Bull Mountain(11)

“Thanks. I practiced all the way here.”

“So you got all dressed up in your Sunday best to walk in here and give the brother of the big bad wolf all your plans to take him down, and you’re calling that a better plan?”

“Yes, Sheriff, that’s about the size of it, but in all fairness, my mother would never have let me wear jeans to church on Sunday, and to be honest, I didn’t think you’d be here today. I was going to make an appointment for tomorrow.”

Clayton smiled.

“Well, Holly, in all fairness, I ran unopposed.”

Holly laughed. “I know.”

The sheriff stood up, walked over to the coat rack, and pulled on his jacket.

“Come on, you can tell me more over some biscuits and gravy. I’m starving. This early, we can get a seat at Lucky’s before the church crowd takes over.”

“Sounds good, Sheriff.”

“Call me Clayton.”

“All right, then, Clayton. Lead the way.”

Clayton opened the door to the front office, where Cricket and Choctaw had done everything short of holding a glass to the wall to eavesdrop.

“Cricket, will you call Kate and tell her I’m not going to make it to her mother’s this morning?”

“She’s not going to be happy.”

“I know. That’s why I want you to call her. Choctaw, call up Darby to come swap out watch over your prisoner back there. If we’re all here on a Sunday, he might as well be, too. Then call in to Lucky’s for some breakfast for our guest and I’ll have it sent over.”

“Yessir, boss.”

“And while you’re at it, order up some grub for you and Cricket, too. Sky’s the limit. Eat your backs out.”

“Feeling generous this morning, boss?”

“Nope”—Clayton winked at Holly—“but the federal government is.”





CHAPTER





3




CLAYTON BURROUGHS

2015

Clayton stared at the ceiling. Thirty-five heavy timber logs made of the same white pine that grew not twenty feet outside his bedroom window. He and his father had built the house together as a wedding gift for Kate before she and Clayton were married. His father was nearly seventy then and still worked like a man in his twenties. That was more than a decade ago and not once did that purlin roof ever let in a single drop of rain—not once. Clayton stayed on the top floor of a fancy hotel in Atlanta once, and took notice of the water spots and discoloration growing from the edges of the popcorn ceiling. He thought about that all the time. Two hundred dollars a night in a tower of steel and glass, and they couldn’t do what he and his father had done with a couple of hammers and a few nails. It was a small example, but it echoed through everything he was ever taught, every lesson Gareth Burroughs ever tried to instill.

“You’re gonna need a real house, boy,” his father had said. “If you’re gonna take that woman and give a go at being a real man, then you’re gonna need a house to match.”

A real man.

Clayton’s lip curled at the memory. It was always that way. Every good thing Gareth Burroughs ever did for his youngest son came tainted with what he really thought of him. That he didn’t measure up. That he was nothing like his older brothers, Hal and Buck. Gareth never came right out and said it, but he didn’t have to. It was in his eyes. They were filled with the gray storm clouds of disappointment.

Kate had always seen this place as the kindest thing her husband’s father ever did for them, but she didn’t know they’d built it in silence. A father following through on his obligation to shelter his son no matter how big a letdown he turned out to be. Those laughing rafters above his bed, the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes at night, were his penance for turning his back on his family. It was also a way to keep Clayton exactly where Gareth wanted him—rooted to Bull Mountain.

Clayton shifted his attention from the pockmarks made by his father’s ax in the ceiling to a much more pleasant view of his wife, Kate, drying herself off in the open cedar archway of the bathroom. She had a routine. She would wrap one towel around her body before pulling back the shower curtain, and another around her head in that turban wrap only women knew how to do. Then she’d sit on the edge of the tub and rub lemongrass oil on her freshly shaved legs. That part would take a little longer if she knew Clayton was watching. Then, like a magician’s final act, the two towels would hit the floor, and they’d be replaced by one of her husband’s McFalls County Sheriff’s Department T-shirts. The motion was so fluid, if Clayton blinked he’d miss the split-second shot of her bare ass before she hit the light and nestled a mound of damp chocolate-brown curls on his chest.

Kate never wore panties to bed. Just the thought of that still did it for Clayton even after eleven years of marriage. She adjusted one leg over her husband and nuzzled her cheek against his chest. This was their tried-and-true sleeping position, and she waited for his hands to start roaming her, but they didn’t come. “We missed you at Mom’s today,” she said.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I swear that boy is going to be the death of me.”

“Choctaw?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a good kid, just a little misguided is all.”