Chapter 9
GEMMA
June fired me.
Well, she didn’t exactly fire me.
She took away my waitressing shifts after I came back inside from chasing Cade into the parking lot because when the mother of Scarlett’s bully demanded that I apologize to her sweet child, I laughed in her face.
I guess, in retrospect, I didn’t really give her a choice.
You cornered a little girl in the bathroom and threatened to spit in her food, Gemma Rae. Her mother threatened to call the sheriff and the newspaper if I didn’t do something. You can keep coming in to bake for me but I can’t have you around my customers.
The fact that Colt Montgomery just happens to be the sheriff and the uncle of the little girl I was defending is of little consequence.
Even though it’d be the last thing he’d want to do, Colt’s a straight arrow.
Far straighter than his brother and cousin—he’d have to get involved whether he wanted to or not.
So maybe June didn’t fire me.
Maybe I quit.
Maybe I took off my apron, boxed up what was left of the hummingbird cake and the peach cobbler as severance and took it home because there was no way in hell I was going to apologize to that woman or her bully of a daughter.
And maybe I’m in my tub—a cast iron, claw-foot tub, big enough to swim in—eating said cobbler right now while Patsy Cline sings to me from my phone, propped up on the sink.
“It’s okay,” I say, gaze aimed over the rim of the tub at the cat perched on the toilet seat, watching me while I drown my sorrows in bathtub cobbler. “We’re gonna be fine. I make more than enough at the Mill to keep us afloat.”
It’s true. My tips from the Mill are enough to pay the bills and to feed Janet’s treat addiction.
What they aren’t enough to pay for is the tax bill on Dent’s house.
I’ve been throwing money at it, every chance I get, hoping I’m getting ahead of it while in reality, all I’ve been doing is feeding the interest. Now that someone has offered to pay the debt, I have ninety days to pay it off in full.
That’s what the notice I found tacked to the door said.
Ninety days and without my job at June’s it’s never going to happen. I might as well kiss Dent’s house goodbye.
“This isn’t a crybaby pity party,” I proclaim out loud around a mouthful of cobbler. “This is a brainstorming session—one you’re not contributing to, I might add.”
Janet flicks her long, bushy tail and eyes my cobbler because she’s not here to brainstorm. She’s waiting for me to drop the container on the floor so she can eat what’s left.
“Maybe whoever buys it will let us stay. We can pay rent,” I say, grasping at straws. “Maybe?—”
Before I can finish gaslighting us both, someone knocks on the door. Not the front door. The back door. Hearing it, Janet loses interest in the prospect of leftover leftovers and jumps down from her perch to disappear through the open door.
“Don’t you dare open that door, Janet,” I screech when I hear the sounds of her lumbering down the stairs.
“Shit.” Knowing she won’t listen because she never does, I toss the Styrofoam container on the floor before practically throwing myself out of the tub.
Ripping the towel off its hook I barely have it wrapped around me before I hear someone in my kitchen.
Shitshitshit.
“I’m coming,” I shout through the open door while I furiously scrub myself dry. “Please, just wait?—”
“Tagalong?”
Relief floods through me because there’s only one other person who calls me Tagalong besides my brother.
“Reese?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” she calls out from the kitchen. “Your… cat let me in?”
That’s Janet—the consummate hostess.
“Because she’s an asshole,” I answer back while I toss my towel on top of the toilet and struggle into my bathrobe. From the kitchen, I hear my own voice answer back.
Rude
“No,” I shout back, double knotting the tie on my bathrobe before I make my way into the hall. “You’re rude.” Taking the stairs, two at a time while praying I don’t trip and break my neck, I round the switchback and my kitchen comes into view. “I told you not to open the door.”
Reese, dressed in her deputy uniform, is standing between my kitchen table and the open back door, slightly horrified gaze fixed on my cat, watching with morbid interest while she walks down her row of communication buttons. Stopping, she reaches out and slaps one of them with her paw.
So?
This bitch.
“So,” I shoot back on my way to the fridge. “As previously discussed, you don’t pay rent. That means you don’t get to answer the door.”
Mouse
“Dead mice don’t pay the bills, Janet,” I gripe while yanking the refrigerator door open. “If they did?—”
Feed me.
Slamming the fridge closed without looking inside, I turn around to glare at her. “Feed yourself.”
Abuse
“What is happening?” Toggling a wide-eyed look between the two of us, Reese shakes her head like she’s trying to clear it. “Am I dreaming?”
“My cat is being dramatic, as usual,” I say with a sigh. “And yes, unfortunately, this is really happening.”
“Cat?” Turning her head to look at Janet, Reese’s face scrunches up in a mixture of disturbance and disbelief. “Are you sure that’s a cat?”
Rude… bitch
Whipping her head around to look at me, Reese’s mouth drops open. “Did your cat just call me a bitch?”
Yes… bitch… feed me
In the interest of peace I walk over to Janet’s self-feeder and tap the pedal with my toe, filling its bowl with dry, crunchy nuggets. “There,” I say, pointing at it. “I fed you.”
No
“Fine—there’s some cobbler left in the bathroom,” I tell her on a defeated sigh. “You can have it.”
Standing, Janet flicks her tail while she saunters her way across the kitchen, not even bothering with so much as a backward glance as she mounts the stairs and disappears from view.
“You have a weird life,” Reese says, staring after my cat.
“I don’t know,” I say with a laugh while I make a return trip to the fridge. “It feels pretty normal to me.” Pulling it open, I reach for the pitcher of lemonade I made last week. Hopefully it’s still good. “What are you doing here?”
Shocked by my blunt question, Reese turns away from the stairs to look at me. “I?—”
“You haven’t stepped foot in this house since Beck left,” I remind her while I carry the pitcher of questionable lemonade to the counter.
Even though Reese was there, front and center, for Dent’s funeral, she begged off when it came to the wake.
I think she didn’t want to risk it because she was afraid Beck would show up but I don’t say it.
“I know.” Giving me a guilty head nod, Reese chews nervously on her lower lip while she watches me pull a pair of glasses from one of the upper cabinets. “I’m sorry about that. I just?—”
“It’s fine, Reese. I get it,” I tell her even though it’s not really fine and I don’t get anything.
“It must be pretty important if you’re willing to darken my doorstep, so—” Looking at her—her khaki uniform.
Her thick, golden-brown hair pulled back in a sleek, no-nonsense bun—I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Is this about what happened at June’s today?
” I ask because that’s something the mother of bully would do—call the sheriff because I refused to apologize to her kid, even though I’ve already paid the price for my impudence.
“Because she already fired me, so if you think for one second that I’m going to say I’m sorry after what that little?—”
“What are you talking about?” Reese’s face scrunches again, this time with confusion. “June fired you?” she asks like maybe I don’t understand what I just said.
“Well, if you ask her, she’ll tell you I quit.” Giving the pitcher a swirl, I lift it to my nose for a sniff test. All I smell is sugar and lemons. Sugar is a preservative. It should be fine.
“Because?” I can hear it in her voice—she’s still having a hard time believing me. I’ve worked at June’s, in one capacity or another, since I was fifteen, so I understand the confusion.
“Because I caught some little creeker bullying Scarlett Montgomery in the bathroom and I told her that if she didn’t apologize, I was going to spit in her milkshake,” I tell her, my tone caught somewhere between irritation and chagrin.
“Let me get this straight,” Reese says, her gaze narrowing slightly. “June fired you for protecting Sera Montgomery’s daughter from a bully?”
“I know—the irony is almost too much.” Holding up the pitcher, I wag it at her. “Do you want some of this?”
Reese laughs. “Is it gonna kill me?”
I give her a shrug. “fifty-fifty.”
“In that case,” she says, pulling a chair away from the kitchen table so she can sit in it. “Pour me a double.”
Watching while I pour equal measures into the glasses I pulled down, she doesn’t say anything until I set one of them in front of her and take a seat on the other side of the table.
“So, now what?” she asks quietly while she runs a finger through the condensation that coats the outside of her glass.
“So now what what?” I know what she’s asking but I don’t really have an answer.
“So now that you’re down a job, what are you going to do about paying off Dent’s back taxes?
” When I open my mouth to ask her how the hell she knows about that, even though I haven’t exactly kept my struggles to myself, she gives me a flat smile.
“I’m the one who tacked the notice from the county to your door,” she confesses.
When I don’t answer her, she sighs. “Tag?—”
“I’ll figure it out,” I tell her with a smile so fake it actually hurts.
“Janet and I were brainstorming some ideas when you showed up.” Lifting my glass, I risk a drink.
“Do you know who it is?” I ask because who it is matters.
A lot of creekers have been crossing the river, trying to buy up land lately, especially the houses that back up to the banks of the Barrett.
Dent’s house is prime real estate these days.
I guess they figured if they can’t push us out, they’ll just go ahead and buy us out.
“No.” Giving me one of her flat, apologetic smiles, Reese shakes her head. “The county keeps a pretty tight lid on the who until the challenge is met or…”
Or not.
So I won’t know who offered to pay off Dent’s tax debt and take my house until they show up on at my front door with their suitcase.
“June wants me to stay on as her baker but that’s only an extra fifty bucks a day and quite frankly, not worth my sanity.
Besides, I’d like to see who she thinks she’s going to find to take my place.
” I think of Melinda the wandering waitress and almost laugh.
“I’ve had June’s lemon meringue and it’s terrible.
It’s almost as bad as her French silk. I mean, jesus, how the hell do you mess up chocolate? ”
Reese makes a quiet noise in the back of her throat, giving me a shrug. “I wouldn’t know.”
Right.
Whatever brought Reese here, it wasn’t so she could listen to me bash June’s baking skills over a glass of questionable lemonade.
“So, if you’re not here to arrest me for menacing children, what are you here for?” I ask in a desperate attempt at changing the subject.
“Well…” Looking at me from across the table, she gives me a shrug. “I noticed you haven’t taken down Dent’s wheelchair ramps,” she says instead of answering my question.
“No.” I shake my head. “I haven’t gotten around to it,” I tell her even though it’s been months. The truth is, I haven’t had the heart.
“What about your CNA certification,” she asks. “Have you let that lapse?”
After Dent’s stroke, I took an intensive online program and completed my practical hours at the nursing home they stuck him in.
As soon as I was certified, I told my mother I was taking him home and moving in to take care of him.
I was barely eighteen and just graduated from high school.
Beck was long gone by then, off chasing his dreams in California.
They were all gone. Reese was in college and Riggs… he was gone too.
All that was left was me.
My mom fought me on it. Said she forbid it.
Said I’d regret it. That I wasn’t responsible enough to make my own decisions.
That I should be going off to college and starting my life instead of digging in here and wasting it, but in the end, she gave up and let me go.
She was wrong—I don’t regret one second I spent taking care of my grandfather.
The nine years we had together were a blessing I wouldn’t trade for anything.
“It’s still good for another couple of months,” I answer her honestly. “But I haven’t decided if I’m going to renew it or not.”
“I need you to,” she says, looking up at me from her glass. “I need you to renew it.”
“Why?” Brow furrowed, I let all the reasons why Reese Redford would need my home health skills run through my head.
“Red?” I ask, thinking of her father. When Ethan Pryce was on his psychopathic crime spree, Sloane wasn’t the only person he hurt.
Red caught Ethan setting fire to Jensen’s truck—the truck Jen was paying Red to fix—and Ethan very nearly killed him.
If not for Sloane and the fact that she’s one of the top trauma surgeon’s in the country, Red would’ve died.
“No.” Shaking her head, Reese pushes her glass away with an eye roll. “My dad is fine—better than fine. He’s back to driving me crazy on a daily basis.”
“Okay…” Confused, I shake my head. “Then who?—”
“It’s Riggs.” She says it quickly. Like she’s ripping off a bandage—the force of it telling me that she knows.
Maybe not everything but Reese knows enough to understand that what she’s about to ask of me is a lot.
Maybe more than I’m willing to give. “He was hurt… it’s bad, Tag. Really bad—and he needs your help.”