by Bethany Kane
By the time he’d reached eleven years old, he’d given up the childhood fantasy that each man his mother molded her body against and kissed might be his absent father.
He wanted to tell her she was a coldhearted bitch who had sacrificed her only child to her carnal appetites and laziness.
But what was the point? He continued, determined to finish this mission.
“I also came to tell you I’m going to have a baby. It’s your loss you never knew the mother, Katie. She’s a light I reckon you and I never deserved. One thing’s for certain: I won’t be showing up here with your grandchild. I won’t be showing up on your doorstep ever again. If you call, if you try, Ma, that’s another thing entirely.”
He walked out of the house and didn’t look back. Fiona wouldn’t be waiting for the backward glance. Rill knew that for a fact.
He’d said what he needed to say to Fiona Pierce.
Rill had spent most of his life being embarrassed by his namesakes, William and Ray Pierce. The fact his uncles had just been sent to prison for gambling and soliciting prostitutes had been the main reason he’d made the final decision to film some scenes in Malacnoic four years ago.
But this visit wouldn’t be complete until he’d sat across a table from William and Ray Pierce. Micky the bartender had informed him the pair was currently out of prison, so Rill knew exactly where to find them that evening. William didn’t go anywhere without Ray, and vice versa. They even managed to organize it so that they were conveniently arrested together for similar crimes.
Tonight he was looking forward to seeing his uncles again for some reason. Maybe it was just because after his visit with Fiona he didn’t think any family visit could get much worse.
He waited in a dark corner of the Regal Lion, keeping a low profile and sipping his Guinness sparingly. Round about seven o’clock, the dim, musty pub began to bustle. He recognized his uncle Ray as he walked through the front door—tall, dark-haired, the remnants of great handsomeness still clinging to his worn visage. Rill stood. The movement caught Ray’s eye.
“Well, if it ain’t my long-lost nephew,” Ray bellowed so that most of the people in the noisy pub paused and gaped at Rill. Ray turned and spoke to a tall, wiry man who had just walked into the pub and who looked remarkably like Ray despite his stooped posture and graying hair. “Look ’a there, William. You see him, too, don’t you? It’s our nephew, Rilly, looking rich as a prince . . . rich enough to keep our cups full tonight, at any rate. Howsitgoin’ boy?” Ray boomed as he accepted Rill’s outstretched hand and pulled him toward him for a clumsy hug.
“Well, blow me raw, it is Rill!” said William Pierce, squinting. He joined his brother by giving Rill a hardy hug. “What brings you to this feeble town, then? Come to see your worthless ma, I’m thinking. Come to drown your sorrows now that you have, eh?” William said with a sly look in his blue eyes.
“It’s good to see you both. Have a seat, and I’ll buy you a pint,” Rill offered, waving at the wooden bench on the opposite side of him. He was eager to disappear back into the shadowed corner booth. Every eye in the pub seemed to be on Rill and his uncles.
“Margie, send us over a pint, eh?” Ray called to the busty waitress at the bar. “Look at her, will ya?” Ray leaned confidentially toward Rill and spoke in a low voice. “Ought to be shot for cutting her hair off like that. She was a good-looking woman. If it weren’t for those fun bags she’s got”—Ray cupped his hands in front of his chest—“I’d think Margie was a fucking man.”
“You didn’t seem to have any problems with her two nights ago, back there behind the bar after the pub closed,” William said drolly. “Sounded to me like your pipe was finding the lady parts just fine.”
Both men roared.
“I haven’t had her yet,” William muttered between jags of laughter. “So don’t mind me when I tell her I think her haircut is a bag o’ swag.”
Rill couldn’t help but grin as his uncles tried to calm their hilarity. Their expressions were sober and innocent as choirboys by the time Margie brought them their pints.
“That new haircut is real elegant, Margie. Makes you look a picture. That’s my nephew there, and he ain’t got nothing I don’t,” William assured her as the waitress eyed Rill and gave him a flirtatious smile. “Mine’s just the vintage version, that’s all.”
Margie rolled her eyes and walked away, putting an extra twitch in her ass. William took a long drink of his Guinness and smacked his lips appreciatively, his gaze glued to Margie’s rear view.
“She wants me bad,” William declared.
“Aw, shut it,” Ray said. “Our nephew is here. We’ve got better things to discuss than the frickin’ party your prick is throwing.” William’s expression looked doubtful, but he joined in the conversation jovially, anyway. William and Ray Pierce may be loudmouthed wastrels, but unlike their sister, Fiona, neither possessed a mean bone in his body.
They caught up over the next hour, his uncles becoming more expansive in their speech with each successive pint Rill bought them.
“You never told us why you came back to this bloody town,” Ray said a while later. “Did you visit Fiona?”
“Yah, I did. Came to ask her again who my dad was.”
“Aw, well, that couldn’t have gone well. Fiona always kept a tight clamp on her mouth about that topic even if she was loose with everything else she had to offer,” Ray said.
“You know,” William said significantly after he took a deep draw on his Guinness. “I have a theory on that and all. Want to hear it?”
“Sure,” Rill replied casually.
“I think your dad was that bloody vicar.”
Ray snorted. “You’re busting at the seams with it, William.”
“My dad was a vicar,” Rill repeatedly dryly.
“No, no . . . hear me out,” William defended, scowling at his brother. “I figure Fiona’d have to be ashamed of what she’d done, for her to keep her mouth shut about it all these years. Angus Rourke, that was his name. Big, strapping man, like you, Rill. Preached his bit in Dublin. Fiona used to visit our cousin Dina in town and the two of ’em would coo over what was under the vicar’s church robes. Knowing Fiona, she found out for herself firsthand.”
“Is Rourke still alive?” Rill asked. He’d heard many theories on the identity of the man who had fathered him, and this particular claim was an unheard one.
“Nah, died ten years back in a plane wreck. You’d think he would have had better relations with his employer,” William said, pointing upward.
“You know,” Ray said, wagging his finger at Rill. “Maybe he’s on to something.”
“You really think so?” Rill asked, amused.
“It’d sure explain why you were always so uptight, Rilly. Never chasing after the sallies even when they was practically lying in the path in front of you with their legs spread wide. Maybe it’s because you’ve got some vicar genes in you.”
William snorted with laughter.
Rill tilted his head as he studied his uncle. Here was something odd. Rill’d had his share of girlfriends in his teenage years. “You really think that? That I’m uptight?”
“Sure, I do.” Ray nodded his head sagely. “You don’t think I called you a prince when I saw you just because you’re so blessed tall and look as though you got plenty of coin in your pocket, do you?” Ray took a swallow of beer and seemed to consider. “ Course, you wouldn’t need vicar genes to make you a gentleman with the ladies. Not when you had Fiona for a ma.”
“Or us for uncles,” William said.
For a second, both men studied their Guinnesses soberly.
They broke out in simultaneous laughter, William slapping the wood table for emphasis.
Rill chuckled along with them. His uncles would never change, but Rill was okay with that for the first time. He opened his mouth to ask more questions about the vicar, but stopped himself at the last moment. Would it really do him any good? He’d never really know one way or anothe
r who his father was. Even if he ever succeeded in locating the dead vicar’s family, it wasn’t as if they’d be thrilled with his allegations their relative had been screwing one of his parishioners.
No, it was time Rill gave up on discovering that mystery from his past. He had a future to consider now.
“Are you going to be making another movie in Malacnoic, then? Seeing as we’re not in the lockup at the moment, William and I could play ourselves,” Ray suggested later.
William’s blue eyes sparked with annoyance. “I’ll be having a word with you about that last film you made here in town, Rilly.”
“What do you mean?” Rill asked.
“What were you thinking, letting that foine-looking man play Ray when you got that fellow with the face like a bag o’ dead rats playing my part!”
Ray gave an evil chuckle, clearly liking the topic a great deal more than his brother. “He’s got to play it like real life, ain’t that so, Rill? That guy—Everett Hughes—right? Perfect casting for me. I was much blonder when I was younger, and that’s a fact.”
William snorted derisively. “You’re a fuckin’ dose, you are, Ray. I think you’re mixin’ yourself up with that flea-bitten golden retriever we had as boys, old Tom.”
Rill laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What makes you think I’d written the parts with you two in mind?”
Both of his uncles gaped at him.
“Well, it was us, or at least it would have been, if you’d gotten someone like that Colin Farrell to play me instead of that hatchetfaced git. Everyone in Malacnoic says it was us,” William explained patiently.
“Well, there you have it, then,” Rill said, grinning. It hadn’t occurred to him until he sat there with his uncles that he really had written them—at least partially—into the characters. Not just the ones from the film they spoke of, either. There were aspects of his wily, fun-loving uncles in a lot of his characters.
The realization shocked him a little. He hadn’t really envisioned that anything about Ray and William Pierce was worthwhile, aside from the fact that they’d taught him how to use a hammer. Moviegoers and critics usually liked his quirky male characters, but it just hadn’t penetrated his awareness until now just how much of Ray and William were in them . . . how much his uncles were in him—Rill.
Not just the reprobate parts, either. There were great things about Ray and William—their charm, their irrepressible humor, the fact that they greeted every new day like it was their best friend, even when they woke up in a prison cell.
Perhaps they weren’t the best role models for a boy, but William and Ray were the only thing Rill had ever had. They’d do, he supposed.
Another thing struck him. Katie would love his uncles. The three of them would laugh together until tears leaked out of their eyes. He found himself looking forward to introducing her to the pair someday.
He bought himself a second Guinness and leaned back, relaxing for the first time since he’d made the decision to take a trip to Malacnoic. Maybe he would make another film here.
He and his uncles talked until late, and in the morning, Rill knew it was time to leave.
He’d done a little soul searching since he’d gotten on that plane in St. Louis; he’d done a lot of thinking. Now that it was done, he wondered if he hadn’t needed to somehow sew Katie into the fabric of his past, weave his future together with his history.
Or maybe he’d needed to return to better make sense of everything that had come after Malacnoic . . . why he’d needed to put Eden on such an impossibly high pedestal . . . why it had crushed him to learn she was flawed and only human . . . why he was so disturbed by his insatiable need for Katie . . .
. . . how it was that he could have fallen in love with Katie Hughes and not even known it.
The tiny, grimy town of Malacnoic, the impenetrable barriers behind his mother’s eyes, the joy in his uncles’ laughter, a vague, elusive memory of an angel falling on his doorstep—he’d found some answers in those things. He’d put together the puzzle, and even if there were some missing pieces, Rill could make out the picture.
It was time to start living again.
It was time to go home to Katie.
Twenty-seven
The week after Rill left Vulture’s Canyon, Katie had her first obstetrics appointment. The doctor confirmed what she already knew. Katie was four and a half weeks pregnant. She already had accepted that fact—one, because of the pregnancy test, and two, because it was the exact sort of ludicrous thing that would happen only to her.
It wasn’t all darkness and self-pity, though. She spent extra hours at the community center, decorating her new office and poring over resources, trying to figure out the best way to service her clients. The best training was just to visit people in their homes, however, get to know them where they were most comfortable. Fortunately, she was typically received with a great deal more hospitality than the chinchilla lady had shown her on that first day.
Last Thursday evening, she’d walked into the empty diner and called out to Sherona, who popped up from behind the counter.
“Will you be upset if I adopt Barnyard?” she asked Sherona.
Sherona set some napkins on the counter. “I’d love it, if you’re completely confident you can give him a permanent home.”
“I can. I’m not going to be leaving Vulture’s Canyon anytime soon. Besides, I’m going to have a baby. I figure I need the practice, taking care of something else.”
Sherona nodded and offered her congratulations on her pregnancy. Katie had come to admire the woman’s unflappability. “You want some newspapers, to set down in the seats of your car for when you take Barnyard?” Sherona asked.
“Nah. The car will survive some dirt. I’ve got a nice bath ready for him up at the house.”
Barnyard hadn’t thought the bath was so nice. Katie had never seen the basset hound move so energetically until she’d attempted to scrub him clean. Barnyard tipped over the little tin tub she’d found in the shed three times before she’d wrestled him down long enough to scour years of dirt off him. Katie hoped the dog had forgiven her by the time she set a diced-up skirt steak in front of him as he sat on the kitchen floor, damp and smelling of her favorite shampoo.
He’d glanced up at her with doleful brown eyes before he’d stood to eat. Katie saw his tail wag for the first time in her life. His entire butt swayed along with it as he sloppily ate his meal.
Her pregnancy started to feel a little more real to her, even though her new doctor had informed her that the baby didn’t even measure an eighth of an inch in length at that point. Olive Fanatoon had been a godsend, as the mother of three grown children. Olive was generous with her time in answering Katie’s questions and with her sympathy when, on one occasion, Katie had burst into tears seemingly out of nowhere.
Well, perhaps it wasn’t completely out of nowhere, as she had sobbed Rill’s name repeatedly the entire time.
Stupid hormones.
When she’d first seen the positive sign on the home-pregnancy test, Katie had wanted nothing more than to talk to her mother. Bawl to her, more like it. Since then, she’d decided not to tell her parents about the pregnancy until she reached the end of her second month, just to be on the safe side. No reason to get them worried. They’d be thrilled for her, as long as she was happy.
Katie figured she’d have to polish up on her acting skills for that particular role.
She had told Everett, however, feeling like she had to, seeing as how her brother had heard what was happening in the bathroom the day she took the pregnancy test and Rill burst in on her. Everett had been extremely quiet when she told him the details of her pregnancy, but then moaned miserably when she told him about Rill’s reaction.
“Christ Almighty, Katie. What do you mean he doesn’t remember getting you pregnant?” Everett had demanded when they’d spoken on the phone earlier today.
“I mean he was stone drunk. And I’m not giving you any more detai
ls about it, either. It’s none of your business.”
“I’m not much in a mood for feeling sorry for Rill, seeing as how he got my sister pregnant and took off,” Everett grumbled, “but I can see how it might have floored him. I don’t suppose he told you about Eden?”
“Yeah,” Katie had replied flatly. “How she was pregnant when she died, and it wasn’t his baby.”
“Of all the fucking things—”
“Yeah, I see the dark irony of it all. Trust me, I’m drowning in it.”
She’d regretted saying that when Everett said he was booking a flight to St. Louis the next day. She’d scolded him out of it, saying she had her new job to attend to, and assuring him Olive and Barnyard were there for support. She told him he could fly out with her parents once she told them about the baby, if he wanted.
Katie figured she’d need a good dose of moral support at about that point, living alone on top of that hill and wondering where Rill was . . . what he was doing . . . whom he was with.
She kept dreaming about him incessantly; Rill holding her fast in his arms, his male laughter filling up the whole house, the moment when his amused expression turned hot as he looked at her. The dreams were so realistic, she’d wake up in the morning and experience her loneliness like a slap to the face. She knew she should have washed the sheets, or slept in the dormer bedroom, but she couldn’t resist lying in his bed at night, his pillow pressed against her belly and face, his scent filling her nose.
He’d tried to call her twice that Katie was aware of, but cell phone coverage in the hills was spotty and unreliable. She hadn’t gotten his brief messages until hours after the call was actually placed.
He hadn’t called for two days now, and Katie was beginning to get jittery with anxiety over that fact. She couldn’t allow herself to believe he was going to return, but she couldn’t seem to stop hoping, either, and she knew how unhealthy that was. When she realized the state she was putting herself into late Saturday afternoon as she paced around with her cell phone sitting on the kitchen table like a time bomb she couldn’t deactivate, Katie resolved to go into town and eat at the diner. One of Sherona’s meals would put her straight.
