Best Friends (New Species #15)(9)

“How old were you?”

“Nineteen, but I still lived at home then.”

“Parents suck at times but he was right about Kenny.”

Mary laughed. “Yes. He was.” She grew serious. “Did the sheriff or a deputy come over yet? They said they were going to need a statement from you.”

“No. I was just dropped off an hour ago, and one of them let me borrow his cell phone to call you before they left. Thanks for coming.”

“Of course. The diner’s closed until it’s all cleaned up and the broken tables are replaced. Joel said a few days off would do us good.”

“Doctor Alli told me both of those gunmen are still alive.”

“The New Species took them out of the diner breathing, but that one with the chest wound?” Mary wrinkled her nose. “It looked bad. Don’t be upset if he doesn’t make it. They’re dirtbags for trying to murder people. Speaking of being shot, is the New Species going to live?”

“I’d heard that Wind made it through surgery and was doing well before two task force members showed up to drive me home.”

“Were they any New Species that come into the diner?”

“They were humans. They flew in from Homeland with more doctors and to ask me questions.”

“What did they want to know?”

“I was shown pictures of the men I shot, and asked if I had ever seen them before. I hadn’t…and I’ve met almost everybody in town.”

“It’s impossible not to. This place isn’t that big, and we only have one decent grocery store.” Mary pulled a face. “That gas station minimart near the freeway is way overpriced. They screw the tourists.”

“I don’t shop there, either.” Mel sighed. “Anyway, I’m just glad I’m not going to jail. Those task force guys I spoke with said I wasn’t in any trouble.”

“You’re not, Mel. The New Species were very clear that you acted in self-defense and saved their lives. Sheriff Cooper wasn’t even mad that Joel keeps a loaded shotgun at the diner. Hell, he patted him on the back. Where did you learn to shoot like that, anyway?”

“You’ve never been on a working farm, have you?”

“No. I’m a city girl. I mean, our town isn’t real big but I couldn’t milk a cow. I’d probably grab a bull’s balls by mistake. I don’t even know how to tell them apart.”

“That would end badly.” Mel laughed, imaging that scenario. But her humor was short-lived. “Two words for you: barn vermin. We got infestations if we didn’t get rid of them. It was good practice.”

“What are barn vermin?” Mary looked confounded.

“Rats, racoons, and snakes, mostly. You sure don’t want them around. Some are downright mean. Though, I did miss some of them on purpose because the noise chased them off.”

Mary shuddered.

Mel chuckled. “See why I left my hometown? Not to mention, we had one bar there, and it doubled as a gas station and minimart. The owners only served food on the weekends, so it was where you went if you didn’t feel like cooking or wanted to take someone on a date. Everything else was over half an hour away. It wasn’t bad to travel during good weather, but in the winter, we were stuck. The roads could get too bad.”

“I thought you mostly left because of your mother.”

“Her too. Mama and her friends made my life a living nightmare. But the last straw was Bobby Roy.”

“Who’s that?”

“The fifty-two-year-old widower Mama kept throwing at me, but he looked way older than that. He’d never had kids with his dearly departed wife, and he owned a nice spread next to ours. Mama told me he drank a lot, meaning he wouldn’t live to a ripe old age. She had her heart set on adding his land to ours when he left me everything as his widow.”

Mary’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. He had a sweating problem, too. Probably from all the booze trying to escape his bloated body. I told her I wasn’t going to sleep with a man just so she could have a nicer fishing spot. She said I was sleeping with pond scum anyway, and I might as well get something out of it besides a bad reputation.”

“She sounds really harsh. I’ve known you for a year, and you’ve only dated one guy in that time. A bad reputation implies you sleep around, which you don’t.”

“Well, I was with Jimmy for five years, but two of those he was in the service after we graduated. I didn’t get to see him unless he was on leave. We were high school sweethearts. I wasn’t the cheating kind, but he turned out to be. Some girl showed up out of the blue looking for him. They’d broken up, and she wanted him back. Imagine how surprised we both were. She didn’t know he’d asked me to marry him. We were waiting until he was home, after he got out of the service. Meanwhile, he’d been living with her where he was stationed. Then I was with Buck, but he was more fun than serious.”

“You told me about Buck. He was the one who loved to race cars, right? Cute but kind of stupid? He had a good sense of humor?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to become a widow since, he wasn’t very good at not wrecking cars, so I kept telling him no when he talked about marriage.”

“He met some girl and married her when he was in Texas, if I recall.”