Olivia—One Week Later
Yesterday, I parted with ten grand of my life savings and finally bought myself a car. I can’t ride everywhere and I can’t keep relying on August to drive me to shelters all across the great state of Alabama. So as much as it hurt, I rode to the station, hopped the bus to Mobile, and drove a secondhand 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe off the lot. It has good mileage. The seats are a little beat up, but it will fit two large dog crates and five passengers comfortably, so it will do.
When I pull into the drive, Dalton is already hard at work painting the outside of the shelter. He’s shown up here every day to work at seven a.m. The man managed to break in everyday without ruining the windows or the locks, so I caved and decided to give him a key. He’s logged more hours on this shelter than any of us have, and it is almost done. We have a little work to do inside, a kennel or two to fix and a flowerbed to plant. Out the back, we’ve set up a permenant obstacle course for the new recruits. We are due to open our doors in two days, but first, I have a huge surprise for Dalton. I just have to go get it.
“Morning,” I say to him as I head through the open door.
“Morning, Miss Olivia.”
“How long you been here, Dalton?”
He dips his roller in the tray and continues to paint. “You want the truth or somethin’ I make up?”
I chuckle. “The truth, Dalton. Always the truth.”
“Mighta been about five a.m.”
I shake my head and glare up at him, but he just keeps on painting. “You need rest. You can’t be working all day and not restin’. I don’t wanna see you here at all hours of the morning.”
“I can’t sleep, ma’am.”
“I know,” I say. “I understand that, but I need you to try. I can’t have you collapsing on me in the middle of the day.”
“I’m a Marine,” he says, as if this is self-explanatory. He’s right; he’d stand there all day and all night if he had to, even if his legs were burning, his back screaming, and he could barely keep his eyes open. He’d still stand tall, because Marines are made of grit, stubbornness, and resilience.
I give him an impatient look and say, “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I set the gardening supplies I bought yesterday down in the middle of the porch, and Dalton climbs off his ladder and follows me to the car to help with the rest. “How you doin’? Aside from the lack of sleep, that is?”
“Can’t complain.”
“You can, if you want to.” I give him a reassuring smile. “I’m a real good listener.”
He shrugs. “My head gets a little messed up sometimes, but the pills help to keep it straight. Ain’t much else I can do. I ain’t missing a limb like August; I ain’t dead like my buddies. I’m here, I’m alive. It is what it is.”
“You have my number. You can call me when it gets bad. You know that right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “But I don’t own a telephone.”
“What?”
He shrugs. “I ain’t got no electricity.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t need it,” he says. “I don’t like the buzzing. It gets all up in my head, and I don’t want the government keeping track of me.”
I frown, and I’m about to ask what he means by that when the boys show up on their bikes. They stopped having the sheriff drop them off about three weeks back, and just started riding here of their own accord, ready to work. I’m going to miss them when the summer’s over. By now, they’ve more than made up for the damage they did, and I can’t see them sticking around much longer. Truthfully, I don’t really know why they’re still here. I’ll have to see about hiring someone else once they’ve moved on. I’ve already discussed hiring Dalton on a full-time basis once we are open to the public, but it will take a lot more than just two people to run a shelter, much less a program like Paws for Cause. I’ll have to make the time to discuss it with them later today. For now, we all have work to do.
“Beau, you’re with Dalton and August today,” I say. “Josiah, you’re with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“For me?” Josiah says, looking slightly uncomfortable.
I grab the brim of his cap and turn it the right way around. “No, dumbass, not for you.”
“Why the hell am I going then?”
“Because I need some muscle, and Beau’s fresh out of that,” I tease. Dalton chuckles quietly.
“Hey, that hurts.”
“Aww, would you look at that? The little pervert has a heart after all,” I say and point to the shovel, “Start diggin’. You’ve got some flowers to plant. I drew you a diagram in the notebook there, and you better not mess up my design. If I come back and that Bee Balm is where the Indian Pink should be, I’m gonna make you do it all again.”
Josiah starts laughing.
“And you—go get your little behind in the car. I’m playing Sam Hunt the whole way.”
The smile fades from Josiah’s face, replaced by a grimace. “You gonna make me listen to white people singing about their trucks the entire time?”
“Oh, honey, Sam Hunt don’t sing about trucks,” I say with a grin. I’m enjoying the forlorn expression on his face a little more than is healthy. “Well, he kind of does, but he sure ain’t singing about driving them. Now get in.”
It’s dark when I pull up in front of Josiah’s house. We’ve just come from visiting the doc, and I glance at the dog occupying my back seat in my rearview mirror. Jude had been an angel to look over our new friend Xena. I worked with the sweet-tempered Cavalier King Charles Spaniel myself four years ago and trained her for a child psychologist in Montgomery who used Xena as an emotional support dog for her patients. Kati passed away before I left for Magnolia Springs, and it took me a bunch of called-in favors and IOUs to locate this little warrior princess, but here she is. I have plans to train her for a different kind of emotional support, and August doesn’t know it yet, but Tanglewood will have a few extra guests checking in tonight. I can’t very well leave them at the shelter unattended. I’m not sure how he’s going to take this news, but I’m just praying to the good Lord above that he likes me enough to not throw me out on my ass. He hasn’t yet, so surely that counts for something.
I look down at Betty nestled in Josiah’s lap. He strokes the wrinkled skin on her snout and stares straight ahead out the windshield. I can tell he doesn’t want to go in, but his daddy’s sitting on the front porch stoop, and he can’t very well pretend he isn’t here.
“You know, you’re kind of a natural at that.”
He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Yeah.”
“I bet if you work hard you could still go to a good college. Plenty of places take late submissions. You’re smart, Josiah, and you’re better than this.” I tilt my chin toward the run-down house. I’ve been in Magnolia Springs for a little more than a month now and no one had to point out Cole Webb’s house on a map of places you go if you’re looking for trouble. I know just by looking at that man’s soulless eyes that he isn’t a good person.
“I ain’t goin’ to no college, Miss Olivia.” He shakes his head. “That isn’t in the cards for me.”
“Why not? You could repeat your final year, study to be a vet, or enlist and do what August did. You’d make a great dog handler.”
“Because kids like me don’t go to college.” He shakes his head. “Hell, no one in my family ever set foot on a campus unless it was to steal from one.”
“What about Sheriff Webb? She didn’t go to college?”
“Police Academy don’t count,” he deadpans.
“Of course it counts. She’s working isn’t she?”
“Yeah, eating donuts and running this Podunk town in country-as-fuck hillbilly Alabama.”
“Watch your mouth,” I say, taking Betty from him and giving her nose little piggy kisses. “Besides, I happen to like this town.”
“Why? Everyone here but the Cottons hates you.”
“You don’t hate me,” I say with a smile. “Beau and Jude don’t hate me, and Betty definitely doesn’t hate me.”
“Nah, we don’t hate you. We did, though. We thought of a million ways to screw you over after Aunt Shona made us come work for you.”
“But you didn’t.”
He shrugs. “August showed up.”
I laugh. “That’s it, huh?”
“He’s one scary-ass motherfucker.”
“Language,” I warn with my best impersonation of an angry mamma.
He smiles, his white teeth so stark against that handsome, dark face. Josiah seems oblivious to the way girls look at him, but he’ll be breaking hearts soon enough. I’m sure of it. “Sorry, ma’am.”
“You know, if you don’t wanna be stuck here like the rest of your family, then you need to work your ass off to get out,” I tell him honestly.
He shakes his head and makes a derisive sound in the back of his throat. “I ain’t ever getting outta here.”
“Josiah Webb,” I say sternly. “You quit talkin’ like that. A couple of months and you’ll be an adult. You’ll be free of this place, and you never have to look back.”
“Well, you gonna get outta that car, boy?” Cole Webb shouts from his front porch stoop, and Josiah stiffens beside me. His window is down, and there’s every chance his father heard what we were saying. “Or are you just gonna sit there yacking all fuckin’ night with some pretty piece of ass?”
He sighs. “Sorry, I gotta go.”
“Hey,” I say, grabbing his forearm. “You do not have to apologize for him.”
“I better go.”
“Okay,” I say, against my better judgment. All I want to do right now is just drive away with this kid, but though he may be incompetent as a parent, Mr. Webb is Josiah’s father, and running away with Josiah in tow would be kidnapping. “It gets better than this.”
For a beat, Josiah just looks at me, then he shakes his head, opens the door, and climbs out of the car. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Bye.” I set Betty down on the passenger seat and start the engine as Josiah trudges up the overgrown path. I don’t peel away from the curb because everything in me tells me to wait, to stay, to take him away from here.
Cole doesn’t move from the stoop as Josiah tries to pass. Instead, he leans his arm against the porch railing to stop Josiah from climbing the stairs. “Where you been, boy?”
“Workin’, Pop.”
“Workin’ huh? Well, where the hell is your pay? You workin’ for that white bitch for free, or is she showing you her sweet pink pussy as payment?”
My blood boils. I grind my teeth so hard my jaw hurts. I unfasten my belt and grab the handle, but before I can get outside, Josiah shocks the hell outta me by snapping, “Don’t talk about her like that.”
“What’d you say?” Cole stands, shoving his son back a step, and then I’m out of the car, stalking up the path as he grabs Josiah’s collar and swings his arm back, his hand balled into a fist. “You don’t talk back to me, you hear? You don’t ever talk back.”
His fist slams into the side of Josiah’s face, and the kid is knocked on his ass on the front porch. I don’t think about my feet moving toward them, or the vehemence spewing from my mouth as I stand between Josiah and this mean old bastard. “Touch him again and I will end you.”
All I can think about is protecting Josiah. All I care about is standing up for him the way I wish someone had stood up for me when I was a kid and a man twice my age took everything from me.
I am tired of bullies; I am tired of assholes who think they can demand respect with their fists. I shove Cole, and his eyes go wide as he stumbles back a step. I’m probably the only person in his life who ever has. He doesn't look like he’s taking it well because his gaze burns into me with hatred. Fear twists my gut, and before I can even anticipate how he will respond, he swings his arm back and it connects with my cheek. Pain explodes through my jaw and eye socket, and I land on my ass on the porch just like Josiah. From the car, Xena’s barking pierces through the ringing in my ears. Josiah’s father lunges for me, and I close my eyes, but the blow doesn’t come. Josiah is on his feet, a blur of shadow in the evening light as he and Cole wrestle across the porch. With a guttural roar, he slams the older man back into the coffee table. It breaks beneath their combined weight.
I scream and scramble to my feet, attempting to pull the boy off his dad before he beats him bloody. He’s stronger than me, and probably outweighs me by at least forty pounds. “You don’t,” he says, punching his father in the face, “talk to her.” Punch. “Like that.” Punch. Punch. Punch.
“Josiah, stop!” I yank at his shoulder, his shirt, anything I can get purchase on. My head is spinning, my vision is fuzzy, and my stomach roils with nausea. He won’t let up. “Let him go. He’s not worth it.”
The kid’s panting heavily, breath see-sawing out of his lungs when he finally gets to his feet. His dad splutters and rolls onto his side, letting out a choked laugh. “That all you got, you little pussy?”
Josiah takes a step forward, and I throw myself on his back, yanking him away by wrapping both arms around his chest. Even then he drags me a few paces before I can stop him. “You wanna get outta here? You walk away now. Keep going, and you’ll wind up in prison. You’re better than that, Josiah. You're better than him.”
He staggers backward and shrugs off my hold. I reach for his arm again, but he shakes his head and holds up a hand to ward me away as he glares down at his father. He’s shaking like a leaf; we both are.
“Get in the car,” I snap.
“You better run, boy,” Cole murmurs. He’s on his back now, struggling to get up. “I see you around town, I’m gonna choke the life out of you the way I shoulda done when your mamma left you on my doorstep.”
Josiah takes a step toward Cole, but I grab hold of his arm and yank him down the stairs toward the car. “Get in.”
He glances back at the porch, terror and agony written all over his face. If he sets foot in that house again, he’s going to wind up with a knife in his back.
“You run, you little fucking, pussy.” Cole is on his feet now. It took him a beat to recover but he’s up and starting toward us as we pull away from the curb. “Your bitch better watch her fucking back, too!”
I slam my foot down on the accelerator, attempting to put as much distance between us and that vile man as possible. My lids are heavy and my stomach roils; my hands shake so violently that they jerk the wheel.
“Are you okay?” Josiah asks.
“I’m fine,” I say, though I’m not sure he hears me. I’m not sure I hear me over the whooshing in my ears. “Put on your seatbelt.”
“Your face,” he says, and his own twists with sadness.
“I’m fine, Josiah.” I keep my gaze squarely on the white line. It appears to blur and shift, and I know I should pull over, but I’m too afraid to. I just need to get to August, then we’ll be safe. Everything will be better.