Authors: Tymber Dalton
Tags: #Romance
Nevvie’s eyes widened. “Wow, Mom. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m sorry, sugar. I’m just not myself.”
Nevvie exchanged a concerned glance with Andrew, who stood behind Peggy. His eyebrows rose for a moment in an unmistakable expression of agreement with Nevvie’s assessment.
* * * *
Nevvie suspected Tom wouldn’t have eaten anything for breakfast if she and Tyler hadn’t tag-teamed him and brought the food and coffee to him in their room. Even after his accident, in his darkest mental state then, he didn’t look as lost as he did now.
Tyler left their bedroom to help Laurie and Kelly get the boys ready. John, who had arrived Thursday afternoon, and Kelly had volunteered to stay behind to babysit. Several of Peggy’s friends from church told Nevvie they would take care of everything for the wake at the church’s Fellowship Hall. The cemetery sat on the same property as the church, so at least they wouldn’t have to caravan back and forth.
And Nevvie and Kelly wouldn’t have to deal with trying to wrangle a houseful of people later. Only immediate family had been invited back to the house after the wake. With Andrew’s blessings, Nevvie had already determined if anyone wanted to stay late enough for dinner, she’d order pizzas and they could eat whatever had been brought to the house over the past couple of days. If they didn’t like it, they could go get their own damn food.
She wasn’t in a mood to put up with any guff from anyone. Not with so many of her family members hurting so badly and her feeling helpless to ease their heartache.
“I wish I could do something, anything, to help you through this, Tommy.”
He forced a smile, but didn’t look at her. “I know, baby girl. It’s just…” He shrugged. “Time.”
He leaned his head against her shoulder. She draped her arm around him and cradled him against her. “We’ll get through it,” she softly assured him. She kissed his forehead. She hated the dark circles under his eyes. “Like Tyler said, we have big shoulders. That’s why we’re here for you.”
“I’m just so angry,” he whispered, as if almost afraid to say it out loud. “I want to scream at her. I want to ask her why she had to be such a bitch. And I hate myself for it. I hate that I’m mad at her. She was the one killed. And I feel like a freaking dick because I’m mad at her for dying and leaving this bag of shit hanging over all of us. Over the twins and Clay, too. I was sad when Daddy died, but I wasn’t angry at him. I was angry at the son of a bitch who hit him, but not at Daddy. I knew Daddy loved us and loved Momma.”
She looked down into his sweet brown eyes. The tears there broke her heart. “It’s okay to be angry,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot of things you feel that you don’t know how to deal with. You and your sisters. And Mom. I think one day you’ll be able to look back on the good stuff without thinking about the bad stuff.”
“Will you?”
She thought about it. “I never really had a good relationship with Emily. Not from the start. Tyler barely had a civil relationship with her. I don’t have good memories of her the way you do. But I don’t begrudge the good memories you do have. She was your sister and you loved her.”
“What about you and Mary?”
That took her aback. “What about her?”
“Now that she’s died, are you able to look back at the good times?”
He didn’t press her for an answer. It took her a few minutes to form her thoughts into something that might make sense. “I’ll never like that she left me. I’ll never agree it was the right thing for her to do. I don’t regret talking to her, because I got my answers. And I now have my birth mom and dad and Laurie. And Jacob and Kyle.” She thought some more. “But I can honestly say that yes, I have been able to look back a little and think about the good times. Mostly they were when Dad was still alive. And some before she met Preacher Jim. I had to forgive her. Just like Tyler was able to forgive Marcus. The only person hurt by not forgiving was me. It doesn’t absolve her of what she did, just like me making a conscious decision to forgive Emily now doesn’t absolve her for what she did to us. I know I can’t spend the rest of my life hating her, though. I feel sorry for her. Even without…you know. This.”
He still looked sad, but she recognized the thoughtful expression in his eyes as he digested that. After a few minutes, he said, “I want to say I can forgive her, but I don’t think I can. Yet.”
“Then don’t.”
“Doesn’t that make me a hypocrite? Standing there while all these people who don’t have a clue what a bitch she was to us say how sorry they are for our loss when I’m still not that sure how sorry I am about it?”
“No, Tommy. It makes you as human as the rest of us.”
* * * *
Tom and Karen sat in the front pew flanking Peggy, Clay, and the twins, with the other sisters on either side of them. Tyler, Nevvie, Laurie, Andrew, Bill, and others sat directly behind Tom and Peggy. By Nevvie’s estimate, less than two hundred people came for the service, with at least fifty of them from Emily’s church.
Nevvie tried to tune out everyone else, including some overly loud sniffles from Emily’s church friends, and focus on her family.
At least we’re spared an open casket
, she thought not for the first time as the preacher led into the first Bible reading.
The service lasted almost forty minutes, which was thirty-five minutes too long for Nevvie’s liking, but she kept her mouth shut. When the time came for them to carry the casket out to the cemetery, Tom, Tyler, Clay, Andrew, Bill, Danny, and Cheryl’s and Katie’s husbands got up to be the pallbearers.
The drizzle had, miraculously, let up for a little while. Long enough that the people who couldn’t fit under the tent over the grave didn’t get wet.
Emily would be buried next to her father. Nevvie realized this was the first time she’d ever been to Adam Kinsey’s grave. While she stood there for the final prayer before Emily’s coffin was lowered into the grave, she tried not to think about the last time she stood by a grave, when she was eight and the hot Florida sun beat down on her and Mary.
After the service was over, she kept her arm hooked through Tom’s and walked with him over to the Fellowship Hall. There, Nevvie kept what she hoped looked like a genuine, polite smile plastered on her face while everyone came up to Peggy, Tom, and the sisters to express their condolences.
It took them over two hours to get out of there and caravan back home. Alone in the car with Tyler and Nevvie, Tom closed his eyes and pulled his tie off. “Thank fucking god that’s over with.”
She reached over the front seat and rubbed his shoulders. “You okay?”
He patted her hand. “I will be, baby girl. I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier for you.”
“Me, too, love,” Tyler said.
At the house, Nevvie hurried inside to help Kelly prepare. At one point in the afternoon, she noticed Tyler still wore his suit coat. “You want me to take that for you and hang it up?” she asked.
“No, it’s all right, love. I’m fine.”
* * * *
Tyler breathed a sigh of relief when she let the subject drop. He’d worn the underarm holster all day. The jacket was a little on the warm side, but it easily hid the gun. And whoever had killed Emily was still out there.
He wouldn’t take any chances.
* * * *
Alex sat in the stolen car and watched the funeral procession from the front of the church to the graveside. He hunkered down in his car, unable to contain his smile. Yep, there was that goddamn cunt and her two fag boys.
Now all he had to do was figure out where they were staying. He thought about following them when they left, but that would be too risky. There would be too many people around today for him to try it.
He reached over to the passenger seat and put his hand on the address book. Everything he needed was right there.
After the graveside service ended and people began heading toward the hall or their cars, Alex took that opportunity to leave. He wanted to get out of there before he was spotted.
He’d enjoy the look of shock on her face when he caught up with her.
Despite desperately needing a break from Tyler’s incessant hovering around her when he wasn’t working, Nevvie wasn’t looking forward to this excursion with John. Not that she didn’t want to spend time with him, but she would have preferred a different activity.
John, on the other hand, thought it even more urgent than ever that she know how to shoot.
Peggy had politely declined their invitation to join them. Nevvie knew she was still struggling with Emily’s death, but had hoped she would go to get her mind off things for a while.
John checked in with the skeet club’s office, and they filled out forms to become members. When Nevvie went to pay, he stayed her hand.
“No you don’t. Put your wallet away.”
“But, Dad—”
“No buts, young lady.”
They looked at each other and burst out laughing. He hugged her. “Do you know how long I’ve wished I could say that to you?”
“All right, Dad. You win.”
They walked out to the skeet field with the range officer who would pull for them. They had the field to themselves. John took a few minutes to explain the procedure to Nevvie. “I’m going to shoot each station first so you can see how it’s done.”
“I’m probably not going to hit anything. You realize that, right?”
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “Don’t sell yourself short before you’ve even tried it.” To the range officer he said, “I’ll shoot full doubles, but can you pull on report for her?”
The man nodded. “Sure.”
“What’s that mean?” she asked.
“He won’t launch the second bird in the doubles until after you’ve fired at the first one. It’ll be easier for you.”
“Oh.” That still didn’t mean much to her.
She followed John and the range officer out to a small concrete pad on the far left side of the field, next to a small concrete block building. “That’s the high house,” John said. He and the range officer both donned their shooting muffs and safety glasses. Nevvie followed suit.
He broke the gun open and loaded one shell. “Load the bottom barrel when you’re shooting singles,” he told her. He closed the gun, mounted it to his shoulder, and took aim. “Pull!”
The range officer hit a button on a small remote control he carried that was tethered to a long cord.
Nevvie heard a
whirring
noise above them and realized a clay disk had been launched from the house they were standing against. Before the clay had reached the center of the field, John fired, shattering it.
He loaded another shell. “The next bird will come from the low house,” he said, pointing at another concrete building on the other end of the field. He aimed. “Pull!”
A clay disk shot out of the other building, coming toward them. Again, John fired before it crossed the center of the field, this time taking a chunk off the side of it, but not shattering it.
“Does that still count?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yep.” He loaded two shells. “This time I’m shooting doubles, so I loaded two shells.” He put the shotgun to his shoulder. “Pull!”
Nevvie heard birds launch out of both houses, flying toward each other in the field. He fired twice, taking one out and missing the second. She’d barely seen either one of them.
“That was great!”
“You want your option?” the range officer asked.
He shook his head. “No, not yet.”
“What’s that mean?” Nevvie asked.
“I missed one. You get one chance to make it up. It’s called the ‘option.’”
“Oh.”
He showed her how to stand and hold the gun. Then he stepped back. “Now load a shell in the bottom barrel.”
She carefully broke the gun open, pulled a shell out of the pocket of the shooting vest, and loaded it. Then she closed the gun and put it back to her shoulder.
“Take your time,” John said. “Get used to how it feels.”
“You want to see one first?” the range officer asked.
“Okay.”
“Take your finger off the trigger and don’t fire.”
When she did, he hit the button. She heard the mechanism in the high house launch a disk. It appeared above and in front of her, traveling away from her.
“Okay?” he asked.
She nodded and took a deep breath. “Pull!”
He did. It seemed like the bird flew twice as fast as it had when she watched it before, but she fired, flinching at the feel of the gun’s recoil into her shoulder.
And missed.
“That’s okay,” John said. “That was good. Try not to flinch next time.”
“You want your option?” the range officer asked.
“Might as well,” she said. “It’ll get used up regardless.”
She tried again and missed again.
By the time they’d worked their way around all the stations, she’d only hit four birds, which both men assured her was excellent considering she’d never even fired a shotgun before.