Page 42 of Moonshine Kiss
“They set up shop in my cafe,” Annie called from the middle of the crowd. Annie ran the Yee Haw Yarn and Coffee. “They buy one cup of coffee and suck up the Wi-Fi for the whole day.”
“They’ve been blocking my driveway for a week straight now,” Lula complained from somewhere on my right. Lula owned and operated Bootleg Springs Spa. She also lived two blocks over from me. I’d been shooing reporters away from the neighbors, but I’d have to expand my reign of terror.
“They’re littering.”
“One of them almost ran over Bex when she was crossing the street the other day!”
“They called us all uneducated slow-talkers in their paper!”
“They’re sitting in front of the high school offering students money for information!”
“I heard one of them call Reverend Duane, Reverend Redneck!”
“One of them tried to kick Mona Lisa McNugget!”
A collective gasp rose up in the barn.
“I hear y’all and I’m in agreement. We gotta get rid of these here reporters,” Auggie announced. “Now, who’s got a plan?’
Oh, Lordy.
21
Cassidy
As it turned out, every damn body in the barn had a plan. Otto Holt and Jimmy Bob Prosser wanted to confine the press to a paddock-like area. Old Judge Carwell suggested enacting Title 57 in the town’s charter that allowed a majority of white, land-owning males to ban groups of people from Bootleg Springs boundaries. It was completely illegal, but no one had gotten around to scrubbing the law from the books.
I made a mental note to talk to Devlin about that one.
Clarabell, the beloved owner of Moonshine Diner, showed her frustrations by suggesting that some food poisoning might encourage the undesirables to go the hell home.
I was about ready to announce my presence and put an end to the foolishness when Bowie put his hand on my leg.
“Hang on a second,” he told me quietly.
I was too busy reeling from the physicality to remember to jump to my feet and call my fellow townsfolk dumbasses. I suddenly wished I’d just gone on home to George and Eddie.
“Y’all, my daughter has an idea that I think would work fine.”
“Is thatmy mother?” I hissed.
Bowie squeezed my thigh again.
Yep.Sure enough, Nadine Tucker stood up in the third row and hauled my sneaky-ass sister to her feet.
“Go ahead, June,” my mom said encouragingly.
My sister shoved her hands in her jeans. “A reporter’s primary responsibility is to search out and disseminate facts from fallacies,” she began.
“English, Juney,” Cheyenne Hastings called out from across the aisle.
I could feel my sister rolling her eyes. “If a reporter is only divulging easily refutable lies, their perceived usefulness would come to a swift and unceremonious end.” As usual, June’s dumbing it down had the opposite effect.
I could hear crickets chirping in the barn while Bootleg Springs tried to translate.
“What she’s saying is if we use these reporters to spread absolute bullshit, they’ll get recalled to whatever rock they crawled out from under,” my mom translated.
The crowd began to murmur, and the enthusiasm warmed.
