Page 86 of Heart Like a Cowboy

And amazing.

Then again, Alana always looked amazing, but the riled expression might surprise some. If Tilly had noticed it, she wasn’t reacting. She was waving and responding to the well-wishers who were calling out to her.

Colleen and her significant other, Anton, were there as well on the other side of Tilly. So, Anton had apparently decided not to stay home “sick” after all and Egan didn’t think he was projecting when he thought both Anton and Colleen seemed to be wishing they were anywhere but there. If Alana had filled them in on what had happened, they were perhaps bracing for that shit show, too.

As the flyers had promised, there was food. An entire school cafeteria–length table set up under another awning. The table was loaded with all sorts of dishes. Ditto for the second table behind it that had an assortment of drinks.

There was no sign of Melinda, and Egan was going to take that as a blessing. That didn’t mean, however, that Alana wouldn’t go through with the air-clearing. If so, and if there was the fallout that Egan was anticipating, then both Alana and Tilly were going to be hurting, bad, before this was over.

“Egan,” he heard someone say, and he turned to find Jesse making his way toward him. When Jesse reached him, he glanced around the crowd just as Egan had done and then leaned in and whispered, “I’m guessing you’ve heard that Tilly’s trying to have charges filed against you.”

Egan wanted to groan. Or curse. He didn’t do either. The sound he made was more of a sigh of resignation. He’d apparently made an enemy for life with Tilly.

“I’ve heard,” Egan assured him.

“Lissa overheard the conversation Tilly had with the sheriff,” Jesse went on, he said referring to Deputy Lissa Whitlock, his sister, “and Tilly also wanted to know if she could press charges against Alana.”

Egan turned so fast to look at Jesse that his neck popped. “What the hell for?”

“Slander,” Jesse supplied. “Or rather possible slander if Alana voices any lies about Jack.”

Well, crap. The old guilt reared its ugly head to remind Egan that the woman’s venom was justified. But it wasn’t. Not when the venom was aimed at Alana.

Suddenly, Egan wasn’t so worried about any waves or trouble that Alana might cause at this gathering. Just the opposite. He might want to stir up some trouble of his own.

“I thought you should know,” Jesse added. He tipped his head to Tilly. “She could be planning some kind of ambush to publicly smear Alana and you.”

As if on cue, Tilly went to the microphone, tapped it and did the testing-testing thing that people always seemed to do. Egan’s eyes automatically narrowed, and he began to thread his way through the crowd just in case he did have to come to Alana’s defense.

“Hello, everyone,” Tilly greeted. The wind chose that moment to flutter her veil/scarf. Flutter the drape around the painting, too. There was also a distant rumble of thunder that had the guests casting baleful glances at the sky. “Thank you all for coming to this celebration of life for United States Air Force Major Jack Davidson. As you all know, Jack isn’t just my son, he’s the town’s true hero.”

That was no doubt a dig at Egan, but he didn’t object. Not to the title, anyway. But rather to the woman’s use of present tense. On the surface, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal, but Tilly’s refusal to even acknowledge Jack’s death and shortcomings was spilling over on to Alana.

Tilly looked down at a paper she was holding. “I talked to Jack’s friends, teachers and fellow officers to ask them their favorite stories about him. I want to share some of those with you...”

There was another gust of wind that whipped up the scarf and blew it around Tilly’s face like a muzzle. The gust also rattled the easel enough to get Tilly, Colleen and Anton scrambling to make sure it didn’t tip over. The three ended up ramming into each other, which in turn caused them to ram into the easel.

Gasps and other sounds of concern rippled through the crowd, but Anton managed to get hold of the easel to steady it. Apparently, though, the wind wasn’t finished because another gust lifted the fabric covering the painting. Anton moved again to stop it, but the wind won this battle. The fabric flew right up, revealing the painting.

Or rather paintings.

One was positioned on top of the other.

More sounds rippled through the crowd but none were as loud or shocked as Tilly’s own reaction. Her mouth fell open, and her eyes seemingly doubled in size. She started shaking her head while she turned those widened eyes on Anton.

“It was only supposed to be this one,” Tilly insisted, flinging her finger at the painting on the bottom. It was of Jack in his CRO uniform.

To Egan, it almost looked like an official portrait, void of any of Jack’s personality. It seemed more suited for a promotion folder or a press release.

The painting on top wasn’t like that.

And it was very familiar to Egan since it was essentially a painted reproduction of the photo of Jack and him that Alana kept in her office. The brothers-in-arms shot taken when Egan had just won Top Gun. Anton had nailed the moment. The happiness. Yeah, even the brotherhood of it. It was like being slammed with two competing oceans of grief and joy at once.

Egan’s muttered profanity was drowned out by Tilly, who had apparently forgotten she was still holding the microphone.

“I didn’t pay you to do that.” She did more finger flinging at the top painting while her angered gaze locked on Anton. “And I don’t want it here. Or anywhere else,” she spat out. “I want it burned to ash. Do you hear me? I want it—”

The microphone screeched out a sound that had people covering their ears. It also stopped Tilly, and she looked around as if just recalling that she had an audience for her tirade. She swallowed hard and made a visible effort to regain her composure. However, she applied no such energies to regaining her calm.

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