Dodge the Bullet

by Christy Hayes

  “That’s awful.” Sarah wanted to reach out and touch him, but she could tell he wasn’t close to being done.

  “I refused to have anything to do with her. It wasn’t my baby. Hell, I’d never even touched her and everybody was pushing me to marry her. I could see where it was heading and I panicked.”

  Oh God, here it comes. The look on his face was so strained, so pitiful, she knew it was going to be bad.

  “I took off, just left town. Didn’t know where I was headed or what I was going to do. I knew if I stayed I’d be forced to marry her and be her baby’s daddy, and I was too pigheaded to do it.”

  Sarah rubbed her hands along the tops of her thighs. “That’s it? You just left? I don’t get what the big deal is.”

  “Wendy went off the deep end a little when word got out she was pregnant and that I’d taken off. Her family turned her back on her. She ended up staying at our house for awhile. It was bad for her, the guilt and the shame of it all.”

  The fact that he could think about her and how she felt after causing him to leave his home and family was a testament to his character. Sarah’s heart broke for him, for the boy he’d been and the man sitting before her now.

  “She took a bunch of pills. Everybody thought she was trying to get rid of the baby.” Dodge looked up into Sarah’s eyes. “She died.”

  Sarah struggled to unclench her fists and relax her shoulders. “Oh God, Dodge, you can’t blame yourself for what happened.”

  “Doesn’t really matter if I do or not. Everybody else does.”

  Sarah stood up with a jerk, touched his shoulder and gripped hard. “Yes, it does matter.” She touched his face with her free hand, felt the stubble brush against her fingers and gently pulled his face toward hers. “It does matter. You’re not to blame for her death.”

  “I didn’t say I was.”

  “You didn’t say it, but you feel responsible. I can see it on your face, hear it in your voice. Damn it,” she all but shouted and forced her fist into the counter. “You didn’t do anything to that girl.”

  He stood up slowly and paced away to the open deck door. Sarah followed him outside. “Didn’t Tommy stick up for you? Tell the truth about the guy in the bar?”

  “Yeah, but…his dad was a drunk.” He shrugged. “I’d stood up for him at school a few times and people just thought he was paying me back with a lie. Besides,” he turned to face her. “When your own family looks at you like mine did, like they know you’re lying, you lose the gumption to fight. It takes the wind right out of you. It could’ve been me. If she’d have let me, I’d have had her that night or any other. It’s a wonder I hadn’t gotten anyone pregnant before.”

  “Why don’t you tell people to go to hell? Why don’t you defend yourself against the lies?”

  “She’s dead now. She paid the ultimate price.”

  “And you haven’t paid? You left town to protect yourself and you’ve been paying for twenty years. Don’t you think you’ve suffered long enough?”

  “This is why I don’t talk about the past. I don’t want anybody feeling sorry for me.”

  “You’d rather they believe you a coward?”

  “People believe what they want to believe. I’d rather they blame me than smear the reputation of a dead girl. I’m over it, Sarah. I only told you so you’d know what you’re getting into, so you could trust me to do right by the lease.”

  “I told you before I trusted you.” She stepped forward, closed the gap between them. “I do trust you.”

  All Sarah could see was him as a boy, with no mother and no hope. It could have been one of her boys and the thought of that made her insides turn bitter with rage.

  Without a thought, she buried her face in his chest, wrapped her arms around him and held on as if he were adrift at sea and she were his life rope.

  Dodge put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back out of his reach.

  “God help the next person who bad mouths you in my presence.”

  “No,” he said. “That’s not why I told you.”

  “But--”

  “No, Sarah. I mean it. I don’t want your pity and I won’t have you getting in the middle of this. What’s done is done.”

  She ripped her shoulders free with a fresh wave of anger. “I don’t pity you, Dodge. Far from it. But if you expect me to sit idly by and let your good name be slandered, you never should have told me.”

  “Damn it,” he said on a hiss. “Just let it go.”

  “You can’t like the way people treat you. You can’t tell me you enjoy being looked down upon.”

  “I don’t give a damn what anybody thinks of me and neither should you.”

  “It’s wrong. It’s been so long…” She clenched her fists. “I don’t understand.”

  “Her family’s still here. My coming back to town has brought it all back to the surface. It’s been hard enough on them and I won’t do anything to hurt them.”

  “You may think you’re being a martyr, but you’re just a damn fool,” she said. “What about your family? This is about more than just you.”

  He shook his head. “You’re afraid of what this means to you and your family. I don’t blame you. That’s why I told you.”

  She laughed. “Oh, that’s a good one. Don’t turn this around on me.” She poked him in the chest. “I care about you, like it or not, and you can’t scare me away with that bullshit. Unlike everyone else who’s ever cared about you, I don’t give a damn what people in this town think. Hell, I don’t know any of them enough to care. You go be someone else’s martyr and let me deal with people in my own way.”

  Dodge turned, slapped his hands on the deck rails, and spun around again to face her. “You can’t be that naïve. If you tie yourself to me in any way, lease or friendship…whatever, you’ll be judged. Your kids will be judged. I should have told you when I suggested the lease, but I don’t like to talk about it. And I’m serious. I don’t want you defending me.”

  “Tough.”

  “I’ll understand if you change your mind about the lease. You don’t need this, nobody needs this. I can make other arrangements.”

  “I’m not changing my mind about the lease.” She looked out at the river, watched the angry water churn over the rocks, and chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “This certainly explains your views on women.” She looked at him then. “Go sign the lease.”

  “You may be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”

  “You have no idea.” She pushed him back inside.

  Chapter 13

  Kimberly Weston sat at her desk, a seriously outdated steel monstrosity she’d detested from the moment she’d laid eyes on her office. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only reason Benji had it in his otherwise stylishly furnished Westmoreland office was because it was too large and too heavy to be removed. It would probably stay in the office for as long as the building stood. She reached for the phone that sat on the edge of the beast, then pulled her hand away and played with the ends of her hair.

  She needed to call her mom. She needed to tell her she was in Westmoreland, a mere 75 miles from her hometown of Bellingham, a whisper of a town that sat between the larger and more prosperous Hailey and the soon to be gentrified Cooper. Her mom would expect a visit, despite the nearly two hour drive, and a full accounting of everything she’d done in the last few months. She’d critique her hair, her clothes, her mannerisms, and feel betrayed when Kimberly didn’t want her to fix the comfort foods of her youth. She’d find offense at everything that Connie Weston saw as evidence that her little girl had changed--and not in a good way. All the same stuff she’d dealt with on her last visit home, almost a year ago.

  Kimberly had been back in Colorado since then, even as close as Cooper when they’d met with Saxton on several occasions at the site where he planned to build. Her mom would flip if she knew Kimberly had been so close and hadn’t come by. But nobody knew Benji was involved in the
Cooper project because of the grass roots movement against it, and Benji shied away from negative publicity. Besides, there hadn’t been time, not with Benji on a tear about the property in Hailey some woman from Georgia owned. He was fit to be tied after their last meeting with Saxton and then he seemed to rebound again in a matter of days. But something had happened again, she wasn’t sure what, but she kept hearing Benji rant and rave about that Dodge guy to poor Tommy Thornton.

  Kimberly wondered if Tommy remembered her or even realized they were cousins. He was older, much older, like almost forty. Her mom always referred to the Thornton side of the family as “the drunks”. Of course, teetotaler Connie Weston considered anyone who had more than a sip of wine at church during communion a lush. And since Tommy’s dad died of cirrhosis of the liver a few years back, Tommy and his mom were left with the label, even though she knew it didn’t fit either one of them.

  She hadn’t seen him since his father’s funeral when she was only twelve. She’d been thrilled to finally get a look at the wild branch of the family tree. Her overactive imagination had turned him into a lean, mean Harley riding hell raiser with a take-no-prisoners attitude. In reality, he looked more like a bald nobody who might work at the local bank or even bag groceries at Safeway. The world was always more exciting in her mind's eye.

  “Kimberly, get in here,” Benji called from his adjoining office.

  She jumped at the unexpected yell and braced her hands on the desk to stop her from falling out of her chair. She’d never gotten used to him cattle-calling her like he did when he was angry. Despite her best efforts to overlook it, it still pissed her off.

  “Coming.” She rose and grabbed her note pad to jot down his barrage of instructions.

  From the doorway, Kimberly saw him pacing. The rhythmic flash of his Bluetooth made him look like a mad robot.

  “He’s done it again, by God, that man is my Achilles heel!”

  She let him rant on and on as was required when he got flustered. He’d talk to her, or through her, as he organized his thoughts. When he’d first confided in her, it made her feel important. But she’d come to realize that in her absence a plant or coat rack could serve the same purpose; he simply needed to bounce his feelings around to someone who knew better than interject their opinion before he ever got down to what he wanted.

  “I had him. I had his balls on a platter and he went and convinced that poor spineless widow to let him lease her land for a year, maybe more.” Benji’s face got all red and the vein that crossed the side of his temple stuck out like it did when he yelled. “I’ve only got three weeks to get that property under contract or Saxton’s going to cut me loose. The lease is iron clad; Mitchell Garrity drew up the contract. Damn it!”

  He stopped short of the swivel turn she’d seen him do a thousand times on the oriental rug--heel down, toe up, she’d say in her head and then time his steps across the narrow room. Heel down, toe up, one-two-three, and so it went.

  “Who do you know in Hailey, Kimberly? And I don’t mean from church. It’s time for desperate measures. I don’t have time to make discreet inquiries about who’d be willing to get their hands dirty for a few bucks.”

  Kimberly tried hard not to roll her eyes. Half the people he did business with would run stark naked through a crowded mall for the almighty dollar just to be in his good graces. She lifted her shoulders and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Depends on what you’re looking to do, Sir.” She didn’t want to hear his answer. It was bad enough listening to the underhanded ways he snaked around the law. It was something altogether different to be part of it.

  “I need to make some trouble for her, for Mrs. Woodward and for Dodge.” He moved around his desk and braced his hands on either side of the inlaid leather top. “I guess I can look at this like killing two birds with one stone. He’ll have most of his cattle moved to her place by end of the weekend, so I figure if I could get someone to cut the wires to a few of her fences…stir his cattle up and get them off of her property. Maybe mess with the caretaker’s house…break a window or two, make it look like vandals.” He eased into his seat, a small smile formed on his face as the aftermath of his impending destruction played out in his mind.

  Kimberly stayed in the doorway, afraid if she entered he’d consider her a willing participant in his criminal antics.

  “What are you doing standing all the way over there?” He waved her in with his hand. “And close the door. I don’t need anyone around here catching wind of this.”

  “Senator,” she said. This went above and beyond the call of duty. “I don’t want to catch wind of this.”

  “Don’t go weak on me now, Kimberly. It’s time to rally the troops and I need all my generals lined up and ready for action.”

  Kimberly found his war analogies patronizing, especially considering he’d never spent a day of his life serving the country in any military capacity. “This little general doesn’t want any part of illegal activity, Sir.”

  Benji rose from his chair and sauntered around to rest his hip on the desk directly in front of Kimberly, where she’d lowered herself into a seat after she’d begrudgingly entered the office and closed the door. “Sweetheart, I don’t want to do this either. And I’m not asking you to arrange anything that’ll endanger someone’s life. I do have morals, you know.”

  That was questionable.

  “All I need are the names of a few people who’d do something, not illegal really, but prankish, the kind of stuff teenagers do with too much time on their hands. Just a few people who don’t have the same morals and values you and I were brought up with.

  Now he was lumping her in with him.

  “Don’t you know anyone whose parents are in prison…or who drink too much…or who are so down on their luck they need some extra cash and don’t care what it takes to get it?”

  Kimberly leaned back in the chair and let the notepad rest on her lap. She pushed the pencil she’d brought through the spiral at the top of the pad because she was in real danger of breaking it in two. “Senator, I haven’t been in Hailey for well over a year, and the friends I do keep up with are the law abiding type.” She looked up at him and saw disappointment in his face as the lines between his brows drew together in a glower.

  He began to back tread in a heartbeat. “I’m just talking now, Kimberly, you know that, don’t you?” He stood and walked over to the bar, splashed some scotch in a crystal tumbler and took a swift drink. “You know I’d never do anything illegal. I just need to talk through stuff sometimes. I appreciate your listening and…humoring me for awhile. Go on back to your desk and start working on making those arrangements for our trip to Denver next week.” He moved back to his desk and picked up a pen and a file, gave her a dismissive wave. “I’ll want to stay at the Sheraton this time, Kimberly. No more Marriotts for me. My back’s still sore from our last stay.”

  Kimberly rose and closed the door behind her as she made her way back to her desk. She had an uneasy feeling in her stomach. She had to wonder how much damage she’d done to her career by not agreeing to help him. But as sick as she felt refusing him, she knew she’d regret helping him with what she knew in her gut wasn’t just talk. He intended to sway Mrs. Woodward one way or another and knowing it and not doing anything about it was almost as bad as helping do it in the first place. And there wasn’t a charm lesson in the world that would make it settle right in her mind.

  ###

  The kitchen light shone brightly through the windows and the air smelled of manure, dirty dog and motor oil. The sights and scents were a heady combination for a man who’d gone without that exact mix for two decades. Dodge would’ve known where he was by the smell alone if someone had dropped him blindfolded into the spot where he stood after a long day’s work. He needed a shower and a beer almost as much as he needed his next breath, but his feet were firmly planted in the rocky drive of his boyhood home. He closed his eyes and let his senses come alive with an optimism he hadn’t felt for a long t
ime. He was home.

  Living with his dad had never been a part of his plan, but there was something about it that felt like part of the reason he’d come back to Hailey. His dad was nearing eighty and he moved and talked like a man nearing the end of his life. Now more than ever Dodge needed his wisdom and guidance. Telling Sarah about what had happened with Wendy Hawkins felt like bathing in tomato juice after getting sprayed by a skunk. He knew most folks thought he still smelled like skunk, but the fact that she didn’t smell it, well, that was something. Something he needed. Dodge hoped maybe his dad would be able to explain why he needed absolution from her in the first place.

  “You gonna stand out there all night staring at the stars or are you gonna come on in and wash the stink off? I can smell you from here.” Donnie sat on the porch swing with his dog asleep at his feet.

  “Hell, pop, you scared the shit out of me.”

  “Wouldn’t know the difference, the way you smell. What’d you do--roll in it?”

  Dodge sauntered over to the porch and leaned against the post, kept a safe distance from his father’s sensitive nose. “We trucked the last of the cows from McGill’s to Sarah’s place this afternoon.” Dodge sat down on the stairs to take off his boots, the main cause of the smell. “I slipped in a pile and nearly threw my back out.”

  A faint smile passed over Donnie’s lined face. “There’s dinner on the stove. You’d better shower first or I won’t join you.”

  Dodge looked over his shoulder, surprised. “You cooked?”

  “That’s usually what’s involved when the end result’s a meal. Go on, I’ll fix you a plate.” He eased out of the swing.

  Once clean, the aroma from the kitchen brought a grin to Dodge’s face and clutch in his stomach. Meat and potato pie. The only meal his dad had ever cooked with success. Donnie rarely had to bother with cooking because of Dodge’s sisters, but on occasion he would, and the product was more likely than not meat and potato pie. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and took the seat across from Donnie at the table.