Come Rain or Shine (28 page)

“Why would they stay in Bowling Green after burning your cabin? Are you going after them? Please wait until I can get them to come help you.”

“Them? How many men does Silas have with him?” Bo asked curiously.

Again Emmie felt like maybe she shouldn’t answer that question.

“Bo you’re frightening me.” Emmie uttered the words she didn’t often let herself say.

“Good. Because you should be frightened. Go to Walter’s and stay there until he tells you it’s safe to come back home, okay?”

“Bo did you lose all of your moonshine in that fire? Did you lose your money?”

“Emmie, moonshine money needs to be the least of your worries right now. I have got to go. Don’t tell anyone we talked tonight, okay?”

Emmie made no promises and he hung up before she had the chance to ask him any more questions. She wandered back upstairs, peering over her shoulder. Rather than feeling more comfortable, her conversation with Bo had left her feeling more unsettled. Why was he so adamant that she didn’t come home? In the end she was left with two questions that strained her brain: What did Bo Johnson know, and why did he have so many questions about Silas?

*

Silas tossed and turned in his bed. The room reminded him of Emmie and her peacock feathers. The only peace he had tonight was the knowledge that she was safely at home in Chicago. He would give her a call tomorrow night when she’d had time to calm down. He didn’t sleep as well without her. He’d need to get over that. She wasn’t likely to spend more than a handful of nights in his arms for the next couple of years. Walter was right. He took too many liberties with her. If she was going to keep a job in education, they’d have to be much more careful
. Get it together, Silas.
He chastised himself. He was in the middle of a shit-storm here and he was thinking about sleeping with Emmie. What the hell was wrong with him?

He rolled over and punched his pillow into a better shape then refocused. Walter Jones. He trusted the man. Well, he trusted him as much as he trusted anyone he wasn’t related to. Bo had called Walter this morning. He’d been cryptic. He’d only said things at home weren’t safe and he was worried for Millie. He had asked if things got worse if Walter and Mae would keep an eye on Millie. Walter had asked for more details but the only thing he had divulged was his family’s moonshine jars had been used to ignite the blaze in their cabin. Although that was not necessarily sound evidence of their involvement. It wasn’t uncommon for revenuers to burn down places with the moonshine that had been made there. Since Parbour’s family had been working with revenuers it made sense they would have taken a page out of their book. What Silas really wondered was what made Bo question the action? He had to know more than he’d told Walter. When Silas had spoken his concerns aloud, the old man had agreed that Bo likely knew more but he also didn’t think that made him guilty of any crime.

Silas rolled over and looked at his younger brother asleep on the bed next to him. Trick had gotten all jumpy at the thought of Millie Johnson in danger. He was not going to be happy when he learned they weren’t returning to Bowling Green tomorrow. Both Silas and Al had agreed they needed to get more information about the Bardston fires before he returned home. He also knew there were two police officers in Louisville working with the Parbour family when they baited Emmie and something about that made him feel uneasy. Part of the butcher brothers’ complaint had been that police had shown up and swept everything under the rug. Saying the fire had left no evidence to search through. No evidence. No case. He wondered if they were the same men who had arrested Emmie.

Silas remembered that Trick had a friend from Chicago who had joined the force here earlier this year. It was the friend that Trick had planned to use to get onto the force. While he didn’t have plans to let his brother join up with the police just yet, he would use that connection. Chris, one of the butcher brothers, was going to meet them at the hotel in the morning. Together he and Trick would head downtown to the station to get a good look at the police officers that had come to the butcher shop. Emmie had given him a vague description of the men who had arrested her. Vague or not, he would take what he had to work with. One way or the other, they would find some answers tomorrow.

Silas’s closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He was tired of this. He used to feel a rush of power when he was helping work on something like this. Now he just felt exhausted and worried for those he cared about. He had too many weaknesses and the biggest one was named Emmie. His last thoughts before he finally drifted off to sleep were of her. Her soft pink lips, her gentle hands, and the way she shined a ray of light into his dark world.

Chapter Forty-one

M
arco had promised the drive to the Sloan’s house would be a short one, because they didn’t live far from Louisville. Emmie’s stomach rolled. She did not want to meet these people right now. Of all the secrets she’d learned about her past in the last month not a single one of them was good. She was anxious about this whole trip home. She closed her eyes and tried to find a happy memory. Her mind took her back to Silas. He was bent down with the ring that now rested on her right hand, filling her head with lovely promises. Emmie twisted the ring on her finger. Her heart sank. She’d rather have him here with her than have a ring full of promises.

“So is that just a gift or does it come with some kind of string attached?” Marco asked, nodding to her hands. He must have noticed her worrying with it as she thought.

She frowned up at him not exactly sure she liked his tone. “Silas wouldn’t give me something with strings attached, Marco.”

He grunted in reply. The sound almost came out as a hollow laugh.

“What?” she asked.

“All boys come with strings, Emmie.”

Her brows knitted as she thought about his words. That wasn’t true, was it? Did all boys come with strings? Bo and Silas were the only two guys she’d ever kissed. Her experience was limited, but she didn’t think it was true. She glanced out the window and noticed the hills that were so colorful a month ago had already given way to a shade of barren brown. The once beautiful leaves littered the ground in winter’s welcome.

Emmie wondered what landscape she would be seeing this time tomorrow. Bo had asked her to go to Walter’s in Louisville. There was no way she could go to Walter’s right now. She had decided she needed to do one of two things tomorrow morning: either she needed to head home, find Bo Johnson, and make him spill the beans about what had made him so spooked, or she needed to find Silas and tell him something was going on with Bo. Her heart wanted her to do the second, but her brain told her the first was likely a better plan. She knew Silas would jump to all sorts of conclusions where Bo was involved and she didn’t want that to happen.

“I don’t guess I’ve got much right to give you advice on men though,” Marco said, breaking her out of her thoughts.

It took her a second to realize what he meant. She didn’t say anything; she only nodded in agreement. Marco Del Grandé was not anyone she planned to take relationship advice from anytime soon.

“I’m not sure he’s who your ma would have picked out for you but he’s a good kid I suppose,” Marco said, thinking aloud as he turned off the main road and down a dirt path. The car bumped and jerked her from side to side.

“He’s a man, not a kid, Marco,” Emmie said, holding on to the doorframe to keep from jostling around.

“I suppose he is. I’m not completely sure that they still live here but this town is fairly small. If they don’t, whoever lives here know should be able to tell us where to find them,” Marco explained as he pulled up to a cabin.

It was an old cabin and she could tell someone had built an addition onto the back. Smoke was billowing up from the chimney. As they stepped out of the car, Emmie could see more smoke coming from behind the house. For a moment Emmie half worried the back of the house was on fire but then she caught the smell. It was early in the morning but whoever lived here had some animal roasting on a spit behind the house. It smelled delicious. They must be planning something special, if they were having a roast in the backyard.

“This is where they live. I’m sure of it,” Marco said with a sigh. He popped his neck and led the way up to the house. She noticed the way his body tensed the closer he got to the house.

“How do you know they still live here?” Emmie whispered.

“Smell that? This is the Sloan place. Looks like you are going to see how your mother got to be such a good cook,” Marco said, raising his hand to knock on the old wooden door.

He looked over and whispered, “They may not be happy to see me but tell them who you are, if I don’t get the chance.”

Emmie’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Why on earth would you not have the chance?”

Marco didn’t get to answer. At that moment the door popped open to reveal a very short woman with a long gray-black braid of hair. Her face was wrinkled and pruned from years in the sun. She squinted and leaned in to get a closer look at Marco. She turned her face to the side without saying a word as if she was trying to place the man standing on her front porch.

“Mrs. Sloan, I’m sorry to come over unannounced—” he started but didn’t get the chance to finish.

“Cain, we got a stranger here in a fine suit,” the older woman shouted, “and a pretty young lady in fancy clothes. You expecting them folks in your gatherin’ today?”

They heard heavy footsteps thunder from the back of the house. Marco took a step back from the doorway. His arm reached out and pushed Emmie back, putting his body in front of hers.

“A finely dressed man is not surprising, but they ain’t said nothing about no lady being with ’em,” Cain said from the doorway.

She attempted to peek around Marco’s shoulder, but he was doing a good job at keeping her body behind his. Emmie realized she should probably feel afraid by the way Marco’s body tensed, but she couldn’t help but smile. This was the most absurd introduction she had ever heard of.

“Like I was saying, Mr. Sloan, I’m sorry to come by unannounced—” Again Marco didn’t get out any other words.

“Go. Get back to your car. We don’t cotton to any strangers around here right now,” he said.

Marco put his hands up and took a step back, smashing Emmie’s toes in the process. She stumbled and fell out of her father’s shadow, finally able to see Cain and Miss Sloan for the first time. She gasped as she saw why he had stepped backward. Cain was holding the biggest knife that Emmie had ever seen in her life. He pointed the knife in the direction of their car. She grabbed Marco’s hand.

“Okay, I’m sorry. There must be some
mistake,”
she said pointedly at her father.

These people were a basket of crazy and she didn’t want any of what they had to offer. Praise the Lord that her mother had made it away from these people. It might be the only good thing Marco ever did for her mother. He deserved some credit for that at least. She attempted to pull him back but his feet were rooted on the ground. He tilted his head to the side and arched his brow as if to ask her if she was sure. She answered his unspoken question aloud.

“This was just a mistake. We are lost but can see you don’t want to be bothered right now.” She turned to face Cain and the older woman. “I’m sorry, again.”

She and Marco had just started to turn and walk slowly back to the car when Cain spoke. “Wait, girl. Stop right there a second.”

His boots thudded the ground in a slow rhythm as he made his way over to her. Grabbing her, he spun her around and looked at her curiously. He took in the sight of her from the tip of her shoes to her eyelashes. Emmie swallowed hard against his stare. She could feel Marco move instinctively closer to her. The man’s hand grabbed her so quickly she didn’t have to protect herself. His fingers bit her wrist.

“Not so fast, girl,” he said, his hoarse voice barely above a whisper.

Chapter Forty-two

E
mmie tried to pull her arm away from him but his large, thick fingers had completely encircled her wrist. The large man pulled her into the house. Marco slid through the door behind her before it closed in his face.