Identity

“I think it’s perfect. Delicate question while we’re on it. Your father?”

“No.” That came easy, and without regret. “So many reasons, no. I’ll send him a note, but not an invitation.”

“Do you want someone to walk you down the aisle?”

“Yes. My mother and my grandmother.”

As her eyes filled, Nell held up a hand again. “Okay, I’m no soft touch, but that got me. More perfect, and so lovely, Morgan. Have you told them?”

“They cried. We all did. And it was perfect.”

“We’re going to have so much fun with this, and it will be perfect. Nothing’s going to spoil it.”

After nudging her cup aside, Nell took a breath. “We won’t say his name, not here and now. But I’m going to assume Jake gave you the update.”

“He did.”

“Morgan, you became family to us when you took over Après. That’s how the Jamesons work. You’re only more so now. We’ve got your back, your front, your sides. Anything we can do, anything you want us to do, it’s done.”

“I didn’t know just how much I wanted family until I let myself have family. I keep coming back to that. And in that spirit, of family, I’m going to ask … you and Jake. Any thoughts?”

“A lot of them, since you ask.”

Nell looked around the tables, at people having a drink, a bite to eat, relaxing as the summer day turned to summer evening. “He waited, and that was really smart of him, to wait until I was ready. Or close to ready, whether I knew it or not. I’m not ready, quite, to take the leap you and Miles are. I want to give it a test run—that’s me all over. Live together first.

“He’s got a nice place, but I like mine better.” She shrugged, picked up her water glass again. “Mine’s closer to my work, his is closer to his. And the practical part of me knows that he’s chief of police, and being closer to town’s important.”

“Find a house you like between those two points. Then it’s not Jake’s place or Nell’s, it’s Jake and Nell’s.”

“Buy a house together? That’s … really smart. A compromise and commitment all at once. He’d like that. I’d like that. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. I’m going to like having a sister.”

“So am I.”

“Okay, Sister, go make me a drink, and we’ll get down to business.”



* * *



Across the continent, Rozwell drove into Two Springs early to avoid the heat of the day. A joke, he thought sourly. The heat never left. But he wanted to get this trip over with, get those new towels, some fucking food, some decent booze.

He wanted to hear voices, even if they came from stupid desert rats.

The town wasn’t much—he’d call it a hovel—but it had stores, including a barely decent market, a few tired excuses for restaurants, two bars with a liquor store attached to one of them. The western rube version of a sheriff’s department—that didn’t worry him—and a huddle of houses on the outskirts someone with a sense of humor might call the ’burbs.

It lay a few miles from the western edge of Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, which held no interest for him—and sported views of the mountains.

Close enough for bored day-trippers or crazed hikers and campers to pay a call, so some of those shops ran to souvenirs, camping and hiking gear. And plenty of guns for sale.

He might not be a fan of the gun, but he’d caught sight of snakes more than once. He’d tried shooting the hell out of them with the handgun he’d taken off Dead Jane, tried her shotgun, and the rifle he’d found in the cabin.

And tested out the AR-15, which obliterated the snake and scared the crap out of him.

He put that one back on the wall, stuck with the handgun.

She’d had a shitload of ammo, but he’d wasted some of it on the damn snakes, then shooting the shit out of a cactus just to hear the noise.

He’d written down the kind of ammunition for the handgun.

Wouldn’t hurt to pick some up.

Since he’d woken hungry, he’d eaten half a dozen eggs and the last of the bacon he’d found in the freezer. Jane had marked it—helpful—but he’d had to slice it himself, so the slices were mostly too thin, too thick.

He’d just buy some damn bacon. And sausage. And whatever else caught his eye and appetite.

He bought towels first. No Egyptian cotton in Two Stupid Springs, he’d discovered before. But he settled. He bought a new frying pan, since he’d burned the one at the cabin, then tossed it as far as he could toss.

He hit the liquor store. Beer, wine, whiskey, vodka, mixers, tonic, and, hell, why not tequila?

“Having a party?” the checkout clerk asked with a little ho-ho-ho like fricking Santa.

Rozwell stared at him, lip curled. “Yeah. I’m the life of the party.”

“Bet.” Avoiding those eyes now, the clerk bagged the booze, handed over the change.

After loading the supplies in the truck, he went for the ammo. He bought three boxes of hollow points for his inherited Colt 45.

And thought: Yeehaw, I’m a gunslinging son of a bitch.

From there, he hit the market.

Chips, cookies, candy, frozen fries—why hadn’t he thought of that before? Bacon, sausage, frozen pizza. The pizza made him think of Morgan.

“Bitch’ll get what’s coming,” he muttered, and the woman standing two feet away headed in the other direction.

Frozen dinners—heat and eat! Cheese! Milk! Cereal, bread, butter. Lemons—for a nice tequila shot. Bananas. Potatoes, because anyone could figure out how to bake a damn potato.

He filled two baskets before he was done.

At checkout, the clerk started ringing him up. She had a face as round as a pie with glasses that kept sliding down her nose.

It irritated him so much he imagined punching her right in those stupid glasses, just driving them into her eyes so they bled.

“Looks like stocking up,” she said cheerfully.

He spread his lips in what he believed made a friendly smile. “That’s right. Stocking up. Man’s gotta eat, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, sir.” She kept her eyes trained on the items. “He sure does.”

He carted the bags out, loading the frozen stuff in the cab where the AC, such as it was, could keep it from melting on the trip back.

He loaded the rest, found himself nearly out of breath with the effort, the heat. He unscrewed the cap on the bottle of Coke he’d bought in the mart, and brought it with him as he got behind the wheel.

Another good glug and he nearly choked on it as his breath caught.

As he started the engine, he glanced in the rearview mirror.

He lost his breath again, and in the heat still baking the cab, went ice-cold.

He saw them, just walking out of a diner-type place, the place where he’d have had breakfast if he hadn’t been too hungry to wait.

But it couldn’t be. A mirage, a trick of the light. He rubbed his eyes under his sunglasses, but they remained—and moving his way.

The fucking feds. Those assholes, Beck and Morrison. Right here, walking down the planked sidewalk.

Panic had his ears ringing, his eyes watering as he hit the gas.

He beat his hand on the wheel as he drove. How? How? How?