Chapter 5
Chapter Five
“Hey, Mom, how’s my best girl?” I asked as I walked up the steps to the wide porch. I watched as her brown eyes lit up.
“Give me some sugar,” she said as she held out her arms for a hug.
Grinning, I pulled her into my arms and kissed her cheek. After having just seen Isla Vickers it was amazing to think that my mom was close in age to her. She was so vibrant, she reminded me more of Fallon. Of course my mom wasn’t ready to kick my ass and bury me in the back yard.
“What has you grinning?”
“Nothing much. Just glad to see you.” I put my arm around her and opened the storm door to usher her inside.
“So, it doesn’t have anything to do with Fallon Vickers being back in town?”
Nothing ever got past my mom. I just kept walking beside her as she headed toward the kitchen. I zeroed in on the cookie jar. She was the only woman I knew under the age of ninety who kept a cookie jar filled, and my dad and I were damned happy about it. I opened it up and saw that she had my favorites. Oatmeal chocolate chip.
I grabbed three and had taken a big bite out of one before Mom could get a plate, napkin and glass of milk shoved in front of me. I smiled. I loved being home. I finished the cookie, and I asked Mom where Dad was.
“He’s in his study. He was on the phone with Rupert last I heard.”
“So he’s going to be awhile.”
“Likely. Besides talking about our investments, you know they’re going to talk about hunting and golf.”
“Never have understood how Dad could stand playing golf.”
Mom laughed. “I hear you. I still feel guilty that he had that custom set made for me, and I’ve only used it four times.”
“You go fishing with him.”
She nodded. “That’s fun. The quiet and the sun. It’s relaxing. Plus watching your dad relax makes me happy.”
“Yeah, it seems like he’s working more since he retired.”
“It’s not that bad,” she disagreed.
I watched as she put together two ham sandwiches. By the amount of ham and cheese she loaded on them, I knew neither of them were for her.
“What about you?”
“I already had a smoothie. You take this into your dad and pull him away from his computer.”
I walked around the island and pulled two beer bottles out of the fridge, then opened them. By the time I turned around, Mom had already put the two plates onto a serving platter for me to easily carry into Dad’s office. She didn’t miss a trick.
I kissed her on her cheek again, then walked to Dad’s office and pushed in his semi-closed door with my shoulder. Dad looked up at me with a smile on his face.
“Are you happy to see me, or the food and beer?”
“It’s a toss-up.”
Dad started moving papers and folders to the side so that I could set things down.
“God bless your mother. She always knows when I need feeding.”
“Same for me.”
Dad laughed. “Anytime you show up, you need feeding.”
“I’m a growing boy.”
“You’re over thirty,” Dad scoffed.
“That’s my point.”
Dad took the two plates off the platter and set them in front of us. I handed him his beer, then pulled out a chair, sat down, and relaxed.
“What brings you over?” he asked. “Usually you come on Sundays.”
“No particular reason. Just wanted to touch base with the two of you.” I took a bite of my sandwich and thought a little more. “Actually, it might have something to do with seeing Bob Vickers so sick. Damn, Dad. The last time I was over there was a little over a year ago and he seemed just fine. Same old Bob, big and full of bluster.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard how sick he is,” Dad said after he took a pull from his beer. “Damn shame. I also heard that you helped him out the other day.”
“How’d you hear that?”
“I was over at the hardware store talking to Dave Draper. He told me he’d seen you with the Vickers over at Pearl’s. Sounded like Fallon was getting the cold shoulder.”
I shook my head. “It was Pearl. She wasn’t cutting Fallon any slack.”
My dad gave me a hard look. “How long is Fallon in town for?”
“She intends to stay until Bob gets better. Isla is in no shape to take care of him, and he refuses any kind of in-home care.”
“That sounds about right. So what are you going to do about Fallon’s predicament with the town?”
Shit, Dad never pulled his punches.
“I’m going to do something. There’s no way I’m going to let this continue. She doesn’t deserve it.”
“You never did tell me what you’d done to have her run away. Not that that matters. What was more important was why you did it. I always did want to get to the bottom of that, but you hustled into the military too fast for us to have any kind of conversation.”
I gave him a weary smile. “Are you accusing me of having run away?”
“If the running shoes fit.”
I laughed. That was Dad, shooting straight.
“I fucked up, Dad. I got cold feet and set things up so that Fallon would see something that would make her assume I was sleeping with someone else.”
“You pulled this the day before the wedding?”
I hadn’t heard that tone of voice from my dad since I’d taken Fallon to a party during our junior year, where I knew there would be drinking. He sounded just as pissed now as he was then.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
Dad pushed his plate with his half-eaten sandwich away from himself. “I figured it was going to be something like that, but even though it was nine years ago, it still disappoints me.”
I looked down at my clasped hands. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty pissed and disappointed with myself too.”
Dad sighed, and I looked up at him. God. Now he had an expression from the past on his face. It was the one that always choked me up. How could this man always show me such love and compassion?
“Son, do you know why you did it?”
I rubbed the back of my neck and took my time answering.
“I’ve had a lot of time to work it through. Look at it from an older perspective. All I can tell you is that my thinking was totally fucked up back then.”
“Is it still?” Dad asked quietly.
“No.”
“Did you talk to someone?”
My head jerked back. “Like a psychiatrist?”
“Nope. Just like the counselor your mom and I had you talk to when you first came to live with us. Someone who could untangle your emotions. Seems to me that some of what you were feeling went back to when you were living with your real dad and mom. What you suffered. What you saw.”
“Like I said, I’ve thought it through. I’m good.”
He gave me a long look. It was his old Dad-look, the one I got when I was a teenager, where I was sure he could see right down to the core of me. “Before you start up anything with Fallon, you need to be damn sure you’re good, you owe it to her.”
“I know. And I am. I promise.” Yep, I was definitely reliving my teenage years.
He continued to look me over for another long moment, then nodded. “Okay, Son, then you go after her. This time don’t let her slip through your fingers.”
“I don’t aim to.”
Dad passed me back the platter, and in the process knocked over a stack of papers onto the floor.
“I’ll get them,” I said.
“No,” Dad said sharply. “I’ll get them.”
I was already bent down and scooping them up. That was when I saw a handwritten note addressed to Dad. Not a normal note, but something written in big letters with a black Sharpie. I pulled that out of the papers as I stacked up all the rest.
Rankin,
You son of a bitch.
You think your so much better
then all of us because your rich.
Your not.
Your going to pay for what you did.
“What in the hell is this, Dad?” My voice was sharp.
“It’s nothing.”
I looked at the jagged writing and shuddered. “You told me that you’ve gotten threats before, but I thought since you retired that those threats had stopped. When did you get this?”
“Yesterday.”
“Have you called Nash?” referring to our town sheriff.
“For this? It’s just some nut job,” my dad scoffed.
“What are you talking about? How did you receive it?”
“The bank forwarded it to me. If it had come to our house that would have been a whole other ball of wax.”
I relaxed. Dad hadn’t worked for the bank in over three years. Whatever asshole had sent this didn’t know squat about what Dad was doing these days.
“Do you think it has something to do with your days as the bank president?”
“Yep.” Dad nodded. “I’d get threats now and again from people we were forced to foreclose on. We would always do our best not to have to do that. That was what your great-grandfather always wanted when he founded Rankin Savings and Loan. He wanted it to be a bank that would always help people here in Jasper Creek.”
“You still need to call Nash.”
Dad sighed. “You’re right. I will.”
I relaxed even more. “Do you think that the Bucs have a chance this year?” I asked, referring to the East Tennessee State Buccaneers.
“I’m liking the new offensive coordinator they brought in. I was thrilled when they stole him from Ohio State.”
I grinned. “Same.”
We both sat back and started culling through the Bucs’ roster, the letter forgotten.