Sunshine Walkingstick Omnibus

by Celia Roman

  “Riley,” I gasped.

  “Mmm, baby. You taste so good, I—”

  A loud knock banged against the door, jerking me outta the sensual haze Riley wove about me. He cursed under his breath and pushed his chair back away from me. “Don’t you dare move a muscle.”

  Like I coulda even if I’da wanted to.

  Before Riley could make it to the door, it opened and Trey poked his head inside. His gaze went from spit-fire mad Riley to me standing there with my pants unbuttoned, and his mouth twitched into a grin. “Missy made breakfast.”

  I whirled around and fumbled my pants closed, cursing both him and my flaming cheeks under my breath.

  “We’re set,” Riley said without a hint of anything other’n calm in his voice. “Tell Missy we’ll be up in a little while.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Wait a minute.” I sighed out a silent prayer for patience, turned back around, and ignored the knowing look Trey shot me. Hang it all, a woman had a right to privacy in her own home, didn’t she? And I was plumb tired of him and Gentry busting in without so much as a by your leave. “I just got off the phone with Tom Arrowood.”

  That sobered my cousin up right quick. He stepped into the living room and shut the door behind himself, his expression grim as death. “What’d he say?”

  “A lot. They’re gonna try to hold Fame long as they can without pressing charges.”

  Trey grunted an agreement. “Figures.”

  Riley shook his head and pivoted on a socked foot. “You might as well sit down and have a muffin while y’all hash this out.”

  “Did I interrupt something?” Trey said, mock innocent.

  I scowled at the sheer lunacy of that’un. “Like you couldn’t tell.”

  Riley grabbed plates outta the cupboard. “I’ve got better things to do than listen to you two snipe at each other.”

  Trey snickered, and my cheeks flamed up again, blast it.

  “He started it,” I muttered. “Oh, go help yourself, Trey.”

  “Just a muffin, thanks. Missy’s expecting me back.”

  We settled at the table, me and Riley with bacon, eggs, applesauce, and muffins, and Trey with just muffins. Four of ‘em, to be exact, all smeared with fresh churned butter Aunt Sadie’d give me the summer past. I’d stuck it in the freezer to save for winter’s lean, and look where it’d ended up, feeding my cousin’s belly.

  I sighed and retrieved napkins for all of us. Bless him, Trey didn’t need me poking at him right now, what with his mama found dead and his daddy in prison for the deed. If he wanted to eat nigh on half a dozen blueberry muffins, let him. It’d keep his mind off the bad in his life for a little while.

  “Tom said after Fame is charged, there could be a bond hearing almost right away.”

  I detailed the conversation quick as I could, then about licked my plate clean whilst Riley and Trey gnawed the whole matter over. By the time we was finished eating (Riley took a second helping and Trey two more muffins), I was more’n ready for some action.

  Trey stood and dumped his plate in the sink. “You coming up now?”

  I shook my head. “Naw. I’m thinking I should take another gander at the cemetery, see if I can find anything outta the ordinary.”

  The critter squeaked from its cage. I turned around in my chair and eyed it right close. The night Betty Walkingstick called me out, or rather, the night I was forced to challenge her, the critter’d told me bad mojo was coming. I’d waited for it to speak again, but it hadn’t said a peep that I’d heard. When it didn’t do nothing more’n stare at me with them wide eyes, I turned back around and slumped into my chair.

  “Now that the bodies is gone and daylight’s upon us,” I continued, “it should be a lot easier to scope things out.”

  Riley’s mouth twisted into a disgusted frown, but all he said was, “It’s probably still cordoned off.”

  Trey leaned his butt against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Probably guarded, too.”

  “I reckon I can sweettalk my way in.” I batted my eyes at Riley, affecting a charm I possessed not a’tall. “You help, and I’ll make a cake for you this evening.”

  “I was hoping to be otherwise occupied today,” he muttered, and Trey cupped a hand over his mouth, only half hiding a grin.

  I shooed him out not long after with strict instructions to relay mine and Tom’s conversation to Missy, then set to work cleaning up the kitchen whilst Riley called his mama and told her he was gonna miss Sunday lunch with her.

  After, I called the prison where Mama was being kept and started the long process of getting a message to her, letting her know what was going on. Last thing she needed was to read about one brother’s death and the other’s arrest in the paper come Thursday. Where she was, being caught off guard could get a body killed, or worse. What kinda daughter would I be if I let that happen, even considering what she was in prison for?

  Riley didn’t grumble none as we bundled up, but he weren’t too happy about being dragged out into the cold neither. A sour frown marred the strong lines of his face the entire time we drove over to Cemetery Hill and his fingers twitched against the steering wheel to the music playing on the radio, missing the beat by a mile.

  He could be as miffed as he wanted. Maybe I was still waiting for him to turn his back on me or something, but I weren’t quite ready to have sex with him yet. The longer we put it off, the better, far as I was concerned. If that didn’t suit him, well, tough. It takes two willing partners to tango. He’d just have to wait for me to get that way, or find another way to coax me ‘round, one or t’other.

  With that silver tongue of his, shouldn’t be much of a problem a’tall. I mean, look at what he done talked me into. We was stepping out together, in public and ever thing, and he spent more’n one night in my bed, though we was never both in any kinda shape to do something about it. Way I figured, it was just a matter of time ‘til I succumbed to temptation.

  I glanced at him outta the corners of my eyes as he slowed the Range Rover and turned onto the dirt road leading to the cemetery. Truth be told, I didn’t rightly wanna resist too much longer. I done figured out he was the one for me. If I weren’t so cussed stubborn, I woulda figured it out years ago and saved myself all kinds of heartache in the process.

  But then I wouldn’ta had Henry, would I, and that’s the only thing what mattered.

  I tucked my worries away for another day and waited patient like for Riley to park. Sure enough, a deputy was huddled in his car, parked at the bottom of the hill from where Lily and Ferd was found. Tombstones shone white and gray in the raw morning light through the fog sliding around ‘em outta the surrounding woods.

  I scanned the hill ever upward, searching for the ones what’d held my aunt and uncle, and spotted ‘em beyond the yellow tape stretched on poles in a rough circle around ‘em. Couldn’t see no blood on the bodies, but that didn’t mean it weren’t there. I slid outta the SUV same time as Riley and marched over to the deputy’s car parked atop sparse gravel and packed dirt.

  The deputy rolled his window down, and I was surprised to see Todd Franks’ face appear. “I wish you would’ve brought me some coffee.”

  Riley shrugged and matched a casual grin to his tone. “If I’d known you were the one standing guard, I would’ve. You mind if we take a look?”

  “Go ahead. Better hurry before the crowd gets here.”

  “Crowd?” I asked.

  The deputy’s eyes swung toward mine, losing not a whit of friendly during their travels. “Gawkers. Folks are curious. Soon as breakfast is cleaned up, we’ll be overrun with onlookers. I’ll have to call in another deputy for crowd control until the investigator releases the scene.”

  “We’ll be quick,” Riley said.

  Deputy Franks waved us on and rolled his window up. Me and Riley skirted his car and wandered uphill, weaving around burials old and new as we walked.

  Frostbit grass crunched under my feet in the morn
ing’s stillness, breaking the silence embracing the cemetery. Riley snagged my hand when we neared the yellow tape barrier, and by unspoken consent, we drawed to a halt in front of it.

  Blood smeared the aged obelisks what’d held Lily and Ferd, right about where their hearts woulda been. A shiver snaked down my spine and I huddled against Riley, suddenly glad for his bulk. Gray moss and age dirtied the stones, nigh on obscuring the names and dates worn down under time’s unceasing touch. I squinted at the inscriptions and finally made out a first name on one, Arminda, and the last name of its twin, Wormwood. Not names I knowed right off the top of my head.

  “You see anything?” Riley asked.

  I shook my head against his arm, and he right kindly eased it outta my grip and wrapped it around my shoulders. I turned my gaze to the ground surrounding the markers. The grass was thick here in spite of the onset of winter. Faded silk flower arrangements rested in slender glass vases, the kind what had a spike for planting in the ground. These was tilted sideways a mite, like they hadn’t been tended in a while. I stifled the impulse to duck under the crime scene tape and set ‘em to rights.

  A breeze gusted along the treetops, swaying empty branches. I glanced toward the forest and spotted Old Mother standing at its edge dressed in her customary white dress. Barefoot, of course, and it near freezing outside. I opened my mouth to holler a hello, and was interrupted by Riley squeezing me close.

  He jerked a chin toward the opposite side of the cemetery. “Did you see that?”

  I glanced around and scanned the trees where he was a-looking. “See what?”

  “It looked like…” He shook his head and clamped his mouth shut. “Must be seeing things.”

  “Like what?”

  He shook his head again, rolled them broad shoulders of his in a restless shrug. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  I elbowed his side and tilted my head back ‘til our gazes met. “You can tell me. I won’t think less of you for seeing haints and such.”

  He snorted out a laugh. “God, Sunny. You’re something else.”

  “What did I say?” I asked, but he just laughed and hugged me close.

  I hid a grin behind a glance toward Old Mother, only she weren’t the one standing there no more. Was Lily Carson dressed in white. Her hands was raised toward me, bracketing the bloody hole in her chest.

  The hairs on the back of my neck tingled and I went stock still. “Lily?”

  Riley looked down at me, then followed my gaze to the edge of the woods. “What is it, sweetheart?”

  My throat clamped down around the answer. Lily dropped her arms and vanished, and I stood there like a lump on a log, afraid of where I was standing for the first time in my life.

  Chapter Six

  We cast around a mite longer without finding a single clue what made sense. Lily’s ghost didn’t count none. Ghosts couldn’t rightly communicate with the living, far as I knowed, and it was probably my imagination anyhow, seeing as how ghosts usually haunted the places they died.

  The cemetery weren’t it. That much was clear as a bell. Smooth ground and smudges of blood did not a bloody crime scene make, and bloody it shoulda been, considering the size of the holes gouged into Lily and Ferd’s torsos.

  Which kindly made me wonder: Where had they died if it weren’t here?

  I shrugged the question away along with the off feeling I got ever time my mind drifted ‘round to Lily’s ghost, or what passed for it, standing on the edge of the cemetery. “I seen enough.”

  Riley pressed a warm kiss to my temple, then we headed down the hill and said our farewells to Deputy Franks. By the time we buckled ourselves into Riley’s SUV, two cars had pulled into the cemetery and parked behind the deputy’s patrol car. The passengers gawked at us as we drove by. I pasted a big grin on my face and waved real cheerful like as me and Riley passed ‘em by.

  Which is what them idjits got for being so dadgum nosey in the first place. Let ‘em chew over how I was visiting the crime scene with the Sheriff’s son and smiling like a cat eating a canary the whole time.

  Riley flicked his turn signal on, his gaze glued to the main road just ahead. “Have I ever told you how much I love your orneriness?”

  I turned my grin on him, unashamed of tweaking them onlookers’ noses. “How much?”

  “More than you deserve, that’s for sure.”

  His teasing relaxed me like nothing else could. I patted his thigh, fit payment for his praise, then emptied my noggin of ever thing I could whilst the scenery flew by around us.

  Some time later, Riley pulled into my driveway and parked behind the IROC. His usual spot was filled by an old Volkswagon bus decorated with a collage of folk scenes. A metal goat was welded to the top, but I didn’t need to see it to know who’d come a-visiting. Only one man had the nerve to paint his transportation the way this’un was done up. Truth be told, I was looking forward to seeing some friendly faces.

  Jazz and BobbiJean got outta the bus the same time me and Riley exited the SUV, her holding a medium sized cardboard box to her rounded bosom.

  “Howdy,” Jazz said

  “Hey, man.” Riley stepped forward and held out his hand, and the two men exchanged man hugs. Hands clasped, shoulders bumped, free hands clapping t’other’s back.

  I settled for taking the box from BobbiJean, and weren’t surprised a’tall when a whiff of warm ham and biscuits drifted to me. In spite of the hearty breakfast we et not two hours ago, my stomach growled. Dang ol’ thing had gotten used to big meals, what with Riley hanging around and all.

  Hunh. Maybe I’d finally gain some weight, eating the way we was.

  BobbiJean hugged me around the box. Her mouth twitched into a sad smile and dark shadows marred the smooth, pale skin under her doe eyes. “I was sorry to hear about your aunt and uncle.”

  I bit my tongue, holding back a tart reply as to how some folks deserved what they got. BobbiJean was one of my true friends. I weren’t gonna treat her to my blunt honesty, not today. “Thanks. What’s all this?”

  “Me and Jazz figured you and Missy shouldn’t have to worry about cooking for a day or so with everything going on and all.”

  I nodded, oddly pleased by the thoughtful gesture. Normally, we’d be overrun with kinfolk stopping by and dropping off food, what with Lily and Ferd dying. Folks always done that to ease the burden on the surviving family, in this part of the South anyhow. Seeing as how Fame’d all but been charged with their murders, I reckoned nobody’d bother. Having Jazz and BobbiJean follow courtesy kindly reinforced the thoughts I thunk during Henry’s tombstone dedication a coupla weeks back. We had more family than I thought, and boy, was I ever grateful for it.

  I jerked my chin toward the trailer. “Come on in and sit a spell.”

  BobbiJean sucked in a breath and placed a hand over her stomach through the light jacket she wore. “Just for a bit. I’m in real need of a nap.”

  “The honeymoon wear you out?”

  Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink, but her brown eyes flashed a challenge. “I don’t think you have much right to tease me about my feller when your own is standing over there eyeing you like you’re the only thing keeping him from starving to death.”

  My shoulders hunched around my ears of their own free will, and danged if my cheeks didn’t heat up. “Now, BobbiJean.”

  She laughed and took my elbow, and together, we skirted the men and went inside. Soon as we was in, I dumped the box on the kitchen table and peeked inside.

  BobbiJean sidled up beside me. “Ham, green beans, mashed potato casserole, and a passel of Jazz’s fresh made buttermilk biscuits. I would’ve brought tea, but I couldn’t find my spare mason jar.”

  “You done enough,” I said around the lump clogging my throat. “Thanks.”

  “You’d do the same for me. Have done,” she corrected.

  “What’re friends for?” I reclosed the box’s flaps. Me and Riley could carry it up the hill to Fame’s when we went in a little while. Trey and Ge
ntry sure would appreciate the vittles, and Missy’d appreciate not having to fuss over cooking and cleaning. “You want something to drink?”

  She patted her stomach again and danged if her already white skin didn’t pale to a gray, ashen color. “I’m ok, thanks.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, just.” A grin blossomed across her pretty face. She grabbed my hands and squeezed real tight, and about bounced up and down right there in front of me. “Me and Jazz are having a baby. I just found out a couple of days ago.”

  Happiness burst into me, right on the heels of sorrow. I was glad for her and Jazz, truly. They’d be the best parents, warm and kind and loving. The kinda parents ever kid deserved to have.

  Only, I was a mama, too, and learnt the hard way how to tell the difference between the flu and morning sickness. BobbiJean was better off than I was back then.

  Fifteen, just turned, and pregnant by a guy what’d already dumped my sorry ass for another girl possessing more experience than me. Terry Whitehead was my first. I thought he loved me, or maybe I just didn’t care. Maybe I needed to believe somebody loved me after Daddy run off with that vacuum cleaner salesman and Mama killed ‘em both.

  And somebody had, eventually. Weren’t nothing like the love of a young’un to soothe over the rough spots in a woman’s heart.

  I shoved all the sorrow aside and held on to the good, only too willing to share it with BobbiJean. “You’re gonna love being a mama. You’ll be a good’un, too.”

  She breathed out a nervous laugh. “I don’t know about that. It’s a long time between now and the due date.”

  “Well, you can’t chicken out,” I said firm like. “But you can sit yourself in that chair right there and let me dig up some soda crackers for you. Ain’t nothing like ‘em for settling the tummy.”

  Riley and Jazz come in right then and scraped the soles of their shoes off on the doormat. Both of ‘em was grinning for bear, but Riley’s was something else. He caught my gaze with his own and the look he give me, somewhere between hot desire and a yearning for something I couldn’t pin down, heated my cheeks again along with a few mighty interesting spots a mite farther south.