Lost in Tennessee (37 page)

Butch crossed his arms over her and spoke softly. “In my book, that’s quite a while longer than a while. I was thinking we’d get married when I finished my tour in the fall.”

Kate’s feet turned to ice. The fact that her heart stopped might have had something to do with it. “That’s only, like, five months away. What’s the rush?”

Butch didn’t quite fight down the smile that crept onto his lips. “I love you.”

Kate jumped up, bumping the table hard enough to rock the coffee cups. “I love you, too, but what’s the rush? We can live together, build the house, you do your thing, and I’ll do mine, and then when everything’s good, we can get married.” She back-pedaled until the counter brought her up short.

Butch stalked her, the kitchen island providing her only shelter. “If you ask me, everything’s good right now. We can talk to Reverend Marcus and see when he’s open before I leave.”

“Before you leave?” Kate’s voice was too high, her air choked off by the lump in her throat. “Everything isn’t good. Hyde. Hyde’s still in a coma. You would want him there, right? You haven’t finished settling Fawn’s estate. You’ll have to go back to California, and then you have a tour.”

Butch walked after her, his long, slow strides navigating around the chairs she put in his path. “Any more excuses?”

“Reasons. Hundreds of reasons to wait.” When his smile just grew, Kate knocked over two chairs and skirted by him.

Tom went to the sink and washed his bowl. “You do know how to keep her on her toes. I’ve never seen her run scared before.”

“I’m not running.” Kate kept the island between her and Butch.

Jeb raised his coffee in salute. “It’ll be nice to actually be at one of your weddings.”

“My last wedding. You’ll be my best man, right? Whenever we have it?”

“I’m here for you, little brother.”

Kate made a break for it, skirting by Tom for the door. “You plan your Mad Hatter Tea Party. I’m going to work.”

K
ate’s palms sweated as she drove along the country roads. It was crazy to get engaged after knowing Butch for just a few weeks, but did he really think she was nuts enough to marry him in months? They loved each other, so she didn’t see the hurry to make it legal. They did the important part. They committed to each other in front of God, family, and friends. She didn’t really give a rat’s ass whether the government recognized it or not. They could take the time to get to know each other, to build a house and a life together. If or when they were ready for kids, well, then they could get married. It wasn’t like getting married made things permanent. Butch was living proof of that. So were her father and uncle.

Kate turned into the site to find the crew gathered around the main trailer. Every window was broken, and the white walls bore the ugly scars of hate. “Die Bitch” was scrawled in black spray paint. The shaky letters proclaimed that “I know what you did” and threatened “An eye for an eye.”

Kate stared with unseeing eyes at the repulsive graffiti. Her face warmed, and her fingers flexed around the steering wheel. She was being threatened. Her. Personally. Somebody came onto her site and threatened her. They didn’t even have the balls to do it to her face. Well fuck that.

Kate slammed out of her truck and barked at the crew. “Get me new glass now. I want those windows replaced by noon. And get me paint. Dark blue like our logo. Paint it today. We are not looking at this one minute longer than we have to. This is our house. Nobody comes in and messes with it. How did they get in? Didn’t the alarm go off?”

Waters came toward her with his hands out. “I was first on site this morning. The gate was closed, but yes, the alarm on the trailers was going off. I shut it down and called the police. If they came through the gate, they closed it when they left. Could have come over the fence, I suppose.”

Kate flung her hand out at her violated trailer. “Look at that. I want it fixed. Now.”

“We’ll get it fixed, Kate, but the sheriff needs to see it first.”

“The sheriff can—” She cut off when Jeb’s SUV turned in with the lights flashing. “The sheriff can get to work now, because that shit isn’t staying there.”

Tom had pulled in behind Jeb, and the two men stood looking at the damage.

“I’m spending a lot of time out here, Kate. ‘I know what you did,’” Jeb read the accusation. “Any idea what it means?”

Kate kicked a stone, sending a plume of dust into the air when it landed a good fifteen feet away. “If you are asking literally, no. I could speculate that somebody still thinks I had something to do with Fawn’s death, which I didn’t. But whoever it is has no concept whatsoever of what I’m going to do once I get my hands on them. I’m going to sit up in that tree with a rifle and the next time they set a toe on this property, I’m blasting it to kingdom come.”

“You’re going to do nothing, Kate.” Jeb spoke plainly, sternly. There was no give in his tone, no room for negotiation.

Kate growled her frustration to the sky, spinning in a slow, controlled circle that was very much the opposite of the out-of-control rage consuming her. “You can’t expect me to do nothing. This is personal.”

“You’re damned right it is. Somebody is baiting you. You rise to the bait, you’re going to be caught. If you won’t think of yourself, think of Butch.”

Kate bit down on her lower lip hard enough to leave marks. “That’s not fair.”

“I don’t really care about being fair right now.”

Kate kicked three more rocks before stomping off.

K
ate walked calmly into the trailer some twenty minutes later. A sweaty sheen covered her. Tufts of hair pulled from the band and matted to her face.

Tom cocked his head. “You hit the rock pile?”

Kate pulled a bottle of water from the full-sized refrigerator. “Yeah.”

“That’s what I guessed. It do any good?”

“Took the edge off. How bad is the damage?” Her voice matched the calm in her body. Her hands didn’t clench or flinch as they hung at her sides. She didn’t dance, shifting from one foot to the other. She stood with her shoulders back and chin up in an exhausted calm.

“Minimal. The stuff inside was moved around but nothing broken. I talked to Jeb about beefing up security around here. He has some ideas. Good ones.”

Kate picked up a folder from her desk and poured the glass shards into the trash can. “I’m going to call home.”

“I can call, Kate. My father won’t flip out the way yours does.”

“I’ll take care of it, but I will call your father instead of mine.”

“I’ll be outside if you need me.”

She picked up her desk phone and dialed the number. “Uncle Mike? It’s Kate. We’ve had another problem.”

Michael Riley was ice to her father’s fire. He never yelled, and he seldom swore, but that didn’t mean there were any soft edges to the man. She reported the incident, repeating the same answers she had given Jeb. She finished when her father had come into the room. She could hear him in the background, arguing with Mike. Her father wanted to bring Kate home and leave Tom down in her place.

Kate hung up before a sentence was rendered and pulled the phone cord from the wall. She turned off her cell phone and nearly ran out of the trailer, wanting to be legitimately unavailable when one of them called on a working line. Outside, three men painted the trailer white. Kate recognized them as the three she had nearly fired for dumping into the stream.

“They volunteered,” Tom told her when she raised her eyebrows.

“Whoever did this, it wasn’t one of us,” one of the painters said.

Kate wasn’t sure if he meant the vandal wasn’t one of the three of them or, in a bigger picture, one of the locals. Either way, she appreciated the sentiment. She appreciated someone saw what they were trying to build when it felt like everything was working against them. The laborers prepped the paint.

“I wanted it painted dark blue.”

“Not in Tennessee,” the second painter said. “It’ll turn into an oven come summer. White is better.”

“An oven. Good to know. Thanks. I’ll pay the overtime if you can get it done today.” Kate turned back to Tom. “Where’s Jeb?”

“He left while you were on the phone. How did it go?”

“Fine until my father walked in. I hung up before he could attempt to revoke my travel privileges and order me back to Michigan.”

Tom’s cell phone rang.

“You might not want to answer that.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “He has a hard time remembering we have our own company and don’t actually work for them anymore.”

“I know. You’d think he’d be happy we’re off the payroll.” Kate ran her hands over her messy ponytail. “Maybe it was a mistake going after the design-build with them. It just seemed so…”

“Obvious,” Tom finished. “Riley Brothers have always built some of the finest buildings around. It was a natural to think that matching our brains with their expertise would create something extraordinary.”

“Yes. But so far, the only thing extraordinary is the pain in my ass.”

Tom chuckled and stroked Kate’s arm when she didn’t smile. “I have some good news for you.”

“You have video evidence that the rat bastard who did this fell face first into a patch of poison ivy?”

“We don’t have cameras, so no, but hope springs eternal. Jeb said we can pick up your truck from the impound lot. You’ll have your own wheels again. Let’s celebrate the little things. I’ll take you into town and buy you lunch, we’ll swing by to visit Hyde, then I’ll take you to get your truck.”

L
ate for the breakfast crowd, early for the lunch crowd, Kate and Tom found themselves at the best table in the little restaurant. As they sipped coffee in a booth looking out over the street, Trudy happened by. She waved enthusiastically at the pair, and Tom beckoned her inside.

“Care to join us?” Tom invited with a beguiling grin on his face.

“I don’t want to intrude,” Trudy said when Kate scowled.

“Eating lunch with a beautiful woman is never intrusive.” Tom slid over to make room.

“I believe you are already eating lunch with a beautiful woman.”

“Kate?” Tom said mockingly. “She’s not beautiful. She’s family.”

Kate huffed. “You see what I have to live with?”

The waitress came over to chitchat and take their orders.

Trudy took a long, slow drink of her sweet tea. “Jeb came by to see me this morning. I’m sorry to hear y’all had more trouble. I wish there was something I could do to help.”

Katie sat up a little straighter. “What did Jeb want?”

“Oh, he asked me about going into Butch’s house to straighten up. I didn’t realize Butch didn’t know it was me coming in and helping to keep things tidy. I swear I asked if he wanted some help. I never would have been so forward as to go into someone’s house uninvited.”

“Did you use my phone?” Kate blurted out.

“I didn’t use it, but one day I was wiping the counters down and I noticed the charge was low. I plugged it in on the counter. I hate when I forget to charge mine. It seems like my battery is always dead when I need the phone the most, and I see how much you use yours.”

“Thanks. I’d hate to have a dead battery in an emergency,” Kate said skeptically. She wanted to see holes in Trudy’s story. Holes so big you could drive a Mack truck through it. Kate didn’t really want Trudy to be the killer, but it would have made things easy. If it were Trudy, the mystery would be solved, the culprit arrested, and Kate could get back to her regularly scheduled life.

Tom kicked her under the table.

Kate glared at him but spoke to Trudy. “That was very thoughtful of you. Really, thanks.”

Trudy flashed Kate a bright, warm grin. “It wasn’t anything. So, it seems your life just keeps getting more exciting. You’re engaged to Butch.”

Kate set her left hand on the table where the sunlight danced off of the stones. She still went soft and mushy inside when she looked at the ring. Butch knew her well. He gave her a ring that wasn’t the newest or the biggest or the latest style but a ring that already meant something to him. Butch’s grandparents’ ring symbolized commitment and longevity. It represented a stable foundation they would build their lives upon.

“I still can’t believe it. I look at the ring on my finger and have to touch it to make sure it’s real.”

“When is the wedding?”

When Tom snickered, Kate kicked at him. “We’re still talking about that. I’d like to wait a bit.”

Trudy waved her finger as though she knew what came next. “But Butch wants to get married right away.”

Kate nodded.

Trudy laughed. “Butch has always been like that. It may take that man forever to make up his mind, but once it’s made up, he wants it now.”

Kate didn’t comment. She’d been accused more than once of charging in where angels feared to tread. She certainly wasn’t going to criticize Butch for loving her enough to jump in headfirst. She wished she had his confidence.

Trudy clamped her hand down on Kate’s, covering the beloved ring. “We should go shopping. You know, register for stuff. Let’s go.”

Kate didn’t have to feign the shock. “Now?”

“Sure, it’ll be fun.”

“I can’t.” Kate pulled her hand back. “Tom and I are going to visit Hyde and then get my truck out of the impound lot.” The waitress came with plates stacked up both arms. Thankful for the change in conversation, Kate pulled her hands into her lap and ran her fingers over her engagement ring to make sure it was intact.

Trudy pouted but didn’t relent. “Tomorrow?”

“I have to work. Things have been piling up.”

Kate kept her mouth full to avoid Trudy’s game of twenty questions. She didn’t gossip, and if she had been inclined to talk, Tom’s little conspiracy theory cured that. Tom picked up the table talk, asking if Trudy knew Amanda and Allison and then guiding the conversation through to the last bite.

“We should get going,” Kate said as Trudy sipped her tea to the bottom of the glass.

“I owe. I owe. It’s off to work I go.” Tom misquoted the Disney song as he picked up the check and walked Trudy to her car, which earned him a kiss on the cheek. Kate sat on the truck’s hood watching as Trudy wrapped her arm around Tom’s and threw her head back to laugh. Tom said something else and earned another laugh.