Just Let Go.... Kathleen O'Reilly

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СКАЧАТЬ provide for the unfortunate, but there’s nowhere in the good book that says you have to marry them. Besides, you have Jeff, who was raised proper and with the right sorts of values and respect for his fellow man. Vernelle let it slip that he was looking at diamonds. Anything I should know?” Her brows shot up, silently demanding confirmation in that way mothers had when they suspected their daughters were keeping secrets. Sure, Gillian had her secrets, but this wasn’t one of them.

      Gillian shook her head. “Nothing to say.” Inwardly, though, she frowned at the thought of diamonds. She liked Jeff, he was fun and thoughtful, the salt of the earth. A vet. The man who healed all of God’s smallest and most helpless creatures, but…

      Why did there have to be a but? There shouldn’t be a but. But there was a but.

      No doubt, she was picky. Frankly, if she ever found happiness, it would be more than such a persnickety McFickle deserved.

      No, that was negative thinking, and Gillian did not believe in negative thinking. Not ever. Not feeling the need to continue the conversation, Gillian huddled over the office printer. While she collected the last pages of the state’s processing forms, her mother pulled at the container of paper clips on her desk, bending each one this way and that before twisting three into a flower. Gillian sighed, but her mother, accustomed to Gillian’s particular nature, ignored her. “There’s a rummage sale at the church on Saturday and I’m putting together some boxes. You have any clothes you want to get rid of?”

      There was one slinky white nightgown, never used, still sitting at the back of her closet. It would be perfect for some deserving female who couldn’t afford something pretty.

      “I got nothing, Momma.” Not only picky, but selfish, too. She started to restore her paper clips to their proper place, but then thought better of it, removing her hand from the magnetic container. Metal conducted electricity, and who knew when lightning might strike within a brick-enclosed building.

      “Surely you have something to give, Gilly.” Modine Wanamaker firmly believed that the road to heaven was paved with dramatic acts of Christian charity. It was a doctrine not without its problems. Six years ago, Gillian’s mother had given away the farm. Technically, it had been a two-story Colonial on two acres, which Modine had donated to the poor unfortunate Taylor family when they lost their house to the bank. The next morning, Gillian’s parents had shown up on her doorstep, claiming there was plenty of room at her house.

      And how did you kick out your own parents?

      You didn’t.

      Yes, Gillian was picky and selfish, but nothing trumped blood-relations in her mind. The way Gillian saw it, having her parents shack up with her was penance for not only everything bad she’d done prior, but an insurance policy against future acts of badness, as well. Her mother’s worried expression tugged at Gillian’s heartstrings. No, nothing could trump blood-relations in the cardiac region, either. She blew out a dramatic sigh, just like any unworthy daughter would. “I’ll see what I can find.”

      Relieved that her only daughter was no longer going to hell, Modine began to poke through Gillian’s phone messages, until Gillian stopped her with a firm hand.

      Her mother’s serene expression never wavered, and sometimes Gillian wished that her own nature was a little more…forgiving. “I’m cooking King Ranch Chicken for supper. Your favorite.”

      “I’ve got a meeting with Wayne over at the Chamber of Commerce. He’s wasn’t happy with the security for the Fourth of July last year. A twenty-five percent drop in business because the sidewalks were locked down. I’ve got constituents, Momma. I’m an elected official who lives and dies by the voters of this town. The chicken will have to wait.”

      Gillian made a mental note to call Wayne as soon as her mother left. If she did that, then it wasn’t exactly lying, more anticipating what she should have done anyway.

      “Can’t you leave that sort of business to the mayor?”

      Gillian stared silently. Leroy Parson was the mayor of Tin Cup, a ninety-three-year-old war hero from WWII. On every Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day and the Fourth of July, Leroy led the usual parade, but that was pretty much the only time that Leroy showed up for work. Nobody was willing to oust a war hero, so instead the town was waiting for him to kick the bucket, leaving Gillian pretty much the top bureaucrat in charge—which her mother considered one more roadblock in the way of her future baby-making.

      In the end, Modine knew she was beat. “I’ll leave you a plate in the fridge,” she said. “Don’t be home too late. You know the grapevine in this town. They’ll have you pregnant and on a nine-month trip to Europe before you can say Hester…Hester… Well, never you mind what the name is. You know it’s that woman from the Scarlet Letter.”

      “This is the twenty-first century, Momma. We’re not all living in medieval times.”

      Her mother clucked her tongue. “Never underestimate the power of reputation. It can shame a woman, it can make a woman. In the dark ages, they had stonings. Now they have Facebook.”

      Gillian shot her mother an innocent look. “I thought the internet was the work of the devil.”

      “Certainly not. I found the best recipe site…” She stopped the moment she caught on to Gillian’s tricks. “I will not be sidetracked. It’s time Jeff Junior made an honest woman out of you, Gillian. I was married when I was seventeen, your grandmother married when she was fourteen.”

      “Good thing I wasn’t sheriff then, or I’d have to arrest Grandpa Charlie for it. Thank you for the snickerdoodles, Momma. The council always loves it when you feed them.”

      “There’s a plate without nuts for Martin. See you at the house. And don’t stay out too late.” With that, her mother was gone, and peace and sanity were once more restored.

      Fortunately, the rest of the day passed quietly. One arrest for shoplifting, one hour spent promising Wayne that in lieu of barricades, the town would provide two extra officers for this year’s holiday celebrations. In the afternoon, they’d retrieved one would-be runaway, twelve-year-old Aaron Metzger who was found hiding in his neighbor’s garage. The last item on her calendar, the town council meeting, had ended on a sour note, because nobody wanted to hire the mayor’s good-for-nothing great-grand-nephew to build the new train station, although no one wanted to tell the mayor either. All in all, an ordinary day in town, and not a further word about Austen Hart, not that she was bothered by that. Not at all.

      She hadn’t expected a big to-do. She hadn’t expected a phone call from the man. Not at all.

      Frowning, Gillian looked at the clock, and decided that half past seven was late enough. Time to go home, spend some quality time with her mom and dad and convince her parents that her insides weren’t twisted in nervous knots because the perpetrator of Gillian’s Worst Day Ever was back in town.

      She had almost finished organizing a few reports in her messenger bag, when Joelle burst through the door, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling with criminal intent. “Got a nine-one-one call from Delores. Kids are throwing eggs at passing cars on the interstate, right outside the Spotlight Inn.”

      Gillian frowned because there were no egg-throwers in Tin Cup. There were paint-sprayers, there were turkey-tossers, there were Silly-Stringers, but not egg-throwers. Everybody knew that the Texas heat fried the eggs before they could do any damage. “Sounds vaguely suspicious,” she murmured, continuing to organize the contents of her bag.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ