Page 28 of Moonshine Kiss
“Twenty-seven,” I corrected. Scarlett always forgot about the few months when we were a whole birth year apart. “Twenty-seven and no closer to finding a guy I could stand for the rest of my life than when I was ten years old. I don’t think it’s healthy to keep looking. My life isn’t that bad. Hell, it’s pretty great. I love my job. I have my own house. I live near my family. I can see your weird face anytime I want. And now I’ll have two furry kids that I can leave home alone for long hours and will still want to snuggle with me at night.”
Scarlett stared at me like I’d announced I was turning in my gun and badge and becoming a kindergarten teacher. “This displeases me,” she said finally.
June squinted her puffy red eyes at us. “I don’t understand why women waste so much time looking for relationships. You could be doing so many more important things with your time. Learning foreign languages, studying the tax code, building an investment strategy.”
June’s apathy toward love was legendary and baffling to Scarlett and me. While we’d watchedPretty in Pinkforty-seven times the summer between our freshman and sophomore years in high school, June had created an underground football fantasy league for our classmates.
Now, I was jumping ship, too. To Scarlett, who’d discovered the love of her life right next door—just who in the hell did that happen to anyway—it was appalling. We’d been planning weddings and great loves since elementary school. My goal was to find what my parents had and replicate it. Her goal was to do better than her parents had.
Jonah and Constance had fallen hard for each other in high school and had never grown into their relationship. Petty jealousies, mistrust, and volatile fights followed by frigid days of silence were the hallmarks of Scarlett’s childhood. One night in fourth grade, Scarlett had slept over at my house after her parents indulged in a particularly nasty fight. She’d confessed to me her mama claimed she would have divorced him years ago but couldn’t afford to. He’d thrown a scratch-off at her and told her to do them both a favor and get a lawyer.
That stuck with me. I’d snuck out of my room after she’d fallen asleep and tiptoed downstairs. Mom and Dad were sprawled out on the couch, Dad’s head in Mom’s lap. The TV on low while they both read their respective books. I’d hugged them both hard that night.
One night, a long time ago, Bowie had called my dad. He needed help breaking up an argument. It had started between Jonah and Constance. Then seventeen-year-old Gibson had gotten involved. My dad hadn’t even paused to put his uniform on. He ran out of the house in his sweatpants. He’d come back an hour later with all four of the Bodine kids. The adults had calmed down, but the kids needed some soothing. My mom treated it like a big party. She made us midnight pancakes, and we all camped in the living room watchingThe Sandlot. I’d loved them even more for that night.
Scarlett had outdone her parents’ relationship by finding Devlin.
And I had given up.
But when Maribel dumped twenty pounds of Handsome George into my lap, I felt a little something like love. And that was good enough for me.
I’d given up on Bowie a long time ago. Closed my heart to the man. One slow dance wasn’t going to open those creaky doors again. I didn’t need him to have a full, fun, interesting life.
Handsome George reached up with one paw and placed it over my heart as if to tell me that everything was going to be just fine. I believed him. Cats didn’t lie.
“Oh. My. Goodness,” Scarlett crooned, snuggling the devil in fur to her face. “I love you to tiny little bits.”
Potential George looked up at me, and I swear that dang cat smiled. His partner in crime clawed his way up the back of the chair and perched neat as you please on my shoulder, his tail twitching against my neck. He blinked his yellow-green eyes at me slowly.
“I’m textin’ Devlin,” Scarlett announced. “We’re gettin’ a cat, y’all!”
“Wait,” June said, holding out one hand while blowing her nose with the other. “I’ll take your picture. It will be harder for him to say no.”
Scarlett juggled cat and phone and assumed the appropriate position.
“Make your eyes wider and sadder,” June ordered.
14
Bowie
“At this time, Jonah Bodine remains a person of interest in the disappearance of Callie Kendall,” Detective Connelly said, his lined face sober as photographers snapped pictures like he was a Hollywood starlet confessing to butt implants and a drug problem.
He stared into the local news station’s camera with hooded eyes as a light drizzle of freezing rain fell from gray skies. Sheriff Tucker stood behind him, mouth set in a firm line under his mustache. “We are asking that anyone with any information about Callie Kendall or Jonah Bodine come forward.”
“He’s gonna have half of Bootleg Springs lined up to tell him their reminiscences of that summer,” I muttered at the TV screen. It was six in the morning on a Monday, and I had a feeling it was going to be a shitty-ass day.
Jonah grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. It was a replay of what we’d seen breaking live yesterday in time for the five o’clock news. “I need Jayme to scare them into at least using middle initials,” he said.
On cue, Jonah’s cell phone rang again. We both swore.
Sharing a name with our father was not only insulting to the guy who grew up without the man but now it was a direct link for the press to exploit.
They’d descended like locusts. Journalists, bloggers, conspiracy theorists arrived in Bootleg Springs in time for last night’s press conference with their noses for news and their shiny camera equipment. Ready to violate the privacy of each and every resident until they could serve up some twisted version of the truth that would sell the most advertising space.
Our landline rang so many times after the press conference that I’d unplugged the damn thing and tossed it in a closet. I decided to focus on getting to work early.
I, unlike the rest of my siblings, didn’t have the luxury of working for myself. I was the high school vice principal. A job that I loved. A job I’d hate to lose over a family scandal that I hadn’t at least earned.
