THINGS SEEMED UTTERLY SURREAL to Kristy that morning—getting the required blood tests, applying for the marriage license at Stillwater Springs’ courthouse and giving the jewelry store a wide berth because of the no-rings pact. In three short days, she kept thinking, she and Dylan would be husband and wife. Married.
This had been her dream, on some level, since childhood, when she was a knobby-kneed little ranch kid in homemade clothes and he was the town drunk’s middle son, never actually looking for a brawl, but ready to tie in if one got started.
Even as a teenager, Dylan had been a formidably good lover. Now, as a full-grown man, comfortable in his skin and operating on a full complement of testosterone, he was lethal. Marriage to him meant soul-rending sex, on a regular basis. Bonnie was the proverbial icing on the cake—custody issues with Sharlene notwithstanding, Kristy was about to become a stepmother, and she knew she would excel at it. Knew she would love Dylan’s child as dearly as any they might conceive together.
So why wasn’t she happier?
The question was rhetorical, of course; Dylan wouldn’t say he loved her until he was sure it was bone-true, and she couldn’t tell him how she felt because, damn it, she still had some pride.
Okay, she had a lot of pride. Maybe too much.
Bonnie was nodding off on Dylan’s shoulder by the time the three of them arrived at the Marigold Café for an early lunch.
“Let me have her,” Kristy said, from her side of the booth.
Dylan complied, and Bonnie came willingly to Kristy, stretched out on the vinyl seat, her head resting on Kristy’s lap, and immediately fell asleep.
They ordered food—Kristy her customary salad, Dylan a club sandwich—and shared a chocolate milk shake because it was a celebration.
Sort of.
“If you don’t want a ring,” Dylan ventured mildly, once the waitress had scribbled down the info and retreated behind the counter to slap down the little bell on the pass-through to the kitchen in the time-honored “order up” tradition of greasy spoons everywhere, “I guess it follows that you won’t go for a gown and veil and a cake, either.”
Kristy looked wistfully down at Bonnie, entwining a gentle finger in one of the child’s sweat-moistened curls. “Tell you what,” she answered softly. “If we make it to our first anniversary, we can throw a church wedding with all the trimmings, renew our vows, the whole bit.”
“You,” Dylan said thoughtfully, “are a remarkable woman.”
Kristy sighed, met Dylan’s gaze across the table. “Is that a compliment?”
“‘Mostly’?” Kristy echoed archly. “In what ways am I ‘remarkable,’ Dylan Creed?”
“You’re remarkably sexy, remarkably beautiful and remarkably stubborn.” He paused, drew a breath, huffed it out. “I can take or leave the church wedding and all of that,” he went on, his voice low and gruff. He reached across the tabletop, took her hand and played idly with her fingers, sending little thrill-flames up her arm, from nerve-ending to nerve-ending. “I even get the part about not wearing rings. But there is one thing that’s really important to me.”
Kristy simply raised one eyebrow and waited.
“I know it’s getting to be old-fashioned—that a lot of women don’t change their names—but I’d like you to be Kristy Creed after we’re married.”
He looked so hopeful, so quietly worried, that Kristy’s heart teetered behind her ribs, like a circus performer on a frayed high wire. Maybe Dylan didn’t love her, in the romantic, white-lace-and-promises sense of the word, but he cared deeply. He cared what she thought, what she felt, what she wanted.
“Kristy Madison Creed,” she recited, her own voice a little husky. “I like it.”
Dylan’s smile was as dazzling as a sudden burst of sunshine on a murky day. “Good,” he said.
The food arrived.
They ate, making plans for the remains of the day. Kristy would go to the library, and Dylan intended to draw up sketches of the house he intended to build. They’d look the drawings over that night, together, and incorporate Kristy’s suggestions, then have the actual blueprints drawn up. Dylan had already spoken to Dan Phillips by cell phone that morning, and he’d scheduled a bulldozer to raze the old place to the ground.
They’d just about finished their meal when Sheriff Book walked into the café, moving directly toward their table like a man with a purpose.
Kristy felt a little frisson of fear and chagrin. This was Floyd, for heaven’s sake. Her late father’s best friend.
It was just plain crazy to be afraid of him.
But she was.
She worked up a smile.
Sheriff Book pulled off his mirrored sunglasses, nodded to her, without smiling in return, and turned to Dylan. “It was Caleb Spencer,” he said immediately. “The movie star’s kid? He’s the one who took a potshot at you out there in the field yesterday. His father brought him into my office by the shirt collar this morning and we just got through writing him up.”
Kristy’s stomach clenched. She opened her mouth, found herself incapable of uttering a single word and pressed her lips together.
“Pull up a chair if you’ve got time,” Dylan said, as casually as if officers of the law came by his table in restaurants to share such news as a regular thing.
Floyd found a chair, dragged it over and sat down.
The waitress brought him “the usual”—diet cola.
“The kid swears he fired the shot by accident,” Floyd said wearily. He took a long sip of his cola and closed his eyes as it went down, like a man drinking ambrosia from a chalice. “The father is beside himself, but at least he made young Caleb turn himself in. Gotta hand it to him for that.”
“Maybe it was an accident,” Dylan speculated, surprising Kristy as much as Sheriff Book. “How old is he, anyway? Sixteen? Seventeen?”
“Sixteen, but we can try him as an adult.”
“Whoa,” Dylan said. “Don’t I have to press charges first?”
Floyd developed a unibrow, he was frowning so hard. “He shot at you, Dylan. With a rifle.”
“He’s a city kid,” Dylan reminded the sheriff, still acting as though people tried to blast him out of the saddle all the time. “He probably couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, even if he tried.”
“All right,” Floyd said testily, pausing to chafe the back of his neck with one hand, “let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the rifle went off accidentally, just the way he said it did. That still begs the question—two questions, actually—what the hell was a sixteen-year-old kid doing with a deadly weapon in the first place, and why was he prowling around on private property?”
Dylan grinned, raised his eyebrows. “You must have asked him that and a lot more.”
Floyd sighed so deeply that Kristy half expected him to unpin that badge of his, then and there, and set it right down on the table. Just walk away from being sheriff, and let either Jim Huntinghorse or Mike Danvers have the job and the headaches and frustrations that went with it.
“Of course I did,” the older man ground out. “The rifle belongs to Spencer, Sr.—we were able to verify that—and the kid claims he thought it was a dummy, the kind extras carry in movies.”
“And Caleb was on the ranch because…?” Kristy finally managed to ask.
“Said he was thinking of making a movie himself, with a few of his friends from L.A. He was interested in the cemetery—didn’t actually realize it was on Creed property. That’s what he says, anyway.”
“And you don’t believe it?” Dylan asked moderately.
“Kids make movies these days. Especially rich ones, with access to all kinds of fancy camera equipment. They’re fascinated with cemeteries, God knows why, so I can even buy that Junior didn’t realize he was trespassing. But there’s still one mighty big hole in his story, obviously.”
“Why the gun?” Dylan mused. Kristy, the sheriff and the whole Marigold Café might have disappeared—he’d tuned out of his immediate surroundings, Dylan had, to ponder the problem.
“Hell, yes, ‘why the gun,’” Floyd grumbled.
Bonnie stirred, sat up and crawled into Kristy’s lap.
“You’ve got to press charges, Dylan,” the sheriff insisted, while Dylan went right on drifting amid his own thoughts. “You let a kid get away with something like this, and the next thing you know, he’s taking out a dozen people in a high school cafeteria because one of them beat him to the last piece of pizza.”
Kristy soothed Bonnie by giving her some of Dylan’s French fries and what was left of the chocolate shake.
“Maybe,” Dylan agreed, slowly coming back to himself. His gaze lit on Bonnie, and another grin twitched at the corner of his mouth. “I’ll want a word with young Caleb Spencer before I decide one way or the other, though.”
“You’re just going to let him walk,” Floyd accused, disgusted. “Why, Dylan? Because you were a wild kid once and you turned out okay?”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t press charges, Floyd,” Dylan answered patiently. “I said I wanted to talk to the boy first.”
“You’re a damn fool even to go that far, in my opinion.”
“Hell, Floyd, you can come up with a more imaginative insult than that,” Dylan remarked. “I trust you’ve got Billy the Kid locked up in the local hoosegow?”
Floyd snorted at that, scraped back his chair with a noise that made Bonnie’s eyes widen, and Kristy’s, too.
“I wish,” the sheriff growled, looming over all of them like a bear risen onto its haunches to bat at bees with both paws. “Bail’s already been set and paid, thanks to Mr. Hollywood and you’ll-never-guess-who.”
Dylan chuckled, shook his head. “Logan?”
“Logan,” Floyd confirmed grimly. “Lawyers! The kid shoots at his own brother, on his own ranch, and Logan Creed signs up to defend the little bastard without a qualm!”
Kristy was a little thrown by this news, but Dylan took it in stride.
“Everybody deserves defense counsel,” he said.
“You Creeds,” Floyd said, in parting. “You’re all crazy.”
“So I’m told,” Dylan agreed, apparently amused.
Kristy, on the other hand, felt a hot flush of indignation suffuse her face. After all, Bonnie was a Creed, and in three days, she would be one, too. She started to protest Floyd’s remark, albeit belatedly and with no particular retaliatory phrase in mind, but stopped at a slight shake of Dylan’s head.
He’d shoved aside what was left of his food, as Kristy had, and was turning a ballpoint pen he’d found by the napkin holder end over end, pressing the clicker down on the tabletop with each rotation, then snapping it up again with a rhythmic motion of his thumb. Judging by his expression, one, Dylan was unconcerned that there was indeed a hole in Caleb’s story, and two, he didn’t see Logan’s willingness to defend the boy as any sort of brotherly betrayal.
Kristy, quite the contrary, wanted to stand toe-to-toe with her future brother-in-law and demand to know what he could possibly be thinking, accepting Caleb’s case.
Sheriff Book cleared his throat, signaling a change in subject and an imminent departure. “Kristy,” he said. “You doing okay? Seems like the majority of those reporters have moved on, but there are a few still lurking around.”
“I’m doing fine,” Kristy replied, a little stiffly.
“I spoke to Doc last night,” Floyd went on, replacing his bad-ass country sheriff sunglasses. “He’s off the critical list, but he won’t be coming home for a week or two. Asked me to keep an eye on his place while he’s in the hospital.”
At the mention of Doc, Kristy softened a little. “Is Lily with him?”
Floyd nodded. “She and the granddaughter,” he answered. “Once Doc gets his walking papers, Lily and the little girl will be moving here to look after him until he’s a hundred percent.” A spare grin rested on Floyd’s mouth for a fraction of a second, then vanished. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that old coot had himself a heart attack just to get Lily back home.”
“Can Doc have visitors yet?” Dylan wanted to know. The waitress appeared with a check, and he handed it back with money to cover both the meal and the tip.
“Just immediate family,” Floyd said. “Since the granddaughter is underage, Lily’s the only one who can get in.”
Dylan nodded.
Kristy made a mental note to contact Doc’s part-time secretary, Donna, and ask if there was anything she could do to help get the Ryder house ready for Lily, her child and a certain gossipy but loveable old veterinarian.
The sheriff offered a few quiet words and left.
Dylan dropped Kristy off at the library, along with Bonnie, her diaper bag and the ever-present sippy cup. He’d protested the idea at first, but Kristy maintained that Bonnie would enjoy story hour and, anyway, she’d be taking the child to work with her a lot, in the near future.
Once Dylan had gone, and Kristy had dropped Bonnie’s gear off in her office and herded the toddler into the play area, within easy sight of the main desk, Kristy listened to an update on the morning’s events from Susan with half an ear. Later, she broke up a minor scuffle between two very young brothers over a toy, and she kept an eye on the line of public computers along the wall, too.
The users were a real cross-section of the town’s population.
Ranchers scanned agricultural publications online.
Teenagers surfed and chatted.
Housewives printed out grocery coupons.
Kristy, mainly focused on watching over Bonnie and doing her job at the same time, thought distractedly of Gravesitter, and wondered once more if she’d seen the mystery person time and time again, right there in the Stillwater Springs Public Library.
Briana brought Alec and Josh in for story hour, and they immediately gravitated toward Bonnie. Both boys were solicitous of her, like big brothers, and the scene made Kristy smile.
Briana, meanwhile, approached the desk. “Is it true?” she asked, with a friendly grin.
Kristy returned the grin—she was peeved at Logan, not Briana—and pretended to be confused. “Is what true?”
“The town’s buzzing,” Briana said, with mock impatience. “You and Dylan had blood tests at the clinic, and then you were seen going into the courthouse together. The supposition is wedding bells.”
Kristy laughed, shook her head. “I’ve lived in this community most of my life,” she said. “And it never fails to surprise me, the way word gets around so fast. It’s almost spooky.”
“It’s true?” Briana asked eagerly. “You and Dylan are getting married?”
“It’s true,” Kristy said, after looking both ways.
Briana made a fist and pumped the air with it once, exuberantly. “Yes!”
“It’ll be a very simple ceremony,” Kristy went on, reassured that no one else had overheard, though she couldn’t think why she should be, since the news had obviously traveled the whole loop already. “Probably in my living room. Of course we want you and…Logan and the kids to be there, but we’re keeping the fuss to an absolute minimum.” She lowered her voice. “And, Briana? Definitely no bridal shower, just in case that idea should cross your mind.”
Some of Briana’s earlier enthusiasm dissolved, and a small frown creased the space between her perfect eyebrows. “Okay,” she said, and sighed. A long pause followed. “What was that little hitch about—the one just before you mentioned Logan’s name?”
“According to Sheriff Book, Logan is defending Caleb Spencer,” Kristy said carefully. She didn’t want her feelings about that coming between her and Briana. They’d been friends from the first, and soon they would be in-laws, after all. Almost sisters. “I just—well—Since Dylan could have been killed—”
Briana sighed. “They’re all out at the main ranch house hashing it out at this very minute,” she said. “Logan, Dylan, Mr. Spencer and Caleb. That’s why I brought the boys to town for ice cream and story hour. So we wouldn’t be underfoot. Logan hasn’t said much about the case, except that it really isn’t a case and he believes Caleb’s version.”
“Why?” Kristy asked. “Why does he believe Caleb?”
“I’m not sure,” Briana admitted. Her gaze swung to her two boys, both of whom were doing their best to entertain a delighted Bonnie, her green eyes full of gentle pride. Her voice went soft. “If I had to guess, though, I’d say he doesn’t want Caleb to wind up in prison if there’s a chance he’s just a kid who made a stupid mistake.”
Kristy recalled Dylan’s reluctance to press charges until he’d spoken to Caleb personally. She’d do her best, she decided, to reserve judgment and let Dylan deal with the situation as he saw fit.
So she simply nodded, and when a good crowd had gathered, she settled herself in the play area and read three more chapters of last time’s Nancy Drew mystery.
* * *
THE KID LOOKED SORRY, Dylan thought, seated next to his famous father on Logan’s living room couch and fidgeting a lot. Of course, it remained to be seen whether Caleb Spencer was sorry he’d nearly injured or killed a man and a horse, or sorry he’d been caught.
Zachary Spencer, for his part, had faded to gray, and there was a grim set to his mouth. He’d done the right thing, making Caleb face the consequences of his actions, but he clearly intended to do whatever he had to do to look out for his boy, too.
Which made him a father, Dylan concluded.
He wondered what Jake Creed would have done, if he or Logan or Tyler had gotten themselves into a fix like this, and only part of the answer came to him. First order of business: tan their hide, but good.
After that, who knew?
Logan occupied the big armchair, so Dylan, the most recent arrival, pulled the computer chair over to join the circle.
“Tell us your version of what happened yesterday, Caleb,” Logan said, taking the lead.
Perry Mason in jeans, shit-kickers and a T-shirt, Dylan thought, smiling to himself. This was an entirely new aspect of Logan’s persona.
Caleb started to cry. “I’ve already told you,” he sniffled. “I told my dad. I told the sheriff. How many times do I have to go over the same stuff?”
“Tell us again,” Zachary ordered quietly.
Caleb’s gaze moved to Dylan’s face, and the boy made a visible effort to suck it up and carry on. “I was real mad at you when you took that horse away from me,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t have shot you for it.”
“Why bring the gun to the cemetery, Caleb,” Dylan began evenly, “if you were just scouting for a movie location?”
The boy’s sigh seemed to come from the soles of his expensive sneakers. A tremor went through him, and he sniffled again. Wiped his eyes with one forearm. “My friend Toby Phillips was supposed to meet me in the cemetery. I’d told him about the gun—my dad says it used to belong to John Wayne—and Toby wanted to see it for himself.”
Dylan and Logan exchanged glances. Both of them knew Toby—he was Dan Phillips’s kid brother. From what Logan had said on the cell phone, prior to Dylan’s arrival for the powwow, Toby was an honor student, had never been in trouble and aspired to make movies someday.
Logan leaned forward in his chair, rested his forearms on his thighs and regarded the elder Spencer impassively. “As I understand it,” he said, “you were thinking of buying some property around Stillwater Springs.”
Dylan frowned. Waited.
“Yes,” Spencer said, with a sigh. “Some outfit called Tri-Star bought the land I wanted right out from under me, though, so I’m back to square one. If it wasn’t for those bodies found on the Madison place, Caleb and I would have gone back to L.A. and none of this would be happening.”
Ah, yes, Dylan reflected. Spencer had taken out some kind of option on Kristy’s story. Or, more properly, her father’s story.
“Where have you and Caleb been staying?” Logan asked, in the tone of a man who already knew the answer, but wanted everyone else to hear it.
“We’ve got an RV,” Spencer replied, playing the game. “At that park outside of town, just past the casino.”
“Not the kind of digs you’re used to, I suppose,” Logan observed.
Spencer smiled, but it was brittle, that smile, and soon fell off his face. “It’s an adventure,” he said. “You know, father and son. Roughing it.”
Logan nodded sagely. “And you brought a rifle with you from L.A.?” he asked, his tone moderate.
“Just the Duke’s,” Zachary replied. He sure looked the part he was playing—devoted dad, stunned by his otherwise perfect son’s behavior—but, then, he was an actor. “I have a large collection of movie memorabilia—especially items from westerns. That one is a favorite, and since I knew we’d be away from home for the summer, I decided not to leave it behind and risk having it stolen. We’ve had several break-ins, for all the security measures I’ve taken. A couple of days ago, I saw a virtual duplicate in a gun shop in Missoula—they’re unbelievably rare, so I bought it. Caleb mistook that rifle—which is real, of course—for the collector’s piece.”
It was a convoluted story, to Dylan’s way of thinking. Just convoluted enough to be true. But there was still an important detail that hadn’t been mentioned.
Dylan looked at Logan.
Logan nodded slightly.
“Why was the gun loaded?” Dylan asked, watching both Spencers the way he would opponents at a high-stakes card game. There would be “tells,” poker jargon for the unconscious ways people gave away exactly what they most wanted to hide.
“I’d taken it to the range to try it out,” Zachary said. “I meant to unload it as soon as I got home, but the phone rang—” He paused, shook his head, looked for a moment as though he might break down and cry, just the way Caleb had earlier.
It was too late for the loaded-guns-kill speech, and Zachary Spencer probably didn’t need to hear it, anyway. He’d been damn lucky not to learn his lesson the hard way.
Spencer’s eyes were earnest as he looked into Dylan’s face. “If somebody has to be prosecuted,” he said, “it ought to be me. I’m the one who left that rifle where my son could find it. I’m the one who forgot to unload it.”
Now that he’d had a chance to assess the situation, Dylan agreed with Logan’s take on the matter. Caleb Spencer was spoiled, but he wasn’t a killer.
“I won’t press charges,” Dylan said.
Both Caleb and Zachary looked almost sick with relief.
“But,” Dylan stipulated, “I do think I should have some kind of redress. After all, I could have broken my neck—or lost a good horse.”
“You want money?” Caleb’s father asked, patting the front of his golf shirt as though feeling around for a checkbook.
“Not money,” Dylan said, tight-jawed.
“What, then?” Caleb asked, looking wary.
“Help training Sundance,” Dylan answered, watching the boy’s eyes widen. “You’ve got a few things to learn about working with horses. Of course, if you’re not interested—”
“I’m interested,” Caleb broke in, neatly confirming Dylan’s suspicions. “I like horses.”
“You have a mighty peculiar way of showing it,” Dylan observed, recalling how the boy had meant to go after the gelding with a lunge-whip, out there in the road. Would have, if Dylan hadn’t stopped him.
Caleb flushed. “I guess I lost my temper,” he said.
“You lose your temper with that horse, or any other living thing, and I’ll lose mine—with you. Not a pretty sight, I can tell you.”
The boy nodded solemnly.
Logan indulged in a brief grin.
“Until my barn is finished, there won’t be much horse-training going on. Sundance is boarding here at Logan’s for now, but he still needs feeding and currying and regular exercise. His stall has to be shoveled out, once a day anyhow, and Logan has his own horses to take care of, not to mention his lawyering, so I’ll be over regularly to see to the gelding.”
“And I get to—have to help?” Caleb asked, leaning forward from his perch on the edge of the couch.
“Yep,” Dylan said. “Six o’clock, every morning, for the next couple of weeks.” He let his gaze drift to the boy’s feet. “Get yourself some decent shit-kickers,” he advised, in closing. “This is a working ranch, not a basketball court.”
* * *
AT FIVE SHARP, Dylan pulled into the library parking lot, got out of his truck and sprinted up the front steps. It promised to be a slow night, but Kristy was bushed from keeping up with Bonnie all afternoon. Once story hour was over, and Briana and her boys and the other kids had left, the child had morphed into a holy terror.
She’d helped Kristy pick up all the library toys, and promptly scattered them again at the first opportunity.
She’d pulled a whole row of books off a low shelf before Kristy caught her.
And then she’d screamed “Daddy!” and “Poop!” alternately until the whole place cleared out. Even Susan, the die-hard, had pleaded a headache and made a hasty exit.
Maybe, Kristy thought, sagging with relief when she saw Dylan come up the stairs and through the front door, she’d bring Bonnie to work with her again.
Someday.
The little girl shrieked with joy when she saw Dylan, and ran to him as fast as her toddler’s legs would carry her. He laughed and swung her up into his arms, then planted a smacking kiss on her cheek.
“How was it?” he asked Kristy. The grin in his eyes indicated that he already knew.
Kristy rubbed her temples with the fingertips of both hands. Sighed so hard that her shoulders rose and fell.
Dylan laughed. “I tried to warn you,” he said.
Was it crazy to be so glad to see a man who wouldn’t say, “I love you”? Kristy wondered. She was glad to see Dylan, and not just because it would mean a respite from taking care of an angelic hellion like Bonnie. Just by being there, he seemed to charge the atmosphere with something entirely new, an unseen electricity, a sense of expectancy and possibility.
She went back to her office to fetch the diaper bag, brought it to Dylan. “I’ll close up around seven,” she told him, “unless there’s a last-minute rush.”
He grinned again, in that slow Dylan-way that curled Kristy’s toes and made things dance inside her. “Nothing worse than a bunch of readers on a rampage,” he teased. “Bonnie and I will have supper ready when you get home.”
Someone promising to have supper ready when she got home.
When had that happened before? Not since she lived on the ranch with her parents, certainly. She’d been coming home to an empty house for a long, long time.
“Okay,” she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss Bonnie’s cheek.
The little girl giggled and dodged, then craned to kiss her back.
“Did you speak to Caleb?” Kristy asked, following Dylan as far as the front door.
“Yes,” Dylan answered. “I’ll tell you about it over supper.”
With that, he leaned to place a light, brief and very tantalizing kiss on her mouth, then turned, with Bonnie in the curve of his left arm, and the diaper bag slung over his right shoulder.
Somehow, he managed to look drop-dead gorgeous, even walking away with the child and her gear.
Once he’d gone, the library seemed as silent as an undiscovered tomb, somewhere deep beneath the Egyptian sands.
Kristy busied herself neatening shelves, restocking returned books, washing out the employee coffee pot and setting it up for morning. All that time, she had one eye on the clock—she, Kristy Madison, who had never in her whole life been a clock-watcher. In the Madison household, the habit had been on par with Communism.
Just as she was about to close up, a young boy came into the library, dressed in a long black coat. Kristy had seen him before, and though she didn’t know the boy, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that he was an outsider. While there were always a few rebels in any group, most of the high schoolers in Stillwater Springs were ranch or farm kids. They wore jeans and boots and although some of them probably smoked marijuana, beer was still the most popular drug of choice.
She was tired.
She was hungry.
She wanted to get home to Dylan and Bonnie. Yes, Bonnie, even after the hair-raising adventures of the afternoon.
Maybe that was what drew her to the boy—all her usual defenses were down. “We’re closing soon,” she said sunnily, not wanting to discourage further library patronage, or make this obviously different kid feel unwelcome.
“I just want to check my e-mail,” he said.
He had a spider tattooed to his neck, and piercings in his ears, eyebrows and—Kristy winced inwardly—even his lower lip.
“Okay,” Kristy said.
He logged on to the first computer in a row of several. It was the newest one, but still antiquated.
“Do I know you?” Kristy asked.
He turned, looked up at her curiously. Solemnly. Such old eyes, in such a young, if desecrated, face. “I come around sometimes,” he said. Translation: Go away, lady. I’m busy here.
Still, Kristy hovered. She couldn’t help it.
The boy turned back to the computer, his fingers flying deftly over the keyboard.
Presently, he swung around again. “You want something?”
Kristy shook her head. But she didn’t move away. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Davie McCullough,” he answered, his blue eyes dipping to her name tag. At least, she hoped it was her name tag. The bit of plastic was pinned directly above her right breast, and she resisted an urge to unpin it and move it higher up. “What’s yours?”
Kristy didn’t reply.
Davie rounded to face the computer again, sending off go-away vibes in the way only teenagers can do.
At last, he gave up. “Okay,” he said. “You win. I’ll leave.”
“Be sure to come back tomorrow,” Kristy replied. “We’ll be open until nine.”
“Right,” Davie mocked, homing in on the front door.
Kristy took a deep breath. Gathered her courage. “Gravesitter?” she asked.