clarkson. Christy, on the other hand, had never been with a woman before they met. Sharon felt like she was walking a tightrope in this relationship. One that could snap at any minute. “This isn’t the strip though. It’s the sticks.”

  A warmth came into Christy’s eyes that she rarely showed. “Strip or sticks. It’s always going to be you.” As her heart did that slow, dizzying twirl it only did for Christy, Sharon let her shoulders relax and picked up her fork. They were going to be okay.

  Chapter 11

  Logan tugged off his rough work gloves and stuffed them in his back pocket. It was a muggy day, the kinda day where the heat stuck to your skin like you’d been dunked in honey. He snagged his sack lunch out from the back of his truck and headed into the barn where at least he could be shaded from the direct glare of the sun, though on a day like today, there was no escaping the heat.

  “I think Amadeus is pregnant.” Logan smirked. He’d told Wally his new barn cat wasn’t a Tom, but the old man insisted he knew a male from a female. “It’s too bad Wally’s not here. I’d’ve liked to hear him tell me now that cat’s a boy.”

  Abram, already well into his own lunch, chuckled. “Wally wasn’t one to admit when he was wrong; that’s a plain fact.” His smile was wistful. “I remember watching him eat a potato smothered in horseradish sauce, because he refused to admit he thought it was sour cream.”

  They shared a chuckle, and Logan felt the pull of grief tangle with the laughter until the once funny anecdote turned bittersweet. “Hey, Abram.” Logan took a moment to make sure no one else was in the barn before copping a seat next to him. “Did you get home okay last night? I’m sorry I had to drop you so far from your place.”

  With his typical stoic nonchalance, Abram shrugged one shoulder and told him, “It was a good stretch of the legs for me, and the extra time gave me a chance to reflect on the night.” His smile was small, but Logan saw it nonetheless and nudged his childhood buddy with a forearm.

  “Your Dad is gonna catch you rapping out some Tupac one of these days and skin you alive.”

  Though the skin at the back of his neck flushed a guilty red, Abram only gave that half smile of his again. “He’d leave a few layers of my hide in the woodshed; that’s a truth.” He only shrugged, accepting his family’s way of life. “Aw, well, I believe the punishment would be worth the deed. I tell you I found myself agonizing this very thing on my walk home.” His expression turned introspective. “The music is undeniably an expression of joy and has to be from the Lord above. On the other hand, music does stir the emotions so that I can see full well why my people abstain. It sure can fire the blood.” His flush crept into his cheeks, and Logan bit his own lip to keep from teasing his friend. The girls sure flustered the poor guy. “So, I understand why we don’t have music, but I’m torn because, sin or not, when I’m in the heart of it… well, it’s the only time I feel truly alive.” His head drooped under the weight of his revelation, and Logan searched for something encouraging to say.

  “Hey, Abe, you know your secret is safe with me, right? You want to honor your family’s way of life. That’s a great thing. The music and dancing isn’t taking anything away from that, as far as I’m concerned. I never understood how music and dancing goes against any religion anyway. All we can do is hope God feels the same. But you and me? We’re cool, dude.” The two young men shared a silent moment, one too shy to say the sappy things he was feeling, the other because he simply had no more to say on the matter.

  Logan looked up when he heard the sound of his dad’s truck approaching. The old faithful was barreling down the dirt lane like the end of the world was on its tail, leaving a cloud of dust that looked as impressive as any contrails left by a jet.

  “He’s sure comin’ in hot,” Abe echoed his thoughts, and Logan got to his feet, foreboding a physical weight within his chest. He made it to the porch at the same time as the speeding truck, and the old thing was still rocked from its halted momentum when his dad jumped out. Dad looked around the yard frantically for a minute, and the dust swirled around him like he was the Tasmanian Devil from old cartoons.

  “Logan.” Dad just stood there with wild-looking eyes and didn’t say another word. The silence settled around them like the cloud he stirred up getting here, and a sense of dread kept Logan mute and glued to the spot. He did not want to know what put that look on his father’s face.

  Logan hadn’t known Abe followed him out until his friend broke the frozen moment with his soft voice. “Afternoon, Luke, ma’am. Where’s the fire?” The ancient joke worked to break the spell, and Logan shot his friend a funny look. The guy was the most un-Amish Amish dude he’d ever known. Where’s the fire? Where did he pick up his lingo?

  “We need to talk.” Luke headed around the back of the barn.

  “Dad? Not that way—” No need to finish his statement. As soon as Luke rounded the corner, he rounded right back the way he came.

  “Why is there a naked woman dancing around your yard?” Luke stood red-faced, arms crossed and vibrating with mortification as he shouted his question to Andie, who still hadn’t gotten out of the truck. As if just now realizing this himself, Luke marched to her door and yanked it open.

  “Oh it must be the solstice or high noon or something.” Andie waved her hand airily and added in a mock snooty tone, “And she’s not naked. She’s sky-clad.”

  “Sky-clad? For cryin’ out loud. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever— Are you kidding me? What the hell is that?” When she only laughed and nodded at his goofy lost expression, the answer he sought came from the place he least expected it. Abe.

  “In modern as well as ancient paganism, it is believed that clothes diminish the power the practitioner is attempting to draw from their surroundings. Going sky-clad allows the seeker to absorb all that is sought without hindrance.”

  “Huh?” was all Luke could manage.

  “Kiki’s a hippie who likes to do Thai Chi naked.”

  That, Luke understood, and Andie shook her head as she rolled her eyes and shared a smile with Abe. “You ‘simple’ Amish are far too intellectual for old Luke here. You need to dumb it down a little,” she teased, but Dad was still too flustered and embarrassed to rise to the bait.

  “Well, tell her next time she wants to go sky-clad right out in the middle of the yard, put some clothes on first.”

  Andie only blinked at him repeatedly as if he broke her brain and she was trying to Control-Alt-Delete herself back into function. Abe politely turned away to hide his chuckles under the guise of going back to lunch.

  Logan just scrubbed his hands over his face and groaned, “Daaad, ugh.”

  “I got a hellova shock for you, son. Let’s take a walk. I wanted you to hear the news from me.” Luke headed toward the personal orchard, and Logan followed without a word and felt his just eaten lunch turn to rocks in his belly. Walking and talking was always Dad’s go-to when he was really stressed. Nothing to do but wait till he spit it out, Logan mused and scuffed the toe of his boot in the dirt as he waited for his dad to finally speak.

  Of all the things Logan braced to hear, “Your mom’s back in town” wasn’t even on the list.

  “What?” He had no memory of the woman who birthed and abandoned him. Dad never bad-mouthed her. But others did. And he had his own notions too. There was a storm brewing inside him. A tornado of too many thoughts and questions never asked mixing with feelings never resolved. Logan wanted to run. Only he didn’t know where to or why. A strange sense of panic overwhelmed him and dried up all the spit in his mouth. Logan felt the urge to cry—a feeling he hadn’t felt since he was ten years old and wrecked his bike.

  “What does she want? Did she ask about me?” There were more questions. Pathetic, needy ones that Logan refused to let past his lips. “You know what?” he blurted o
ut before his Dad could answer. “Forget it. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter why she’s here after all this time. It doesn’t matter. Not to me. I’m all grown now. Where was she when I was six and had the chicken pox, Dad? How ‘bout when I—” He broke off; the “how ‘bouts” came with a floodtide of emotion in their wake, and he was not going to release those either. Not here. Not now. Those feelings were his and his alone. “No. Forget it. I don’t care.”

  When his dad reached out as though to embrace him, Logan backstepped and held his hands out in front of himself. “Don’t. Just don’t touch me or… you know what? I need to jet, Dad. I can’t think right now. Can we just talk later?” Without waiting for his response, Logan broke into a run. He had to. That trapped-animal feeling was back and breathing down his neck like a dragon. His only choice was to try to outrun the beast.

  Chapter 12

  Sharon sat across the dinner table from Christy and watched with a breaking heart as her lover tried desperately to come to terms with the ghosts of her past.

  “Christy, dear. You know your father is due home soon. Maybe you should scat before he gets here. You know how difficult he can make things.” Her mother’s delicate, wrinkled hand patted absently at Christy’s cold one. “It’s best all around if he just never knows you’ve come to visit.” Anxious, Sharon thought the frail woman’s hard life had aged her far more harshly than any streetwalker’s on the strip. Years with an oppressive, abusive asshole will do that to you. Add in a healthy dose of dementia and it was the stuff of Lifetime movie legend.

  “Dad died over a year ago, Mom.” The weariness in Christy’s voice scraped a wound across Sharon’s heart. “He’s not coming back, okay? You don’t have to be afraid anymore. You’re safe now.”

  “Of course, dear. I know that. Of course, I know I’m safe.” But the old eyes still held shadows and darted toward the windows and doors with increasing frenzy. Sharon could see the exact moment years of conditioning and the disease overcame her rational thinking. “But really, dear, you should go. I don’t want to upset your father. You know how he can be. I don’t want you around when he gets like that. Maybe it’ll be better if you spend the night with the Coopers. They’ve always been so fond of you. Why don’t you give them a call? I’ll just fix you some supper before you go.”

  “No, Mom. Wait—”

  Sharon watched Christy give up and do a face-plant into the table with a groan as the old woman pushed up and shuffled away.

  “She’s not even heading toward the kitchen. What’s she going to feed me? The plastic fruit from the bowl on the coffee table?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time. Or the worst thing,” Sharon added, remembering the cat box incident with a shudder.

  “It kills me that being here stresses her out so much.” The tears in Christy’s eyes caused answering ones to swim in Sharon’s. It was Christy’s superpower. Nobody and nothing could make Sharon cry, except seeing Christy hurt. That took the knees out from under her every time. “She always stood between me and him. Always. I was pissed off at her for so long. For staying with him. For not choosing me and kicking him out. But she was so scared of him. So brainwashed and tangled up.” Christy wiped at her tears with shaking hands, and the quiver of her chin broke Sharon’s heart all over again. “Now the bastard’s dead and she’s still afraid of him. It’s not fair. Not right that her mind broke before she was free of him. Now, she’s stuck living with that fear for the rest of her life.”

  “You don’t know that,” Sharon reasoned. “There’s no way to know that. We’re here with her now, and we’re gonna stick. That woman’s body is healthy as a horse and liable to outlive us both, so we got plenty of time to love on her. With that time, the fear is bound to lessen.”

  “What if it doesn’t?” Christy’s eyes were desperate with despair, and Sharon couldn’t sit still any longer.

  She pushed from her seat, rounded the table, and sat in her lover’s lap. Her dusky hands cupped Christy’s pale, soft jawline, and she locked gazes with the other woman until she was sure her words were going to get through. “Then we stick and love on her anyway.” She knew what she had to say next was blunt, but her girl sometimes needed straight talk, even when it hurt. “Your momma made her own choices. I got no doubts your dad was a scary son of a bitch, but she still stayed. She stayed in the beginning when she ignored the red flags, because she was infatuated. She stayed in the middle, when the infatuation was gone but she cared more about saving face and not looking like a fool than leaving. Then she stayed, because she thought it was her Christian duty and with enough prayer God would fix whatever the hell was wrong with her that made your dad so godforsaken mean.”

  Sharon took a breath, to let herself calm down as well as to let her words sink in. “Then she stayed, even as she watched him torment her daughter, because she didn’t want to raise her child in a broken home.” Here, Sharon’s own anger rose, and it took effort to keep her hands gentle on Christy’s face. “That’s the part that kicks me in the ass, you know that? So many women stay, because they don’t want to be a statistic. And they tell themselves ‘at least it’s not a broken home.’ Shit, Christy, your childhood was so broken even Humpty Dumpty would be like ‘Damn!’ An absent father is better than living with a rabid beast any day.” She kissed the soft pink lips that curved in the first smile she’d seen all afternoon. “Anyway, my point is, for better or worse, that woman made her own choices and lived the life she lived. Period. Only thing you and I can do for her now is make what’s left of it as comfortable and nurturing as possible. If she’s got her inner demons to battle along the way, there’s nothing you or I can do about that. Just like there’s nothing to be done about your own past choices.”

  “Sharon. No. I—” Christy’s eyes closed, and her expression shuttered.

  And here, Sharon thought, is her mother in her.

  “Don’t close down and turn away just because it hurts. You left your son. A choice you made and have had to live with. Just like your own momma. You chose self-preservation—you ran, and you hate yourself for not bringing Logan with you. But there is nothing you can do to change what happened then. The only power we have is what we choose to do with what happens next.” She kissed softly at the tears spilling down Christy’s cheeks. “You’ve punished yourself for leaving your baby for nineteen years. You regretted leaving him from day one and have been keeping yourself in exile. You paid your dues, honey. I’ve watched you self-sabotage over the last five years again and again because of this. You’ve served enough time.” When Christy tried to break away from Sharon’s hold, she only tightened her grip and willed Christy to listen. “Baby, are you going to be like your momma forever? Accepting a life sentence of punishment just for making one bad decision? Or are you going to find a way to at last forgive yourself and finally meet your son?”

  Sharon watched the thoughts chase each other through Christy’s unguarded expressions. She knew that here was all the pain and regret in the whole world crammed into Christy’s petite frame. It’s a wonder her shoulders didn’t snap under the burden of it.

  “I love him. I know nobody is going to ever believe that but you.” Her chin wobbled, and the tears in her eyes got fatter and ran faster. Sharon felt her own eyes overflow in answer, that sharp sting in the back of her nose that warned this crying jag wasn’t going to be a silent one. “But I do. I love him so, s-so much, but I still left him anyway! I don’t deserve him, and he hates me. I know he does. How can he not? I left him! Jesus Christ, who does that to their own baby?” Christy was yelling by the end, her sobs full of such self-loathing that Sharon felt scalded by the heat of it. She did the only thing she could. She wrapped herself tight around the love of her life and cried with her.

  Sharon didn’t shush her or whisper nonsensical platitudes. She just held tight while Christy bled out emotionally, wailing her perceived sins to the heavens as she begged for forgiveness from everywhere in the universe except the one place she needed it the most. Herse
lf.

  Chapter 13

  Someone was lying to Derek, and it pissed him the hell off. He’d had only routine questions for Logan. Purely standard inquiry so he could eliminate the obvious and clear out the clutter. Brandi was eighteen, and it was too early to pull out the usual missing persons protocol, but he had a bad feeling about the fiery Miss Brandi. She resembled Tiffany in looks and club choices, and two open murder investigations were more than he ever wanted in his beloved county. He did not want Brandi to make it three. All this circled back to Logan lying to him about where he’d been last night and what he’d been up to. Bullshit it took a full hour for a red-blooded, fired-up nineteen-year-old in a truck to make that drive. Not in the middle of the night when he coulda made like Lightning McQueen the whole way and never cross a soul. So, what had he been doing for roughly thirty to forty minutes that he didn’t want the cops to know about? Derek swore and wished he could let it drop and get on with everything else on his plate. He needed to start tugging on the strings that would lead him to a killer.

  But no. The little shit was lying to him for some godforsaken reason, and now he was left spinning his wheels until he could clear the boy out of his way. Derek had a strong suspicion that Logan had an affair going on; not a big deal unless he considered who Derek suspected the boy was seeing.

  With Abram’s beliefs, it was no wonder Logan was closed up tight as a drum.

  Derek cursed and rubbed a hand along the back of his aching neck. The fields flashed by his windows in rows that stood high and proud as soldiers on either side of the road. Stalks with their silky heads bobbed in the air as far as the eye could see as they stretched out before him. Cutting through the countryside, the pavement resembled a long gray cord pulling him along. In the distance, he saw the exhaust from Old Man Turner’s combine. The smell of diesel mingled with the rich aroma of fresh-cut stalks to perfume the air. Nothing said country to him more than that smell, and the familiarity of it helped to ease his aching head more than an aspirin would’ve.