Chapter 13
She’d never realized how hard it was to follow somebody and keep them from seeing you. There had to be an easier way. After a little thought, she came up with an idea and hoped it worked.
A couple of days later, she drove to Madisonville and looked around.
Where was it? After poking around for a while, she finally just stopped at a convenience store, went in, used the bathroom, then came out to buy some chips and a drink.
“I’m trying to find the farmer’s co-op store here. You have one, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. Just get back on this street, drive to the third light, then take a right. You’ll see it up on the left. Can’t miss it.”
“Thank you!” Drinks and chips in hand, she headed for her car and smiled. Once she got there, she’d eat her snacks and think about how she was going to approach them.
A bell tinkled on the door as she entered, and an older woman looked up. “Hey there! How can I help you?”
“My husband sent me to find somebody for some tractor parts, but he didn’t get the address. It’s a guy who lives around here and farms. Said he’s got them and we could come pick them up. Maybe you know him. Kyle Miller?”
“Oh, yeah. Kenton Miller’s boy. Lives out off seventy, Beulah Road, toward Fredonia. Go out just past that church in Richland. It’s a little farm road off to the right. Mailbox says ‘Miller’ on it and there’s a Gro-more seed sign. That’s what he uses, Gro-more seeds. So what do you all raise?”
“Oh, we raise some soybeans and corn.” Hell, she knew nothing about farming, so that sounded good.
“Yeah, Kyle does too. Soybeans, corn, milo. No tobacco anymore around these parts. Winter wheat sometimes. Oh, and that little girl o’ his raises flowers. She loves them flowers. Sad that her mama died.”
That was the first Margie had heard of that. “Didn’t know about that.”
“Oh, yeah. Had cancer and wouldn’t do treatments because she was pregnant with the little girl. Died when the baby was about six months old. Real sad time.”
That’ll turn you against humanity and make you mean, I reckon, Margie told herself. “Yeah. That’s pretty sad. Well, thank ya for the info. I best be gettin’ along. Have a good day.”
“You too, ma’am. Come back anytime.” The door jingled again as Margie stepped out.
Well, that was a sad tale if ever she’d heard one.
Did she die? Or did he kill her? Had anybody ever checked on that?
Didn’t matter. All she could do was protect her grandkids and let the rest sort itself out.
Maybe she could take that little girl too.
Did his parents give one whit about the child?
Or were they as horrible as their no-count son?
She knew the front they put up, but looks were deceiving.
Margie drove out the highway and watched.
Sure enough, there was a sign for the church, a little bitty thing.
Typical country church. About half a mile past, there it was—a road with a mailbox at the end, Miller painted on it plainly.
She’d finally found it! Margie looked around, but there were no places to pull off or sit to watch.
If she was going to do that, she guessed she’d have to sit in the church parking lot and hope they came in that way.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t know when they got there.
Three hours later, she gave up. They had to be there, and that meant they’d come in from the other direction.
Was that closer? She’d have to look at a map again.
As she drove, she thought about what she was going to do.
What was she going to do? It would need to be drastic, and there was only one way she could think of to get those poor kids out of there. It would be messy and dangerous.
But it would be one and done. And they’d be out of there forever.
It was so hard to be quiet. She’d ridden him for about five minutes, but the bed springs squeaked so badly that they had to give that up.
After four more attempts, they wound up on the floor.
It wasn’t as comfortable, but it didn’t squeak, and if they were on the rug between the bed and the closet, the sound didn’t carry into the kids’ room as easily.
It was also hard to keep from groaning loudly, and Gina wasn’t exactly the quietest sex partner in the world.
He loved hearing her, but not the idea of waking the kids.
He was trying to keep his mind on other things to keep from finishing up too quickly.
“Are you there yet, babe?” he whispered down to her.
“If you ask me that one more time, I’m going to pinch your nipples so hard that you squeal,” she gasped back.
“Oh, god, Kyle. Right there. Exactly there. That’s it.
Oh, god, oh, god … Ohhhhh, yeah, babe. Just like that.
” He could feel her channel spasm around him and he knew she’d arrived.
“Oh, god, oh … Shit, the hardwood is biting into my spine!”
Three good strokes and he was finished, so he fell to the side and took her with him. Her hair smelled like flowers, and he buried his face in it as she kissed his chest. “I’m sorry, baby. I know this is awkward, and—”
Her quiet sigh interrupted him. “No, no. It’s fine. It’s just that the floor is hard, and … It’s okay. Really. If this is what we’ve got to work with, it’s what we’ve got to work with. Whatever it takes, honey.”
Wrapped in his protective embrace, Gina relaxed. That was what he wanted more than anything. “It’ll be over soon. They’ll connect her to the incident with Hadley and she’ll be history.”
“Yeah, well, I wish they’d hurry up and do that. I’m getting tired of this.” She struggled to sit up. “Let’s get back up on the bed. My hip is killing me.”
“I know what you mean.” They untangled from each other and crawled back up on the bed, but not before they’d pulled their sleepwear back on.
The possibility of one of the kids running in there was too great to lie there naked, which was a real shame, because he’d really like to.
He’d really like for her to lie there naked for sure.
One glance at her soft, curvy body and he was aching.
Enough, Miller, he told himself as they settled down in the bed.
And the alarm went off on his phone.
“Shit!” he whispered under his breath.
“Oh, god. What do we—”
“‘We’ don’t do anything. I’m going out there. You stay here and lock the door behind me.”
“But Kyle—”
“No buts. That’s how it is.” He’d already reached the closet and pulled the Mossberg out.
“I’ll follow the tree line along the drive.
It’ll be fine, babe.” He could hear her soft footsteps as he made his way to the back door.
“Now lock the door and stay put. You can watch out the front window. And get your phone and be ready to call nine-one-one.”
“Okay. Kyle, please, be careful.”
“No other way to be, baby.” He pulled the door shut behind him with as little sound as he could manage and made his way across the driveway, then followed the tree line down the drive, sticking to the shadows.
Twice he walked through a spiderweb, and he got his foot caught in some roots and almost went down at one point.
At least it was summer and the grass was green and soft.
Making the trip down there without a lot of rustling would be impossible in the fall, winter, or early spring.
He was within sixty feet of the end of the drive when shadows started to move, and Kyle stopped and froze. Then he heard that familiar sound.
A snuffle.
In the dimness of the moonlight, he could see a doe with twin fawns standing at the end of the driveway, poking along the edge and yanking up tufts of grass here and there.
“Oh, holy shit,” he whispered. “Go!” Kyle ran toward them, waving his arms, and the deer reared up, then bolted across the road with the fawns hot on her heels.
They were in no danger from traffic. At that time of the morning, in that area, there was no one stirring. Not a soul.
Kyle shouldered the shotgun and started the walk back down the driveway.
When he got within fifty feet of the house, he could see Gina’s worried face between the panels of the curtains in the front window, and he motioned down the drive as he walked around back.
She was wearing that same expression when she opened the door for him. “What was it?”
“Doe and twin fawns.” He laid the shotgun gently on the countertop. “I’ll unload and then I’ll put this away in the morning.”
“That’s a plan. Can we go back to bed?”
He nodded and pulled her into him. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep, but yeah. We need to at least try.”
“I know. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep either. That scares me to death when it goes off.”
“I just realized I should probably move it back some too. I really don’t want it going off if somebody is just turning around at the end of the drive. I need to make sure they’re actually coming closer to the house before I panic.”
“That won’t keep the deer from setting it off,” Gina pointed out.
Kyle chuckled softly as he walked toward the bedroom, Gina still pulled into his side. “No, but it’ll keep me from confronting the mail carrier with a shotgun.”
“That’s true.”
“Maybe we could talk my parents into letting the kids come over there and stay this weekend, or maybe they could stay at your folks’ house. I’d really like some alone time with you,” he whispered as he sat down on the edge of the bed and toed off his hard-soled slippers.
“Yeah. That would be nice. We can ask. Think Constance would come out here and stay with them?”
“She and Ray would do it if I asked, but I don’t want anybody else out here on the farm, as remote as it is. If they stay with Connie and Ray, I want it to be at their house, not here. I can defend this place. They shouldn’t have to.”
She curled into his side and threw an arm over him. “I see what you mean. And yeah, she’ll be much less likely to pull some stupid stunt in town. And your parents live on the other side of the farm, right?”