River Bodies (Northampton County #1)(8)

“Step back,” her father said.

Becca never heard him come up behind her. He lifted the rifle in his hand.

“No, Daddy,” she yelled and pulled on his arm. “No, Daddy, please,” she cried.

He shook her off. “Stand back,” he commanded, pushing her away, making her stand several yards back before aiming and firing. The bullet struck the animal with a thwock.

Becca stared at the doe, still and lifeless, the stalks beneath it crimson.

“It was suffering,” he said, taking her arm and leading her out of the field.

She struggled to get away from him, twisting and pulling. “Let me go,” she cried, but he held on tight. He opened the door to the pickup and put her inside the truck once again. “Wait here.”

Becca crossed her arms, the backs of her legs sweaty on the vinyl seat. The little girl and her mother played patty-cake on the side of the road while they waited for the tow truck. Becca’s father continued fiddling under the hood of the wrecked car. The mother kept stealing glances at him, the woman’s face aglow with appreciation and gratitude.

All the while a storm brewed inside Becca’s chest, dark clouds rumbling in that summer sky she’d swallowed just minutes before, no longer clear and blue but now thundering and gray.





CHAPTER FOUR

John watched as the black smoke swirled into the fading blue sky. He was standing behind the old barn in front of the fire pit where the pile of autumn leaves blackened and burned. Behind the pit the mountain loomed, the trees covered in bright yellows and oranges and reds. A hawk circled not far in the distance.

He pulled the collar of his leather cut up around his neck. There was a nip in the air. If he were younger, he might not have noticed. The heat from the flames should’ve been enough to ward off the chill. But when he started to shiver despite the fire and heavy leather jacket, he couldn’t blame the autumn air or his age. The cold was coming from him, from the inside, from a dark place hidden so deep he wasn’t always aware of it.

Ever since he’d shot the young buck, it was as though the scars of the past had grown around his heart, their icy tendrils slowly thickening, wrapping around the muscle, suffocating whatever warmth and tenderness he had left.

“Stop being morose,” his old lady, Beth, might’ve said if she’d been standing beside him. The thought made him smile in spite of himself. He was often surprised by how much of her vocabulary he’d absorbed through their fifteen years of marriage. She’d been smart. He’d thought of her as an intellectual. She’d had her nose in a book most days, although she’d been one hell of a partier at night.

The first time John had laid eyes on her, she’d been sitting outside of Sweeney’s Bar with her feet propped on the railing, a book in her lap. The sun had started to set, casting its last rays across the top of her head in such a way he’d believed he’d been looking at an angel. She’d looked up from the page and met his gaze, creating an ache inside of him, a yearning so strong he’d thought he might explode.

A couple of the guys had walked outside. They’d started giving her shit, making fun of her for reading while her older sister, Lonnie, was inside drinking shots.

She’d closed her book and stood. “All right. Let’s drink,” she’d said and pulled the door open. “You fellas might want to try to keep up,” she’d called over her shoulder.

John had watched as she’d tossed back shot after shot like the girl in the Indiana Jones movie, outdrinking every man in the place. By the end of the night, she’d been left sitting alone at a table full of empty glasses. John had been sitting a few tables away.

“Where did you learn to drink like that?” he’d asked.

“College,” she’d said. “I majored in fine arts and minored in parties. Both of which are pretty much useless in the real world.”

He’d nodded.

“Do you want to join me?” She’d motioned to the empty seat in front of her.

He’d shaken his head. She’d looked surprised.

“What I’d like to do is take you home.” He’d crossed the room, held out his hand. When she’d touched him, every cell in his body had come alive, electric and pulsating. For the first and only time in his life, John had fallen in love.

Slowly, Beth had found her place with him and the Scions, their old ladies, their way of life. But in other ways, she hadn’t. She had a certain class about her, a sophistication that had been more than just being well read. She had grace and strength, a combination very few women possessed. But she’d never looked down on any of the club members or their women. And she could have. Hell, even John had thought, although affectionately, of some of the members and their old ladies as uneducated and trashy.

And she’d never looked down on John.

Beth had died three years ago from ovarian cancer. Since then, not a day had gone by that he hadn’t thought of her. It wasn’t that he was lonely. He didn’t mind being alone. Nor was it the frequent sex that he missed, although he did miss it more than he wanted to admit. But it was the smaller things he thought of often, how she’d toss her head back when she laughed, how she’d tuck her feet underneath his legs to keep them warm on chilly nights, how she’d furrow her brow whenever she was concentrating on something as simple as sewing a button.