Page 234 of Fearless

The motor moved closer.

He had a hand on the doorframe, gazing out across the swamp, when she saw him relax.

“Larry and Evie,” he called to her. Then he frowned. “What part of ‘newlywed’ did they not understand, huh?”

“I told her she didn’t need to be bothering you,” Larry grumbled as he and Evie emerged from the cypress cave. “We put truckloads of food in that house, and you don’t need her running over here with a damn meatloaf every five minutes.”

Ava rushed to assure them that they weren’t being a bother, and thanked Evie profusely for the meatloaf. She explained that they’d just eaten. When Evie said, “That’s fine, it’ll keep,” and made no move to leave, Ava asked them to stay and visit, have a drink.

Mercy gave her a murderous look where the O’Donnells couldn’t see, and she smiled sweetly back. She thought, maybe if they got this over with, they could spend the evening alone together.

“Let’s let the boys talk,” Evie urged, when they were all equipped with glasses of Johnnie Walker Red. “Let’s you and me go for a stroll.”

Ah, so this was it: the closest she’d ever get to a motherly chat on Mercy’s behalf.

She took a hard sip of her Scotch as they began a slow walk around the edge of the meadow.

“How were the crawfish?” Evie asked, a knowing laughter in her voice.

“Um…they weredifferent,” Ava said, cringing.

“It’s not like popcorn shrimp at a restaurant, is it?”

“That’s for sure.”

It was a wet, dense heat that seemed to drift up from the ground. The kind of heat that made you light-headed and faintly sick, like walking through water. It was the hottest part of the day, and the alcohol wasn’t helping things. Ava took slow steps, kicking the toes of her boots through the grass. She wished there’d been room to bring along some flip-flops. Even just sneakers. Anything besides these hot boots.

Evie’s voice became more serious, but no less direct. “I know Felix told me once, but I’ve forgotten. It’s hell to get old. But anyway, I was trying to remember – how old were you when Felix moved to Tennessee? The first time, I mean.”

This felt like entrapment. “I was eight,” she said. Skating around the truth wasn’t her style.

“Just a little baby thing,” Evie said.

Ava didn’t like the sound of that. But she said, “My dad assigned him to my mom and me. Our security detail.”

“Hm. He woulda been, what? Twenty?”

“Twenty-one.”

“He was scary to look at even then. I can see why a father would make that choice.” She sipped her Scotch. “What was he like then? After he’d run off from home. All alone up there in the Smoky Mountains.”

Ava felt the first stirrings of anger and tried to tamp them down. “He was my friend. Even though I was only eight, he was my friend from the beginning. The other stuff came later.”

Evie made a murmuring sound. “I’m not sure the poor boy ever had a single friend growing up. He was awful shy, and he was home-schooled, you know.”

It was a little stab of pain to say, “No. I didn’t know.”

“Uh-huh. Never went to school a day in his life. No homecoming, no prom. No football games. Just reading a buncha dusty old books with his daddy and grandmother.”

Ava swallowed another sip of Scotch and felt it catch in her throat. She felt this intense, instant ache when she thought of the fearless man she knew growing up a quiet, shy, friendless boy. This new knowledge painted all the old memories in a new light, explained them more precisely. The young man who’d taken a true interest in her, who had talked books and movies and hokey old sitcoms with her had done so because that was a true connection between them. She’d always known that; but now she knew why. No matter how many years he spent as Mercy – ruthless MC extractor and wielder of pipe wrenches and pliers – there would always be a part of him that was Felix, lonely for some true, kindred company. He’d found that, in her.

She wanted to go back to the cottage and put her arms around him. She wanted to tell Evie to get lost, because she sensed the judgment in the woman, and that made her furious.

She said, “That explains why he’s so much more well-read than any of the boys I ever went to school with.”

Evie laughed. “Nobody ever caught your eye while he was waiting for you to grow up?”

“No.” She hated that phrasing: waiting for her to grow up, like he’d had sick intentions while she was a little girl, and he’d managed to hold himself at bay until she was ripe.

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