Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
KYRA
“Officer Green,” the pastor greets as we make our way out of church with the other parishioners. “Lovely to see you as always, Shauna.” His shrewd eyes shift to me. “And who do we have here? Kyra Green. It has been a while.” He offers his hands.
I clamp mine tighter over my purse, tugging down so the thin leather strap bites into my shoulder. “It has.” I haven’t missed this part of Temperance one bit. The posturing. The pretenses. The veiled smiles and the razor-sharp criticism wielded between carefully chosen pleasantries.
The pastor shifts his attention back to my father. “Is she here to stay?”
She is right here. And she can answer for herself. “For the foreseeable future, but who knows what opportunities may arise to lead me to greener pastures again.”
“Hghm.” The disgust is evident in the sound that strains from his tight throat.
“I think you’ll find Temperance to be everything you need now that you’re older.
” His gaze drops the length of me to take note of my skirt that lands above the knee—so damn quick you could swear it didn’t happen.
Yet the crawling ick over my body says otherwise.
“Come on.” Mom gently grabs me by the elbow. “Let’s find somewhere to sit while your father does his thing.”
His thing: talk to every attendee who remains, gathering tidbits of information, and gleaning insider knowledge without the fools knowing they give up a single thing to the Sheriff.
“Shauna!” Mrs. Tallomore raises a gloved hand and waves from the opposite side of the church’s front lawn.
Mom eases onto the wooden park bench set beneath the historic war memorial and sighs. “Help me with this, would you? She can be a lot.”
I chuckle, settling beside her. “Still?” Lucy Tallomore was a whirlwind of gossip and speculation when I was in school, starting arguments between the PTA mothers and getting kids in trouble through her incessant need to meddle.
Seems she hasn’t found reason to be any different as the years have gone on.
“So glad I caught you,” the woman gushes as she approaches, gaze casting warily over me before it returns to Mom. “Frank has been meaning to pop down to the station to talk with Marty, but I wanted to ask you girl-to-girl, without all the bureaucracy and formalities.”
“Ask me what?” Mom sets her hands in her lap, one atop the other, a gentle smile on her face for the woman looming over us.
I frown at the lace frill on Mrs. Tallomore’s delicate white gloves, then catch myself before she deigns to look my way again. I shift my attention to Dad instead, who nods sagely to a small gathering of men that speak in turn near the church steps—one of whom is Lucy’s husband.
“Is it true? They found a body at that awful mess of land the motorcycle club owns?”
Mom doesn’t waver. Doesn’t blink more than once. She draws a subtle breath and answers. “Why, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on, Shauna.” Sally shuffles position as though eager to take the weight off her feet as well. “You don’t need to play coy with little old me.”
I opt not to offer her my seat. The more uncomfortable she is, the quicker this will go.
“Mom’s not being coy,” I assure the woman. “Dad doesn’t talk about work at home, and we don’t expect him to when it concerns the private affairs of others.”
The skin beside her eyes grows taut, yet she manages to keep a congenial expression. “Of course, not. Surely you heard about the discovery, though? It was all the talk after that fire.”
Fire?
“Everyone knows about the arson,” Mom says. “You’re right. However, I haven’t heard anything about a body. Who told you that?”
Sally wears the expression of a cat backed into a corner. “Oh, I can’t remember who exactly. I heard it one day while I was in town. You know how it is.”
“Oh, I sure do,” Mom states, one eyebrow raised.
Sally’s gaze flicks over both of us. “Well, you enjoy the rest of your Sunday.”
“Give my best to Frank,” Mom calls after the woman as she flees to the familiar safety of her circle of friends.
“Wow.” I lean back against the bench. “She has a lot of audacity asking the Sheriff’s wife to disclose police matters.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Mom pops her purse open and pulls out a sleeve of gum. “Like one?”
“Thanks.”
She plops a pellet into my hand.
“Why haven’t I heard about the fire, though?”
Mom chews, putting the remaining gum back in her purse with a shrug.
“I guess because they resolved the case. That commercial scrap of land the club has out on the fringes was set alight. Definitely arson, but whatever the club and your father discussed, the Sheriff’s office dropped the investigation. ”
“Wonder why they did that.” What on earth could the Kings of Anarchy offer, or hold over, my father to get him to work the law in their favor?
He’s always given the impression he’d rather pluck out his nails with rusty pliers than do anything that could benefit the club—directly or indirectly.
“I don’t know,” Mom answers in hushed tones. “But I’d say it had something to do with the bodies they found.”
My eyes go wide, and I stare at this duplicitous woman while she nonchalantly chews her gum, watching the other wives.
“You’re going to drop that little nugget and then just sit there like you didn’t?” I jest.
She meets my gaze with a sly smirk. “Men sometimes forget how far their voices carry.” In other words, Dad took a work call at home and thought Mom wasn’t in earshot.
“What else have you heard?”
“Nothing that’s relevant anymore.” She glances Dad’s way as he shakes hands with somebody new. “All I’ll say is that the good people of Temperance wouldn’t be so outraged by these petty crimes if they knew what really went on.”
“You’re not wrong there.”
She gives me a curious stare.
“Men underestimate the comprehension of young children, too.” I’ve lost count of the times Dad took me with him on errands or had work colleagues at the house and held conversations inappropriate for a girl playing on the floor with her ponies.
I may not have fully understood what they talked about, but the tone of the conversation, familiar names, and unmistakable words such as ‘dead’ and ‘stolen’ sure painted a vivid picture in my mind.
“I thought everyone would be happier now that the club moved rural.”
“They thought they would be too.” Mom stares at Sally. “But then people realized how dull it was when they lost their main source of gossip.”
“Small towns are so damn fickle.”
“Amen to that.”
I glance at her before picking at the side of my nails. “You know that’s why I left, right?”
“I had a fair idea.” She gently moves my hands apart to stop the destructive habit. “I would have done the same if I were your age and single again.”
A huffed laugh slips through my nose. “I’ll be single forever if Dad has anything to do with it.”
Her stare grows serious. “Your father has a right to be concerned when people start coming to him asking why his daughter talks with ‘that biker’.”
“He told you about that, huh?”
Mom smiles wryly. “He didn’t have to.”
“You got asked too?” I exclaim.
She nods.
“Fuck this town and its meddling.” I glare at the dwindling parishioners, a small line of cars quietly leaving the adjacent parking lot. “I hope you appreciate the hell I put myself through being back here for you.”
“I never asked you to come back.” She stares at me, no nonsense.
I twist on the seat to face her. “Are you saying you would rather I hadn’t?” My gut sours.
“Of course, not,” Mom gently scolds. “But you’d made yourself a life somewhere other than here, Kyra. You shouldn’t have been so quick to give that up.”
If only she knew how ready I was. “There was no question in my mind.” I turn to assess how long Dad might be. “It’s my job to care for you as much as it’s your job to care for me.”
“Right predicament we have ourselves in, then, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
She rises to her feet and adjusts her purse. “Both of us so intent on caring for the other that we neglect caring for ourselves first.”
“Hazard of the job being a Green woman, isn’t it?” I stand and join her.
“I’m just saying, your father won’t approve of whoever you bring home. It could be a preacher’s son, and he’d still find fault with the boy. So you may as well pick your battle and just run with it.” She meets my eye before adding, “Just make sure it’s a fight worth having.”