Page 5 of The Fault Between Us
Red clenched his jaw and a wave of heat went up his neck. “Give it back, Endicott.”
“That’s Mr. Endicott to you,” Endicott answered with narrowed eyes. “And say please.”
“Knock it off, David,” Meyer said, his voice holding an edge of warning.
Endicott ignored his father-in-law and kept his eyes on Red. “Say it.”
Bucky pushed back his stool and stood, letting Red know without a word that he was there if Red needed him.
Meyer laid a hand on Red’s shoulder. “Some things aren’t worth fighting for, son.”
Red wanted to disagree, but he knew Wormsbecker was watching. Heck, everybody in the bar was watching to see if Red kowtowed to this bully. His fists clenched as he considered his options. Give Endicott the fight he was asking for and lose his job. Or swallow his pride and keep bringing home a paycheck. He glanced at Meyer. The man was right—Endicott wasn’t worth it. “Give it back, Mr. Endicott,” Red finally said, his voice tight. “Please.”
Endicott flicked the photo into a puddle of beer on the bar.
Red grabbed at the photo, but the liquid had already flooded over Jenny’s bright face, turning the picture into a muddy blur.
“And anyway,” Endicott said in a voice loud enough to carry all the way across the Slippery Otter, “she’s not the most beautiful baby in the world. Not by a long shot.”
Red’s vision went dark at the edges. Some things weren’t worth fighting for, like Meyer said. But some things were.
Red’s fist connected with Endicott’s jaw with a satisfying crack.
That was for Jenny.
Endicott rounded on him, but the big man was too slow and Red got a second hit to his gut.
That was for Claire.
Topper came at Red, but Bucky stepped in and slowed him down. Red felt a rush of heat through his veins. He pulled his fist back one last time. And that—he slammed it into David Endicott’s nose with a satisfying crunch—was for Dell.
By the time Sheriff Eagle showed up at the Slippery Otter, Endicott had an ice pack on his nose and Wormsbecker was in a cold fury. “Red,” his boss said as the sheriff directed him and Bucky into the police cruiser, “don’t bother coming to work tomorrow. You’re fired.”
chapter 3:CLAIRE
It was eight o’clock and Red wasn’t home.
Claire looked out the kitchen window as she dried the dish from her solitary dinner. The sky pinked in the west, shadowing to periwinkle blue over the Gallatin Range in the east. She peered down the trail to the river, hoping to see Red riding Rosie home through the twilight. The aspen trees shivered in the breeze, but no Red.
She tried not to think of Dell Henshaw drowning in the Yellowstone, or Helen and Tom Eagle, or Grace Miller. Or about Sunday night when Red had taken the truck to the ranch after dinner. To see about a mare, he’d said. He came home after she put Jenny to bed. They sat at the kitchen table, Red playing solitaire and Claire teasing him about how he always lost. “Might win this time,” he said, like he always did. Not a word about the Slippery Otter or Dell Henshaw.
Red would have a perfectly good explanation for Grace Miller’s gossip and Helen Eagle’s cold comments.
When he got home.
When Claire married Red, she knew her life would be different than how she grew up in Willmar, with Dad coming home from thestore every night at exactly five fifteen, and Flo putting dinner on the table at five thirty. Red’s job was unpredictable. He could be tending to a lame horse, or a fence that needed mending.
She wasn’t worried.
Claire paced to the bedroom to check on Jenny. She was sleeping peacefully, curled up like a little bear cub. Claire touched her soft hair, the red hue so like her father’s catching the last of the evening light. Claire went out the back door to the pasture. Marigold nickered, and ambled over to the fence. “Hello, beautiful.” Claire laid her cheek on Marigold’s soft neck and breathed in her horsey scent.
Her heartbeat slowed and she let out a long breath.
She couldn’t have been more surprised when Red had a horse waiting for her when they arrived in Riverside. Her own horse. “When—how?” she asked him, dazzled by the mare’s golden coat that caught the sunlight, her creamy white mane and tail. “I bought her last fall,” he said, “for your wedding present.”
“Last fall?” Claire asked. That didn’t make any sense. “When I went home to Minnesota and told you I wasn’t coming back?”
He looked down and smiled at his boots like he did when he was pleased with himself.
