Chapter 9
New Town, New Problems
Gary woke Tuesday morning with the specific, low-grade weight of a man who has made two decisions in a few days that are about to require management.
He lay on his back staring at the ceiling of his new apartment in his new town, running the inventory.
Sarah, whose ex-husband he had apparently shared a dinner table with forty-eight hours into his Texas residency.
Belle, whose husband was currently somewhere on the professional rodeo circuit and whose family he had now eaten Sunday dinner with.
Two women, one very small town, a social geography that was revealing itself to be considerably more interconnected than it had appeared from the outside.
He got up, clipped on Marv's leash, and went outside before the heat had fully committed to the day.
? ? ?
The campus at six in the morning had a particular quality — empty in a way that felt deliberate rather than abandoned, the buildings holding their shape against the early light, the paths between them wide and quiet.
Gary let Marv set the pace, which was unhurried and thorough, the dog investigating every interesting smell along the route with the focused attention of a professional.
They were somewhere between the library and the athletic complex when Gary felt it.
The sensation was specific and familiar and not entirely welcome — the same low prickle he'd felt in Rosetown in the weeks before Passer's confrontation behind Moe's.
The sense of being observed without being able to identify from where.
He scanned the path ahead, the spaces between buildings, the bench near the fountain where someone could sit with a clear sightline to the walking path and look like they were doing something else entirely. Nothing. Nobody obviously present.
And yet.
He didn't shake it. It stayed with him the way that particular feeling always did — not loud enough to act on, just loud enough to color everything around it.
Marv, apparently detecting the shift in Gary's attention, looked up at him briefly, then went back to the important business of a scent trail along the base of a hedge.
"Just me," Gary muttered.
Marv did not appear convinced.
They came around the corner of the athletic complex and Gary heard his name — specifically, Marv's name first, which was usually how it went.
"Is that Marv?"
He turned. Nancy Steele, in workout clothes, moving from the direction of the parking lot with a water bottle in hand and the easy, early-morning energy of a woman who had been doing six AM classes long before it was fashionable.
Marv's tail registered her approach at approximately fifteen feet and began its assessment-and-greeting process, which ended — as it usually did with people Marv had decided mattered — in a full-body lean against her legs that she absorbed with the practiced balance of a woman who'd been around large animals her entire life.
"There he is," Nancy said, both hands going to his ears. She looked up at Gary. "You're up early."
"Couldn't sleep."
She straightened and hugged him — the uncomplicated, unhesitating hug of a woman who treated physical warmth as a natural form of greeting, which Gary was beginning to understand was simply how Nancy operated. "Sunday was wonderful. You made quite an impression."
"The food helped."
"The food always helps." She paused, something shifting in her expression — not worry exactly, more like the practical consideration of a woman who runs a complex operation and is always thinking two steps ahead.
"Lou mentioned he could use an extra set of hands Thursday.
Moving some product, rotating a few barrels.
Nothing complicated — just physical work. "
Gary kept his expression neutral. "I'll think about it."
"Of course." She nodded, accepting this without pushing it, which was somehow more compelling than pressure would have been. "We'll see you Sunday regardless."
She headed toward the building. Gary watched her go, then looked at Marv, who was watching a bird on the path with the intense focus of a creature who had never caught anything in his life and was not about to let that discourage him.
The Steele family, Gary thought. Three days in Renton and they had more square footage in his life than most things he'd brought with him.
He couldn't decide if the feeling that came with that was warmth or something else.
? ? ?
He fit a workout in, made it brief, picked up books from the campus store for the week's coursework, and stopped by Professor Jenkins' office on the way back.
Jenkins looked up from whatever he'd been reading with the unhurried expression of a man who had learned to be genuinely pleased when students appeared in his doorway rather than treating it as an imposition, which Gary gathered was not universal among faculty of his tenure and vintage.
"The pizza place," Gary said. "Good call."
Jenkins smiled. "Hank's been doing that for twenty years. Some things don't need improvement." He set down whatever he was reading. "How was the first day otherwise?"
"Good. Better than I expected."
"Good is the right place to start." Jenkins looked at him for a moment with the assessment of a man who had taught enough students to sort them quickly.
"I need you to set up office hours this week — two slots minimum, somewhere you can sit with students and go through their papers and assignments. Whatever works with your schedule."
"I'll get that posted today," Gary said.
"Good." Jenkins picked his reading back up, which was clearly a dismissal delivered with complete friendliness. "I think you'll find your footing here quickly. Renton has that effect."
Gary thanked him and went home to feed Marv and collect the Jeep.
? ? ?
He'd texted Sarah the previous afternoon — before class, before Hanky's, before Belle — to let her know he hadn't said a word to Brett about Friday night, hadn't mentioned her name, hadn't done anything except eat brisket and listen to family history in the way of a man who didn't yet know the map of the territory he'd walked into.
Her response had come back fast: I know. Thank you. Can we talk? There's a lake about forty minutes north. I know a good spot. Tomorrow around 11?
He'd agreed.
Now, driving north on the highway with the Texas landscape opening out on both sides — flat, enormous, lit with the specific honey-gold of a late morning that hadn't yet gone fully to heat — he thought about the conversation he was about to have and what shape he expected it to take.
Sarah struck him as someone who said what she meant and meant it precisely, which he appreciated, which also meant this wasn't going to be a walk where nothing got said.
His phone buzzed on the console.
He glanced at it at a red light.
Belle: Morning handsome. Thank you for last night :)
Gary set the phone back down without answering and looked at the road ahead.
What the hell, he thought, did I get myself into this time.
He laughed — a short, involuntary sound — and kept driving.
? ? ?
Lake Chopsank was enormous in the way of things built by serious intention.
One of the largest man-made lakes in Texas, it ran for miles in every direction from its center, the shoreline alternating between developed areas with boat launches and fishing piers and long stretches of quiet bank where the tree line came down almost to the water and the only sound was wind and the occasional distant engine.
Bass fishing was serious business here — the annual tournament drew competitors from across the state and beyond; on the right weekend in the right season the water was thick with boats.
This morning it was quiet. The parking area near the south trail held three other vehicles and no apparent people.
Sarah was standing on the bank below the trailhead, shoes off, the waterline an inch from her feet, watching something on the far side of the lake with the expression of a woman who had been here long enough to have stopped looking and started simply being present.
She heard him coming and turned; the smile she gave him was the uncomplicated version — the one without any of the social management that had characterized parts of Friday night, stripped down to something simpler and more direct.
"You found it," she said.
"Your directions were good."
They fell into step on the path without needing to negotiate it, moving south along the bank at the easy pace of two people who weren't trying to get anywhere specifically.
The conversation picked up in the middle, which was how Gary noticed he'd already become comfortable enough with her that the opening moves weren't required anymore.
She talked about Renton — where she'd grown up, the south shore specifically, a childhood built around this lake in the specific way of kids from small towns that have a geographic center everyone orbits.
She knew every inlet, every hidden spot, every cove that the adults didn't know about and the teenagers had been using for thirty years.
"Dove Cove," she said, gesturing toward a bend in the shoreline ahead where the tree line thickened and the bank widened into a sandy pocket invisible from the main path.
"Everyone knew about it. Nobody talked about it to anyone over thirty.
" She smiled. "Boats tied up, jet skis pulled in, music from whoever had the best speakers.
Half the town spent their summers out there. "
"Topless?" Gary said.
"Traditionally, yes."
"I would have been there every weekend in high school."
Sarah laughed. "I figured." She glanced at him sideways. "Seemed like your crowd."
They walked. The lake threw light in shifting patterns through the canopy where the trees overhung the bank.
The path narrowed as they moved into the quieter section, the Dove Cove bend coming into view ahead — the sandy pocket empty this morning, the water still and dark green in the shadow of the tree line.