Page 3 of Hit the Ground
Her mouth flattened into a hard line. “Don’t make this difficult, Caleb.”
“It isn’t difficult at all. Open and shut. It’s done.”
Groaning, she tossed her arms out to the side. “I’ll have to talk to my lawyer then.”
“You need to take a step back and realize what a bad idea this is.”
“And you need to stop being so damn stubborn,” she clipped.
It’d been said before, and maybe there was some truth to it. But when it came to my son, I wouldn’t compromise. I already had to miss him on the weeks he lived with his mom. No way was I missing a single other second.
I tipped the bill of my hat. “Have a good day, Shelby.”
She could linger in her anger all she wanted. I walked back to my vehicle, my mind already on the tasks I had to get through.
Chapter Two
Alice
Iwasdeeplyfamiliarwith paper. I spent my days in a world filled with it. Rows and rows, stacks and stacks. The scent of old books—made of dust and ink and paintings formed with words—was as close to home as I had found. I could tell the difference between a vintage encyclopedia and the soft weight of a new novel with the brush of my fingers. And when I rubbed them together just right, my nerve endings sparked with memory, like I could summon my favorite page of a book from thin air.
Paper had never been just paper to me. It was comfort. An escape. The one thing in my life that made the most sense.
Which was why the envelope felt so wrong.
It was heavier than paper had any right to be. Not the cardstock or thickness of what was inside, the ink itself. Like it had its own gravity. Like the words typed across the front had mass, giving it a foreign weight in my hands. As I pushed into Joy’s Elbow Room for my shift, I clutched it close, holding it like it might slip free and cause a scene. Knowing my luck, that was exactly what would happen.
The door banged shut behind me. I ducked on instinct, but didn’t drop the envelope. A few heads turned to look at me, but I was a familiar sight around here, so no one’s stare lingered.
It was only five, and the bar was already half-full. Friday nights were always busy, and since Joy’s drew in ranch hands whose days started with the rise of the sun, their drinking started early too.
A familiar country song played on the vintage jukebox, and the smell of beer, fried onions, and old wood hit me square in the face.
I never would have guessed I’d find comfort in this scent too, but the last four years I’d waitressed here as a second job, it had become as familiar as the library where I spent my days. My home away from home, in a weird, unexpected way.
Joy looked up from behind the bar, where she’d been wiping a sticky patch with the ferocity of someone personally offended by other people’s fingerprints. But she always kind of looked like that.
When we first met, she’d scared the dickens out of me. But I quickly learned behind Joy’s gruff, no-nonsense nature was a heart of gold.
“’Bout time you got here.” She narrowed her dark eyes at me as I rounded the bar. “Why do you look like that?”
Alarmed, my feet stopped moving. “Like what?”
“Like you either committed a crime or you’re trying to sneak a stray kitten in under your coat.”
If I hadn’t been holding on to the envelope for dear life, I would have patted my face to check my expression.
“No kitten here.” I wished that was what I was holding. Then again, I already had the look and lifestyle of a spinster cat lady; actually having a cat might’ve been a bridge too far.
Her brows rose, crinkling her forehead. “What crime did you commit?”
I shook my head, my lips twitching toward a smile. “No crime either, I swear.”
She jabbed her rag at me. “What’ve you got there?”
“Oh, nothing. Just mail.” I skirted around her, heading toward the back so I could drop my things and grab an apron.
Joy was a dog with a bone, nipping at my heels. “I’m not buying it. Mail doesn’t make you look like you’re going to faint. What’s going on, Alice?”
