Page 25 of The Hard Way

“Well,” I said. “When you put it that way…”

“We never rob the same bank twice,” Zeus said. “It’s a rule.”

Odin sniffed. That’s what he thought of rules. He looked over at me. “Hank Vernon is the reason your family isn’t sitting there now. He hasn’t paid enough.”

I gazed back at the empty booth. Odin was right—Hank Vernon, owner of First City National Bank of Baylortown, was the reason my parents died.

Hank and his family had been trying to take our land for years in order to mine it for fracking sand. Seven years ago my parents missed some payments because of a fire in one of the sheep barns, and Hank Vernon took advantage of the crisis to make the mortgage payments impossible for them to meet. Out of desperation, my parents left me in charge of the sheep farm and headed out for a two-month gig on a fishing boat in Alaska.

Their boat went over, and they died.

I had only just graduated from high school at the time. Hank and his family tried even harder to take the farm away from us after that. Eventually I’d taken a second job as a teller/object of Hank’s sexual harassment at Hank’s bank. It wasn’t going well. But then the bank robbery happened.

My sisters had paid off the mortgage thanks to our secret donations, but Hank would be the first in line to buy the farm if they were ever forced to sell.

And no, Hank and his family hadn’t paid nearly enough.

“You’re thinking it, goddess.”

“We should concentrate on the positive. Saving Vanessa,” I said.

“I could gut him like a pig,” Odin added.

“Nobody’s gutting anybody like a pig,” Zeus said.

Odin wasn’t listening. He was looking up at that deer head, pulse banging in his throat like a bongo. I hated that he was in pain. I hated that he wasn’t sleeping. I hated that I’d made sleeping even harder for him. I hated that there were cupids and deer heads staring at him everywhere he went around here.

I set my hand on his forearm, and he closed his eyes. My touch had always soothed him.

“Don’t forget, if it wasn’t for Hank, we wouldn’t be together,” I pointed out. “I would never have worked at his bank, and I would never have hated him enough to want to help you guys rob him.”

“So we should give him a ribbon instead?” Odin growled.

Maybe around his neck,I thought, but I didn’t say anything, because Odin was in a state. He really wanted to do something drastic. He drained his drink and headed off to the bathroom.

“He really wants to knock over that bank,” I said once Odin was out of earshot.

“He doesn’t give a shit about the bank,” Zeus said. “What Odin wants is to save you. To make you stop hurting.”

“He’s doing it already. You guys all are. Us here working on the case.”

Zeus unwrapped a breadstick. “Did Odin ever tell you how he got out of that prison?”

“No.”

“It’s his to tell, but when the people he loves are threatened, he can get extreme. The four of us being together has stabilized him a lot, but, well, I’ll just be glad when we get this Andy to ’fess up. It’ll be good to have this pain with your sisters and your past in our rearview mirror. Your touch helps him, still. Did you see?”

“I know. I thought after what happened in Rome that it wouldn’t help him.”

“Your touch is always the best thing for him. We just stay by him. Stay connected. He’s strong. He’ll be okay.”

“I feel bad.”

“Don’t. So you snuck into his bed when you shouldn’t have and it didn’t work out.” Zeus shrugged. “You try things. Sometimes they work, some times they don’t.” He gave me a look. “And sometimes you butt-fuck so hard you hear the angels singing.”

“Yet another thing they didn’t teach us in Sunday school.”

Zeus smiled and twirled my hair end. Brown. I’d been a redhead when I’d lived here last. A redhead with a petite and freckled nose. Now I was a blonde with a blocky nose. A man’s nose.

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