CROSS (A Gentry Boys Novella)(17)

I tried to get my sister’s attention. “Katie, you saw Con? He was here?”

My sister combed her hair with her fingers. “Nope.”

Penny was listening at the door and decided to join the conversation. “He and his brother ran off together a little while ago, probably to go snort paint in a ditch somewhere.” She nodded at Roe. “Are you staying here again tonight?”

Roe shook her head. “I wish. But I promised my dad I’d be home by eight.”

Katie suddenly hugged Roe around the waist. Roe looked startled for a moment but pleased as she patted the little girl’s back. It made me feel guilty, seeing my kid sister searching for affection. She’d gotten a raw deal, having only been in kindergarten when our mother died. Our dad tried his best but he spent too many hours a day working double shifts at the prison in order to make ends meet. He felt guilty for depending too much on me. He felt guilty because he couldn’t help my mother when she was alive, and can’t deal with her at all now that she’s dead. I felt guilty because I’m a crappy substitute for a real mother. And then I felt even more guilty about counting down the months until I could get out of here. Too much guilt, all around.

We found my father dozing off on the couch. He must have only just gotten home. He still wore the white polyester shirt and blue trousers of his prison uniform. He woke up abruptly when Katie jumped on his legs.

“Stinker,” he joked, tickling her while she squealed. Then he looked at us and blinked his bloodshot eyes. “Hey there, girls.”

“Hi Dad. I think Penny’s in the kitchen heating up the casserole I made yesterday. There will be enough for leftovers tomorrow.”

He grinned. Now balding, overweight, and chronically tired, he’d once been a handsome man. I’d seen the pictures.

“Thanks, princess. Always my hero.”

My dad said things like that all the time. He meant them too, always trying to let me know how much he appreciated my help. He was a good guy.

“You’re welcome,” I told him and rubbed my arms. They were covered with long sleeves despite the summer heat. Roe caught me doing it and gave me a sharp look that turned to pained sadness. I stopped. No one else noticed. Even if they had they wouldn’t have thought anything of it. I was proud of that in a way, sick as it was. It was a terrible talent, being able to hide awful things from the people who loved you.

Con still wasn’t answering his phone. Roe hung around until the light started growing soft, then reluctantly packed up her car. For all the luxury that awaited her, Roe was never excited to go home. Before she climbed behind the wheel she turned to me and opened her arms.

“Better days are coming,” she said in my ear as she hugged me tight.

I hugged her back. “For both of us,” I promised.

She pulled away and looked straight into my eyes. “You know, if there’s ever anything you don’t want to handle alone, I’d drop everything and get here.”

Roe didn’t say things like that just to say them. The biggest bank account on earth couldn’t buy that kind of loyal friendship.

“I know,” I said. “But I’m fine. I swear.”

She glanced over at the empty silence of Con’s house. “Be careful among those Gentry boys,” she warned with a wink as she ducked into her car.

I waved and then stuck my hands on my hips. “Maybe they should be careful around me.”

“Thanks again for my crystal.”

“You need to hang it in your bedroom window. Remember the legend; if you catch a rainbow in your palm all your dreams will come true.”

“Love you, sis!” she shouted as she pulled away. Roe didn’t have any blood sisters and had decided at least a decade ago that she would adopt me into the role.

I was still standing by the curb when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I whipped it out with a smile, expecting Conway, but instead it was a text from Courtney Galicki. She pretended to be more of an airhead than she really was and was always too quick to gossip, but she was okay. She’d been hooking up with Stone on and off for a while now and that made me feel a little sorry for her because she obviously liked him more than it was healthy to like Stone Gentry.

I stared at the words on my screen but they didn’t make sense to me. Actually, they did make sense, but it was a bad kind of sense. I didn’t have the patience to be texting back and forth about something like this so I called Courtney directly. I listened to the breathless story she told me.

By the time I hung up I was silently cursing the boy next door.





CHAPTER SIX


CONWAY



We were quite a pair of lucky bastards.

Gaps made sure we knew it. I could tell he felt bad even as he was hauling us in. About a year ago he started coming around the house, spending a lot of time with our mother. She used him for an ego boost and some fancy restaurant dinners before dropping him like bad meat. But Gaps wasn’t the sort to hold a grudge and he always nodded in our direction when he saw us around town.

Apparently the family connection went deeper than a short affair with our mother. He stopped by our cell, explaining in hushed whispers how he was still buddies with the legendary Deck Gentry and had promised to keep an eye on us.

Stone raised an eyebrow at that and we’d glanced at each other with an unspoken acknowledgement. It was another piece of evidence that we were fathered by one of those wild desert Gentrys instead of the steadfast Elijah. This wasn’t the time to start musing over that possibility though. Not when we were behind bars, our stomachs growling and our pulses racing.