by Bonnie Dee
For the length of a block, neither of them spoke. The distant sound of a dog barking and someone calling their kids inside after some late-night game were as clear as their own footsteps hitting the pavement. At first, Ava felt uncomfortable and anxious to fill the silence, but the longer they walked, the more her tension eased. The silence was soothing, not awkward, and the presence of the man beside her was somehow comforting. He radiated a sort of stillness that flowed over Ava like cool rain on a hot day, leaving her refreshed and lighter somehow.
“How’d you end up in Waller?” she asked after another block.
“Just traveling along the road, and I ended up here,” he answered vaguely. “How about you? You live here all your life?”
“Yes.”
He cocked his head and studied her. “Yeah? You never wanted to see more of the world?”
“Not really. I like it here.” She must sound as dull as dirt to a wanderer like Mason, but he nodded.
“I’ve never been one for putting down roots myself, but this seems like a place I could stay for a while. Tell me what you like about it.”
Chapter Two
Mason hadn’t really expected the day to end this way, walking side by side with the cute waitress—the quiet one with the flyaway blonde hair, not the loud brunette—down the sleepy main street of a tiny backwoods town. Only the local bar was open. Music and laughter spilled out into the quiet night. If he weren’t with Ava, he’d probably stop for a beer, but he was pretty content to be where he was, learning a little something about his coworker with the storm-cloud eyes.
Ava didn’t rush to explain herself like a lot of women he’d met tended to do. He’d already noticed that she was conservative with her words. They walked nearly another block before she finally answered his question.
“I was just talking to Frannie about this. She’s dying to move to Pikeville, or anyplace else but here. But I don’t need a lot of big-city entertainment, and I like the slower pace of Waller. I like to hike in the hills and the hollows. With nature, there’s always something new to see.”
“If you bother to look,” Mason said. The woman was a thinker. There was a substance to her that her bold friend Frannie seemed to lack. He supposed that was what had attracted him to her right away. “Maybe sometime you can show me some of the places you like to hike.”
“Sure.”
The sounds from the bar faded behind them. Now it was only their footsteps on the pavement and the shrill chirping of crickets. They crossed an intersection where a red light pulsed rhythmically in one direction and yellow in the other. No need for a functioning stoplight after eleven in this sleepy town. Mason was surprised they even had a light rather than just stop signs.
“How do folks around here make a living?” he asked. “No factories that I’ve seen.”
“It was a coal mining town originally, but the seam went bust a long time ago. Now it’s mostly hardscrabble farms and small businesses—not all of them legal.” Ava watched the sidewalk in front of her as she talked, still too uncertain with him to meet his eyes, Mason thought. “A lot of people drive into the city to work. There’s talk they’ll shut down the local school soon and consolidate with the school system in the next county.”
“Place I grew up was like this too.” He remembered the dust-coated trailers and rusty metal sheds that had made up his hometown. Waller looked like a paradise compared to that forlorn crossroads. “It’s hard to keep body and soul together when the economy tanks.”
They’d turned onto a residential street of carbon copy bungalows standing in a row. The only variation was how much time and effort the owners had put into caring for the house and the little yards in front. Some boasted a profusion of flowering plants and lawn ornaments. Others had plain crew-cut grass, while others were overgrown with weeds like the house Ava stopped in front of.
“Your place?” Mason said.
“My mom’s, actually. I still live at home.”
She sounded embarrassed so he hastened to assure her, “Nothing wrong with that.”
She stared at the front door and the porch light left on for her. “I…wouldn’t mind getting a place of my own, but my little brother needs me.”
Mason waited patiently. He’d been working at the Cozy Café for over a week, and this was the first personal conversation he’d had with Ava. She wasn’t the type to talk easily about her life. Damned if he’d scare her off by asking questions.
“Bryan’s sick and my mom…can’t deal with him on her own.” She blurted as if it was something she didn’t say often.
He nodded. He could feel the frustrations and worries piled up inside her as palpably as if they were stacked cordwood about to tumble and spill. Why didn’t she vent to her friend Frannie? He only ever heard the brunette talking—and talking and talking—never Ava.
“What’s wrong with your brother?” he asked quietly, and immediately she clammed up.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Anyway, it’s fine. I don’t mind. I’m happy to take care of them…I mean, him.”
“It’s good to help out family.” He offered an encouraging smile but thought of his own family, left far behind so long ago that he almost couldn’t picture their faces. Would they even look the same anymore? Probably not.
“Thanks for walking me home.” She was halfway up the path to the house before Mason realized they were finished talking.
“No problem,” he called as she disappeared through the front door.
He stood for a moment, looking at the small house with its peeling paint and sagging porch. A feeling of disintegration permeated the building but also welled from the people who lived within. Mason went very still and reached out with his senses to catch a whiff of sadness and pain the way other people might smell bacon frying when walking past a neighbor’s house.
A pain he couldn’t relieve, he reminded himself. He was here to rest and heal himself, not anyone else.
The porch light turned out, and Ava’s figure passed by the front window, then that light went out too. Mason moved along before she noticed him lingering on the sidewalk staring at her house and decided he was as creepy as Frannie thought. He’d overheard their earlier conversation. Any out-of-the-ordinary behavior from him would solidify Frannie’s opinion that he was weird. He hadn’t done anything to draw attention since starting this new job, but some people seemed attuned to some sort of frequency he gave off. Made their neck hairs prickle or whatever, and Frannie appeared to be one of those who could sense the ability that set him apart.
Mason wondered if Ava sensed his “otherness” too. A couple of times, she’d looked at him long and hard while they’d talked as if trying to figure him out, but he could be reading too much into her natural curiosity about a stranger.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. No one would learn the truth about him while he was in Waller and when it was time to leave, he’d drift off like a ghost in the night, leaving no impression behind. This place was a haven where he could rest for a time.
Walking back through town, Mason had nearly reached the bar when a high-pitched squeal drilled his eardrums. Tendrils of agony slipped around the dark muscle inside him and tugged. The power began to rise in response.
He shoved it back down.
A lump of something lay at the side of the road, struggling, thrashing around, trying to escape its pain.
“No. I’m sorry. Not tonight,” he muttered, but his feet carried him over to the pathetic creature on its way to being roadkill. A rabbit. With a broken back leg from the looks of it. Nothing too life threatening. Nothing the creature couldn’t recover from on its own. Given time, Benjamin Bunny would be grazing grass like always, maybe with a permanent limp. If it was able to drag itself to safety and survive any predators along the way.
The unfurling wings of the thing inside Mason began to flutter. He reached out a hand toward the whimpering animal. But no, nature would take care of this. Not every weak or injured being was meant to recover.
He forced his hand back to his side and clipped the wings spreading inside him.
No. Nein. No way. Save it for something more important, a larger animal of the human kind. Every little bit was draining, and honestly, he didn’t know how many years he had left in him. He wasn’t yet twenty-five and already finding gray hairs and new creases in his face. It seemed as if every burst of energy he gave away chipped seconds off his life.
The animal squealed and twisted again, vainly trying to move its hindquarters. The kind thing to do would be to snap its neck and end its pain.
Then the goddamned little rabbit looked at Mason. Even in the darkness, with only the distant beam of a lone streetlight to illuminate the scene, he could see the glassy eyes staring right into his. Well hell, it shouldn’t take hardly any juice at all to fix this. One little touch, and bunny would be on his way again. He could spare that much of himself.
The need to help lifted like a bird catching the faintest breeze and rising. Mason crouched and reached out while the little animal tried to squirm away and actually hissed at him. He didn’t know rabbits could hiss.
At the moment he touched the warm, furry neck, he allowed a quick surge of strength to flow through him. The power swept down his arm and escaped through his fingertips like a crackling buzz of an electric shock.
Immediately the rabbit shook itself, pulled its hind legs beneath its body, and hopped away. Between one breath and the next, the animal disappeared into a clump of grass at the edge of the road.
Mason stood up and tried to catch another glimpse of the animal, but it was gone. “You’re welcome, you little bastard,” he called softly. He shook out the tingling in his arm, which felt a lot like blood returning after coming in from the cold. He inhaled a deep breath and let it go.
Some old-timey rock song drifted from the bar a block away. Runaway. Run, run, run, run, runaway.
The irony of the words made Mason laugh as he headed toward the bar for a well-earned beer.
*
“Ava?”
Bryan’s plaintive call was a sure way to put an end to any hope of sleep, and Ava had only just started to drift off at last. She’d spent the last hour in bed staring at her ceiling and reliving every moment of her walk with Mason. Pretty pitiful when a casual conversation with some guy could whip her into a state where she couldn’t sleep.
Ava got out of bed and padded across the hall to her younger brother’s room. The wood floor was chilly, but the coolness felt good on her bare feet, aching after an extra-long shift at the diner.
In Bryan’s room, the nightlight cast a soft glow over the dresser cluttered with Transformers and spaceship models, a tangle of clothes and other junk on the floor, and the single bed in which her brother lay, face turned toward her, his blue-gray eyes wide open.
He’s not a little kid anymore, a fact she knew, but tonight it truly struck her. Bryan was almost thirteen, small for his age, and the MD impeded the development of muscle mass, but he was still heading into puberty. His limbs were growing longer, and his face was sharpening as baby fat faded away.
“You’re home.” Bryan’s voice cracked slightly, yet another sign of impending adulthood.
“Yeah. A couple of hours ago. You were already asleep.” She sat on the edge of his bed and tucked her chilled feet under her. “What’s up? You need something?”
He shook his head. “I just wanted to know if you were home yet.”
She punched his arm. “You woke me up for that?”
He grinned. “I wanted to know, and I didn’t feel like getting up.”
Ava glanced at the crutches leaning against the wall beside his bed. Why deal with those when he could simply call out and she’d come?
“Need help getting to the bathroom or anything while I’m here?”
“No.” Bryan scowled, something he was more prone to lately. “I can do it myself. I do it all the time. Don’t treat me like a baby.”
“Right.” It could be hard to walk the fine line between assisting and smothering. His disease made it necessary for her to help him with some things—more as the weakness in his muscles seemed to be increasing. But treating her brother as if he were helpless wasn’t good for a young man’s self-esteem.
Ava changed the subject. “How was school today?”
“Dumb. I hate it,” he answered with a snort of disdain and a roll of the eyes. “There’s a fair coming to Brag’s Hollow this weekend. Everybody’s going. Can I?”
“I have to work Friday night and Saturday, but maybe on Sunday afternoon.” She paused. “Did you ask Mom to take you?”
Bryan shrugged and looked down at his bedcover. Spaceships and brightly colored planets. Ava supposed he’d be asking for something more grown up soon.
“She wasn’t in a good mood. Besides, you know she’d promise and then blow it off.”
Ava flipped through a mental Rolodex of the many times her mom had been too depressed, too busy, or too drunk to do things her children wanted her to do. Bryan had learned the lesson well. It was better not to depend on Mom for anything at all.
“Okay. Sunday afternoon I’ll take you. I promise. Want to invite Garrett along?” she asked.
“No.” His lips thinned to a straight line. “We’re in a fight.”
“About what?”
“Nothing.” For a moment, Bryan’s grim, unforgiving expression reminded her of their dad. The kid looked an awful lot like him.
A fight with Garrett, his best friend—maybe his only one, or at least the only one who lived near enough to be able to get back and forth. This was serious stuff. Should she press for more details or wait for Bryan to share with her. Now that he wasn’t so little anymore, it was getting harder to know how to approach him. His once sunny temperament had grown increasingly prickly.
“All right, then. If you want to talk about your fight with Garrett, let me know. Good night.” She stood and walked to the door.
“Ava.”
“Yeah?” She turned with a smile, glad that she still had his confidence. And now her brother suddenly looked as little and cute as always, curled up under his spaceship bedspread.
“Do you think I can buy a new shirt before Sunday?”
Her eyebrows shot up. Bryan had never cared about what he wore before. He considered clothes a waste of money when there were important new graphic novels or games to buy. “Really?”
“I need a new T-shirt.”
“Hon, I don’t have time to drive you to Pikeville. You’ll have to pick from what’s available at Clayton’s.”
The minimal department store was all they had near Waller. There were a few racks of clothing and you could pick up desperation items like underwear, but most people drove to the city to do any real clothes shopping.
Luckily, Bryan wasn’t picky. “That’s okay. There this black T-shirt I want with a graphic of roadkill and a vulture on it.”
“Sounds cool. Edgy. You have enough allowance saved up for it?”
He nodded. “Yep, I just need a ride.”
“That I can manage,” she said with a smile and started for her room again.
“Thanks, Ava.” Bryan’s voice floated after her, much sweeter than he’d sounded recently. His new grumpy attitude was already making her dread the teenage years, when she should be grateful for every second of his life, even the annoying parts. Only God knew how many years he’d have if the debilitating symptoms of his disease really took hold.
“You’re welcome.”
Ava darted across the hall, sprang into bed, and wrapped her shivering body in the warm quilt. Fall seemed to be arriving early this year. The days could still be sweltering, but the nights had a bite for so early in September. Soon she’d need to call Harry Baines and order firewood for the woodstove, a cheap supplement to the propane she could scarcely afford. Either way, the heat leaked out around the shoddy window frames, and replacement windows was what she really needed to buy.
Or Mom could do it. Ava almost smiled at the outrageous idea.
Her mother was about as likely to consider home improvement as Frannie was to stop chasing after men. She often drank up the small disability checks she received from a long-ago back injury at the mattress factory. The permanent pain was questionable, but since Mom was incapable of holding down a job for more than few weeks, she was lucky to have at least that bit of money. Joy Wheaton couldn’t manage her own life, let alone care for her disabled son.
Anyway, Frannie’s advice that Ava start to live a little wasn’t wrong. Dating wasn’t out of the question for her, and walking home with Mason tonight had been a good first step. She did need to put herself out there and not use taking care of Bryan as an excuse to postpone her life.
Perhaps Mason was someone she could flirt with and hone her romantic skills on. She could take him on some of her favorite hiking trails like she’d promised. Or see if he wanted to go to that fair in Brag’s Hollow. It might be nice to have someone just to date. Nothing serious.
Anyway, the man clearly didn’t intend to stick around Waller permanently, so she didn’t have to worry about becoming too involved.
Chapter Three
Nash Pope was Mason’s mental stereotype of a fry cook, big and bald with folds on the back of his thick neck and a gut as round as a pregnant woman’s. Years of grease seemed to slick the man’s skin even at the beginning of a shift. Did the dude bathe in a vat of cooking oil?
“Marine?” Mason asked, pointing at the faded blue tat on one of Nash’s beefy forearms.
The cook flipped a pair of sizzling eggs without looking. He was too busy scowling at Mason. “Are you crazy? Navy, boy. Can’t you tell the difference?”
Mason returned to chopping onions on a battle-scarred wooden board. “Sorry. I don’t know much about the military.”
“Maybe you should think about joining up. Give you some direction in your life.” Nash slipped his spatula under the eggs and expertly scooped two perfect discs onto a plate. “Best time of my life.”
