Page 55 of Putting Out
“I don’t know. I don’t memorize them. I read the first sentence and then toss it. Now I can recognize the writing so I don’t even read his. Hell, I would trash the lot of it, except some of the letters are legitimate. From girls all over the country who play sports and think what I’m doing is cool. Those I have to answer.”
“What does Pop say about this?”
Reilly squirmed in her seat and focused on her coffee. Luke continued to stare at her and eventually she broke.
“I haven’t shown him. I don’t want to upset him. It’s bad enough with the phone calls. I show him and Grams the nice letters and Kenny and I go through the rest.”
Luke turned to Kenny. “Do you have the other letters? The ones from this guy?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m with Reilly. I didn’t want Grams or Pop getting upset about it, so I burned them.”
“I’m keeping this one,” Luke stated. “Any more that come from this guy go to me. We’ve got to take this stuff seriously. Yes, he’s probably some crackpot, but this is a kidnapping threat. Reilly is in the public eye now. Smack in the middle of it. There are going to be men out there who want her dead because of what she’s doing, and others who just want her.”
“Are you trying to scare me?”
“I’m trying to make you realize this isn’t a game. All those reporters, all that press, all that attention. Nothing good can come from it.”
“We’re pretty isolated on the farm. They can’t get too close.”
Kenny stood and made his way to the coffeepot for a refill.
“Still, Luke’s right. Maybe some extra protection might help.”
“Like a bodyguard? Get real.”
“Actors use them all the time,” Luke pointed out. “Hell, your boy Buck never traveled anywhere without an entourage of five around him.”
“That was for show. Which is exactly what people will think if they see me walking around with some oversize muscled thugs at my back. Nothing has happened. A few crazy letters. I’m not going to suddenly get paranoid and see stalkers everywhere. I’ve got other things to concentrate on.”
“I don’t want you to be paranoid. I want you to be careful.”
“I will be. Like Kenny said, what the heck can happen to me out here on the farm? The property line is about a half a mile in each direction.”
“With no fence, no security, nothing to stop someone who really wanted to get to you from simply walking up to the house,” Luke said.
Reilly opened her mouth and then closed it. Great, she thought. Now she was worried.
“You know between Kenny’s mood and your paranoia, you’re not helping my mental conditioning. I don’t want to talk about the breathe guy anymore. Or the right- wing chauvinist freaks who think I should be beaten for trespassing on sacred male ground, or the Donna Reed clones who think I’m giving womanhood a bad name. They’re all nuts and they all deserve the same amount of my attention, which is none of it.”
With that, Reilly stood, suggesting she was done with the conversation. She heard the front door open and turned to Luke.
“Put it away, please.”
He didn’t hesitate before folding up the letter and putting it in his back jean pocket. “We’re not done discussing this,” he told her.
“We are for now.”
A rumble of voice could be heard in the foyer. Expecting to find her Pop with an armload of groceries and Grams directing the procession, she was shocked to see both her Pop and Odie on either side of her Grams all but carrying her to a chair in the living room. Grams sank into the upholstery and put a hand over her heart. Immediately, Reilly rushed to her side to kneel in front of her.
“What is it, Grams? Are you hurt? Faint?”
“Hush and stop fretting,” Pop ordered. “We had a bit of an accident, that’s all.”
Kenny made his way to the living room and stopped short when he saw his grandmother’s face. “What the hell happened?”
“Now isn’t the time for your mouth, son. Go get me some water.”
At Pop’s stern request, Kenny rushed off, but Luke was already on his way toward the living room with a glass halfway filled with water. He knelt beside Reilly and gently placed the glass in Grams’ hand.
