Chapter Ten
Jericho
“Mom? You inside?”
The old AM/FM radio was blasting the local country-and-western station Mom listened to all the time while she was cleaning or cooking.
It might be time to restart the fight about her getting her hearing checked because the woman couldn’t hear worth a damn and refused to admit it.
The volume of that radio was indicator number one.
I walked over to the small table under the kitchen window, dialing the volume down before turning toward Sean. His head was on a swivel as he took in my mother’s kitchen—chicken tchotchkes, copper Jell-O molds, and all. He’d probably never seen so much country-style crap in a house in his life.
“You want something to drink? We have coffee, water, soda, and likely some sweet tea. Mom doesn’t drink, and I... Well, you know that sad song. Anyway, we didn’t get to eat at the apartment. I’ll make you something if you’re hungry.” Why the hell was I so nervous?
As I considered what had me figuratively shaking in my boots, Mom came into the kitchen in her robe. “Oh, I thought you were Bethany. We heard a noise outside, and she took the shotgun to check it out.”
I turned to Sean, who looked bewildered. “Oh, uh, Mom, this is my boyfriend, Sean Fitzpatrick. Babe, this is my mother, Gayle.”
Sean’s eyes were huge, his cheeks flushed a pretty pink that highlighted his sexy freckles, and the way he put his hand over his chest, he seemed about to have a panic attack at meeting my mother.
Obviously, I’d caught him off guard by introducing them right away, so I gave him an elbow to the ribs to get him back to the present.
“It’ll be fine. I need to go check outside. I’ll be right back.”
I plucked a flashlight from the windowsill on the back porch as I headed out, closing the screen door quietly. Knowing my mom, she’d calm him down by telling embarrassing stories from my childhood before I returned.
Hurrying to the stolen truck, I grabbed my Glock 22 from the door pocket, wishing I had my Mossberg, which was still in my truck in Bethesda.
I checked the mag in the Glock and chambered a cartridge before heading around the side of the house with the flashlight stable against the barrel in a hands-together carry.
I slowly made my way around the yard using the older beech, pine, and cedar trees for cover. There was movement near the barn, so I ran in a squat position along the back fence.
There were motion-detecting spotlights in a three-sixty around the barn, programmed to illuminate if anything larger than a cat passed within three feet of the sensor after dark.
The horses were always put in the barn at night, so anything that triggered the lights was an unwelcome intruder.
So far, they were all dark, so I had to assume it was a raccoon or an opossum Bethany had heard. Mom hadn’t heard anything, I was sure.
Fancy’s high-pitched whinnying and Thunder’s snorting cut through the quiet night, so I lifted the flashlight’s beam toward the barn to see that the lights over the open door were busted and there was glass everywhere.
The sharp blast from the shotgun had me running to the barn.
I climbed over the fence outside Trixie’s stall and slid inside as the lights came on in the barn.
Bethany stood just inside the front door of the barn by the light switch, and there, on the floor of the alleyway just a yard away from me, was a young guy writhing in pain.
I lowered my weapon and opened Trixie’s stall door, stepping into the alleyway near the kid. He didn’t appear to be armed, thank fuck.
“Well, well. What’s going on?” The wounds were spread out, based on the bloody spots on his T-shirt. Thankfully, Bethany hadn’t been closer or the blast would’ve killed him.
The kid appeared to be about sixteen, and if memory served me correctly, I’d seen him at Salem Ridge Equestrian Center when I hauled horses there for some of the boarders who were getting riding lessons or practicing for horse shows.
I walked over to Bethany, who was hovering over him. I glanced at her. “You okay, Bethany?”
“I was just fine reading a good book until this little piss ant decided he was gonna try to steal your horses.” Yeah, her eyes were filled with fire as she stared at the boy.
“What are you doing here, kid? You’re lucky the shotgun only has birdshot. The woman was prepared to kill you.” Kids did stupid shit all the time— Hell, I’d done a lot of it myself when I was around his age. Whatever he was planning wasn’t worth losing his life.
I walked over to the barn extension phone connected to the house landline and called 9-1-1, reminding myself I needed to get a burner phone the next day.
When the dispatch answered, I gave our address and asked for the sheriff to come out to the farm.
“We have a vandal. He’s been injured, but not badly.
My horse hand shot him with birdshot when she caught him in our barn, where he shouldn’t have been. ”
“Come on, man, don’t call the cops. I just wanted a place to sleep. I don’t got a home,” the kid whined.
I hung up the phone before grabbing a piece of baling twine from a nearby hook and tying his hands in front of him.
I stared into his young face and finally figured out who he belonged to.
“You’re John Langer’s son, and you work at Salem Ridge.
You’re not homeless. You were here to try to steal some of my horses like the lady said, weren’t you? ”
The kid groaned. No doubt, all those little pellets were painful, but they wouldn’t kill him. Bethany, though, had shot him in his solar plexus, which would hurt pretty damn bad.
“Mindy Spriggs owes my pop money for work he did at her place. She won’t pay. If we have her prize mare and colt, she’ll pay, or Pop’ll sell ’em to get our money.” It was obvious he believed it was his right to take the horses. That pissed me off even more.
“Those horses are in my custody, so you’re not stealing from Mindy Spriggs. You’re stealing from me.”
The kid seemed damn cocky for someone with a belly full of birdshot. It was a shame Bethany couldn’t have shot a little lower. He’d definitely have learned a lesson if he couldn’t get a hard-on for a while.
“Yeah, well, I guess you’ll have a lot of time to figure out how ridiculously stupid the idea was to steal horses while you’re locked in a cell at the juvenile detention center in Anne-Arundel County.”
The sheriff and two deputies arrived fifteen minutes later, along with an ambulance and a fire truck. The deputies took pictures of everything, stirring up the horses who, much like me, just wanted to go to bed.
Mom was asked to give a statement, which wasn’t much because she only knew there was a noise because of Bethany, who’d heard the kid striking the glass lights with rocks from the driveway. I cleaned up the glass by the barn door so nobody stepped on it and got hurt.
I’d like to have kicked that kid’s ass for busting those lights. It was a real pain to get them up there in the first place, with me having to climb a fourteen-foot ladder while Mom held it at the bottom. Now I’d have to do it again.
As the sheriff and deputies were wrapping up, I turned to Bethany.
“Go ahead inside and get some sleep. I’m guessing it’s too late for you to drive home tonight, but you’ll probably wanna get back to your place down south early in the morning.
I can’t thank you enough for your help with the horses and Mom while I was gone.
Let’s stay in touch. I get inquiries from all over the East Coast looking for horse training, and if I get anyone interested in your specialties, I’ll send them your way. ”
“Hey, it was a pleasure to meet you and Miss Gayle. She’s a sweetheart. You’re lucky to have her. My parents don’t talk to me, but my wife’s mother reminds me a lot of your mom. We’re glad to have someone in our corner, as I’m sure you are,” Bethany responded.
Sheriff Rudy Jackson took pictures of my Glock and my permits for the case file. He took my dad’s old shotgun, but he promised to get it back to me after the kid’s case was over. I thanked him for coming out so fast, and after they left, I locked up the barn again and went inside.
“Where’s Sean?” I asked.
Mom was stirring a pot on the stove, a small smile gracing her face. “He’s in your room. I thought you’d want to share with him instead of sleeping on the couch. Believe me, Jeri, I know how the world works. You two aren’t kids, so I’m not gonna make you sleep in separate rooms.
“I wish you’d told me you were going to meet up with him.
He said he came back with you so you two could get better acquainted.
Are you sure you wanna rush into marriage?
I know you’ve been chatting with each other on the internet, but six months’ worth of talkin’ and walkin’ down the aisle are two different things, son. ”
I accidentally dropped my cell phone on the floor and spun around to stare at her. “Getting what? What did Sean say, Mom?”
Getting married after only knowing someone for not even a full week? Surely my mother didn’t think I was that stupid. Hell, I’d never had a relationship. Hookups, sure, but mostly during high school.
After I joined the Army, I was a self-service guy. Never had time for a lot of dating after high school because life got in the way. I didn’t even know if I ever wanted to get married.
I picked up my phone and slid it into my pocket.
When I glanced up, I saw Mom with a big smile on her face.
“I’m just teasin’ you, Jer. You deserved the scare because you didn’t tell me you were seeing someone.
He seems like a nice man. He said it’s just the beginning of things and that you two are enjoying getting to know each other better. ”
Thankfully, I hadn’t broken out in a profuse sweat yet at Mom’s marriage joke. My palms had become clammy, which was what caused the phone to slip out of my hand.