Page 11 of Double Bucked

His mouth thins. He’s familiar with the entire sad story about my first love…and my first heartbreak. All rolled up into one bumbling, irritating cowboy.

I peel the comforter back. It’s so puffy it’s like lying underneath a sea of marshmallows. “I should go downstairs.”

“You should rest.”

“The deputy needs his statement, and I need to finish this.”

For one long moment, James and I lock in a stare-off.

He pushes the toast in my face.

“Eat first.”

I take the bread and carry it in my mouth like a dog as I get out of bed. The toast is cold at this point, but the butter is good, and I munch as I exit the room and walk downstairs.

The staircase spits me out in a hall beside the sitting room. Ransom and Deputy Holden have parked themselves there, but they both rise to their feet when I enter.

“Miss Preacher,” Deputy Holden says with a cautious grin. “You’re looking brighter.”

“That’s a word for it.” I finish the toast, brushing crumbs from my shirt.

“You okay?” Ransom asks. He’s dropped his voice low, his words meant for only me.

It’s too hard to look at him. Staring at him is like staring at the sun. His rust-colored hair shines in the open morning light. The concern in the soft, soulful brown eyes makes me ache. Just the sight of him sends a swirl of tight, complicated emotions through my chest that I don’t have the capacity to untangle right now.

“Can I get you anything?” he asks.

“A lobotomy,” I answer. I take the leather chair, and the two men sit as well, flanking me. James steps through the sitting room, spreads open the doors that lead into the dining room, and walks to the kitchen. I hear items clattering and water hissing as he gets to work on a pot of tea.

Deputy Holden runs a hand over his slacks. His large brown hat sits on the polished coffee table in front of him. “Well, I won’t overstay. Just wanted to make sure y’all were alright. When you’re back on your feet, come down to the station. Like I said before, there’s no rush…”

I shake my head. “I’m fine. We can do it now.”

The deputy purses his lips. “I don’t think?—”

“Not that drawer!” Ransom shouts suddenly, jumping to his feet, arm outstretched toward the kitchen.

I whip my head around just in time to see James jump to the side. The drawer, already in motion, spits out the sound of a gunshot. A bullet sails through the air where James’s head once was and buries itself into the opposite wall.

For a second, all four of us hold our breath in shocked silence.

Ransom rubs the back of his neck. “Mr. Preacher…he got a little paranoid in the past years. Kinda…kept saying people were out to kill him. And I guess he was right. Anyway. There may be a booby trap or ten hiding around here.”

Booby traps? My father was a cold man, but that seems extreme, even for him. “Daddy was nothing if not a hostile host,” I say.

“What did he have against tea?” James muses. Unfazed, he goes back into the now-tamed drawer, plucking out tea bags.

“James, make some coffee as well,” I call through the house. “We’re doing this interview now.”

Ransom goes toward the kitchen, but I clasp his wrist and urge him back down. “Not you. Unless you’re going to unpin more of Daddy’s murder traps, you stay here.”

Ransom sits down on the couch, looking like a man attending his own hanging. I tilt my head toward Deputy Holden and inform him, “You’ll want to talk to him, too, Deputy. We’re all part of the same, fucked-up story.”

5

CLAIRE

Then.

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