Five Mountain Daddies

by B. B. Hamel

  “Yeah,” he says softly. “She did. Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ll keep you posted if anything changes but… well, thanks, Wyatt. I think this is going to be good for Mason.”

  “Just doing my job,” I grunt, although I have to admit, I’m a little proud.

  “When are you going back?” he asks.

  “Soon,” I say.

  “Well, if you ever want to moonlight at Mason, you let me know.”

  I laugh again. “Will do.”

  “Thanks again,” he says. “We could have easily let that slide under the radar, but you forced our asses into gears. Some people might not like that, but I appreciate it.”

  “Thanks, Mitch,” I say, deciding that he’s one of the good guys.

  “See you later.”

  “See you.”

  We hang up the phone. I stretch and go into the bathroom. I brush my teeth, shower, and get ready for the day. I kill an hour that way before packing up my stuff slowly. When I’m done, I call up Cora, but she doesn’t answer.

  I decide not to wait. I lug my stuff down to the car, get it packed, and head into the office. I pay my bill, hand in my key, and I am officially leaving this fucking dump.

  When I’m done, I’m surprised to find Cora standing over by my car. She smiles a little bit as I walk over toward her.

  “Morning,” she says.

  “Morning,” I reply. I stop a few feet away from her.

  “I thought I’d come say goodbye.”

  I nod. “Thanks. I was going to come see you.”

  “Got time for breakfast?”

  I smile. “Yeah. I think I do.”

  We get into my car and I drive us to the Great American. I can feel the tension in the car, but I don’t succumb to it. I ask her about her mother, and she talks about it as we head inside and grab a table.

  Once our food arrives, I tell her about my call with Mitch. I’m surprised that she doesn’t seem to think much about it either way.

  “I’m just glad I know the truth,” she says. “That’s all I really wanted.”

  “Well, you’re getting justice. Or some kind of it, at least.”

  She nods. “Good. I know it won’t help Atticus now… but at least those two people won’t be out there on the streets.”

  “No, they won’t. Not for a very long time, at least, and who knows. Maybe prison will be good for them.”

  That gets a smile out of her, but it quickly fades away. We move on to simpler things, stuff about my trip back home, what I’ll do there, promises that we’ll keep in touch, although I’m afraid they don’t mean much. I can see the pain on her face, and I feel it too.

  Everything inside of me wants to stay. It’s screaming for me to stay. I’ve never felt like this about a woman before, and I have to realize by now that it’s real. It’s not just some stress-induced delusion. It’s a good thing, it’s pure and simple and it makes me happy. I don’t understand how I’m going to walk away from it.

  I pay the bill and we leave. We get into my car and I drive her back to her mom’s place, not really thinking about the car she left back at the motel. She doesn’t say anything about it, probably because she wants to spend more time with me.

  We get to her mom’s place and I park out front. On a whim, I suddenly get out of the car. “Follow me,” I say to her, shutting the door behind me.

  “Wait,” she says, getting out. I’m already walking away, past her mom’s place, toward the back yard.

  She has to run to catch up. “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Come on,” I say.

  We cut through the woods, down a short slope, and around a little bend. We find a path, mostly overgrown now, but still familiar. She keeps step behind me as we walk, down around another bend, and up ahead I can hear the bubbling of running water over rocks.

  We pass through the trees and underbrush and step up to the bank of a stream. It’s the same little body of water we used to play in as kids. We came here so many times, back in the day. Cora steps up next to me and I lean against her.

  “Smaller now,” I say.

  “I know.” She sighs. “We spent a lot of time down here.”

  “Atticus loved it. He used to catch frogs and throw them into the water again.” I laugh to myself. “Remember the time he fell in?”

  “Yeah, because you pushed him.”

  I grin at her. “It was up there further, toward a deeper part.”

  “We thought there were alligators in the water.”

  “That’s right. I forgot about that.”

  “There were rumors that the alligators came up and ate cats and dogs in the night.”

  I laugh again and she’s grinning too. “I don’t know why we ever believed that.”

  “We were kids.”

  “Yeah, we were.”

  We stand there, side by side, looking at the water. I half-turn toward her, but there’s this look on her face that stops me.

  “Cora,” I say.

  “It’s okay,” she interrupts me. “I know you have to leave. I get it. What we had… it’s fine, okay? You did enough. You didn’t have to do this.”

  “Do what?” I ask softly.

  “Bring me here. Remind me what I’ll be missing.”

  “Cora,” I say again.

  “Just go, okay? Just leave me. You don’t owe me anything.”

  I take a step back. I could turn around right now, walk away quickly, get in my car, and never look back. I could do that and it would be okay. I’d hurt for a while, so would she, but we’d heal. She’s right, I don’t owe her anything. I already gave her a lot, much more than I expected.

  But that’s the thing about love. You give more than you ever dreamed of giving, and then you give more, because you want to give. You want to give so badly you’re willing to give it all, absolutely everything about you, in order to make that other person happy.

  It hits me all at once, standing there. The problem with the little story I’ve been telling myself is, I don’t think I’ll get over her. I don’t think I’ll heal. And I don’t want to.

  I turn toward her completely. She looks up at me. “No,” I say.

  “No, what?” She blinks.

  “No, I don’t owe you shit.” I step closer to her. She doesn’t back away. “And what I do, I do because I want to. Do you understand?”

  “Wyatt,” she says, and I can hear the pain in her voice, but she has to let me finish.

  “I do what I want to do, because it makes me feel good. You make me feel good, better than anyone ever has. Maybe this is stupid…” I don’t finish my sentence. I grab her hips and pull her against me, kissing her deep and hard.

  She kisses me back after a second, and I know I crossed a line. But it’s the sort of line I never want to go back over.

  When our kiss slowly breaks off, I smile at her. “I love you, Cora. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You can’t,” she says softly.

  “I can get another job.” I cock my head. “Do you want me to stay?”

  “I love you,” she says, and it comes out in a rush.

  I grin, kiss her again, and I know I’m making the right choice.

  I’m leaving something behind, but that’s what you do for love. You sacrifice, you make choices. You choose to be a partner with someone and you give it your all, because at the end of the day, that’s what love is. It’s a choice, and nothing more, and you have to choose to give yourself up to it, to be swept along by its currents.

  I’m choosing Cora. I’m choosing love. I’ll leave all that other stuff behind me, my old life, my old nicknames, my old jobs. None of it matters anymore, not compared to Cora. Not compared to what we can have, what we will have.

  I kiss her again, deeper this time, because I know there are more to come.

  28

  Cora

  Two Years Later

  I’m not used to being pregnant.

  Every time I think I’m used to it, something changes. I get bigger, my
ankles swell up, something like that. I’m seven months pregnant, so close to the end, and I never once got used to it.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I look over at Wyatt and smile. “Nothing at all,” I say honestly, and he smiles back.

  He kicks his feet up on the railing in front of him. It’s freshly painted, a nice, crisp white. He did a lot to this old house over the last year or so, basically taking it from a falling apart shack to my dream home. The porch, in particular, was a large job, and he needed a lot of help with it, but fortunately the Mason cops are the kind of guys that will do a little manual labor in exchange for some beer and food.

  Mitch in particular was a big help. He’s been over most nights, panting and rewiring right alongside Wyatt. I swear, Mitch looks happier than he was back before Wyatt moved to Mason permanently again.

  “What’s time’s your shift tomorrow?” I ask him.

  “Early,” he says. He stands up and saunters over to me, kissing me softly. “So we got a little time.”

  “Yeah?” I kiss him again and he laughs, leaning up against me.

  We slowly break off the kiss but he leaves his hand on my swollen belly. The baby starts to kick and he laughs.

  “This is going to be one active baby,” he says.

  “I’ll have my hands full.” I grin at him.

  “You sure as hell will. But are you complaining?”

  “Not at all.” I kiss him one more time before he goes inside.

  I stay out and watch the sun slowly setting. I can hear him starting to cook and it just makes me smile again. My mom’s on her way over for dinner, like she does a few times a week. She lives just ten minutes down the road.

  I know Wyatt misses his family and his friends from the city. He goes back as often as he can to visit. I’m hoping that we can make our own little family here, and maybe one day we can move closer to the city, live in between here and there. He’s a Mason cop now, not yet a detective, but he’s working on it. Another year, I bet, before the slow working hierarchy of Mason finally decides to get their shit together and promote him. Once they do, we won’t have to live in this county anymore, we’ll be free to move further away if we want, and Wyatt can commute.

  But that’s for the future. Right now, I just want to smile. I have a baby on the way, I’m on summer vacation from teaching, and my mother’s coming over for dinner. Her sobriety’s going well, after a couple of hiccups in the early days. She’s religious about AA, and she’s made a ton of new friends from the program. She’s happy, and that’s what matters.

  As for Jaxson and Kristi, they’re both in jail. Jaxson for twenty-five to life with a chance for parole, like Mitch thought he would. Kristi, though, she got life. Apparently, she was uncooperative to the end, and the judge decided that she was the one most at fault. She’ll rot in jail, and I can’t say I’m upset about it.

  Wyatt comes back out briefly. “You want bread with this?” he asks me.

  I nod. “Of course.”

  He grins. “Of course you do.” He disappears back inside.

  I sigh and slowly stand. I better go in and help him, make sure he’s not screwing dinner up, although I don’t have to worry really. He’s a great cook.

  And life’s great. When all this started two years ago, and Wyatt came back into my life, I never pictured this as the end. I always figured things would be hard, painful, difficult, but that’s not how things turned out.

  Wyatt makes me better, he makes me whole. I love him with everything I have, and I know how much he’s given me. I want to give everything back, and I’ll start with a baby.

  We’re building a life here, and I’ve never been happier. He has his job with the police, and I have my teaching. Soon, we’ll have a family, getting bigger and bigger.

  My mom’s car pulls up. I wave to her, a big smile on my face. She comes up and hugs me, and we go inside together.