by Jadyn Chase
I stopped myself before I said anything more. A war raged in my middle. How much should I tell him? Part of me wished more than anything I could get it off my chest once and for all. Another part kept screaming, No! Don’t tell him anything.
I glanced over and found him studying me. His hands went through a mindless exercise of untangling a knot in his line, but his eyes examined me with an intensity I didn’t expect. A gentle smile played on his lips like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
Those eyes caught me in a net from which I could never escape. I had to do something to get out of this, but turning away or averting my gaze told him more than I could ever divulge in words.
I had to think fast. I had to do something to throw him off my track. I dug deep and burst out laughing. I rocked on my seat and elbowed him and hooted in his face. “That was a good one. You said you would tell me all about the people around here, and instead, you got me talking about myself. Good trick.”
He cracked another wild grin and blushed over his fly. “Do you want to know a secret about the Kellys? I’ll give you a nugget to take back to your informants in town. What do you think about that?”
My eyes popped. “You will?”
“You bet. I’ll tell you something no one else in the world knows. If anyone found out about this, we’d be ruined.” He wagged his finger in my face. “I’m putting my whole Clan in your hands. I hope you realize that.”
I couldn’t stop staring at him. My nerves prickled. Was he going to tell me what I thought he was going to tell me? Would he really tell his most dangerous secret to a complete stranger?
“Do you promise not to tell a living soul?” he asked. “I won’t tell you unless you give me your word of honor.”
I gulped. “I promise.” What difference did it make in the end if I broke my promise? If he was about to tell me what I thought he was about to tell me, I already knew. Anyone I would tell already knew, too.
He took a deep breath and puffed out his cheeks. He blew his bangs out of his eyes and lowered his head for dramatic effect. “It’s like this. My family is….”
I held my breath and waited for lightning to strike. “Yeah? Your family is what?”
“My family is…..” His breath caught in his throat. “My family is…. descended from bootleggers. That’s how my great-grandfather got the money to buy Smokey Ridge. He used to distill moonshine and he sold it up North for a mint of money.”
He gazed back into my startled eyes. His grin widened until infectious laughter broke through his pursed lips. I blinked trying to understand what he just said.
All at once, I snapped out of my trance and punched him hard in the arm. “You fink! You tricked me.”
“Hey!” He howled and flung up his hands for protection. “There’s no need to get violent. You said you wanted to know something about my family, so there have it. Most people don’t know how we got Smokey Ridge, so if you want to carry that back to your new friends, I’m sure they’ll be impressed at your detective skills.”
I slammed my fist into his shoulder again. “Cut it out! You’re mocking me.”
He sank down on the grass chuckling. “Didn’t they warn you about that? Didn’t they tell you I have a devilish sense of humor?”
“They sure did,” I grumbled. “They just never told me it would be like this.”
“Take it easy,” he chided. “I’m just messing with you. You better get used to it if you want to hang around with me.”
I whipped around and narrowed my eyes at him. “Who said anything about me hanging around with you?”
“No one.” He gazed across the fishing hole, the picture of innocence. “I’m just saying I have a twisted idea of fun. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
I rested my elbows on my knees. “I don’t really have any informants, as you call them. I hope you understand that. I just heard the guys down at the hardware store talking to Daddy about someone from your…..your Clan. Daddy was talking to someone in the store, and when the guy left, the owner starting filling Daddy’s head full of all kind of tales about the Kellys.”
He arched one eyebrow at me and a quiver of excitement whispered through my insides. “Who was it?”
“At the store? I don’t know. I didn’t catch the name.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he mused. “So what did Rob White tell your Daddy about the Kellys?”
I shrugged. “Not much.”
He laughed again. “You just said it was all kind of tales. Which is it?”
I tossed my hair. I couldn’t make up my mind what to say to him. “I better go. Daddy will wonder where I am.”
Liam didn’t move. “It was nice to meet you. Welcome to the area.”
I straightened up and looked down at him. He glanced up at me at the same moment, and our eyes met. “You, too.”
“Maybe I’ll see you around sometime,” he ventured.
I smiled at him. I didn’t mean to. I could say it was the polite thing to do, but inside, I really wanted to. Meeting him was the nicest thing to happen to me in a long time. “I hope so. See you around.”
“See you.”
He went back to diddling with his rod and line. I strolled around the pool to the path leading back to Norton. Just before I stepped into the trees, I looked back once. Liam sat in the same spot, but he didn’t look down at his gear or at the water. He looked right at me.
I couldn’t read his expression from that distance, but he sat still and watched with a steady, unflinching gaze until I turned away and hurried into the trees.
I didn’t stop all the way back to Norton. My heart beat against my ribs and I fought to breathe, but I had to keep going until I spotted the back of the grocery store. I rounded the corner when a burly man with fire red hair stepped out from the alley to block my path. He snarled deep in his chest, and red hair bristled on his chest under his tight sleeveless t-shirt. “You weren’t trying to get away from me, little lady, now were you?”
I jumped back with a cry. “Dean! You scared me.”
Dean Lynch drew himself up to his full height. The red-blonde stubble on his chin and jaws made him look bigger and more menacing than ever. “I asked you a question. You weren’t trying to scuttle off home without talking to me first, were you? You know what I told you about meeting me back here after the meet.”
My hand flew to my heart to steady my racing pulse. “How could I scuttle off home when you said you would give me a ride? It’s over twenty miles to my house from here.”
“Don’t you give me none of your sass!” he boomed. “What did he say to you? Did he do like I told you he would?”
I shrank in on myself. If only I could sink into the ground right now and disappear, I would never have to see this ugly cretin again. I couldn’t even look Dean in the eye without panicking. “Yeah. He did.”
“So?” he barked. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” I squeaked. “He got interested like you said he would. He couldn’t stop staring at me. He asked me to stay and talk to him, so I did.”
“What did he tell you?” Before I could stop him, he rushed me and grabbed me by the throat. He crushed my windpipe and slammed me back against the concrete wall of the grocery store. “You better tell me this instant what he said or I swear to High Heaven I’ll kill you here and now. What did he say? Did you get any information out of him at all?”
I couldn’t make a sound with him strangling me like that. I choked and spluttered. He lifted me up so my feet came off the ground. I kicked and clawed at his iron fingers to get away, but I couldn’t free his hand from my neck.
All at once, he let me drop. I crumpled to the ground coughing and gasping for air. He towered over me and glared down. “You better not be trying to pull anything on me or it will be your head.”
“I’m not,” I rasped. “He didn’t tell me anything. He said his family made the money to buy Smokey Ridge by bootlegging moonshine back in the day. That’s all he told me. I swear it.”
He scowled and compressed his lips. He looked like a cartoon character, but I couldn’t see the humor in this. My throat hurt and my blood still galloped in my veins. He tried to kill me before. I had to get away from him, but how?
He kicked me in the side of the foot. “Get up.”
I staggered to my feet, but I couldn’t help glaring at him under my scattered hair. I hated Dean Lynch with all my heart and soul. I only wish I could find a way to get back at him for ruining my life.
“You’ll do what I said,” he rumbled. “You’ll go after him again and get him to trust you. Understand? Use all your feminine wiles to charm the pants off him. If you can get him in the sack, so much the better. Make him fall for you.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” I blurted out. “He’s a player. Everybody knows that.”
Dean lowered his voice to a threatening snarl. “Just do it. I don’t give a crap how. Just do it. When I give the word, you bring him to the location I say. Make sure you get him eating out of your hand before then or you’ll be sorry.”
I was already sorry I ever got into this mess, but I couldn’t think of any way I could have avoided it. I fell into it by accident, and now I couldn’t get out of it. I had to do what he said.
He jerked his bullet head over his shoulder. “Come on. Get in the truck.”
He marched out of the alley to a bright blue Ford parked in front of the grocery store. He got into the driver’s seat without giving me a second glance. I took the passenger seat, and he drove out of town.
We didn’t say anything all the way to my house. Hatred for that stinking lump of wasted flesh ate me up inside. I even considered finding a way to kill him, but that wouldn’t solve my problem. It would only bring down a bunch more of his rotten kinfolk on my head, and one Lynch was bad enough.
He angled the truck down Road 28L, but he stopped before he got to my house, thank the stars. Dean Lynch was the last man alive I wanted my Daddy seeing me with. Christ, Daddy might take it into his head there was something going on between me and Dean. That would be my worst nightmare.
I didn’t want Daddy ever laying eyes on Dean or any other foul-mouthed Lynch. If I had to put up with their kind a little longer for Daddy’s sake, I guess I could stomach it.
Dean positioned the truck so we could see the house. Daddy sat in a wicker chair on the front porch. His head lolled back against the seat so his mouth hung open in sleep.
Dean eyed him. When he spoke, I had to strain my ears to hear him. “It would be a shame for anything to happen to him, wouldn’t it?”
I didn’t answer. I yanked the door handle and jumped out of the truck. I didn’t turn around again walking to the house. When I got to the porch, I studied Daddy for a few seconds. He didn’t move. He didn’t hear me come up. Nothing disturbed him when he fell asleep like this.
I eased past him and let myself into the house. I didn’t hear Dean’s truck leave. That meant Dean was still sitting out there watching. No matter what time of the day or night I looked out the window, his insidious presence haunted me like a festering infection. I never knew if he was out there or not.
I shut the door behind me so it didn’t make a click. The longer Daddy slept, the better. I tiptoed to my room and closed that door, too. Once inside, I released all the tension from the day. I was safe at last. No one would bother me here.
I sank onto my bed. My neck hurt from Dean’s grip. I only hoped it wouldn’t bruise so Daddy wouldn’t see. I had to think of something. I had to find a way out of this situation one way or the other. No one else would do it for me.
Now that I got away from Dean, at least temporarily, fear and racking stress overpowered me. My hands shook and my teeth chattered. I rubbed my fingers together, but I couldn’t get warm. I experienced the crushing terror all over again that Dean was about to kill me.
3
Liam
I parked the Jeep in front of the old Walsh place and set the emergency brake. I got out and scowled at the tumble-down shack of a house. I hadn’t been out here since I was a kid when Old Man Walsh was still alive.
The years since certainly didn’t do the place any favors. One corner of the roof slouched where a support post rotted away from the ground. Shingles drooped off the walls and the gable, and the screen door sagged at an odd angle. The heirs let it fall into ruin since Old Man Walsh died.
Now a different old man sat on the porch. He wore a threadbare old bathrobe and wool socks over his feet. His head sagged and he stared straight ahead of him with milky, vacant eyes.
An oxygen tube ran from a cylinder next to his chair to a pronged cannula in his nose. His white lips trembled and the red rim around his eyes glistened with moisture.
I crossed the yard and positioned myself right in front of him at the foot of the porch steps. He still showed no sign of recognizing anyone present. I surveyed the house one more time. Were Amy and her father really living in this dump? They must be really poor.
My conversation with her flashed back into my memory. She balked at telling me where she came from or why. She certainly never let on that her father was this bad off. He looked like he must be pushing ninety, and Amy herself couldn’t be more than twenty.
I took a firm grip on myself and strode up the steps. I parked myself in front of the old man’s chair and stuck out my hand. “Good morning, Mr. McMasters. I’m Liam Kelly. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir.”
He blinked and looked up. He moved his lips, but no sound came out. A flicker of recognition winked in his eyes, but that was all.
I bent down and picked up his frail, bony hand. I didn’t dare compress it much. I raised my voice to shout at him. “It’s good to meet you, Sir. Welcome to the district. How are things since you moved in here?”
Just then, a figure appeared in the open doorway. Amy’s eyes popped when she recognized me. “Liam! What are you doing here?”
She did her best to cover up her surprise, but I noticed the minuscule flash of fear in her face before she got a grip on herself. She glanced over her shoulder into the house. Then she scanned the tree line around the property.
She looked down at her father and her cheeks colored. She was embarrassed that I should see how they lived, but something more than that tapped me on the shoulder. She was scared of something. I saw it yesterday at the fishing hole and I saw it again now. She had no reason to look out at the woods if she wasn’t petrified of something.
She put her hand on the screen but she didn’t open it. She hesitated there with it blocking me from her. Through the decrepit mesh, I took in her jeans and her loose-fitting V-neck t-shirt. Her hair hung in a plain ponytail behind her head and her bare feet stuck out from the cuffs of her jeans.
She looked so different from the mesmerizing beauty I saw yesterday at the pool. Now she was nothing more than a country girl relaxing in her own house. She wasn’t trying to impress anyone with her jaw-dropping body in a wet t-shirt.
She looked downright ordinary like this, but for some reason, that only made her more appealing. Even the uncertainty and tension in her features made her more accessible and endearing. I couldn’t sleep last night from the memory haunting me of her all wet and smoking hot at the pool. Still, I liked her better like this.
The next minute, she squared her shoulders and pushed the screen open. It creaked and tilted and almost broke off, but she paid no attention to it. She came out on the porch and took up a defensive position next to her father’s chair.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I just came to see how you were,” I blathered. “I wasn’t sure if you were all right after the way you left the fishing hole yesterday, so I decided to come and see for myself. This place sure needs a helping hand.”
“Well, it won’t get one from us,” she retorted. “Daddy can’t work anymore and I don’t know how. This was all we can afford, so it will have to do the way it is.”
“I didn't think you or your Daddy would do
it,” I told her. “I’ll do it myself.”
She blinked up at me. “You!”
“Yeah.” I crossed the porch to the rotten post and took hold of it. I gave it a strong tug and checked the connection to the eaves. “I can fix this for you. I just need to bring my tools down here maybe tomorrow. Would that work for you?” I looked down at the old man. “It doesn’t look like your Daddy’s going anywhere. He can supervise me so I don’t get into trouble.”
Her cheeks flushed bright red and she looked away. “We don’t need any charity from you. We’re just fine on our own.”
“I can see that.” Yeah, right. They weren’t just fine by a mile. “How long did you say you’ve been living in this place?”
She muttered under her breath. “About two weeks.”
“Is everything all right inside?” I held up my hand to stop her from cutting in. “I’m not going inside so keep your panties on. I’m just asking.”
She fidgeted from one foot to the other. “Well, a water pipe under the bathroom sink is busted. When we turned on the water, it poured water all over the floor so we had to turn off the water to the bathroom. We have to dump buckets of water down the toilet to make it flush. I don’t dare turn the water back on and there’s a hole in the hall where the boards are rotten through. I have to be careful not to fall in when I go to the bathroom at night, and I don’t let Daddy go there at night at all. I make sure he….”
She broke off and bowed her head. She didn’t have to say it. She was ashamed of all this. She was ashamed of being poor. She would rather suffer taking care of her father in this hole than ask for help.
“That’s all right,” I told her. “I’ll fix it up if you want me to. We need to get the place tightened up before winter anyway.”
Her head shot up. “We?”
I shrugged. “It’s just a figure of speech. It snows out here in the mountains sometimes in winter, and the rest of the time it’s butt-cold. You don’t want to freeze your keister off in a barn like this. You need to get it sealed up and hopefully insulated before that happens. What do you have for heating?”
