Chapter 1
Bull
“Son of a bitch!” I yell at the top of my lungs.
Not that it does a damn bit of good.
I lean forward, picking up the remains of my mailbox.
It’s barely December, but the snow has been hitting us steadily for a couple of weeks now and while I’d typically stay at the clubhouse in weather like this, it seemed like the perfect time to finish tiling my shower.
Last week, when I was tearing out the hideous yellow squares that my granddaddy had installed sometime in the last century, I realized that some of the drywall needed to be replaced before I could continue.
Luckily, I had a few sheets of it from my last project, so with the exception of one trip to town for extra food and booze, I’ve stayed home to deal with the cabin.
I just never expected to have to rebuild the stand for the mailbox two fucking times. Well, it’ll be three by the end of the day.
Looking around, I figure my best option is to pile up the snow and crown it with the rounded shell of metal that should at least keep whatever mail there is, dry.
Hearing a vehicle chugging up the road, I turn in time to see Leavers’ old Jeep making the curve that leads up to my driveway.
“Bull,” he says, by way of greeting before his eyes drop to the battered piece of metal in my hands. “Ah, yes, it’s been a tough season for those testaments to the time before.”
“Is the new plow driver blind?” I growl out my question as I reach for the mail he pulls out of his stack for me.
In early August, Stu, our seasoned plow driver kicked it. The town all came together to make sure he had a proper send off at my funeral home, and we were all relieved that he wasn’t up in his crop duster when his ticker popped.
“George Tucker’s grand—” he starts but I cut him off when I remember hearing that after Old Man Tucker’s latest wife died, one of his grandkids was going to move in to help him.
“Well, he owes me a fucking mailbox.”
“If you call the township, there’s a list you can get on.
They a have a little wiggle room in the budget and they either give you fifty dollars or send a crew out here to deal with it in the spring.
Your choice,” he tells me, and I wonder what idiot would choose the latter option.
“There’s only so much in the budget, so the money is first come first served. ”
If this amount of snow keeps up until spring, there won’t be a mailbox left in the county.
“Turns out that young Tucker has a pilot’s license, so she applied to take over the crop dusting, too,” Leavers informs me even though I’ve turned back toward my house.
I wasn’t really paying attention, maybe I didn’t hear him right. She?
“Come again?” I say, turning back just as he’s pulling away. Instead of stopping, he just continues on his way, probably annoyed that I didn’t want to stand around gossiping like an old lady.
An old memory teases at the edge of my mind, but I shake it off, and fixate on having to call the Town Hall. There are calls that I despise making, because I know that nothing will actually come of them and all I’ll do is vent my spleen on old Felix from the moment he picks up.
“Hello?” I bellow out when I pause long enough for a response and there’s nothing coming. “Hello!”
“Oh, there we go. I just had to adjust my hearing aid, Bull,” he responds, and that excuse might fly with outsiders, but everyone from Clear Creek has seen this ornery asshole reach up and turn the aids on and off, depending on his interest level.
I doubt he’s listened to anything his wife has had to say in the past decade.
“Bull? Are you still there?” Felix asks and I swear I can picture him grinning into the phone.
“The new plow driver is a fucking menace. My mailbox has been hit three times in the past two weeks and I want to get reimbursed for it.” I bite out each word, telling myself to stay calm no matter how much I hate having to repeat myself.
“Well, now, this is an ongoing issue, and it would be best to handle it on your own.” For whatever reason, he sounds more amused than he did a minute ago.
“It’s the first year I’ve ever had this issue.” I seethe.
“Then that makes you a lucky man, Mr. Wells! Unfortunately, there’s nothing left in the budget for us to reimburse anyone else at this time.”
“That’s not what Leavers told me.”
“See now, Leavers works for the U.S. Postal Service, not the township. So, I can’t imagine him having up-to-date information on our budget.
” His condescending tone has me swearing a blue streak.
“Look, I’ll tell Margo to be more careful.
Honestly, we’re lucky she applied for the job, so I don’t want to upset her. ”
Then I hear the click of the call disconnecting just as my memories come racing back.
Go-Go. The nickname that the little girl readily volunteered after I caught her hiding in the back of our funeral home, springs to my mind.
I’ve never forgotten how calm she was after basically witnessing a murder my father ordered.
For years, I’ve thought about her, especially when I enter that room; always curious how she dealt with the things she saw and heard that day.
She sure as fuck never told anyone, else there would have been a knock on our door followed by a swarm of federal agents.
Snapping back to the here and now, I know damn good and well that Felix’s office is directly across the hall from Leavers, so his lame-ass excuse pisses me off, so slamming my phone against the counter is pointless.
“Don’t want to upset her,” I mumble to myself. “What about the rest of us?”
A long time ago, my momma told me to count to ten when I got angry. ‘Just take a breath and cool down.’
That was fucking bullshit. First, I would just start counting.
By the time I was six, I’d start counting in the Spanish I learned on Sesame Street.
Then, after Momma brought a globe home from a garage sale, and I became obsessed with maps, I started teaching myself to count in Italian, French, and Japanese.
Learning to count in other languages led to teaching myself more and more about each one and the different cultures. At least until my dad started taking a belt to my ass anytime he heard me speaking anything but English.
“Don’t fucking waste your time, Stryker. You’ll do what I do and that’s final. Learn some Spanish, but if you’re bored, get over to the garage and learn how to put together a motor.”
Soon after that, the globe was used during target practice. That day, Mom’s eyes told me something my old man neither saw nor cared about—that she was done.
I was twelve when I came home to an empty house. Dad was off on one of his runs, but even with a head start, she knew he’d kill her if she had taken me with her.
She may have physically left, but she didn’t stop loving me until her death.
The proof was always our secret. A few days after she took off, I found the world map she had taped to the back wall of my closet, marked with all the places she always dreamed of seeing. Then, the following week, Mom’s friend, Jordan waved at me to come inside the bakery she owned.
I’d been avoiding it since Mom took off, rightfully knowing that opening the door to all the wonderful scents would bring back every good memory I had.
“Stryker, sweetheart, I have something for you,” Jordan had said reaching into the drawer under the register as she indicated that I should meet her at the end of the counter. “Your mom, she’s going to send letters here for you. And if you ever want to write her back, you just get it to me.”
I remember standing there, staring at the envelope, a million thoughts racing through my mind—the foremost being, what would happen if Dad found a letter from Mom? Just then, as if summoned, I heard the roar of bikes on Main Street and shook my head at her.
“I’ll come back another time,” I told Jordan. “He can’t find out.”
She opened her mouth to reply just before her eyes widened, looking over my shoulder. Without another word, she pulled the letter back and hid it under the counter.
Knowing what was about to happen, I pointed at an oatmeal cookie; unable to get any words past the knot in my throat.
“On the house today,” she whispered, throwing me a wink just as my dad entered the shop.
“A cookie?” he asked, suspiciously looking between us. “Isn’t it more of an ice cream day?”
“Ice cream makes me sick,” I answered him, throwing him off kilter.
“Since when?”
“Since every time I’ve ever had it,” I smarted back and didn’t have to wait for the smack over the back of my head.
“Yeah, it gives me the shits for days,” my uncle grunted, half-heartedly coming to my defense.
“Well, Jordan, I guess I’m the only one having a chocolate cone today,” my dad said, turning his grin in her direction, blatantly ignoring her glare, before making a fuss over paying for my cookie.
To this day, I hope she overcharged him.
*
By early afternoon, I know there’s nothing for me to work on while I wait for the mud on the new dry wall to set, so I grab the keys to my truck and head to the clubhouse.
“What the fuck?” I bellow, not three minutes after walking into the building where I was practically raised.
There are empty bottles, not to mention a body or two, scattered around the room. I have zero issues with a good party, I’m just accustomed to being at the top of the invite list.
I know I said I was out for a few days, but it’s bullshit that no one clued me into this.
Just then, Rage enters the room from the door leading to the kitchen. He had just popped something into his mouth from the plate he’s carrying, but his eyes go wide when he sees me.
Waving a hand in front of him, as if to ward off my temper, he finally makes enough space in his mouth to speak.
“I just got back an hour ago. I got no fucking idea what happened,” he spits out around the food he shifted to one of his cheeks, before shrugging. “Well, we can see what happened, but you know I was on the road.”