A couple of them had finally come to care what he thought about them, and that was huge. These guys had spent so many years learning how not to care, that once you got them to care the floodgates opened up. That’s why the horses made such great therapists—they were safe places to learn to care for something. Eventually, caring for something could teach them to care for someone, and that was the beginning of everything.
Would it all be over now?
Gil pushed that thought away. He couldn’t afford to dwell on that problem right now. His immediate task was to find Mark’s accomplice—if he had one—and set him straight. Damage control. Let the guys know the extent of the threat Mark had brought down on the farm without giving them reason to panic and throw in the towel.
Even though he felt that way himself.
Gil started with the facts. “Ms. Montague’s bath shop was broken into.” Passive statement of fact. No accusations, not even use of a suspicious pronoun like somebody.
Gil could usually count on Marty to start things off, so it wasn’t a surprise when Marty leaned forward and snarled, “You think we did it.” Larry kicked Marty’s foot with his own, at which point Marty revised his question to a biting, “You think we did it, sir.”
“No, we already know who did it. But yes, you all were immediately suspect.” The defensive moans started up, and Gil silenced them with a raised hand. “That should come as no surprise if you stop and think about it, so don’t get all riled up just yet. Y’all made no secret of your wanting that soap of hers. I even know one of you managed to convince Peter Epson he’d get a girl with it.”
“Well,” Steven boasted, his secret out, “he was such an easy mark. Totally gullible.”
“You and all your machismo just too much to deny, hmm?” Paulo cut in.
“That, gentlemen,” Gil interrupted, determined to keep the focus where it belonged, “is a conversation for another day. We got enough trouble today as it is—no need to borrow more.”
Gil leaned one elbow up on the mantelpiece, trying to calm his body language despite his rising temper. “Someone from Homestretch knocked off West of Paris. After Ms. Montague was so nice to you. Mighty lousy, if you ask me.”
“Who’s askin’ you?” said Marty, leaning back in the huge leather chair. He crossed his arms over his chest defensively.
“I just spent the last hour bein’ asked all kinds of things by the Middleburg Police Department,” Gil shot back.
“And we know, sir, that you don’t take to the idea of anybody messin’ with Miss Montague,” said Paulo, who always thought everything was about women anyway.
“Yeah,” said Marty with the tone of someone about to say something dangerous. Larry kicked him again, harder this time. “Sir,” Marty added almost under his breath. Then, as if it had just dawned on the him, Marty added, “Mark’s not here.”
“No, Mark’s not here.” Gil gave the guys a moment for that to sink in. He wasn’t sure who’d already realized Mark wasn’t in the room and kept quiet about it, or who actually hadn’t caught on to his absence. “That’s because Mark’s in jail. Under arrest. He figured out Emily would be at the high school giving her speech—her speech on why it’s important to do the right thing—and took that opportunity to pay a little social call to her cash register.”
Grumbles ran through the guys. Gil noted most of them had what he considered to be genuine looks of surprise or anger. Again, he chose to take that as a good sign.
“That idiot,” Larry finally said, and the group chimed in with a host of less-polite names for Mark. “I’m glad he got caught. At least everyone’ll know it wasn’t us that did it.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Steven said. “That won’t stop them. They’ll think we were all in on it. People around here are just waiting for us to screw up. Thinkin’ we’re nobodies who don’t belong here. You see the looks. Mark just handed ’em more reasons to run us outta here.”
A smattering of “yep”s and “uh-huh”s backed Steven up.
“So now you know why I need to ask this, and why I’m only gonna ask once: Did any of you know anything about this?” He stared each guy down, one at a time, and got a “no” from each of them.
He believed them. Not that it made him feel any better.
Friday morning, Mac stared incredulously at Gil from the passenger seat of the truck. “You can’t. You can’t seriously be thinking of shutting Homestretch down.”
Gil knew Mac would try and talk him out of it, but he was so wound up he needed to bounce the idea off someone. He was furious with Ethan for letting Mark sneak out on his watch, and talking with Emily was definitely out of the question, so he’d called Mac. “I own it, I can do whatever I want with it. I give these guys everything. I put my gut into this every single day. And I ain’t never, ever regretted it like I do right now. I’d rather beat the town council to the punch then let them take me down.” He punched in the farm gate security code and waited for the gate to slide open so they could head down to the police station.
“If you’re so set, you mind telling me why I’m here?”
“Because I could use a cool head with me. And having to drive you back here to pick up your car is the only thing that’s gonna stop me from pulling out onto I-75 and never looking back.”
“Nice to be useful,” Mac quipped. “You don’t really mean that. You’re not gonna close Homestretch. If you were, I’d be out on the side of the road by now.” Mac scratched his chin and turned to look at Gil. “Come on, you can’t tell me you didn’t see this coming, sometime. It was bound to happen sooner or later. You can’t expect to have a perfect record with this kind of guys.”
“I can expect whatever I want.”
“Well, yeah, but you’re smarter than that. Actually, I’d be the first one to run you outta town if I thought that was the real trouble.”
Gil shot him a look. “Would you?”
“You know why? Cuz it’s only half of what’s eating you—and don’t try and tell me it ain’t.”
Gil refused to reply.
“They ran Emily’s speech in the paper. I didn’t have to read the whole thing to figure out what set you off. I don’t think you’re readin’ this one right, Gil. You’re making this about you when it ain’t. I know how you think. She wasn’t talking about you. If I know you, she doesn’t even know about your record. So how can you put that on her till you tell her?”
“It’s crystal clear what she’ll think.” Gil took a turn a little sharper than was necessary.
Mac pointed at him. “You’ve done it again. You’ve decided what she thinks and how she’ll act. You laid it all out in your head, down to the painful end, so rather than go through it, you’ll just finish it off for the both of you before anyone has a chance. That way you stay in control.”
“Cut it out, Mac.” Gil put his sunglasses on even though it wasn’t that bright out, and decided it had been a huge mistake to bring Mac along. It’s not like he needed an escort to go fill out more paperwork at the police station and talk to Mark.
“You know, normally I would,” Mac said, sitting back in his seat. “It’s not like you’re the sunniest guy to be around, even on a good day. Only a fool’d pick a fight with you on purpose.”
“Kind of you to say so.”
“But what you can’t see is that you actually have a shot at bein’ happy. That fluffy little gal finally got through to you—though I imagine even God’s scratchin’ His head on how she did it. So now, rather than get hurt, you’re just gonna walk away because it got prickly. Like shutting down the farm. I have to say, I thought you had more guts than that, Gil. It’s not like you to take the easy way out.”
Gil pulled into a parking space in front of the police station and got out of the car. “You think this is easy? You see me enjoying myself anywhere here? Do I seem all sunny to you now?” He slammed the truck door shut and glared at Mac.
“Talk to her.” Mac glared right back over the hood. “Nobody said you have to be a her
o to get the girl, but you gotta tell her if you’re gonna have a shot at it.”
“There’s no ‘it’ to have, Mac. There never was. I was just kidding myself.”
Mac came around the truck and stood in front of Gil, blocking his path. “Gil Sorrent, I’ve had your back for a long time, and I’m here to tell you there is. And you’re a fool if you let it go without tryin’. A stupid, stubborn, lonely fool.”
“I ain’t no fool,” Gil growled at him, checking the urge to deck his longtime friend.
“Maybe not, but you’re five kinds of lonely and nobody wants you to stay that way. Least of all me.” Mac threw his hands in the air. “I’ll find my own ride home. Y’all go right on digging your big old lonely pit and crawl into it. I’ve said my piece. I’m done.” With that, Mac stalked off down the street, oblivious to the fact that he’d still have to find his way back to Homestretch to get his car.
It was one thing to feel lonely. Another to admit it to yourself. But to have someone else tell you you’re lonely—call you on it—that was worse yet. Nobody got to declare Gil’s life lonely except him. Bein’ thought of as lonely? That was about as low as you could get. Old men and softies got thought of as lonely.
Gil didn’t mind not being liked. He didn’t mind being thought of as mean, or gruff, or even a loner. But lonely? That was different. Lonely meant something else—Gil wasn’t sure what that was, but he knew it felt weak. Vulnerable. Things he didn’t like one bit. And right now he didn’t like Mac one bit, either.
Even if he might be right. Which was the worst thing to consider of all.
Chapter Nineteen
Gil prowled into the police station ready to shred Mark alive. Mac had been supposed to calm him down, not goad him into a worse mood. It wasn’t helping things that he got some I-told-you-so looks from officers as he filled out the miles of paperwork ending Mark’s probational residency at Homestretch Farm.
He’d had high hopes for Mark. Mark was a challenge, a stiff-necked rebel, but he was smart and had a will that would have let him beat any odds. He was just training all his talents in the wrong direction. It stuck in Gil’s craw that he couldn’t turn that around. Instead, he’d handed Mark enough rope to go out and hang himself.
“You wanna see him?” the captain asked, initialing the last of a dozen forms as Gil handed them off.
Now there was a question. Sure, Gil wanted to do a dozen things to Mark—punch, shake, scold, knock upside the head—but see him? Did he really have anything to say to the guy? After a moment’s thought, he decided that even if the only thing Mark took away from the visit was the look of supreme disappointment in Gil’s eyes, maybe that would stick with him.
Middleburg’s idea of a jail looked more like a walk-in closet with a barred door. Mark sat on a metal chair, tilted back on one wall with his feet propped up against the other. He had a cloying expression of accomplishment his face. Like he’d achieved his goal of hurting as many people as possible with a single act.
Gil almost walked out right then, too disgusted to attempt a conversation, but Mark turned at the sound of Gil’s entrance and looked him in the eye. A cold, remorseless glare.
“You blew it,” Gil said. “Happy?”
“Surprised?” Mark looked back at his sneakers. Sneakers Gil had bought him.
“I had better things in mind for you.”
That brought a derisive snort from Mark. “You gonna say somethin’ ’bout my potential? Spare me.”
I tried to, Gil thought. But you’re gonna hit bottom, anyway. And it’s a long, long way down. “Brace yourself, Mark, it’s gonna get really ugly from here on out.”
“Uglier than the backsides of those horses? Than what you made me shovel every day?” He picked a splinter of wood off the knee of his jeans and threw it on the ground in front of the bars. Wood from Emily’s door.
“Miles uglier. You’re on your own, kid. I’m done with you.”
Mark turned to him with fierce eyes. “Don’t call me ‘kid.’”
“You want to be called a man now?” Gil’s anger boiled up beyond his restraint. “You hurt enough people now? Made enough of a mess of your life? You think that’s how you earn it? You’re nothing but a smart-mouthed punk of a—”
“I think we’re done here,” the captain said—clamping a hand onto Gil’s shoulder, pulling him away. “Let’s everybody go home and cool off a bit.”
As he pulled out of the police station, Gil thought a year in Iceland wouldn’t be enough to cool him off.
Just when Gil thought his day couldn’t get worse, there was a powder-blue VW bug parked outside the Homestretch gate when he drove up. Gil pulled his truck up next to the car, and Emily got out as he shut his engine off.
It wasn’t a cold day for February, but she hugged herself as if she were freezing. “Why’d you send me a check, Gil?”
He’d found out the cost of the lock and door-window repairs, and sent her a check to cover the expense. “I believe in paying my debts. I thought that ought to cover the damages.”
“You did nothing to my shop. Besides, I have insurance for that sort of thing. Mark is an adult. Why is his crime your responsibility?”
Gil leaned back against his truck. “I should think that’d be obvious. It’s my job to keep these guys in-line.”
She pulled the check out of her handbag and held it out to him. “Really? I thought it was your ministry to give these guys a second chance. One of them blew his chance. I don’t see how that’s your fault.”
“You’ll be alone in that opinion. It’ll surely be seen as my fault. I’m the guy who brought them here, who put Middleburg at risk with all these ‘seedy characters.’”
“This isn’t about you.”
“Isn’t it? You’ve no idea the defense I run for these guys. The comments I fend off. The stares I ignore. Lots of folks are more than ready to write them off. Women who clutch their purses tighter when they walk by. And now? Now they’ll all be right. Look at all you’ve lost—look at what Mark did to you. People love your shop, they know you, and this is all they need to shut down Homestretch Farm. When’s the last time we had a break-in in Middleburg? Years. How can I argue with that when someone calls—because you know someone will—to shut down the farm?”
“That won’t happen,” she defended.
“How can you say that?” he snapped back. “You should be leading the fight. You were nice to them and look how Mark repaid you!”
“I’m not saying I’m not upset, but the door’s repaired, the lock’s replaced, and they’ve recovered the money. I’ve got justice. I don’t need vengeance on top of it. I’m not going to call for you to shut down the farm.”
“Maybe you should. I’m sure thinking about it.”
“Gil, even if every one of these guys bashed in my lock and stole my money, it doesn’t erase all the other men you’ve helped. All the ‘gut,’ as you say, that you’ve poured into other men. I look at them now, and I don’t see hoodlums. And that’s your doing. You did that. Mark doesn’t get to erase that. I won’t let him.”
Why did she have to be so upstanding? Her compassion made it all so much worse. “Will you stop trying to save this, Emily?”
She looked at him, stunned. “Why?” It would be hard to put more pain into that one word.
“Because some things can’t be saved. Or shouldn’t.”
She blew out a breath. “You’re the last person on earth who should say that. How can you think that when most people wouldn’t give those guys half the chances you give them?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s wrong?”
“You’ve just had your store broken into and you need to ask what’s wrong?” He’d thought the robbery had done it for him—broken it off so he wouldn’t have to. But no. He was going to have to spell it out for her, let her see exactly who she was dealing with here. In his mind he could already see the expression that would come over her face. That subtle, suspicious shift when someone stops seeing you as human and consigns
you to something just above a beast. He had to tell her. But here? Now? Outside his gate, along the side of the road like some kind of accident? It was the worst possible place. Then again, is there a perfect place to end a relationship? A choice spot to break somebody’s heart?
Do it now. At least then it’ll all be over. “I’m not some kind of hero,” Gil began. How do you explain rock bottom to someone like Emily? She was someone whose life had been scarred, but she’d never sent herself there of her own free will. How could he ever, even for a moment, forget that she was a crime victim? That he was a criminal?
Gil pulled the words from somewhere deep in his chest, and they felt as though they were ripping their way out of him as he spoke. “I told you I went to jail. But I didn’t tell you why I went to jail. I kid myself that it doesn’t matter. But it matters a whole lot. You asked me once why I try to turn these guys around.”
“I remember,” she said, a bit of alarm creeping into her voice.
“You want to know the real reason why? I do it because nobody turned me around. At least not fast enough. Not in time. One night I found myself holding a bloody man on a street curb. But I wasn’t holding him up. I was holding him down. Down, Emily. Pinning him so my buddy could hurt him. And you know what? It was so easy to do—to go along with it. I didn’t try to stop him or put up so much as a bit of resistance. No, as a matter of fact, I wanted to be him. To be strong and bad enough to kill someone. You’d be amazed how far you can fall before you figure out you’ve gone all the way down.”
Gil turned and planted his palms on the hood of his truck so he wouldn’t have to look at her. “That’s the kind of guy I was. I didn’t care what I did or who I hurt. I looked up to guys who killed or shot, admired how tough they were. I helped. I held the guy down while my buddy knifed him. You said it yourself, Emily, that’s the worst kind of man. Not strong enough to commit a crime, but not brave enough to stop one.”
Bluegrass Hero Page 13
