Page 12 of Unbreakable Love

“Shit,” Dolly cursed.

“Jimmy?”

“Jimmy Morton,” Faye answered and pushed my glass toward me. She had a bottle of a light beer in her hand and took a swig before setting it down. “He’s an ass. Handsome, until he speaks, and we all hate him.”

“Pretty sure there isn’t a woman in town he hasn’t harassed yet,” Dolly cut in.

“He’s in a white button-down, thin blue strips tonight, so stay clear,” Faye said. “Seriously. That dude is bad news and Regina keeps kicking him out, but he keeps coming back. Doesn’t think he needs to listen to women or some crap.”

“Ahhh... one of those,” I muttered. I knew them well. My apartment had been a revolving door of men who didn’t like listening to women or showing them any ounce of basic respect.

“Exactly,” Faye said.

“So town gossip. Who do we need to fill her in on first?” Dolly asked, nudging Faye.

“The Kelleys,” Faye answered without missing a beat. “Because if you haven’t heard about them yet, you’ll know everything in a week anyway.”

“Kelleys, as in Josie, right?”

“Oh, sweet Josie,” Dolly said. “She’s the best. Says whatever is on her sweet little mind and you never know what’s going to come out of it. She’s a trip and a half.”

“Yeah, I met her and her dad the other night at parents’ night and the first thing she said to me was she didn’t have a mom.”

Faye chuckled.

Dolly scowled. “Her mom was one of our good friends in school. Now she’s a cunt. If she ever comes back, I think we’d grab all the horses in the county and run her back out or run her over.”

“No joke,” Faye said. “Which is why you should probably know about Gavin, too.”

Yes. This was what I wanted, but now that they were so easily dishing, it felt wrong. Too intrusive. Did I want to know why he seemed like he wore a perpetual angry face? Absolutely.

Was it any of my business? Not really…

“Um, maybe since he’s the father of one of my students I shouldn’t? But he did tell me her mom left when she was little.”

Faye’s eyes went round with surprise. “He mentioned Monica to you?”

An unsettling feeling slithered in my gut and I squirmed in my booth. “Yeah. After the parent night. He saw me, and …”

“Oh, you’re neighbors. I hadn’t realized that.” There was still surprise in her eyes. Maybe concern.

Before I could ask anything further, Dolly waved her hand in the air. “We’ll get to him later anyway, so here’s the deal. There are three main founding families. The Kelleys, the Havens, and the Tomlinsons. This bar, when it was built, never had a name. Everyone just said they were going to Tomlinson’s, but the story goes it became too hard to say after a few drinks, so it was shortened to Tom’s. The saloon part came later.”

“The swinging doors out front are original, though,” Faye cut in.

“Right. So there are the Havens, who still live here too. Lydia is a couple years older than us, but she’s a gem. She and her mom run the grocery store with some help from cousins, but they own a bunch of the buildings in town, too.”

“Her dad passed away not so long ago. Tragic. One second he was loading baked beans onto the shelves, the next second he was lying in the aisle, gone,” Faye said. Apparently, Dolly dished the dirt and Faye filled in the specifics. They spoke over and with each other like a well-oiled machine.

“Oh God. That’s horrific.”

“It was,” Faye whispered. “Lydia is a blast. She and her bestie, Ava, are usually here on weekends, but Ava might be with her boyfriend this weekend.”

“Who is Cameron Kelley,” Dolly cut in. “One of Gavin’s three older brothers.”

“He has three older brothers?” I tried picturing raising four boys and couldn’t.

“And a younger one, along with an older sister, but Meredith is in Nashville.”

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